Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first beams of sunlight streamed in through the huge windows, and Tony groaned melodramatically, curling further into Steve’s chest as the light hit his tired eyes.

“Nnnfh,” he grumbled, rolling his face so it was shielded by Steve’s body.

He felt the small vibrations as Steve chuckled, and briefly debated thwacking him for getting JARVIS to open the curtains at such an ungodly hour. Of course, the notion was quickly disregarded- that required far too much effort, and also Steve was curling his arms around Tony shoulder to pull him in closer, so it was kinda difficult for him to stay too mad.

“Morning, sunshine,” Tony’s human pillow whispered, pressing his mouth against Tony’s temple as he smiled. Tony could feel it on his skin.

“F’ck’ff,” Tony grumbled, burrowing further into Steve’s neck and letting his hands rise up to tangle in the adorable blond bedhead that made its appearance every morning.

Steve laughed again, and then Tony suddenly felt himself moving as Steve wrapped a strong arm around Tony’s waist and pulled, until he was lying directly on Steve’s chest. “We have to get up. Got that early conference in Austria, remember?”

Tony whimpered and pawed at his eyes with the heel of his palm, cheek still smushed into Steve’s chest. “Don’ wanna. ‘S’too early,”

“I’m sorry, darling, but you made me promise to wake you up. We’ve all gotta go- you can get some rest on the way.”

Tony groaned theatrically again, but then winced as he felt the dull pain flare up in his chest. It was always difficult taking big breaths with the reactor- and it probably didn’t help that it was being squashed by Steve’s chest, but today it seemed a little more poignant than usual.

Maybe he’d slept on it funny. It happened some times. Days that were worse than others.

Steve, being the every-observant boyfriend he was, noticed the little tick, and immediately rolled Tony back on to his back, grimacing. “Sorry- is it bad today?” he asked softly, his body hovering above Tony’s, but not putting any pressure down against his chest.

Tony scowled, but nodded a little, a hand coming up to rub self-consciously over the glass. God, he hated that thing sometimes. But it was a small price to pay- considering everything he’d done to earn it.

Steve gave him a look that just screamed ‘I know exactly what you’re thinking,’ and then dropped his head a little, kissing Tony’s neck softly. Slowly, his head went lower, pressing little kisses against Tony’s collarbone, sternum, chest- until he reached the arc reactor.

Tony watched, as surprised as he had been the first time he’d watched Steve kiss the ugly thing that had been shoved in his chest all those years ago.

Apparently, Steve never got tired of kissing it.

“It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful,” Steve whispered, as his mouth moved across each scar that lined the casing, and Tony let his eyes flutter shut, lost in the feeling of Steve, and Steve’s mouth, and all the emotion that Steve somehow managed to convey in a single sentence.

God, he loved that man. More than anything else in the world.

Above him, Steve paused for a few seconds, and then lifted his head, a beautiful smile on his face as he said “hold on. I’ve got something that’ll make it even better. Stay here.”

Tony watched from the bed in curiosity, as Steve pulled himself upright and wandered over to his wardrobe, falling to his knees as he sifted through the bottom drawer for a second before stilling, hand grabbing at something and then coming back out, closing the cupboard with a click. Tony squinted to see what Steve had, but apart from a tiny flash of shiny grey, he couldn’t see through his clutched fist.

Getting back on to the bed gently, Steve crawled back to where he had been before, right above Tony’s face, as he leant down and pressed a soft kiss against Tony’s mouth.

Sleepy and pliant and utterly besotted,Tony leant up and returned it, his hands snaking around Steve’s neck to close any possible space between them as his teeth nipped gently at Steve’s bottom lip, eliciting a delightful little sound from the back of Steve’s throat in reply.

Tony whined in dismay as Steve let him go, and let himself sink back into the pillows to watch Steve as he lifted his hand and opened up his palm, dragging the chain he was holding around Tony’s neck and then letting it fall- landing right on the centre of the arc reactor.

Oh.

Steve’s dog tags.

Both Tony and Steve stared at the two tags, resting against the glass casing which gave them a strange sort of blue halo as the light shone around them.

“I… Steve,” Tony said hoarsely, because goddamnit- Steve’s tags were sacred to him- they never left that drawer; not in the ten years Tony had known him, why the hell was he putting them around Tony’s neck-

“They stay. Please,” and fuck, Steve was asking him, he was asking him to keep them, like Tony might somehow reject them for whatever reason.

“Are you sure?” Tony asked quietly, looking deep into Steve’s eyes for any sort of doubt.

He couldn’t find a thing.

Steve kissed his chest again, and then let his fingers trail over the words- his own name- etched on to the pieces of metal, a look of complete fascination on his face, utterly concentrated on the image below him. “Yeah. They- they suit you.”

“I don’t… why?”

Steve looked up, and his eyes darkened as he bent down and kissed Tony, hot and hard and passionate. “’Cause you’re mine. Some of the guys, back in the day; they’d give their tags over to their girls. It was a promise. A part of them.”

Steve paused, and smiled softly, dragging a stray piece of Tony’s hair back and then pressing a kiss to the space it left. “And- well- you’re my best fella. Seems like they belong to you more than me, now.”

Tony opened and shut his mouth for a few seconds, before shaking his head disbelievingly.

“I love you,” he chose to say, simply.

Steve grinned again, before rolling off Tony and getting out of bed, throwing the clothes that had been laid out for them at Tony and then turning to his own wardrobe.

“I know. Get ready- we’re already running late.”

Tony stopped, shocked, as Steve just grabbed his clothes like nothing was wrong. “Um, I’m sorry- did you just Han-Solo me? You did. You fucking Han-Solo’d me. God, i take it back. I hate you, you’re the wors-”

Tony was cut off as Steve skipped over to him and leant down, shutting him up with another kiss. “I love you too, idiot. Now get dressed, or Pepper will literally have my head.”

Tony smiled, and grudgingly followed Steve’s orders, despite the early hour and lack of coffee.

(That smile stayed on his face for the rest of the day, and it only grew bigger every time he heard that metal clink against glass.)

Chapter Text

So we all know how much of a sucker Steve is for Tony when he’s in his element in the workshop, with his grease-stained face and tight tank tops etc. But I also feel like Tony would be exactly the same for Steve when he’s painting.

Imagine Tony asking JARVIS where Steve is one afternoon, and he replies that he’s in the art studio Tony designed for him when they first moved in together. Tony’s just arrived back from a business meeting and hasn’t seen Steve in like, at least four days, which is pretty much illegal and just inherently wrong- so he makes his way up to the studio in order to fix that.

When he wanders in the room and sees what’s going on, he stops dead.

Steve is on one of his art-binges, that much is obvious. There is paint… everywhere; on the walls, on the plastic sheets that are littered around the floor, and then a large portion of it concentrated on the easel in front of Steve.
His movements are erratic and jerky, and it’s a concentration that Tony has ever really seen on-well- himself, when he’s in the middle of creating something amazing in the workshop. Paint smears across Steve’s cheekbone, like smudges of rainbow illuminating his face, and the white shirt he’s wearing has suffered much the same fate. Tony can no longer see a single dash of pale skin on Steve’s hands; instead covered in reds and oranges and golds that are catching on the sunlight filling the room.

He’s… he’s pretty much glowing in the sunlight, with all the colours bouncing off his skin.

Tony’s never seen anything so beautiful in his whole life.

He could have stood there and watched him work for hours, but Steve- because he’s Steve- suddenly becomes aware of Tony’s presence, despite the fact he hasn’t made a sound, and he turns around suddenly, facing Tony with a startled gasp of surprise. Now that Tony can properly see him, it’s easy to see that he hasn’t been sleeping. There are dark circles under his eyes, his hair is an unkempt mess of blond, and there’s an uncharacteristic unsteadiness to his movements that would only be there from lack of sleep.

Tony smiles at him, because he can’t really form words right now, and Steve’s whole face just splits into the biggest and most genuine smile Tony’s ever seen.

“You’re back,” he whispers happily, before crossing the room and pulling Tony into his arms, almost certainly smearing him with paint in the process. Not that Tony gives a fuck.

“Mm hmm” Tony answers contentedly against Steve’s chest, “missed me?”

“Always,” Steve replies, pulling away to kiss Tony soundly, paint-covered hands curling around his jaw and stroking soft circles into the skin, “I… I couldn’t sleep. I missed you, and- i don’t know, usually it doesn’t bother me, but I just… it’s winter, and you were flying across the atlantic, and I’m stupid so I worry about these things-”

Tony kissed him quiet again, shooting him a warm smile and unashamedly letting his eyes wander down Steve’s body in wonder. “I’m fine. I’m safe. And it looks like you had fun without me, anyway,” he raises his eyebrows and looks pointedly around the bombshell of a room.

