Avengers: Attack/Retreat (1/2)
Title: Attack/Retreat (1/2)
Author: schmevil
Fandom: Avengers (Marvel comics)
Summary: Steve and Tony work out some relationship problems.
Character(s): Steve/Tony
Warnings: Explicit sex
Word Count: 12,224
Notes: spawned out of a conversation with crimsonquills. My first time (writing an extended sex scene). Be gentle.
It’s quiet. Maybe too quiet. Steve doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but part of him - a small, petty part of him - is willing to embrace whatever is responsible for it. Possibly, even if it’s Dr. Doom. Well no, not that - not even in his imagination, because you just never know.
The key point though, is that the kitchen is quiet.
He pads soundlessly down the hall, and stops at the doorway to listen in. Just a muted scratching. No clatter of silverware, no too-loud conversation, no Avengers noises at all.
Steve goes in.
The kitchen is empty, except for Jarvis who’s polishing the brass of the espresso machine. In the twenty minutes since Jarvis served Peter, Luke and the Jessicas waffles for Sunday brunch, he’s managed to clear up the dishes, put away the food and hustle out the rest of the team. It’s equal parts startling and impressive.
Particularly since Steve himself had failed spectacularly at getting his team to leave Avengers Tower. Detailed descriptions of the fantastic weather he’d encountered during his morning run, and hints at the wide world outside the Tower, waiting to be explored were mostly ignored until he made coffee. After that, Luke and Jess buried themselves in the sports page and the editorials, respectively. Peter and Jessica tag-teamed the crossword, and ate plate after plate of waffles.
Steve had been tempted to order them to leave, or fake an emergency call for them to respond to. He could claim to be right behind them - he just had to wake up Tony. The only flaw in that plan was that Jess and Danielle weren’t about to suit up and fight Dr. Doom.
Finally he’d given up, headed for the shower and hoped for the best.
Steve takes in the mercifully silent kitchen and reflects that Jarvis, as always, is a miracle worker. Now he just needs to get rid of Jarvis.
He likes the new team - they’re all good people, and even factoring in Logan, easier to live with than Hercules or She-Hulk. That he likes Jarvis goes without saying. But Steve woke up this morning with a plan to put into action, and it requires them all to be somewhere else.
Steve goes to fill up his water bottles, and Jarvis glances up from his efforts long enough to verify that Steve is one of the few approved to touch his appliances. Jarvis nods companionably and goes back to polishing.
He fills his two bottles from the tap, and Tony’s from the Brita jug. The taps all have high-efficiency filters, but Tony insists that he can taste the difference. Steve half suspects that left to his own devices, Tony would drink a couple of those obscenely expensive Swiss spring waters after every workout - the gym in the mansion had a mini fridge stocked with them.
The new gym, smaller and without any of the technological marvels of the old one, is suspiciously comfortable. As if Steve himself designed it.
Done, he glances over at Jarvis, trying to figure out the best way to approach this.
Jarvis saves him the trouble. “Training today sir?”
“I have a hand-to-hand scheduled with Tony at ten.”
“Ah.” There are layers of meaning in that syllable, and Steve wonders if Jarvis suspects. Not about his plan exactly, or the details, but about him and Tony. Jarvis has known Tony for all his life. He’s known Steve since he was defrosted, as Clint liked to put it. So it wouldn’t surprise Steve, if Jarvis knew, and was too reserved, too British, to say or hint at anything.
“Jarvis?”
“Mr. Stark was in the workshop until quite late last night.”
Steve frowns. “He said he was going straight to bed.”
“He did indeed go straight to bed - after making some apparently urgent adjustments to the silver Bugati.”
Right. Steve has no doubt that in Tony’s mind, those adjustments were urgent, but Tony’s priorities don’t always match those of other people. After eleven hours of being, quote ‘chained to a desk pushing meaningless paper that should really be phased out, because it’s not only greener, it’s more efficient,’ late night car repairs might just have been a kind of urgent. Not that Tony ever actually stayed at his desk.
Steve sets the bottles on the sparkling counter. “Well, I guess I’d better wake him up.” Jarvis doesn’t look up from the espresso machine. “What are your plans for the day?”
Jarvis pauses, and looks up at Steve. “I have an appointment for luncheon.”
“Good!”
“Indeed, sir.” Jarvis’ lips curve into a small smile that Steve is starting to associate with May Parker. Which is good sign, because it means he’ll be out for hours, and also because, as much as it isn’t his place, Steve can’t help but like the idea of Jarvis having someone. Especially someone like May.
“When are you leaving?” he asks, hopefully without too much eagerness.
Jarvis arches an eyebrow, eerily like Tony, which Steve has never before noticed. “After I’ve finished with my duties here.”
Steve nods. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” Jarvis nods and turns back to the espresso machine, which is already bright enough for Steve to see his reflection in, even five feet away. Steve watches him polish for a moment, still nodding to himself, then backs out of the kitchen.
Steve isn’t an expert dissembler, and hasn’t done a lot of undercover work, but he’s not unfamiliar with the underlying principles. He should be able to remain calm and collected, despite what he has planned. It’s not as though it’s anything nefarious.
Still, there is something indefinably strange about thinking about Jarvis, the Avengers and the plan coexisting in the same space.
Steve and Tony haven’t discussed the existence of what does in fact seem to be a relationship, much less going public with it. Four months of sort-of dates and sex - a lot of good, really good sex - must even by today’s standards constitute a relationship, even if it seems to only exist on the edges of their lives.
Maybe it’s trite. It’s definitely trite. But it’s like they’re stealing time from the Avengers, SI, SHIELD and all their other commitments. In those stolen moments, it seems real, like the only real thing Steve’s ever experienced, which is a feeling that’s dangerous and dangerously easy to indulge. It’s... comfortable, actually - the same kind of deceptive too easiness that colours everything to do with Tony, until it suddenly isn’t easy at all.
He’s never been this clear on the meaning of cognitive dissonance, because lately, everything seems to defy his expectations. It’s like he’s become two Steves - the one who’s in a relationship with Tony Stark, and the other one. He might not even believe that Steve existed if it weren’t for obvious, well, physical evidence, and the way Tony’s started to look at him. Sometimes Day Steve finds himself wondering what the hell the other Steve is thinking, and then he’ll catch Tony looking at him and his body reminds him.
