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It’s (Not That) Complicated
When he thought about it, Steve decided that their relationship had really started when Tony stuck his cold toes under his thigh during movie night after their second date. At least for him, it had. He leaned his elbow on the back of the couch and rested his chin on his hand. “Hey, Tony?”
“Ye-es?” the brunet drawled, face and Iron Man apron dusted with flour.
“When did you realize that you had feelings for me?”
“You’re gonna have to be specific, hon’,” Tony replied, squinting suspiciously at a liquid measuring cup. “I have had lots of feelings for you of varying degrees. Sometimes they weren’t even nice feelings.”
Steve couldn’t help a fond smile. “When did you decide you wanted to be my boyfriend?”
“Hmm? Um…” Tony tilted his head thoughtfully. “…It… it was probably after my crisis that Pepper had to talk me down from? I was very upset. I’m not physically attracted to you and I had difficulty understanding that I could love someone romantically without being physically attracted to them, since that was how all of my other relationships had been. Once I understood that, the idea wasn’t… terrible.”
“Huh,” Steve said, because he wouldn’t have guessed that Tony was worried about anything when he asked him on a date. He frowned, concerned. “Are you okay with us? I never even thought about it.”
The brunet looked up at him, smiling crookedly. “It was scary in the beginning, but our relationship didn’t actually change that much, did it? Sometimes we kiss but mostly we cuddle. We were cuddling long before feelings came into play.”
“That’s because somehow even though I was in the ice, you hate the cold more than I do. Hey, why is that?” Steve asked, genuinely curious. “I know you used to live in Malibu, but you didn’t grow up there.”
Tony stared at him for a long time before he knocked on the reactor. “Poor circulation. And the metal in my chest gets cold, lowers my core temperature.” He watched the blond pull out his phone to text and frowned. “What are you doing?”
“I’m telling Natasha to come and kill my fucking dumb ass,” Steve replied.
“She’s not going to kill you because you asked,” Tony said, even as he surreptitiously whipped his phone out and texted Natasha to please not kill Steve. “C’mon, Steve, how were you to know? I try not to air my vulnerabilities, you know.”
“Let me die,” the blond continued.
“Oh my God, Steve,” Tony said, amused, then let out a squawk when he noticed he could smell something burning. The cake. “Oh my God, Steve, helphelphelp!”
Steve hurried over to help him, trying to hide his grimace when he pulled out what was basically charcoal. “Uh. …I’m sure it would have tasted delicious?”
Tony snarled and grabbed his cookbook, throwing it in the trash. “God damn it!”
“It’s fine, sweetheart. We’ll just have to give it another try,” Steve insisted. “C’mon, Tony. Oh, it wasn’t even—the oven was set to four hundred and fifty instead of three hundred and fifty. Easy mistake! We’ll just make up another batter and it’ll be fine.”
Tony huffed, reluctantly pulling the cookbook out of the trash. “I hope Pepper appreciates this. I bought a cookbook for health food.”
“I think it’s great,” the blond replied, trying to scrape the burnt cake out, then gave up and threw the entire pan away, because apparently Tony had planned for this and had bought several cake pans. “Some of those dinners looked really good!”
“You disgust me,” Tony informed him. “Now help me find a clean mixing bowl.”
.-.-.-.
Steve let out a grunt as Tony flopped onto him on the couch. “Ow.” He grimaced as the brunet began trying to make himself comfortable, all elbows and knees. “Okay, ow! Would you just—just—ow why are you like this?! Settle,” he ordered sternly, clasping his hand around the back of the smaller man’s neck. He huffed in amusement when the brunet immediately relaxed. “How was the gala?”
Tony groaned, loud and long, and kicked his shoes off. “Why do I have to go to these things?!”
“Because you’re Tony Stark.” He rubbed the base of Tony’s skull in small circles, burying his face in his hair. “Mm. That’s a nice smell.”
“Bolt of Lightning,” Tony murmured, beginning to doze. “Rosenthal. Very expensive. She was trying to impress me.”