Steve blushes, rubbing absently at a streak of black paint that’s running across the length of his forearm. “It helps. Painting. Painting you, actually. You like it?”

Tony has to admit, he was kind of distracted with the other works of art in the room to look much at what Steve was creating, but once he sets his eyes on it, it’s rather hard to look away.

“Wow,” Tony chokes, gripping Steve’s hand a little tighter as he looks at the truly beautiful piece of art in front of him.

It was almost like looking in a mirror, except every section of skin was painted in a different shard of colour. Backing on to a black canvas, he saw himself laughing, all natural teeth and crinkly eyes, a look of outright adoration in his eyes as he stared upward at something out of the frame- probably Steve- no one else could make him look that way.

It was him, without a doubt- but it was done in such a way that Tony had never seen before, and probably wouldn’t ever see out of anyone other than Steve Rogers.

“I… wow. Uhh… wow-” Tony stammers again, glancing back at Steve, unable to find the words to express how suddenly overcome he is with the tidal wave of emotion that’s just punched him in the gut. About how amazing he thinks Steve is, like this, in his element. Surrounded by colour and sunlight and magic.

Steve always said he found Tony in his workshop a thing of beauty. But Tony never realised quite how enthralling it would be to see Steve in his equivalent. With paint covering his arms and hair and clothes in the same way grease tended to cover Tony’s. The spark of light in his eye, the passion that pretty much radiated out of him.

“Holy shit, you’re so beautiful, you know that, right?” Tony whispered, pulling Steve in again, desperate to touch, to feel Steve under his fingers.

“I need- I should probably shower,” Steve mumbled, breaking away to rub a thumb across the streak of colour that was now lining Tony’s cheek as well as his own.

“Nuh uh- let’s veto that,” Tony said with a jerky shake of his head, unwilling to let go of Steve, even for a second. He wound his hand around the back of Steve’s neck and pulled him down again, standing on his tiptoes and leaning against Steve’s body as they kissed.

There was paint everywhere; fingerprint marks across his suit jacket, streaks marking the crisp white shirt and a few different shades of blue in his neatly styled hair, but Tony didn’t care. How the fuck could he care, when Steve was right there, covered in colour and sucking in shaking breaths and he hefted Tony up and pressed him against the wall, strong and beautiful and all his.

Yeah- four days was far too long.

Chapter Text

Natasha ambushed him whilst he was drinking his morning cup of tea

“What about Alice, down in HR? I heard she’s single, and she really seems-”

Steve sighed, looking down at his cup and wishing he could just stick his entire head in it rather than deal with yet another ‘let’s get Steve laid’ mission lead by Natasha.

“Nat, for the last time, you know what I’m like. I… I can’t talk to women! This is useless, come on!”

Natasha paused, an eyebrow shooting up at Steve’s words. “You think the reason you’re so bad at this is because you can’t talk to women?”

Steve made a face. “Yes!”

Natasha froze for a good few seconds, before sighing dramatically and patting him on the shoulder. “Oh baby, you really think that’s it, don’t you?”

When Steve chose to remain silent, Natasha sighed again. Steve felt her curls brush his cheek as she shook her head. “Do you remember a few days ago, when you stopped by Stark Tower to get your shield back from Tony? And he was getting ready to go to a charity gala, right? That was the first time you’d seen him in a proper suit, all done up and stuff, wasn’t it?”

Steve paused, sensing where this was going and looking obstinately down at his cup, refusing to let the heat creep up on his cheeks. “Yes. But that is irrelevant, it-”

“As soon as you stepped through that threshold and saw him, what was the first thing you did Steve?”

He hated Natasha.

“…I fell over,” he replied sulkily.

“that you did,” Natasha nodded pensively. “And then, when you picked yourself up from the floor and told a rather surprised Tony Stark that you were, in fact, fine, and not drugged or something- what happened?”

Steve shrugged, giving Natasha a glare and shove when she became unable to hold back a snort of laughter. “Okay, listen, this has nothing to do with what you were bugging me about, okay let’s just forg-”

“I seem to remember he asked you what the time was, because he was running late,” Natasha spoke over him, “ and then… what did you say again? Oh yeah, after a quite frankly scarily long pause for you to think about the question, you plucked the first number you could think of out of your head.”

“You’re making this sound way worse than it is,” Steve argued weakly, knowing full well that he was blushing like an idiot now.

Natasha shot him a long, pitying look. “Steve. It was five pm. You told him it was “ uhh- 76, if my watch is correct” whilst looking at the watch you do not own, by the way- and then turned and walked away without another word. I think you are the only person on planet earth who has managed to render him completely speechless.”

Steve scowled. Natasha paused, and then patted his shoulder again. “Buddy, it’s not women you can’t talk to. It’s hot people.”

Steve huffed, raising a hand so that his lips were pressed against the rim of the mug before muttering “well why don’t you get me a date with Tony, then, if you know me so goddamn well. And then you can lay off my back and let me just fuck Tony fucking Stark for the rest of my fucking life in peace!”

Natasha smiled like a shark, and Steve had a sudden sixth sense that something mortifying was about to occur as she bounced lightly on the balls of her feet.

He was correct.

He really hated Natasha.

Suddenly raising her free hand, she brought the phone to her ear and raised an eyebrow toward Steve as he stared at her in horror.

What have you done?! he mouthed wildly, stumbling back as she began talking.

“You get that, Tony?” She asked down the line, while Steve gasped in horror beside her, “yeah, I’ll just put him on the line, and you can arrange a time and place,” she said breezily, before throwing the phone at his chest and making him catch it rather than her as she fled past him.

Steve’s mouth was still hanging over in shock as he brought the phone to his ear.

He had to wait for Tony to stop laughing for a good minute.

(He got the date, though- so maybe he hated Natasha slightly less than he made out.

Slightly.)

Chapter Text

It was a thing.

It didn’t mean anything, per se… Steve’s sweaters were just cozy, okay? And his sweatpants were soft and his tshirts were baggy and they all smelt like something undeniably Steve-

Yeah. Anyway. Like Tony said. It was a thing.

To be honest, he hadn’t even expected anyone to notice, really- they were just a few clothes, after all. Nothing special. The team used his stuff all the time- what made this different? Nothing, that was what. It wasn’t like Tony… hoarded it, or anything. And he certainly didn’t steal Steve’s jumpers after bad nights in order to calm him down. That would just be stupid.

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.

In fact, if he hadn’t come down one time, half asleep and wearing literally none of his own clothes, everyone probably would have just let it slide. Tony honestly hadn’t done it intentionally- he was just tired and a little shaken from the lovely morning nightmare that had served as his wakeup call, and Steve’s clothes were soft and big and smelt really nice.

It was calming. It was… home.

So Tony had slid them on without a second thought and then trundled downstairs, pretty much still asleep. Mornings, especially early ones like this one, were most definitely not his forte.

Except… turns out that superspies were observant. Who’d have thought?

Anyway, they noticed it immediately. Natasha just raised an eyebrow, but Clint was an asshole, so Clint wolf-whistled and jostled Steve’s shoulder, making him turn from where he was busily preparing his breakfast in order to look in their direction. Tony, still pretty much sleepwalking at that point, just tried to zoom in on the coffee and direct his body toward it. He doesn’t notice everyone staring, or Steve’s progressively reddening cheeks.

“Nice look, Tony,” Natasha says quietly, eyes still on the morning paper.

“Fuck yourself,” he says cheerily, and barely even winces when the spoon flies an inch away from his nose in response. He’s grown used to it.

Clint makes a move, ruffling his hair and then cooing, despite Tony’s grumble of protest. He would normally just punch him, but did he mention how tired he was? Really fucking tired.

“Don’t you just want to fucking bundle him up when he’s like this? How do you resist, Steve?” Clint asks, and Tony glares at him and turns to Steve, ready to hear a witty quip in reply, but the other man is just spluttering a little incoherently, eyes still fixed on the pale blue button-down that’s pretty much slipping right off Tony’s shoulders.

His face falls a little, because shit, Steve’s noticed. And now they’re probably going to have a long and awkward conversation about boundaries, where Steve tells him he needs to stop wearing his clothes, which will suck, because Tony loves Steve’s clothes-

He’s so caught up in his own head that he forgets to watch where his feet are going, and they catch on the overhanging material that hangs over his toes whenever he wears Steve’s sweatpants, and then he’s off, falling face first, destination: corner of the fucking tabletop.

Great way to start the day.