And he was never very good at the secret identity thing - unlike Tony, none of this comes easy to him.
So as strange as it is to be thinking sex thoughts, sex with Tony thoughts - which are embarrassingly easy to fall into - in the same space as Avengers thoughts, it’s probably something he just needs to get used to, if both Steves are going to be happy.
Still, it’s difficult to shake the absolutely visceral discomfort that comes with planning to have sex with Tony, when Jarvis, who practically raised Tony, is in the room.
Heading to Tony’s suite, he takes a second to just be really grateful for the quiet. For the sound of Jarvis finishing up and heading to his own rooms. For Jarvis leaving, hopefully very soon. Because it makes initiating phase two that much easier.
Steve knocks on Tony’s door, lightly at first. Louder when he doesn’t get a response. “Tony.”
The mumble he gets in reply is all the invitation he needs. He opens the door and heads in, not bothering to be quiet - as far as Tony knows, they have a training session scheduled today, and Steve has never gone easy on him when it comes to that. He doesn’t want Tony catching on. At least not yet.
Tony’s on his side, half covered by the sheets that twine around his legs. He’s kicked off the duvet, which is all crumpled up, and clinging precariously to the foot of the bed. His face is mostly buried in his pillow, which he’s clutching with the kind of desperation Tony has when knows that he’s got to get up, but wants just one more second of rest.
Steve almost doesn’t want to wake him. Almost. Tony’s the one who put tinkering with his car ahead of sleep. “Tony.” He gets another mumble.
Steve leans down and cups Tony’s shoulder with his palm, shakes him a little. “Hey, time to get up.”
Tony’s face slowly rolls out of the pillow. One eye cracks open, followed by the other. His eyelashes are clumped together and sticky, his hair a wild mess of spikes and waves. He’s got the beginnings of a beard. He looks dumbly up at Steve, and Steve is hit again, with how stupidly, ridiculously beautiful the man is. How embarrassingly sexy he finds the idea of waking up Tony to be.
Maybe it’s because Tony’s already in bed, so Steve could just push him back down against the pillows, once he’s got him up, and then climb in.
Or maybe it’s the way Tony’s never firing on all cylinders in the morning, and watching a supergenius, billionaire inventor try to remember his own name never gets old.
Maybe it’s a bit of both.
He’s grinning a little. He doesn’t try to hide it - if Tony doesn’t know by now that Steve finds him irrationally attractive first thing in the morning, pillow-creased skin and all, he’s not as brilliant as he’s supposed to be.
He flashes for a moment, on the first time the disconnect between thinking that yes, Tony was a very attractive man, and Steve feeling that attraction connected. How utterly powerful it was, to know that he could have it, that he could let himself feel that. How it, how all of this, is mostly the result of Tony being kind of an idiot sometimes, albeit a cute one. Not that Steve is exempted from that judgement. It’s funny, he thinks, how many life-changing moments seem to come out of people being idiots.
Tony blinks up at him, groggy, but already moving to get up. “’time is it?” His voice is shot from too many hours spent in his strangely dry office, followed by who knows how many more in the always chilly workshop.
“Nine forty.”
“Barbaric,” he says, but manages to get his feet on the floor. They shy away from the cool, uncarpeted floor as if they have a mind of their own.
Steve is always surprised at how easy it is to wake up Tony for things like training, when it’s at least a couple of minutes and a pot of coffee before he’s ready to face his real job. Maybe it’s because training sometimes holds out the promise of blowing stuff up.
He brushes a hand over Tony’s head, messing up his hair even more. Tony tolerates it as he always does, like a grumpy house cat who doesn’t want to admit how much he wants to be petted, until it’s happening. Then of course, he stakes a claim on your hand and never lets you go.
“The gym - twenty minutes.” He knows he sounds like he’s all business, but he can’t not smile at Tony rubbing the last bits of sleep from his eyes. What exactly would Tony say, he wonders, if he compared him to a cat?
He turns to leave, but is stopped by Tony’s firm grip on his hand. He uses it to pull Steve in toward him. Steve should probably try to stop him - they’re on a clock - but he doesn’t really want to.
Tony leans back against the pillows and slowly brings Steve’s up to his lips. When he kisses the back of Steve’s hand, he closes his eyes. He opens them again to look up at Steve through his lashes. “Morning.” It’s deliberate, flirtatious. Corny as heck.
“Good morning?” Steve pretends not to notice the way Tony’s sleep shirt stretches tight across his chest, or how his pants are riding low enough to leave a thin stripe of belly visible. Steve’s not the only one who understands composition.
“So busy trying to get me out of bed.” Tony’s brow creases with incredulity at this. He smiles, and lets go of Steve’s hand. Steve suppresses the urge to recapture his hold on Tony.
“Sorry, Don Juan,” he says in his best approximation of sheepish. It’s almost absurdly easy to fall into this, like he could spend even more years just flirting with him.
But really, Steve is done with that.
“I’ll forgive you,” Tony says, imperious enough to put Dr. Doom, Magneto and Baron Zemo to shame. “Eventually. Faster if you decide to play hooky with me. You don’t really want to spend the morning embarrassing yourself in the gym, do you?”
“No, you’re right. There are better places to embarrass myself.” Tony snorts - Steve gives himself a point.
“Ok be honest, what sounds like more fun: refining my, admittedly kind of neglected hand to hand skills,” Tony holds up his hands in a gesture of magnanimity. “Or stealing away for a torrid affair.”
“Just out of curiosity, in your developing romantic scenario, am I the damsel in distress to your shining knight?”
Tony grins at this. “Steve, you wouldn’t be in distress if you were facing down Galactus and Thanos, in a corset and skirt.”
“I don’t know. Corsets are pretty distressing.”
“You say that now...” Even more than the implication, its the smarmy look that makes him laugh. Not giggle - Steve doesn’t giggle.
“Come on.”
“Hey, I had to try. I have a bad reputation to maintain.”