Steve raised an eyebrow, making an interested noise. “How expensive?”
“Over seven hundred dollars an ounce.”
“I don’t understand rich people.” The blond took another whiff. “Floral. I like floral better than fruity. Did you have sex with her?”
Tony shrugged. “Yeah. It was meh.”
Steve’s brows furrowed together as he frowned. “I’m sorry the sex wasn’t great.”
“Starfish,” the brunet mumbled. “Just laid there. I could’ve had better sex with you.”
Steve snorted. “You mean by having no sex at all?”
Tony sat up, frowning at him. “I know you’re not interested in sex, but let me tell you, there is no better turn off than to not participate. Like it’s a chore and you’re lying back and thinking of America.”
“I’d mostly just think about how much it sucked.” The blond kissed his forehead to take some of the sting out of it. “Not that there’s anything wrong with you, of course.”
“Of course there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m wonderful.” Tony poked his nose. “And I’m not interested in having sex with you. Well, actually—”
“Please no.”
“—I’ll try anything once, but I know you’re not interested, so any interest I have is moot.” He looked down at the blond, admiring the blue of his eyes, then leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to the tip of his nose as well. “Mwah!”
Steve giggled as the brunet’s beard tickled his nose, wrapping his arms around him to keep him from squirming and possibly elbowing him again. “You know that tickles!”
“’s why I do it,” Tony said, grinning, and leaned in to kiss his nose again. “Like the noise you make.”
“Gah! Tony!”
.-.-.-.
“Steve,” Clint said, looking… sorry for him. “I hate to be the one to tell you, but… Tony… cheated on you last night.”
Steve stared at him from over the rim of his mug, taking a long, loud sip of coffee. He waited for the archer to get super uncomfortable before he said, “So you drew the short straw, huh?”
Clint blinked at him. “…What?”
“Last time it was Natasha, and before that was Bruce,” the blond explained, amused, as he watched the blood drain out of his face. He saw Tony coming into the kitchen and smiled. “Hey, Tony, you’re cheating on me again.”
“Starfish,” Tony whined, making grabby hands at his cup.
Steve handed him his own mug of coffee with just the right amount of sugar—none. “Bucky used to call ‘em moaning corpses.”
“Ew,” the brunet said into his mug, moving to the table.
“I know when Tony has sex with people, Clint,” Steve told the frozen archer kindly. “As strange as it may sound, I actually know what’s going on in my relationship.”
Clint sputtered. “You were just gonna let me play myself like that?!”
“Serves you right,” Tony mumbled into his mug. “Why does everyone assume that I would willfully hurt Steve?”
Steve frowned as he remembered Natasha quietly threatening Tony until he’d set her straight. On the bright side, she’d been genuinely remorseful for the misunderstanding. She didn’t grovel, but she definitely went out of her way to be nice to Tony.
“I… I don’t know,” Clint admitted quietly. “I’m sorry, Tony.”
“Bring me donuts and I’ll forgive you.”
“But I’m making a smoothie bowl for you,” Steve said, confused. “From the cookbook you bought.”
Tony looked at Clint with the concentration of a thousand suns. “Bring me donuts.”
Steve squawked, offended. “If you don’t want a smoothie bowl, all you have to do is say so!”
The brunet sighed. “No, no, I’ll have the smoothie bowl. Is the bowl a hipster thing? Did I buy a hipster cookbook?”
“If it’s healthy, it’s probably at least half hipster,” Clint replied. “I’ll bring donuts anyway because I feel bad.”
“Bring me a sesame seed bagel then,” Steve ordered.
Clint stared at him for a long minute before he shrugged. “Whatever, you bottomless pit.”
Tony giggled when he was presented with his smoothie bowl and took a picture. Steve was pretty proud of it. He’d used the fruit and almond slices to make a smiley face and hair, and had used the chia seeds to make a goatee around its blueberry mouth to look like him.
Steve watched Tony finish his smoothie bowl and four donuts and wondered why everyone thought that he was the bottomless pit in their relationship.