He braces for impact, a little yelp escaping his lips as he jerks his hands up on instinct- but impact doesn’t come. Instead, there’s a sudden tight pressure on his waist, and he realizes it’s an arm that’s just managed to snag him before he brains himself. Which is nice. Definitely helpful.

Steve is stood there, a little awkwardly, arm simply outstretched and holding Tony’s entire body weight like it’s nothing, which is probably not something he needs to be thinking about when wearing thin sweatpants-

“Where are your glasses, Tony?” Steve says, fond exasperation evident in his voice as he pulls Tony upright again and then softly places a hand against his jaw, checking to see that all braining incidents had been 100% avoided.

Tony scowls, and shrugs. “Left them out somewhere- but I don’t need them to see my own two feet, Steve, only reason I fell was because your pants are-”

He’s about to say stupidly big, before realizing that, being the insanely clever person he is, he just managed to expose himself and his clothe-stealing ways right in front of the man himself.

Amazing. He was on a god damn roll this morning. God- he wished he’d just knocked himself out on the tabletop.

But rather than frowning and pulling him up on it, Steve just blushes a little bit deeper, and Tony watches his eyes flicker down very briefly, before dragging themselves back up immediately and only making the blush go even darker, and at this rate Steve is going to be a motherfucking tomato, or his cheeks are going to burst open from too much blood rushing around in them.

“They suit you,” Steve says quietly,and Tony has to question whether or not he’s even conscious at this point, because that was definitely a lip bite, and Steve’s eyes keep flickering down toward Tony’s exposed collarbone like there’s a god damn magnet attached to the thing-

“Wait,” Tony blurted suddenly, squinting a little and hoping that his eyesight really isn’t failing him enough to imagine that, “do you…no way-do you like that?”

Steve laughed, and this time it was a lick of the lips, which was honestly just unfair at this time of day. “Uhhh-”

“he means he likes you wearing his clothes, but he’d prefer them back on his bedroom floor,” Bruce piped up, which was surprising, because everyone had assumed he’d just been napping on the tabletop.

Steve frowned. “Can you maybe let me flirt on my own, guys?”

“Hey, you chose to do this in the communal room, your fault,” Clint said, before waving them away, “now shoo- go have your way with him or whatever, Steve- I don’t want to see any more of this here, I’m eating my cereal.”

Tony looked at Steve, still trying to actually conceive what was happening here. Steve just looked at him, waiting for a sign of confirmation, and when Tony gave a confused nod of his head, Steve wasted absolutely no time in sweeping him directly off his feet and into an effortless bridal carry, beginning to manoeuvre them both out of the communal room at a brisk pace.

Tony blinked, hands wrapping around Steve’s neck instinctively, feeling more than a little blissed out when all Steve’s warmth and softness and smell that he usually leeched off his clothes was suddenly pressed up directly against him.

“Bye,” was all Steve called out, before sliding out into the corridor and immediately pressing Tony against the wall, mouth meeting Tony’s possessively, greedily.

“You really like the clothes, huh,” Tony whispered in amazement, in between kisses.

He was kissing Steve he was kissing Steve he was kissing Steve he was kissing St-

Steve smiled, hands wandering underneath the button down and slipping around his waist. “Every time, every damn time you’d come down wearing something of mine, I wanted to do this. I thought you were doing it on purpose- you had to be. There couldn’t have been any other reason you hadn’t noticed how I reacted to it.”

Tony opened his mouth to reply, biting down on a groan between breaths, but Steve kissed him again, picking him up once more, this time by the ass, and then waiting for Tony to wrap his legs around Steve’s waist before moving them forward. “I might make you keep the shirt on, though. It looks good. Real good.My clothes always look good on you”

Tony grinned, “possessive streak, have we, Rogers?”

“You have no idea,”

“I feel like I’m about to find out, though.”

Steve smiled, smug and dirty as he kissed Tony’s neck, whispering “damn fuckin’ straight.”

Okay. So maybe the morning was looking up, after all.

Chapter Text

He woke up and it hurt.

But that was okay. Normal. It always hurt, nowadays. He didn’t even register it any more.

It was fine.

The sun was peaking through the curtains; warm and lovely and deceptively pleasant. The type of weather that made people smile and suggest stupid things like barbecues or swimming or whatever. Dumb stuff. Stuff that required friends, family- things other than just machines.

Not really Tony’s area, after all.

“Did you care?” And Tony was screaming now, eyes on fire, fists clenched so tight he was sure his knuckles would burst out through the skin. “Did you even care, at all?”

“Tony, you know I did, you know I still do, come on, please.” There was the pleading voice, the one that rarely came out unless Steve was truly scared, truly desperate. His face was absolutely ashen, hands visibly shaking by his sides.

The computer was still sat at the table- all those pixels, that grainy footage of The Winter Solder choking his mother to death serving as rock solid evidence to a truth Steve could no longer hide.

Tony screamed, because it was better than crying, and Steve was faltering, whispering words that Tony couldn’t hear over the ripped sounds his own throat was making. He looked like he was about to try and step forward, reach out to Tony with a hand that had cupped his face and traced his scars and counted the freckles on his back- the hand that had clutched the truth behind a closed fist and refused to let Tony look, not even for a second.

“You’re a liar and a bastard and I cannot believe I fell for it. I fucking trusted you, more than anyone.”

He just laughed. What else was there to do? It was kinda funny, really- that he’d actually gone into this thinking that it might work in the the first place.He should have known better.

“I’m an idiot. I’m a motherfucking idiot-” the world was just spinning, his head was exploding; every single piece of a future he had built up had just fallen on top of him, all at once, and he couldn’t breathe under the weight of it.

“Tony, I’m begging you, don’t do this. I love you, I can’t- it wasn’t Bucky’s fault, you need to understand-”

“Did you know? Truly, did you know?” Tony whispered, hoping for a change in what was truth and what was lies. Hoping for the universe to shift a little and let him keep this, just once.

Steve looked at him, and Tony had never seen him this distraught before; tears streaking down his face, pale and sick and haunted in a way that made Tony know the answer before Steve had even said it.
The universe wasn’t kind. Not to Tony. Which was why he only got a broken “yes” in reply.

The world stopped. Everything. Each atom and dimension, pausing to let him mull the word over.

Yes.

Steve had known. Steve had held his hand and watched him pour his money into therapy, stroked his hair and kissed him through all the days when his mental illnesses had made him unable to function.

Steve had known.

The world was still paused as Tony quietly, calmly, slowly removed the gauntlet from his left hand and pulled off the ring that was sat there. Still paused as he sucked in a a breath through his teeth and launched it across the room at Steve’s chest. Still paused as Steve caught it, eyes wide as he pleaded for Tony to stop, to think, to not do this, please, I’m begging you-

It only started moving again once Tony had kicked up the repulsors and flown, leaving Steve’s gentle sobs and Barnes’ all-consuming guilt and the footage of his parents’ brutal murders behind him, numb and completely, utterly broken inside.

The compound was silent. FRIDAY said good morning. Tony didn’t answer. She didn’t try anything else.

JARVIS would have. But JARVIS was… offline.

(Dead. JARVIS was dead and he wasn’t coming back and that was Tony’s fault too-)

Whatever. It was fine. Tony hated mornings anyway, he didn’t like talking to anyone or anything before his morning coffee.

Well. Except maybe Steve, when he’d been just as grumpy and just as tired as Tony (because despite the whole ‘peak of physical human perfection’ thing, they guy sure did hate early mornings), with his adorable bedhead and sleepy face and involuntary smile as he’d leaned down to kiss Tony’s temple in greeting-

Fuck. That’s enough

He took a breath, steadied himself. Reached for the coffee pot and then grabbed the bottle of whiskey that he always kept next to it, because if he couldn’t treat himself today, when the hell could he?

(It wasn’t a treat, a treat was something you enjoyed, but this was something Tony needed, the burn in his throat to remind him that he could still feel, that he needed to stop, that he just wanted everything to shut up for a god damn fucking second-)

St–Rogers– was irrelevant. So was the rest of the team. He’d survived plenty of these days before they’d come along, and he’d damn well do the same now.

It didn’t matter that this time last year, Tony had been sat around with a group of people he would have moved heaven and earth for, as they sat and bickered and hugged him, smiling and rolling their eyes when Tony said he didn’t care, it was just a stupid day, pipe the fuck down it’s too early for this crap-

They’d hit him over the head with a stuffed toy and called him a loser. Steve had wrapped his arms around Tony’s waist and kissed the back of his neck until Tony got distracted enough for Bruce to slam himself into Tony’s front and declare a group hug. Everyone had laughed, and it had been the happiest Tony had been in a long time.

Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it

Tony gasped, because air wouldn’t come, air never fucking came properly any more, and his heart just hurt, like a constant pain where Steve and Clint and Natasha and-

The coffee was 90% whiskey, but that was how Tony liked it.

It was fine.

(It wasn’t fine. Tony knew it wasn’t fine. But, like falling asleep on a lilo at sea, it was only when you finally opened your eyes that you realised there was no way back, no fucking way to take it back, and he was stuck. He was alone. He was always fucking alone.)

“Happy birthday,” he said in a tone that might have been considered cheerful, to no one at all, and pretended that he couldn’t feel the cool absence of a ring banded around his finger as he poured the liquid down his throat.

Chapter Text

“Morning, beautiful,”

Tony squinted, rolling a little further into the warm embrace that he knew was Steve’s arms and groaning softly. “No. Too early. Call back in an hour.”

Steve laughed, lips brushing softly over Tony’s hair. “It’s 11. I’ve been lying in for 3 hours, now.”

Tony smiled, kissing Steve’s chest as he did so. “Have you just been lying there watching me this whole time? Pervert,”

“Guilty,” was all Steve said, before rolling himself on top of Tony, elbows resting against the bed to stop his weight from crushing into Tony’s arc reactor. He leaned down a little, kissing Tony’s nose. “Happy birthday, darling,”

Tony paused, brow furrowing for a moment before it dawned on him. “You remembered my birthday?”

Steve shot him a look, part frown, part fond exasperation as he kissed Tony again. “We go through this every year, babe. Yes, I remembered your birthday. I’m slightly offended that you thought I wouldn’t, to be honest.”

Tony shrugged, pouting a little as he arched up into Steve’s touch, hands wrapping around his neck and mouth finding Steve’s. “Does this mean,” he whispered in between kisses, “crazy morning s-”

“Nope,” Steve interrupted, pushing Tony’s hips back on to the bed before rolling off him, grinning cheekily, because he was a motherfucking tease, “There’s food cooking- and the team said they’re waiting for us downstairs.”

Tony groaned, sprawling out on the sheets and smushing his face further into the pillows. “But it’s my birthday-”

“And the team are going to come barging up here with pitchforks unless we hurry up,” Steve interrupted, throwing on a shirt and smiling as he crossed the room and jumped back on the bed, crawling over to Tony and covering his face with kisses, despite the man’s giggling protests.

“Steve, stop it, I thought we needed to h-h-hurry!” Tony wheezed, as Steve dug into his ribs and tickled, mouth moving across Tony’s face and strategically, covering every area he could find.

Steve paused, nipping Tony’s ear lightly before sitting up and sitting on his knees, still beaming. “Correct. Let’s go, Stark, get a move on, we don’t have all day- you’ve already spent half of it asleep.”

Tony groaned again, but allowed Steve to wrap an arm around his waist and pull him up. He took the opportunity to slide his arms around Steve’s shoulders again, mouth on the other man’s neck. “Are you very sure we can’t just-”

“I’m not going to let you tempt me, Tony,” Steve said, biting his lip and unwrapping Tony from his neck. It looked like he was having a tough time believing his own words, but he kept firm, yanking them both up into standing and then manoeuvring Tony until he was facing the direction of his wardrobe. “We will definitely be coming back to that later, though.”

“I’m counting on it,” Tony said, pulling out some comfy clothes from the bottom of his wardrobe and throwing them on. “By the way you’re talking, I’m guessing you’ve got plans for me.”
Steve nodded, watching Tony dress. “Yep.”

“Care to give me a hint?”

“Nope.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve excessive amounts of peril, I’m good. Medium amounts of peril are fine, though. Also no nudity on Clint’s part.”

Steve paused, but altogether he didn’t seem that shocked by Tony’s wishes, which said something about their lives, really. “I told Clint explicitly that no clothes were to be removed, don’t worry. As for the peril, I’m pretty sure there will be none. Although, you know, I can’t exactly promise that.”

Tony just shrugged, walking over to where Steve was sat on the bed and slotting himself between his knees. “Eh, that was pushing it anyway.”

Steve laughed, taking Tony’s hands and kissing the palms, before wrapping his arms around Tony’s waist and pulling him in, pressing his face to Tony’s stomach. “Happy birthday,” he said again.

Tony stroked his fingers through Steve’s hair, shutting his eyes and letting the sound of Steve’s breathing take over.

Well. For about three seconds, anyway. After that, their moment of peace was rudely interrupted by four other people as they kicked the door open and piled in.

Tony sighed as he was rounded on and pulled away from Steve, who was just sitting there with a fond smile and a twinkle in his eye. The team had a very thorough hold on him, so there wasn’t much point in trying to fight them off. He just let them haul him up and carry him down the stairs, while Steve laughed and trailed along behind him.

“Which one of you creeps is feeling my ass?” He yelled.

“Apologies, Tony, there is no other space to hold,” Thor said, giving him a look that meant there were plenty of other spaces available.

Once they’d kidnapped him, it didn’t take long for all of them to end up in the communal kitchen, dropping Tony gently on the table and then pressing a mug of coffee immediately into his hands.

“Thanks Brucie,” he said, because it was only Bruce who knew how to make coffee just right- everyone else had yet to learn the art.

“Right! When do we get to do presents?” Clint asked the room, clapping his hands and then slow-motion punching Tony in the face, because he was a five-year-old.

“No time like the present,” Natasha shrugged, and then paused, eyes widening a little. “That… that was not a pun. If any of you mention that ever again I’ll break your fingers.”

Tony laughed, and Natasha saw, but she just rolled her eyes and smiled a little, squeezing his arm. “We had a long think about what to get you this year- it was kinda difficult, as always, to buy anything for you, considering the fact you are a billionaire and can therefore buy anything you so desire.”

“So we were like- what do you do for a guy who has everything?” Clint cut in theatrically, before whipping an envelope out of his pocket and grinning. “Why, you do him favours, of course.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed, as he took the envelope from Clint’s hands. “This better not implode upon opening-”

“I can vouch for Clint, don’t worry,” Steve said, leaning on the counter opposite Tony and smiling. “No explosions.”

Tony nodded, and ripped open the envelope. Inside, there were three strips of paper, with hand-written sentences in the middle of them. He furrowed his brow curiously as he removed them, reading them quickly.

• 5 free passes to the TV, even when I’m watching it, because it seems 80% of all our fights stem from arguments over who wants what.
• 1 team-up against Natasha. Only one. She’s scary and will kill us both if we do it any more than that.
• 5 ‘leave me the fuck alone’ opportunities. You invoke this slip and say those words, and I’m gone, no questions asked.

Tony looked up, confused. “What the hell does this mean?”

“It means,” Clint rolled his eyes and hopped on the table next to Tony, “that these are favours you can ask- no arguments allowed- of me, contractually signed and agreed upon. Only for the amount of times it says on the slip, though, I’m not that easy.”

Tony stared at them for another few seconds, before a smile broke out on his face, and he looked at Clint, eyes sparkling. “Thank you. I’m going to savour the fuck out of these for years, you know. Save them for special occasions. Or maybe I’ll do them all at once, and make you my slave for the day.”

Clint frowned, but Tony pulled him into a hug and then let go, turning to Natasha as she held out an envelope of her own. “Wait- you’ve all done this?”

“Yes. Decided to switch things up for a change, you know?” She explained, shoving her present into his hands and then turning away to grab some food. Tony knew she didn’t like her kindness being acknowledged, but when Tony read her slips, he jumped off the table and pulled her into a tight hug anyway, which she luckily returned.

One by one, he received all the favours off each teammate- from ‘will let you ride on the Great Stallion of Asgard through the meadows of Gold’ from Thor to ‘I’ll get you coffee whenever you ask for a whole month’ from Bruce.

It was perfect and thoughtful and by the time he got around to Steve’s envelope, he was already feeling pretty emotional.

Smiling, he opened the letter and pulled out its contents. There were three slips, the same as everyone else, and Steve had bordered them with little cartoon drawings of the whole team. It looked adorable, and Tony grinned up at Steve, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him down for a kiss before he continued.

The whole team were positively beaming, and everyone seemed to have forgotten how to stand still- even Steve was fiddling with his hands as Tony read through the first note.

I’ll grow a beard on three different occasions for a month- I know how much you want to see it on me.

Tony laughed, imagining clean-cut, lovely Steve with a scruffy lumberjack beard. “Yeah, I’m using the first one right now. No shaving for a month, baby.”

Steve laughed nervously as Tony continued.

You can order to me get to bed if I’m in a shitty mood and still working at the gym. 10 times, non-negotiable on my side.

Tony smiled softly, nodding his head. “That sure will come in useful. Thank you, Steve.”