“Really? I haven’t heard anything. You’d think someone would have warned me.”
“You haven’t been talking to the right people.”
“No, I think you’ve been talking to all the wrong ones.” Tony’s grin softens into a real smile, the one most people don’t get to see. “Ten,” he reminds Tony, then turns to leave.
“Uh huh,” Tony says around a yawn.
This time he actually makes it out of the room and heads to the gym.
Steve spreads out the mats, sets the water bottles on the chest that holds miscellaneous equipment, and gets out the gloves. They won’t use more safety equipment than that today.
Left with fifteen minutes until Tony will show up, exactly on time and probably gulping down a coffee, Steve falls into a easy kata designed to loosen him up, and lets his mind wander. It immediately wanders to the thing that’s been taking up way too much of his attention lately. The thing that’s been driving him crazy.
***
The first time Tony kisses him, it’s stunning, but not in a good way. Steve has no idea what’s going on until well after it’s over. Even then he’s not sure that he didn’t hallucinate the whole thing. He looks to Tony for some kind of clue, but his friend isn’t exactly being helpful.
Tony’s still close to him, his face inches from Steve’s, but he’s not really there. His blank eyes stare through him.
Steve covers Tony’s hands with his own, where they’ve crept up to Steve’s cheeks, but they immediately fly away from his touch, like they’ve been burned. Tony swallows hard, and looks away, but he doesn’t say anything.
Steve’s mind is racing, looking for some kind of explanation. Really, anything will do. Mind control drugs. Telepathy. Gypsy curse. He’ll even take Tony’s been replaced by a rogue LMD, if he has to. Something to explain why his friend kissed him, and now won’t even look at him. Jesus - Tony kissed him.
Steve’s hit with a surge of adrenalin that has his heart racing. Tony, who started this, has managed to compose his face so utterly, that Steve can’t read anything on it. He’s just staring blandly at some point between them, while Steve’s body is trying to decide between fight, flight or something else.
“Jesus,” he says. He hears himself, how completely poleaxed he sounds. He doesn’t think there’s anything he can do about that.
Tony keeps his silence. Takes a step away from Steve. Putting distance between them, in more ways than one. He immediately recognizes Tony’s retreat mode.
Tony kissed him and now he’s the one running away. Steve wants to curse the injustice of it, but figures it’s about par for the course for the two of them.
Tony kissed him. He replays it - awkward, dry, and too quick to get any kind of feel for how he kisses. He could just kiss him back and find out. He could kiss Tony. Tony kissed him threatens to become an infinite loop so he cuts off the thought. He needs answers.
Tony can move quick when he wants to, and not even look like his trying. He’s across the room in seconds, and no one who didn’t know him would see his haste. They wouldn’t see how his utterly casual, tensionless posture is calculated.
Tony grabs a water from the fridge, twists off the cap and tosses it onto the counter. He drinks half the bottle in one gulp. Steve’s reminded of the old days, when Tony always retreated to the bar when he was nervous.
“Tony.”
Tony takes another drink from his bottle, and swallows it with a grimace. He leans back against the kitchen counter. “Listen, I’m sorry.”
He’s sorry. Steve isn’t sure if he should punch him, or laugh at him. Both are tempting right now. Neither is a good idea.
He really doesn’t want to hear whatever cover story Tony’s come up with.
“Let me guess,” he says, before Tony can continue. “You haven’t been sleeping well, you’re stressed out.”
“Well...”
“Wait- you’ve never kissed a man and you wanted to see what it would be like.” Steve can’t help the sarcasm that colours that.
“I wouldn’t do that to-” Tony’s phone cuts him off. He lets it ring for a few seconds and then finally answers. “George, do you have those numbers for me?” Tony’s voice betrays nothing.
While Tony’s on the phone, Steve backtracks. Not everyone can multitask at the level of Tony Stark, engineering superstar, so Steve needs to take every second he’s got.
The first thing he’s got is: what the heck? That isn’t helpful, so he replays the night. Happy picking him up at his apartment, because Tony insists that taking the bike would ruin his suit. He’s right, but Steve hates being driven.
The gallery opening. Going through the back entrance to avoid the press. Tony explaining that it’s not for Steve - he’s just not in the mood for flashbulbs and questions shouted in his face. Watching the cream of New York society try to charm Tony. Watching Tony deflect them.
The new Japanese exhibit, donated by Fujikawa Corp. Steve doesn’t speak Japanese, so Tony’s conversation with Mr. Fujikawa - Rumiko’s father - goes right over his head. He can read body language though, and he sees the obvious tension in Tony’s shoulders.
And later, Tony inviting him up to his new apartment.
“Come on, you’ll be the first to see the finished product. Aside from Jarvis. And Pepper and Happy, of course.”
“Of course.” Steve grins at him and agrees to a tour of Tony’s new apartment. It just feels good to spend time with him again.
And then arguing. He’s not sure why they even started - it was such a good night. And then, just as Steve is about leave, Tony kisses him. And Steve... doesn’t handle it as well as he could.
Tony finishes his call and puts his phone on the counter, instead of back in his pocket. He sighs and doesn’t look at Steve.
“Are you ok?”
Tony looks up, startled. “I should be asking you that.”
“It’s not like you attacked me.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Hey, it’s ok.” Tony kissed him. He lets himself savour that thought for a moment. He could kiss Tony back right now, and he’s pretty sure that Tony wouldn’t do anything to stop him. But that wouldn’t be right. Rumiko, he thinks.
He doesn’t want to, but he can give Tony this out. The way he’s holding onto the counter like it’s the only thing keeping him steady, maybe it’s the only thing Steve can do.
He gives Tony a friendly pat on the shoulder and in a few minutes they’re back to normal, and watching a Charlie Chaplin movie on Tony’s excessively big new tv. The whole time they’re cracking up over Chaplin’s antics, Steve keeps coming back to the fact that he’s learned something about Tony. Tony kissed him.
That’s the first time, and it sets a pattern.
***
The second time? Tony kisses him, but Steve pushes him into it.