At this point, the entire room was pretty much vibrating on the spot, and Tony was a little nervous as to what the last one was going to be. He looked at Steve curiously, eyebrow raised, and Steve just nodded at the last slip, biting his lip.

Curious and a little excited, Tony read through the last line.

This one isn’t so much doing a favour for you as it is me, but- you’d make the happiest man in the galaxy if you would let me have the honour of spending the rest of my life with you, as your husband. If you’ll have me. Unlimited offer.

Tony stared at the words for a long time. When he looked up, Steve was on one knee, and there was a ring held between his fingers.

He raised an eyebrow, scarlet in the face. His hand was shaking a little, but there was the same determined look in his eyes that he kept for battles.
Like Tony agreeing was ever going to be a battle.

“Oh my god. Yes. Holy shit, yes, Steve.”

The room erupted in yells and cheers, and Steve’s eyes widened in shock as Tony jumped off the table and slid down until he was able to throw himself at Steve, burying his face in the other mans shoulder and gripping the fabric of his shirt so tight his knuckles were white. “Yes, yes, yes, holy shit, I love you Steve, yes-”

Steve kissed him, cutting off the ramble, but they had to stop when both of them began laughing uncontrollably. Steve looked down at Tony, wiping the tear tracks off his cheeks with his thumbs before leaning down and kissing him again. “You make me happier than I ever thought I could be. And I’m going to be the best husband you could ever hope for, Tony Stark. I promise.”

Tony opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment it seemed Thor lost patience and tackled them both to the floor, hugging them tight enough to bruise. Not that Tony gave a damn, mind.

He was marrying Steve.

“Group hug!” The God yelled, and Steve was laughing, tears still in his eyes as he rolled Tony into his arms and leaned over him, making sure he wasn’t crushed as four other superheroes launched themselves on top of them, whooping and yelling and (In Clint’s case, anyway) removing their shirts to swing them like lassos.

Tony felt like he was dreaming. Like he was floating on a level of euphoria that anyone else had yet to reach.

He was marrying Steve.

“Clint, what did we say about keeping our clothes on?” Someone groaned, and Tony could feel the vibrations of Steve laughing on top of him, his face crinkled and smiling from ear to ear.

He was marrying Steve.

“Happy fucking birthday,” He said to himself, stealing a kiss before the whole pile rolled and fell down the set of stairs that lead to the living room.

Chapter Text

It’s a shitty day all round, really.

SHIELD is on Tony’s ass as usual, pestering him to upgrade their shit once more, to the point where he’s ready to start tearing out his hair, and Steve’s just about reached his limit, too- he’s been following some bullshit HYDRA lead for months now, and to no avail, they’re still just teetering one step ahead of him.

They’re both tired, and cranky, and really, it should be a recipe for disaster.

It’s not.

Because it’s raining and the film is shit and the day is shittier- but it’s okay.

They’ve got each other.

And the stress, the anger and the irritation and the fight- it just drains out when they find each other’s hands. Because really, how could Tony stay annoyed when Steve’s smiling at him like that? And how could Steve feel bitter when Tony’s giggling at the film with his nose all scrunched up and adorable?

Their lives are stressful as fuck. It’s exhausting. But at the end of the day, they get to come home and watch the shitty movie. They get to listen to the quiet pattering of rain against the window or the gentle sound of the other’s heartbeat, tangle their fingers together and maybe just sleep. It’s more than a lot of people could hope for.

They’re just fine with that. In fact, life could throw pretty much anything at them, and they’d probably do alright with it.

Like I said. They’ve got each other. It’s all good.

Chapter Text

Anthony Stark is not Good With Emotion.

He finds it difficult to tell people he cares, and show others that he loves them. Sometimes even physical touch or people handing him things makes him uncomfortable, so the Avengers moving in proves difficult at the beginning, because… well, he just isn’t used to that much casual camaraderie and contact being thrown around. Totally new ball game. And it scares the shit out of him.

So anyway. The team are all Bonding and Growing Together and stuff, and Tony is just out on a limb, because he doesn’t know how to fucking say that he likes them. He shows it, of course he shows it, that’s the only thing he ever can do well- but then his goddamn mouth just has to run off and say something stupid and they’re right back at square-fucking-one again. He doesn’t know what to do, and he just… he doesn’t feel like one of them. It hurts.

Then there’s a bad mission.

A… a really bad mission. Something-Wears-Coulson’s-Face-And-Goes-On-A-Murderous-Rampage-Directed-At-Clint type of bad mission.

Clint tries to jump off the roof.

And Tony is suddenly… completely and utterly consumed by how painful that is to think about. How stupidly attached he’s become, not only to the Birdbrain, but the whole damn team. Remembering Clint, sat still and silent on the top of the tower with a half-empty bottle of whatever-the-fuck in his hand and an empty look in his eyes… it haunts him.

Literally. He can’t sleep. He barely lets Clint out of his sight for weeks after, just in case. The thought plagues him, because he knows, fuck does he know, what it’s like to feel that sort of pain. And he can’t stand the thought of Clint suffering the same.

He feels like he’s doing nothing. Like he’s helpless. So one night of yet more insomnia, he decides to put the ball on his side of the court.

He starts writing.

By the end of the morning, there’s pages and pages of data- Clint’s triggers, his history, his likes and dislikes and his mental state- all cross-referenced with one another and neatly sorted into workable piles. He tells JARVIS to scan the work and track it with Clint’s behaviour; flagging him up in either amber for medium risk, or red for immediate.

And once he’s done that- why the hell would he stop there?

The whole team. Meticulously trawling through their histories, their triggers, their responses to bad missions or guilt or loss. It takes him 6 nights of no sleep.
By the end of it, he is keeping track of every single one of them.

It becomes obsessive. He revises it every night, adding and removing and keeping a constant ear out for JARVIS’s quiet words of ‘Miss Romanov has had night-terrors for nights in a row. Medium Risk,’ or ‘Doctor Banner watched a news-reel of his Hulk form tearing through a Hospice and this is the third day he has gone without food- immediate risk’. It rarely happens, but Tony had been caught out the first time. It wouldn’t happen again.

When Steve starts closing himself off- Tony knows it’s because they’re coming up to the day Bucky died. When Clint gets drunk on a monday morning, he cross-references it with all the other times he’s noticed it happen and realises that each time, it was because he’d been made to spend the whole day at SHIELD with a task-force who still blame him for his mind control.
He knows all of it, and he acts accordingly.

Slowly- the occurrences stop being so frequent.

Tony doesn’t even think about shutting it down. It’s the only thing that keeps him sane, some nights. Knowing that he still has that; that tiny semblance of control. That even if he can’t ultimately stop his friends if they are hellbent on it; he can do his damn hardest to get to them before it gets to that point.

He doesn’t know how to tell them that they mean something to him, and doing this is the only way he feels like he’s enough.

It’s not. It’s obviously not- he could be so much better to them- but it’s all he has.

It’s become refined enough that Tony can predict some of the more severe mood swings and prepare for them. Yeah- maybe Natasha gets pissed at him because she can’t find any of her usual weaponry hidden about the tower during some weeks, but Tony isn’t going to take any chances. Not with them.

With himself, however- it’s harder to care so much.

Bad shit happens, sometimes, and Tony deals with it. He does it as best he can, and sometimes Steve is there to help him through- because for some reason Steve seems to like him more than most- but sometimes he isn’t.

When Tony is sat, wasted and sleep-deprived in his workshop with a bottle of pills staring temptingly up at him- that’s one of those times.

He’s just tired. And sad. It would be so much easier.

He wasn’t going to actually do it. He was just thinking about it. In an objective sort of way.

But then suddenly Steve comes in and wrestles the bottle of whiskey out of his hand like he’s gonna die within the next three seconds if he continues to touch the damn thing, and Tony realises it probably looks a lot worse than it is.

“Don’t,” Steve whispers hoarsely, pushing the bottle of pills carelessly off the side of the desk and then crouching down, his arms trapping Tony in his chair, “please don’t do that, Tony. Please. I’m… I couldn’t deal with losing you too-”

Tony laughs, and it tastes bitter in his throat. “You don’t care about me. Not really. I don’t know how to love people. Dunno how to even tell someone I… I…” and he can’t even finish the fucking sentence, that’s how emotionally stunted he is.

Steve is looking at him, and his face is so sad, Tony’s drunken thought-process immediately goes into help-mode, because it reminds him all too well of the other times Steve has looked like that. “Hey. ‘M sorry. Don’… I’m good. Don’t be sad.”