He comes back to the newly minted Avengers Tower full of anger, but unwilling to admit it. Steve isn’t angry. He’s not angry because there’s nothing to be upset about. The mission was a success. The Avengers saved the day and no one got hurt, outside of a few bumps and bruises.
He isn’t angry because Tony risked himself during the fight. This is what they do. He tells himself that nothing’s different. He’s always, far in the back of his head, worried about Tony, and Tony has always taken a lot of - what look like, though he insists aren’t - stupid risks.
Tony flew between Steve and a giant, rampaging seaweed, bent on destroying all humans on it’s way back to the ocean. For his troubles he got himself punted eight city blocks, but not before being used as a battery by the clearly mutated, possibly cybernetically augmented seaweed. Tony left the fight battered and drained. Literally in the case of the armor. But so did all of them.
There’s nothing strange about that. Well, there are several things about it that are strange, but Tony’s actions aren’t one of them. So Steve isn’t angry about that.
But most of all, Steve isn’t angry about his inability to get the kiss out his mind, a month later. It’s not like he thinks about it all the time. He doesn’t think about it during missions, for example. Usually. And he can avoid thinking about it when he’s drawing. Except for the times he finds himself drawing a familiar set of lips.
Oh yeah, and he isn’t angry at the fact that Tony hasn’t had a date in almost a year, not even for the endless social engagements that he can’t completely duck out of. And how instead, he just stays home most nights, either down in the workshop, or watching movies with Steve. Sitting beside him on the couch and sharing a bowl of popcorn. Sometimes their fingers brush, and while Steve is no longer a teenager, it’s- another thing that doesn’t bother him at all.
Steve isn’t angry about a lot of things, because that kind of pettiness only leads to bad ends.
When Tony bounds up from his workshop, having shed his armor, Steve takes one look at the gash across his forehead, and the towel Tony holds against it, and snaps.
“You didn’t tell me you were hurt.” It comes out as an accusation.
Tony goes still, startled like a deer in hunting season, but quickly laughs it off. Like his being hurt is absurd, and in Tony’s mind it probably is - an affront to the universe according to Tony Stark.
“It’s just a scrape.”
“It’s a head wound.”
“Yeah, exactly. They always look worse than they are.”
“Tony, you’re not a doctor. You don’t get to decide what’s ‘worse’.” Which probably isn’t the right tack, considering how tense things have been between them, but Steve isn’t thinking all that clearly.
“It’s a scrape, Which, by the way, I got saving your life.” There’s an edge to his tone, underneath Tony’s effort to keep it light.
“I want you to get it checked out.”
“I’m not going all the way to the hospital for a paper cut.”
“A three inch gash next to your eye is not a paper cut. You’re getting it checked out.”
Tony pulls the towel away from his forehead and examines it. A steady but slow trickle of blood still oozes from the cut. “Steve, I don’t have time for this right now. I need to run a diagnostic on the armor, and then Pepper has me scheduled for a mind-numbingly dull teleconference. I’ll tape some gauze over it and get it checked out later.”
Apparently Tony dismissing him is one of Steve’s buttons, because things go south from there. “You’re going to the hospital,” he says flatly.
“You know first aid. If you’re so worried, stitch it up. I have things to do.”
“The armor can wait,” Steve says, making it an order.
“Sorry, when exactly did you become my nanny?”
“I’m your team leader and you just got wounded on a mission.”
“That’s funny, I thought we were doing this ‘together’. We aren’t in the field anymore, and you don’t give orders here.”
“I wouldn’t have to, if you actually took care of yourself.”
“What gives you the right-”
“You do. You did.” Steve doesn’t say it, but Tony hears what’s behind that anyway. His eyes go wide and for a second Steve thinks he’s seeing too much, more than Tony would want him to. He’s convinced that something is going to happen that they’ll both regret.
Then Tony drops his gaze and Steve’s treated to the media-relations mask. His irritation with Tony doesn’t instantly drain away, but it gets sidetracked - he’s too busy feeling bad to indulge in it.
“Tony, I-”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” Tony says, his voice gone rough. Then before Steve knows it, it’s happening again. Tony’s leaning up, leaning into him and pressing his lips to Steve’s.
Steve isn’t thinking at all but his body knows how to react this time. He’s replayed the first kiss more often than he’s willing to admit. His lips open to Tony like they’ve done this a thousand times before.
When he comes back to himself, when Steve can do more than just feel, Tony’s hands are caught uselessly between them, fingers curled into Steve’s shirt.
Steve wants to touch Tony. He wants to run his hands over his shoulders, and his back, and everywhere. He wraps his arms around Tony and pulls him closer. Tony stumbles into him, overbalanced, but doesn’t stop kissing. Steve gets his hands under Tony’s shirt so he’s touching smooth skin. His fingertips press into the small of his back.
Tony works his hands out from between them and he’s pushing, pushing Steve away, just enough for him to tear his lips from Steve’s. Steve opens his eyes - when had he closed them? Tony stares at him, expression beyond serious. But searching. Steve doesn’t know what he’s asking until Tony starts pushing him again, walking him backwards into his bedroom. Steve doesn’t see any reason to argue with him.
Later, when he’s lying on his back in Tony’s bed, with Tony beside him, the tension between them utterly broken, it’s easy to say, “I wasn’t going to.”
“What?” Tony lazily rolls onto his side, propping his head up on one hand.
“Say I was sorry.”
He’s not grinning but Steve can see satisfaction written into every inch of him. “Yeah, you were.”
“I really wasn’t.”
“Were.”
“No, I- Hey. I’m not playing this game with you.”
“Are so.”
“Am no- Tony!”
They fall asleep and when Steve wakes up, Tony’s gone. He doesn’t ask for an explanation.
And that’s how it goes for a while. They find stupid excuses to fight, and even more stupid excuses to fall into bed together, until at some point it becomes a regular thing.
They stop needing excuses, and start taking every opportunity to spend time alone together. It’s not all sex. Eventually Steve realizes that he and Tony aren’t just hanging out like they’ve always done - they’re dating.
They’re in the Guggenheim, holding hands - Tony having diverted the security cameras - when he admits to himself how weird it all is.