Steve stares at him incredulously for a good few moments, before shaking his head sadly and slowly raising his hand, cupping it against Tony’s cheek softly. “Are you even real? You- you’re still trying to put me first, aren’t you? Jesus, Tony- you say you’re incapable of telling people they matter to you, and then you pull the moon outta the sky because one of us said it looked pretty! You know… love doesn’t show in words, Tony, it shows in actions. Always.”

Tony slowly looks up and met Steve’s eyes. “ I just… want people to care, Steve. They don’… they don’ care, not really. You care, because y’r team leader ‘n’ you gotta care. My love has always been paid for, y’see, Stevie. Always.” He laughed, shutting his eyes and allowing himself the guilty pleasure of Steve’s hands on his face, just for a second.

It wasn’t enough, But it would do.

Steve pauses again, eyes horribly sad as he looks at Tony. He wants to know what’s going on in that soldier brain of his- but he’s pretty wasted right now and the thoughts won’t process properly.

“Come with me,” Steve whispers eventually, standing up and gently grabbing at Tony’s hand.

It’s not like Tony would ever say no to a request when Steve said it like that.

So he stumbles upright and Steve steadies him, firm and strong and warm as he always is. Tony isn’t particularly aware of where he’s going, because Steve pretty much just carries him the whole way there and Tony is fine with just letting his head fall against Steve’s shoulder and stay there. Possibly for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t complain.

They end up in Steve’s room, and Tony is just about to start thinking up inappropriate comments to make when Steve pulls up Tony’s hands and places an old-looking organiser in it, making his fingers close delicately around the spine. It’s an obvious invitation to read, so Tony does, because otherwise he’d just keep looking at Steve all night and, satisfying as that may be, he’d probably just get punched.

So he opens the book- and his name stares back at him.

It’s… it’s what Tony had drawn up, all those months ago on scraps of paper- except this was undeniably Steve-like in style, and altogether a lot more neat than his had ever been. Pages and pages of neatly filled lines; some crossed out, some cramped additions. Doesn’t like 4th July fireworks down at the bottom or just caves in the top corner of one particular spread.

He doesn’t understand.

“I love you,” Steve says- and then Tony takes his ‘doesn’t understand’ and multiplies it by ten.

‘I love you, Tony,” Steve says, because the goddamn idiot knew him, and knew what he was thinking. “I love you and the thought of you… hurting yourself is enough to drive me insane. I didn’t know how to show you until now. But this,” he tapped the book that Tony was still staring at, “is sacred to me. This helps me know how you tick, it helps me work out when you’re having bad days and need someone to be there for you. It lets me know who it is you need; me or Rhodey or Bruce or whatever. Because I love you so much it hurts, and the only way that I feel like I’m able to help you deal with this is by knowing when it will happen”

Tony was quiet for a few more moments, and then, “JARVIS?”

“yes, sir?”

“Did.. did Steve steal my brain thoughts?”

Steve laughs, and it still sounds too sad for Tony, which is his own fault this time- he’s going to have to add the word ‘Tony’ to Steve’s file later. “No, Tony, your brain is still perfectly safe. Listen-”

“No. Wait. You listen. T’me. Please,” Tony begged, trying to find Steve’s hand and clumsily hitting an elbow instead, “I’m a nightmare. I don’… I don’ know how to be a normal human. I sm’times have days when I can’t even hug people and will get stupid ‘n’ angry if you try, and then the next day I might get sulky ‘cause you’re not giving me enough affection. But Steve, I do care. I do. It haunts me, the day we caught Clint, it hon’stly does, an’ I know I act like a fuckin’ asshole, but you mean more t’me than anything. All of you. Especially you. Steve, I… I lo.. I-”

The words still don’t come, and Tony wants to scream. Wants to bang his head against the wall until he stops being so fucked up, because no one wants someone who can’t even say I love you, for fucks sake-

“Yes I do. I really, really do,” Steve tells him gently, standing close to Tony, almost forehead to forehead, and of course Tony was whispering to himself again, that was a great way to make people think you were normal.

“I’ll want you when you’re sad. I’ll want you when you’re angry, or being an asshole, or every time when you won’t be able to tell me how you feel for me. I’ll want you. Because I have done for so long now, I’m not even sure i know how to stop.”

Tony feels the ever-constant desire suddenly light into an inferno at that point. Steve’s mouth looks so delicious and soft, and his eyes look even bluer than Tony had ever though they could and he just wants to… he wants to do everything with Steve. Wants everything he could possibly get, eyes and mouth and teeth and touch and taste.

It’s probably a mixture of alcohol and overwrought emotions that does it in the end, but suddenly he’s stumbling forward and his mouth is on Steve’s and he’s kissing him with every emotion that he’ll never be able to speak about and hoping that Steve knows; that he’d understand, just for a moment, quite how much he means to Tony.

Steve gasps, hands sinking lower and grabbing at the fabric of Tony’s shirt, pulling him in until he was pressed up against Steve’s chest- and Tony thinks for a moment that he might just be enough.

Then Steve stops, slowly and with a shaking breath, and that was it. Tony had really ruined it now.

“Nope,” Steve interrupts his thought process, shaking his head vigorously and putting a finger against Tony’s mouth. “You… you have no idea how much I’d like to continue this, believe me- but you’re drunk, Tony, and I’m not gonna-”

Tony kisses him again before he can finish the sentence, because now he’s aware that Steve actually, for whatever reason, wants him too, there is no stopping him. Steve is a hell of a kisser, and Tony wants more. More more more more more.

Steve practically whimpers the next time he breaks away, gently untangling Tony’s hands from his neck and shivering. “Uhh, uh. We can’t. You need… you need to get some rest, Tony, you’ve ha-hnnngh,”
hmm. Tony notes down in some corner of his mind that Steve seems pretty sensitive to kisses on the underside of his jaw.

Unfortunately, Steve is pretty adamant that he’s going to be a gentleman or whatever, because he takes a deep breath and steels himself before pushing Tony off again, not letting go of him exactly, but enough to mean Tony can no longer reach Steve’s mouth.

“Tony, you need to get some rest. Please. You’ve had a really rough night, and you’re not thinking straight-”

“Steve, this isn’t some- some drunk fuck here. I… you’re what I want. Trust me,” Tony said, making an effort to keep his voice as clear as possible. He tried to reach out and touch Steve’s face again, but Steve just smiles and catches his hands, thumbs stroking softly along his knuckles.

“Humour me, then.”

Tony whines and shuts his eyes, which isn’t a good idea, because his sight is the only thing keeping him balanced, and he quickly discovers this as he keels forward directly into Steve’s waiting arms.

“’m okay,” Tony mumbles, because it wouldn’t do for Steve to think he’d just blacked out or something.

“No, you’re not. But that’s okay. Neither am I,” Steve answers softly, bending a little and sweeping Tony’s legs out from underneath him, lifting him with an ease only he could pull off.

Tony huffs, because really, he’s a grown man, he shouldn’t find being carried like this so comforting. But Steve’s got a nice chest, and it’s easy to just bury his head into the shirt he’s wearing and soak up the warmth and the beat of his heart.

He didn’t like hearing that Steve wasn’t okay. He could see, and he was aware of it it (very, very aware)- but he still hated him saying it.

“I’ve got a list, too,” he whispers as Steve gently places him on his bed and starts tucking him in, his fingers so graceful and light as he works.

Tony thinks that’s what he loves most about Steve. Those hands can tear through walls and punch men dead- but Tony only ever feels them as a gentle caress. Steve is even softer and careful than most normal humans, and it must be so much harder to do for him. And yet he always manages.

“huh?” Steve asks, a hand cupping the back of Tony’s neck as he tilts his head up and slides a pillow underneath.

“A list. For everyone. In case… just in case. I… didn’ think anyone would think along the same lines as me, though.”

“You didn’t think anyone would care about looking after you, you mean,” Steve adds, stopping his fussing for a moment to stroke a hand through Tony’s hair and get it out from his face. “Tony- I know about your list. I’ve known for months- you left the hard copies out on your desk one night when I came in to put you to bed. It… God, Tony, you care so much about everyone else, but you don’t expect them to care for you back, do you? You didn’t add your own triggers or fears or history in there. You didn’t… you didn’t think they were relevant. So I made my own file for you- granted, mine wasn’t quite so fancy as yours- but I’m so very glad that I did. You need people to show that they care about you just as much as you care about them.”

Tony opens his mouth to argue; what against, he isn’t sure, but Steve leans down and kisses him at that point, which is enough to shut him up.

It wasn’t even on the mouth. It was on the fucking forehead- so Tony has no idea why it’s having such an extreme effect on his stomach.

“Go to sleep, Tony. We’ll talk about everything in the morning,” Steve tells him, before getting up to leave.