It takes him longer to decide to do something about it.
next part
Author: schmevil
Fandom: Avengers (Marvel comics)
Summary: Steve and Tony work out some relationship problems.
Character(s): Steve/Tony
Warnings: Explicit sex
Word Count: 12,224
Notes: spawned out of a conversation with crimsonquills. My first time (writing an extended sex scene). Be gentle.
It’s quiet. Maybe too quiet. Steve doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but part of him - a small, petty part of him - is willing to embrace whatever is responsible for it. Possibly, even if it’s Dr. Doom. Well no, not that - not even in his imagination, because you just never know.
The key point though, is that the kitchen is quiet.
He pads soundlessly down the hall, and stops at the doorway to listen in. Just a muted scratching. No clatter of silverware, no too-loud conversation, no Avengers noises at all.
Steve goes in.
The kitchen is empty, except for Jarvis who’s polishing the brass of the espresso machine. In the twenty minutes since Jarvis served Peter, Luke and the Jessicas waffles for Sunday brunch, he’s managed to clear up the dishes, put away the food and hustle out the rest of the team. It’s equal parts startling and impressive.
Particularly since Steve himself had failed spectacularly at getting his team to leave Avengers Tower. Detailed descriptions of the fantastic weather he’d encountered during his morning run, and hints at the wide world outside the Tower, waiting to be explored were mostly ignored until he made coffee. After that, Luke and Jess buried themselves in the sports page and the editorials, respectively. Peter and Jessica tag-teamed the crossword, and ate plate after plate of waffles.
Steve had been tempted to order them to leave, or fake an emergency call for them to respond to. He could claim to be right behind them - he just had to wake up Tony. The only flaw in that plan was that Jess and Danielle weren’t about to suit up and fight Dr. Doom.
Finally he’d given up, headed for the shower and hoped for the best.
Steve takes in the mercifully silent kitchen and reflects that Jarvis, as always, is a miracle worker. Now he just needs to get rid of Jarvis.
He likes the new team - they’re all good people, and even factoring in Logan, easier to live with than Hercules or She-Hulk. That he likes Jarvis goes without saying. But Steve woke up this morning with a plan to put into action, and it requires them all to be somewhere else.
Steve goes to fill up his water bottles, and Jarvis glances up from his efforts long enough to verify that Steve is one of the few approved to touch his appliances. Jarvis nods companionably and goes back to polishing.
He fills his two bottles from the tap, and Tony’s from the Brita jug. The taps all have high-efficiency filters, but Tony insists that he can taste the difference. Steve half suspects that left to his own devices, Tony would drink a couple of those obscenely expensive Swiss spring waters after every workout - the gym in the mansion had a mini fridge stocked with them.
The new gym, smaller and without any of the technological marvels of the old one, is suspiciously comfortable. As if Steve himself designed it.
Done, he glances over at Jarvis, trying to figure out the best way to approach this.
Jarvis saves him the trouble. “Training today sir?”
“I have a hand-to-hand scheduled with Tony at ten.”
“Ah.” There are layers of meaning in that syllable, and Steve wonders if Jarvis suspects. Not about his plan exactly, or the details, but about him and Tony. Jarvis has known Tony for all his life. He’s known Steve since he was defrosted, as Clint liked to put it. So it wouldn’t surprise Steve, if Jarvis knew, and was too reserved, too British, to say or hint at anything.
“Jarvis?”
“Mr. Stark was in the workshop until quite late last night.”
Steve frowns. “He said he was going straight to bed.”
“He did indeed go straight to bed - after making some apparently urgent adjustments to the silver Bugati.”
Right. Steve has no doubt that in Tony’s mind, those adjustments were urgent, but Tony’s priorities don’t always match those of other people. After eleven hours of being, quote ‘chained to a desk pushing meaningless paper that should really be phased out, because it’s not only greener, it’s more efficient,’ late night car repairs might just have been a kind of urgent. Not that Tony ever actually stayed at his desk.
Steve sets the bottles on the sparkling counter. “Well, I guess I’d better wake him up.” Jarvis doesn’t look up from the espresso machine. “What are your plans for the day?”
Jarvis pauses, and looks up at Steve. “I have an appointment for luncheon.”
“Good!”
“Indeed, sir.” Jarvis’ lips curve into a small smile that Steve is starting to associate with May Parker. Which is good sign, because it means he’ll be out for hours, and also because, as much as it isn’t his place, Steve can’t help but like the idea of Jarvis having someone. Especially someone like May.
“When are you leaving?” he asks, hopefully without too much eagerness.
Jarvis arches an eyebrow, eerily like Tony, which Steve has never before noticed. “After I’ve finished with my duties here.”
Steve nods. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” Jarvis nods and turns back to the espresso machine, which is already bright enough for Steve to see his reflection in, even five feet away. Steve watches him polish for a moment, still nodding to himself, then backs out of the kitchen.
Steve isn’t an expert dissembler, and hasn’t done a lot of undercover work, but he’s not unfamiliar with the underlying principles. He should be able to remain calm and collected, despite what he has planned. It’s not as though it’s anything nefarious.
Still, there is something indefinably strange about thinking about Jarvis, the Avengers and the plan coexisting in the same space.
Steve and Tony haven’t discussed the existence of what does in fact seem to be a relationship, much less going public with it. Four months of sort-of dates and sex - a lot of good, really good sex - must even by today’s standards constitute a relationship, even if it seems to only exist on the edges of their lives.
Maybe it’s trite. It’s definitely trite. But it’s like they’re stealing time from the Avengers, SI, SHIELD and all their other commitments. In those stolen moments, it seems real, like the only real thing Steve’s ever experienced, which is a feeling that’s dangerous and dangerously easy to indulge. It’s... comfortable, actually - the same kind of deceptive too easiness that colours everything to do with Tony, until it suddenly isn’t easy at all.
He’s never been this clear on the meaning of cognitive dissonance, because lately, everything seems to defy his expectations. It’s like he’s become two Steves - the one who’s in a relationship with Tony Stark, and the other one. He might not even believe that Steve existed if it weren’t for obvious, well, physical evidence, and the way Tony’s started to look at him. Sometimes Day Steve finds himself wondering what the hell the other Steve is thinking, and then he’ll catch Tony looking at him and his body reminds him.
And he was never very good at the secret identity thing - unlike Tony, none of this comes easy to him.
So as strange as it is to be thinking sex thoughts, sex with Tony thoughts - which are embarrassingly easy to fall into - in the same space as Avengers thoughts, it’s probably something he just needs to get used to, if both Steves are going to be happy.
Still, it’s difficult to shake the absolutely visceral discomfort that comes with planning to have sex with Tony, when Jarvis, who practically raised Tony, is in the room.
Heading to Tony’s suite, he takes a second to just be really grateful for the quiet. For the sound of Jarvis finishing up and heading to his own rooms. For Jarvis leaving, hopefully very soon. Because it makes initiating phase two that much easier.
Steve knocks on Tony’s door, lightly at first. Louder when he doesn’t get a response. “Tony.”
The mumble he gets in reply is all the invitation he needs. He opens the door and heads in, not bothering to be quiet - as far as Tony knows, they have a training session scheduled today, and Steve has never gone easy on him when it comes to that. He doesn’t want Tony catching on. At least not yet.
Tony’s on his side, half covered by the sheets that twine around his legs. He’s kicked off the duvet, which is all crumpled up, and clinging precariously to the foot of the bed. His face is mostly buried in his pillow, which he’s clutching with the kind of desperation Tony has when knows that he’s got to get up, but wants just one more second of rest.
Steve almost doesn’t want to wake him. Almost. Tony’s the one who put tinkering with his car ahead of sleep. “Tony.” He gets another mumble.
Steve leans down and cups Tony’s shoulder with his palm, shakes him a little. “Hey, time to get up.”
Tony’s face slowly rolls out of the pillow. One eye cracks open, followed by the other. His eyelashes are clumped together and sticky, his hair a wild mess of spikes and waves. He’s got the beginnings of a beard. He looks dumbly up at Steve, and Steve is hit again, with how stupidly, ridiculously beautiful the man is. How embarrassingly sexy he finds the idea of waking up Tony to be.
Maybe it’s because Tony’s already in bed, so Steve could just push him back down against the pillows, once he’s got him up, and then climb in.
Or maybe it’s the way Tony’s never firing on all cylinders in the morning, and watching a supergenius, billionaire inventor try to remember his own name never gets old.
Maybe it’s a bit of both.
He’s grinning a little. He doesn’t try to hide it - if Tony doesn’t know by now that Steve finds him irrationally attractive first thing in the morning, pillow-creased skin and all, he’s not as brilliant as he’s supposed to be.
He flashes for a moment, on the first time the disconnect between thinking that yes, Tony was a very attractive man, and Steve feeling that attraction connected. How utterly powerful it was, to know that he could have it, that he could let himself feel that. How it, how all of this, is mostly the result of Tony being kind of an idiot sometimes, albeit a cute one. Not that Steve is exempted from that judgement. It’s funny, he thinks, how many life-changing moments seem to come out of people being idiots.
Tony blinks up at him, groggy, but already moving to get up. “’time is it?” His voice is shot from too many hours spent in his strangely dry office, followed by who knows how many more in the always chilly workshop.
“Nine forty.”
“Barbaric,” he says, but manages to get his feet on the floor. They shy away from the cool, uncarpeted floor as if they have a mind of their own.
Steve is always surprised at how easy it is to wake up Tony for things like training, when it’s at least a couple of minutes and a pot of coffee before he’s ready to face his real job. Maybe it’s because training sometimes holds out the promise of blowing stuff up.
He brushes a hand over Tony’s head, messing up his hair even more. Tony tolerates it as he always does, like a grumpy house cat who doesn’t want to admit how much he wants to be petted, until it’s happening. Then of course, he stakes a claim on your hand and never lets you go.
“The gym - twenty minutes.” He knows he sounds like he’s all business, but he can’t not smile at Tony rubbing the last bits of sleep from his eyes. What exactly would Tony say, he wonders, if he compared him to a cat?
He turns to leave, but is stopped by Tony’s firm grip on his hand. He uses it to pull Steve in toward him. Steve should probably try to stop him - they’re on a clock - but he doesn’t really want to.
Tony leans back against the pillows and slowly brings Steve’s up to his lips. When he kisses the back of Steve’s hand, he closes his eyes. He opens them again to look up at Steve through his lashes. “Morning.” It’s deliberate, flirtatious. Corny as heck.
“Good morning?” Steve pretends not to notice the way Tony’s sleep shirt stretches tight across his chest, or how his pants are riding low enough to leave a thin stripe of belly visible. Steve’s not the only one who understands composition.
“So busy trying to get me out of bed.” Tony’s brow creases with incredulity at this. He smiles, and lets go of Steve’s hand. Steve suppresses the urge to recapture his hold on Tony.
“Sorry, Don Juan,” he says in his best approximation of sheepish. It’s almost absurdly easy to fall into this, like he could spend even more years just flirting with him.
But really, Steve is done with that.
“I’ll forgive you,” Tony says, imperious enough to put Dr. Doom, Magneto and Baron Zemo to shame. “Eventually. Faster if you decide to play hooky with me. You don’t really want to spend the morning embarrassing yourself in the gym, do you?”
“No, you’re right. There are better places to embarrass myself.” Tony snorts - Steve gives himself a point.
“Ok be honest, what sounds like more fun: refining my, admittedly kind of neglected hand to hand skills,” Tony holds up his hands in a gesture of magnanimity. “Or stealing away for a torrid affair.”
“Just out of curiosity, in your developing romantic scenario, am I the damsel in distress to your shining knight?”
Tony grins at this. “Steve, you wouldn’t be in distress if you were facing down Galactus and Thanos, in a corset and skirt.”
“I don’t know. Corsets are pretty distressing.”
“You say that now...” Even more than the implication, its the smarmy look that makes him laugh. Not giggle - Steve doesn’t giggle.
“Come on.”
“Hey, I had to try. I have a bad reputation to maintain.”