Tony doesn’t let go of his hand, though, and Steve has to stop unless he wants to drag Tony along with him.

“Stay,” Tony asks him softly, because he’s covered in blankets but he still feels cold and he’s too drunk and aching and sad to sleep alone tonight.

Steve doesn’t even hesitate before he’s crawling into his bed with Tony, arms pulling Tony in closer until his face is buried in Steve’s shoulder and his arms are tucked up against his chest.

It’s safe and warm and feels like home.

“I’ll tell you one day. I will. I swear,” Tony promises, shutting his eyes and feeling Steve’s arms wrap around his waist a little tighter.

“Whether you do or don’t, I’ll still love you all the same.”

Tony huffs. “Sap.”

Steve just laughs, and kisses the top of Tony’s head. “love you too.”

Hours later, and Steve is fast asleep.

Tony stares up at him, looking at the scruffy blond hair and slightly parted lips as he breathes softly and evenly, still curled around Tony protectively, even in his sleep.

He still can’t say it. Romantic words are where he falls down- that’s what hurt Pepper before, and it will probably hurt Steve too, at some point.

He can’t talk romance. But he can do science.

“You’re made of stardust, y’know. Before you became you, and before the world even existed- you were pure stardust. Everything we touch and breathe and exist from is just the remnant of stars, and the gases and elements they created,” Tony whispers into the silent room, watching Steve’s chest rise, in and out and in and out. “The chances of that stardust managing to create you- Steven Grant Rogers- are so astronomically low, it would be like… i don’t know, rolling a dice a trillion times, and having it land on the number two for each and every one of them. That’s how unlikely you are just to begin with.”

Steve is asleep, and Tony is still drunk, and there is really no point in him continuing.

“And then there are the added impossibilities of you; a broke skinny kid from the 40′s, undergoing experiments which make you into a superhero, before crashing into the ice and being trapped in stasis for 70-odd years. Coincidentally, just in time for our paths to cross.”

Tony stops, and the silence lasts for a while after that. He’s happy that way; just listening to Steve’s heartbeat against his ear or the slow sounds of his breathing.
“You are impossible, Steve. An impossible person. And the fact that I managed to meet you is even more impossible. Literally. We are talking probabilities so Stupidly, ridiculously, infinitely low here. This sort of thing doesn’t happen- and yet somehow, the universe made it so. Because the universe is kind of a wild card and doesn’t like to follow our stupid rules.”

He takes a breath, and wills himself to say the words. Steve wouldn’t even be conscious to hear them, it would be fine, he could do it.

Tony spends another five minutes trying. But he can’t. He can’t, and he hates himself for it.

“i think the stars would be very proud to know that their atoms created something as impossible as you,” he says quietly, instead.

It’s weak. It’s not what he wants. But it’s all he can do.

(In his sleep, Steve sighs and rolls on to his back, pulling Tony along with him so his head is resting against Steve’s chest like it’s a pillow.)

And maybe Steve would be okay with that. Maybe steve would be happy with whatever Tony could give him.

Maybe it would work.

He lets himself drift off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Tony wasn’t too sure how they managed to get on to the topic. 

Actually- scratch that- yes he was. It was Clint. All bad things in the world happened because of Clint. 

Probably.

Anyway- Clint had been talking about his years in the circus, and how they’d taught him all sorts of weird ways to contort your body for the extra showmanship. “Made for some pretty awesome games of hide and seek, though,” he’d said, nodding serenely to himself as he’d sipped from his coffee.

“I bet I’d still find you in under an hour,” Natasha had challenged, raising a daring eyebrow up at him before turning back to the morning paper.

Clint scoffed, turning to Steve, who was stood cooking eggs on the stove. “Cap, you can vouch for me here, right? I am the master at hide and seek. No one beats me at hide and seek.”

And Steve had laughed- a lovely throaty thing that made Tony smile just from hearing it. “Uhhh, I don’t know? It depends on a lot of variables. If it were in a park, maybe- but here? Tony would beat you hands-down. He knows every nook and cranny of this tower, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

And then- here had come Tony’s fatal mistake of the day. Later, he’d pin it on lack of caffeine in his system and the early hour at which he was conscious- but really, he was just an idiot who’d forgotten how offended his teammates could (and did) get on his behalf.

“Actually, I’ve never played. Although I could still probably beat Barton.”

The room had gone silent. Even Bruce, who was napping on the tabletop, had lifted his head a little in surprise.

“You what?” Clint had asked incredulously.

Tony shrugged. “Too busy being a prodigy, remember? No time for that sort of shit.”

Steve was staring at him, the stupid concerned look on his face that he seemed to wear a lot when Tony said something to do with his childhood. It didn’t seem as if anyone knew what to say. Tony hadn’t even realised it was such a big deal.

Sensing a tactical retreat may be best for this situation, he opened his mouth and began walking backward, ready to roll an excuse off his tongue and hurry back to his workshop. 

Except a hand suddenly swung up and rested on his chest gently, blocking his path. Tony followed it with his eyes until he rested on Steve’s face, shooting a questioning eyebrow raise his way.

“Okay guys- looks like we’re having a surprise team training session today,” Steve finally said, in response to Tony’s look. “Hide and seek, in the tower. If you get caught, you gotta help the seeker to find the ones who are still in the game. Thor, buddy, do you know how to play, or do you want us to go through it with you too-”

“No,” Tony cut in, slicing a hand through the air, “I am an adult. I do not need to be shown how to play some dumb kids game. I’ve gone this long without it, I don’t-”

“This isn’t for you, Stark, didn’t you hear? Team training session, remember? Now get over yourself and listen to Cap,” Clint had called out, grinning over the lip of his mug.

Tony flipped him off on autopilot, but Steve was just nodding his head in agreement, and Tony knew it was already a lost cause. “Tony, you can stay with me for the first few games. The rules really are simple, I’ll teach you them on the way. For now- I declare Bruce as the first seeker. You’re not allowed to leave the top five floors of the tower, but every place above that is fair game. Everyone has two minutes to hide.”

And suddenly, Steve had started pulling on Tony’s wrist and dragging him forward, a big grin on his face as he whispered “take me to the most hidden spot in this damn penthouse Tony.”

Tony shot him a look. It was a very judgemental thing. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

“You don’t fuck around when you’re playing hide and seek,” Steve answered solemnly. “It’s every man for himself. You could hide with someone for a whole game and have their back, but once they get caught? You ain’t on the same side no more,” 

“Explain to me how this a team game, again,” Tony said dryly.

Steve just grinned. “It is for us. I have made the tactical decision to make a one-off exception in order to teach you the rules.”

“You just want a good hiding spot in my damn tower, don’t you?”

Steve had paused, trying to look suitably offended, before he apparently gave up and shrugged. “Like I said- you don’t fuck around when you play hide and seek.”

*****

And that’s how Tony ended up sat in a vent above Clint’s room.

*****

“It’s been like, five whole minutes. My back hurts,” Tony whined.

Steve chuckled beside him. What with him being a literal giant, his position was even more uncomfortable than Tony’s- not that he seemed to care. “It depends what we’re going for. You can play the long game, try and win but risk facing boredom. Or you can live fast and lose quick by constantly moving hiding spots. More thrilling, but riskier.”

“Steve, we are fucking Avengers, not kids. I’m sure-”

“The people after you are Avengers too, remember,” Steve whispered, “plus- who knows who he’s found yet. Maybe Nat. You really wanna risk running around the tower when you have the Black Widow gunning for you?”

No. Tony did not.

“Fine,” he said grouchily, wishing he’d brought his tablet so that he could fiddle (and maybe track the activity in the top five floors- just to keep ahead of the game, you know.)

Steve opened his mouth, but then they both heard the door open quickly and the footsteps of someone running into the room, and both of them froze in their vent. 

Tony shot Steve a look, and Steve pressed a finger to his lips. The person below them was breathing a little heavily, like he’d been running, and then they both heard the scrambling of feet as they stepped on top of some sort of furniture.

Tony knew that walk. It wasn’t Bruce’s.

Before Steve could even stop him. he’d lifted the hatch and stuck his head out into the room, spotting Clint as he tried to squeeze himself into a suitcase under his bed.

They stared at eachother for a few seconds, before Clint gave a little salute and Tony breathed out in relief.

“It’s okay, it’s just Clint,” Tony called out to Steve, who just groaned. “What? What did I do, I was only checking-”

“What did I tell you about every man for himself, Tony? He knows our position now, we’re gonna have to move-”

“Cap,” Clint said, betrayed. “You think I’d ever rat you out?”

“Yes.”