“Really? I haven’t heard anything. You’d think someone would have warned me.”
“You haven’t been talking to the right people.”
“No, I think you’ve been talking to all the wrong ones.” Tony’s grin softens into a real smile, the one most people don’t get to see. “Ten,” he reminds Tony, then turns to leave.
“Uh huh,” Tony says around a yawn.
This time he actually makes it out of the room and heads to the gym.
Steve spreads out the mats, sets the water bottles on the chest that holds miscellaneous equipment, and gets out the gloves. They won’t use more safety equipment than that today.
Left with fifteen minutes until Tony will show up, exactly on time and probably gulping down a coffee, Steve falls into a easy kata designed to loosen him up, and lets his mind wander. It immediately wanders to the thing that’s been taking up way too much of his attention lately. The thing that’s been driving him crazy.
***
The first time Tony kisses him, it’s stunning, but not in a good way. Steve has no idea what’s going on until well after it’s over. Even then he’s not sure that he didn’t hallucinate the whole thing. He looks to Tony for some kind of clue, but his friend isn’t exactly being helpful.
Tony’s still close to him, his face inches from Steve’s, but he’s not really there. His blank eyes stare through him.
Steve covers Tony’s hands with his own, where they’ve crept up to Steve’s cheeks, but they immediately fly away from his touch, like they’ve been burned. Tony swallows hard, and looks away, but he doesn’t say anything.
Steve’s mind is racing, looking for some kind of explanation. Really, anything will do. Mind control drugs. Telepathy. Gypsy curse. He’ll even take Tony’s been replaced by a rogue LMD, if he has to. Something to explain why his friend kissed him, and now won’t even look at him. Jesus - Tony kissed him.
Steve’s hit with a surge of adrenalin that has his heart racing. Tony, who started this, has managed to compose his face so utterly, that Steve can’t read anything on it. He’s just staring blandly at some point between them, while Steve’s body is trying to decide between fight, flight or something else.
“Jesus,” he says. He hears himself, how completely poleaxed he sounds. He doesn’t think there’s anything he can do about that.
Tony keeps his silence. Takes a step away from Steve. Putting distance between them, in more ways than one. He immediately recognizes Tony’s retreat mode.
Tony kissed him and now he’s the one running away. Steve wants to curse the injustice of it, but figures it’s about par for the course for the two of them.
Tony kissed him. He replays it - awkward, dry, and too quick to get any kind of feel for how he kisses. He could just kiss him back and find out. He could kiss Tony. Tony kissed him threatens to become an infinite loop so he cuts off the thought. He needs answers.
Tony can move quick when he wants to, and not even look like his trying. He’s across the room in seconds, and no one who didn’t know him would see his haste. They wouldn’t see how his utterly casual, tensionless posture is calculated.
Tony grabs a water from the fridge, twists off the cap and tosses it onto the counter. He drinks half the bottle in one gulp. Steve’s reminded of the old days, when Tony always retreated to the bar when he was nervous.
“Tony.”
Tony takes another drink from his bottle, and swallows it with a grimace. He leans back against the kitchen counter. “Listen, I’m sorry.”
He’s sorry. Steve isn’t sure if he should punch him, or laugh at him. Both are tempting right now. Neither is a good idea.
He really doesn’t want to hear whatever cover story Tony’s come up with.
“Let me guess,” he says, before Tony can continue. “You haven’t been sleeping well, you’re stressed out.”
“Well...”
“Wait- you’ve never kissed a man and you wanted to see what it would be like.” Steve can’t help the sarcasm that colours that.
“I wouldn’t do that to-” Tony’s phone cuts him off. He lets it ring for a few seconds and then finally answers. “George, do you have those numbers for me?” Tony’s voice betrays nothing.
While Tony’s on the phone, Steve backtracks. Not everyone can multitask at the level of Tony Stark, engineering superstar, so Steve needs to take every second he’s got.
The first thing he’s got is: what the heck? That isn’t helpful, so he replays the night. Happy picking him up at his apartment, because Tony insists that taking the bike would ruin his suit. He’s right, but Steve hates being driven.
The gallery opening. Going through the back entrance to avoid the press. Tony explaining that it’s not for Steve - he’s just not in the mood for flashbulbs and questions shouted in his face. Watching the cream of New York society try to charm Tony. Watching Tony deflect them.
The new Japanese exhibit, donated by Fujikawa Corp. Steve doesn’t speak Japanese, so Tony’s conversation with Mr. Fujikawa - Rumiko’s father - goes right over his head. He can read body language though, and he sees the obvious tension in Tony’s shoulders.
And later, Tony inviting him up to his new apartment.
“Come on, you’ll be the first to see the finished product. Aside from Jarvis. And Pepper and Happy, of course.”
“Of course.” Steve grins at him and agrees to a tour of Tony’s new apartment. It just feels good to spend time with him again.
And then arguing. He’s not sure why they even started - it was such a good night. And then, just as Steve is about leave, Tony kisses him. And Steve... doesn’t handle it as well as he could.
Tony finishes his call and puts his phone on the counter, instead of back in his pocket. He sighs and doesn’t look at Steve.
“Are you ok?”
Tony looks up, startled. “I should be asking you that.”
“It’s not like you attacked me.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Hey, it’s ok.” Tony kissed him. He lets himself savour that thought for a moment. He could kiss Tony back right now, and he’s pretty sure that Tony wouldn’t do anything to stop him. But that wouldn’t be right. Rumiko, he thinks.
He doesn’t want to, but he can give Tony this out. The way he’s holding onto the counter like it’s the only thing keeping him steady, maybe it’s the only thing Steve can do.
He gives Tony a friendly pat on the shoulder and in a few minutes they’re back to normal, and watching a Charlie Chaplin movie on Tony’s excessively big new tv. The whole time they’re cracking up over Chaplin’s antics, Steve keeps coming back to the fact that he’s learned something about Tony. Tony kissed him.
That’s the first time, and it sets a pattern.
***
The second time? Tony kisses him, but Steve pushes him into it.
He comes back to the newly minted Avengers Tower full of anger, but unwilling to admit it. Steve isn’t angry. He’s not angry because there’s nothing to be upset about. The mission was a success. The Avengers saved the day and no one got hurt, outside of a few bumps and bruises.
He isn’t angry because Tony risked himself during the fight. This is what they do. He tells himself that nothing’s different. He’s always, far in the back of his head, worried about Tony, and Tony has always taken a lot of - what look like, though he insists aren’t - stupid risks.
Tony flew between Steve and a giant, rampaging seaweed, bent on destroying all humans on it’s way back to the ocean. For his troubles he got himself punted eight city blocks, but not before being used as a battery by the clearly mutated, possibly cybernetically augmented seaweed. Tony left the fight battered and drained. Literally in the case of the armor. But so did all of them.
There’s nothing strange about that. Well, there are several things about it that are strange, but Tony’s actions aren’t one of them. So Steve isn’t angry about that.
But most of all, Steve isn’t angry about his inability to get the kiss out his mind, a month later. It’s not like he thinks about it all the time. He doesn’t think about it during missions, for example. Usually. And he can avoid thinking about it when he’s drawing. Except for the times he finds himself drawing a familiar set of lips.
Oh yeah, and he isn’t angry at the fact that Tony hasn’t had a date in almost a year, not even for the endless social engagements that he can’t completely duck out of. And how instead, he just stays home most nights, either down in the workshop, or watching movies with Steve. Sitting beside him on the couch and sharing a bowl of popcorn. Sometimes their fingers brush, and while Steve is no longer a teenager, it’s- another thing that doesn’t bother him at all.
Steve isn’t angry about a lot of things, because that kind of pettiness only leads to bad ends.
When Tony bounds up from his workshop, having shed his armor, Steve takes one look at the gash across his forehead, and the towel Tony holds against it, and snaps.
“You didn’t tell me you were hurt.” It comes out as an accusation.
Tony goes still, startled like a deer in hunting season, but quickly laughs it off. Like his being hurt is absurd, and in Tony’s mind it probably is - an affront to the universe according to Tony Stark.
“It’s just a scrape.”
“It’s a head wound.”
“Yeah, exactly. They always look worse than they are.”
“Tony, you’re not a doctor. You don’t get to decide what’s ‘worse’.” Which probably isn’t the right tack, considering how tense things have been between them, but Steve isn’t thinking all that clearly.
“It’s a scrape, Which, by the way, I got saving your life.” There’s an edge to his tone, underneath Tony’s effort to keep it light.
“I want you to get it checked out.”
“I’m not going all the way to the hospital for a paper cut.”
“A three inch gash next to your eye is not a paper cut. You’re getting it checked out.”
Tony pulls the towel away from his forehead and examines it. A steady but slow trickle of blood still oozes from the cut. “Steve, I don’t have time for this right now. I need to run a diagnostic on the armor, and then Pepper has me scheduled for a mind-numbingly dull teleconference. I’ll tape some gauze over it and get it checked out later.”
Apparently Tony dismissing him is one of Steve’s buttons, because things go south from there. “You’re going to the hospital,” he says flatly.
“You know first aid. If you’re so worried, stitch it up. I have things to do.”
“The armor can wait,” Steve says, making it an order.
“Sorry, when exactly did you become my nanny?”
“I’m your team leader and you just got wounded on a mission.”
“That’s funny, I thought we were doing this ‘together’. We aren’t in the field anymore, and you don’t give orders here.”
“I wouldn’t have to, if you actually took care of yourself.”
“What gives you the right-”
“You do. You did.” Steve doesn’t say it, but Tony hears what’s behind that anyway. His eyes go wide and for a second Steve thinks he’s seeing too much, more than Tony would want him to. He’s convinced that something is going to happen that they’ll both regret.
Then Tony drops his gaze and Steve’s treated to the media-relations mask. His irritation with Tony doesn’t instantly drain away, but it gets sidetracked - he’s too busy feeling bad to indulge in it.
“Tony, I-”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” Tony says, his voice gone rough. Then before Steve knows it, it’s happening again. Tony’s leaning up, leaning into him and pressing his lips to Steve’s.
Steve isn’t thinking at all but his body knows how to react this time. He’s replayed the first kiss more often than he’s willing to admit. His lips open to Tony like they’ve done this a thousand times before.
When he comes back to himself, when Steve can do more than just feel, Tony’s hands are caught uselessly between them, fingers curled into Steve’s shirt.
Steve wants to touch Tony. He wants to run his hands over his shoulders, and his back, and everywhere. He wraps his arms around Tony and pulls him closer. Tony stumbles into him, overbalanced, but doesn’t stop kissing. Steve gets his hands under Tony’s shirt so he’s touching smooth skin. His fingertips press into the small of his back.
Tony works his hands out from between them and he’s pushing, pushing Steve away, just enough for him to tear his lips from Steve’s. Steve opens his eyes - when had he closed them? Tony stares at him, expression beyond serious. But searching. Steve doesn’t know what he’s asking until Tony starts pushing him again, walking him backwards into his bedroom. Steve doesn’t see any reason to argue with him.
Later, when he’s lying on his back in Tony’s bed, with Tony beside him, the tension between them utterly broken, it’s easy to say, “I wasn’t going to.”
“What?” Tony lazily rolls onto his side, propping his head up on one hand.
“Say I was sorry.”
He’s not grinning but Steve can see satisfaction written into every inch of him. “Yeah, you were.”
“I really wasn’t.”
“Were.”
“No, I- Hey. I’m not playing this game with you.”
“Are so.”
“Am no- Tony!”
They fall asleep and when Steve wakes up, Tony’s gone. He doesn’t ask for an explanation.
And that’s how it goes for a while. They find stupid excuses to fight, and even more stupid excuses to fall into bed together, until at some point it becomes a regular thing.
They stop needing excuses, and start taking every opportunity to spend time alone together. It’s not all sex. Eventually Steve realizes that he and Tony aren’t just hanging out like they’ve always done - they’re dating.
They’re in the Guggenheim, holding hands - Tony having diverted the security cameras - when he admits to himself how weird it all is.
It takes him longer to decide to do something about it.
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