“That hurts,” Clint said, and Tony opened his mouth to add in when suddenly another muffled set of footsteps sounded down the hall, and Clint’s eyes widened. “Fuck, fuck, you guys distracted me, I knew he was coming, holy shit, get down here and help me hide!” Clint hissed, looking around wildly at the half-opened suitcase and then kicking it back under the bed.

Tony was halfway to making his way back down quickly, when a hand wrapped around his waist and pulled him back.

Clint whisper-yelled underneath them, but Tony could no longer see him, because Steve was sealing the hatch back again and looking at Tony. “He’s gone. We can’t help him. Now get shuffling, we have to make it to the next hatch before they do.”

“He’s not even been caught yet- what the hell is this game? Does everyone turn into a heartless bitch when they play? No wonder kids are so cruel,” Tony said wildly, as Steve pushed his shoulders again. 

The door slammed open beneath them and they heard Clint scream “NOT ME, PLEASE, STEVE AND TONY ARE IN THE VENTS, GET THEM INSTEAD!”

Tony gasped. “He snitched!” 

“I told you!” Steve said, looking smug.

“Okay okay, you win. Just keep moving, soldier.”

There was another scream and a laugh as Bruce undoubtedly tug him, and then an eerie silence. Tony paused, trying to listen in.

He couldn’t hear a thing, but there was a tiny sound of-

A few meters back, the hatch opened, and Clint’s face looked back at them.

“I’m a seeker now,” Clint shrugged, before his hands began finding purchase on the vent.

Steve, who was behind Tony, quickly shoved his ass and sent him stumbling forward. “MOVE!”

Tony did. He crawled like his life depended on it, unable to stop the excited giggles from his own mouth as Clint followed, hot on their tail. Steve was yelling at him to move, and Tony had never thought there would be a point in his life when he’d be annoyed by Steve’s hands on his ass, but here they were.

Eventually, Tony saw another hatch a few meters ahead, and now it was just a desperate race as to who would get there first- Clint to them, or them to the vent.

In the end, they just managed to make it. Tony threw himself on to the bed underneath him (Natasha’s- let’s hope she hadn’t been caught yet too) and Steve followed, shutting and locking the vent just as Clint’s hands reached out to where he had been seconds before.

There were muffled curses and threats above them, but Steve and Tony were already moving, Steve pulling at Tony’s hand again and dragging them out of the room, running out into the corridor just as Bruce rounded the corner and spotted them.

“Time to haul ass again, then,” Tony sighed wearily, as Steve whooped and pulled them in the other direction.

*****

“What about tag?”

“Nope.”

“Blind man’s bluff?”

“Never even heard of it.”

“Oh come on-  capture the flag?”

Tony shook his head in amusement as he stared out across the New York skyline and watched the sun set slowly across it. They were both relaxing, feet dangling over the edge of the horizontal line that made the ‘A’ of their Avengers Tower. This spot was almost impossible to get to without prior knowledge of its existence- Tony was confident that they weren’t about to be caught any time soon.

Steve huffed, leaning back against the wall of tower and looking down at the buildings. Tony spared him a glance; the orange light bouncing off his face, the breeze whipping up the hairs that strayed across his forehead and the smile on his lips that had been there pretty much permanently since the day had begun.

Tony thought about it a lot, sure- but he’d never be able to get over how beautiful Steve always managed to look. Effortless, yet constant. 

“So tell me the real reason why you missed out on all this,” Steve said, after a few seconds of silence.

The grin slid off Tony’s face, and was replaced with an involuntary scowl. “I told you, Steve- kid prodigy, I never liked any of that stuff-”

“You’ve absolutely loved playing this game today, Tony, I’ve seen you. You haven’t stopped grinning for pretty much 7 hours.”

Oh. He… he hadn’t been aware he was doing that.

Tony pursed his lips, leaning back against the wall and trying not to feel Steve’s gaze burning into the side of his face.

“You know why, Steve,” he said quietly.

“No, I don-”

“Because i was lonely!” Tony snapped, turning to face Steve angrily. “You want me to say it? Fine. I was lonely and all the neighbourhood kids would rather spit at me and call me a freak than play goddamn tag with me. I was lonely and my own parents chose to ignore me, or- y’know- just hit me if I was being annoying enough, so they weren’t exactly up for it either.”

Tony looked down at his hands; tapping incessantly against his knees, and pointedly did not look at Steve. He wished he had just lied- said it was because he thought it was lame, or never enjoyed running around as a little kid, or just anything that hadn’t been what he’d actually gone and-

His hands paused their tapping when another was placed over them, holding them gently and quietly calming the erratic movements.

Tony looked up at Steve, who was staring softly at him, brows drawn a little closer together than they had been before. “You’re never gonna have to be alone again, Tony. Not any more.”

When Tony didn’t say anything, Steve barrelled on. “And I’ll teach you. We all will. Every game we can think of, we’ll do it during team-building-”

“Steve,” Tony said, exasperated, “I already told you. I am a grown-ass man, I do not need-”

“A grown-ass man who never got to actually be a kid,” Steve raised an eyebrow, and looked back out on to the horizon. 

His hand was still holding Tony’s.

“I…” he didn’t know what he was going to say. Argue, maybe. He always argued. He could do arguing.

Except when he looked up, Steve had moved an awful lot closer, and before he could even begin to yell, his mouth became occupied.

With Steve.

Kissing him.

Squeaking a little in surprise, he instinctively let his hand rise, cupping around Steve’s neck and drawing him in, moving them closer, because Tony didn’t know why, he didn’t know how, but he knew that he wanted. 

Good God, did he want.

Steve breathed out softly, crowding over Tony as he rose to his knees, taking Tony’s face in his hands and kissing him gently, so very gently.

 It was like the sunset- quiet and delicate and fucking mesmerising.

“Oh, come on man! Have you been making out all this time?”

Tony broke away, turning his head to find the source of the noise, but Steve seemed entirely unfazed- simply using Tony’s turned head as an excuse to press soft kisses along his exposed neck instead.

His eyesight went a tad blurry at that, but he still managed to spot Clint, half-way to clambering up the left side of the ‘A’ and looking thoroughly pissed. “We had to bribe JARVIS to find you! We thought real baddies had taken you! And here you are, just fucking kissing eachother like gross idiots on the side of the tower! Fuck you, honestly, I’m never playing with you guys again, you’re no fun-”

Finally, Steve looked up, much to Tony’s disappointment. “Next week it’s capture the flag. You in?”

Clint paused, and he shot them both an utterly unamused look before muttering “fine. God. But only because I really like capture the flag. We’re all still mad at you.”

“Okay,” and back Steve went to the kissing thing again, a finger gently tilting Tony’s head back toward him before bringing their mouths together again.

Tony could feel him smiling. 

Behind them, Clint was huffing and complaining as he made his way back down, but he was completely ignored. 

Tony and Steve had far better things to concentrate on, to be honest.

Chapter Text

“Um, guys? What’s going on?” 

Clint looked solemnly toward Tony, shaking his head sadly as he watched the man stumble forward, brow set in confusion as he took in the setting around him.

The communal living room was filled with all the friends that the team had been able to find, and together, they had procured a large banner and written the word INTERVENTION in big black lettering, hanging it from the ceiling as they all stood solemnly underneath it.

It was time they sorted this. It had reached the limit, and none of the team could handle it any more.

“Tony, you know that we love you, very much. Before this begins, we want you to know that,” Bruce said softly.

“...Ohhkaaayy,” Tony said slowly, beginning to undo his tie a little as he scanned the room. “Hey, where’s my h-”

“DON’T!” Everyone else in the room suddenly screamed, and Tony jolted in surprise, stumbling back a few steps as he lost his balance. 

“What the fuck is the problem, guys?” Tony asked incredulously, and god, wasn’t that just a punch in the gut to everyone in the room; he didn’t even realise how bad it had become.

The Avengers, who were all stood at the front of the crowd, slowly pulled out sheets of paper from their pockets, looking seriously at Tony as he flailed his hands in confusion, completely unaware of what they were going to have to discuss.

Taking a deep breath, Clint was the first to step forward, glancing down at the paper in his hands and looking to Nat, who nodded solemnly.

They had to do this. For Tony.

“This is an intervention,” he began, before tony cut him off.

“Yeah, I know it’s an intervention, what I’m wondering was what the fuck it concerned-”

“Don’t you see it? Tony, this is pretty hard to miss-”

“There is nothing to miss! I’m fine!” Tony yelled, throwing his hands into the air.

There was silence and the room, and then a collective sigh seemed to ripple across the crowd. “Tony-” Clint began, pausing for a moment, and biting his lip.

“You have got to stop referring to Steve as your husband at every possible opportunity.” 

Tony froze, hands mid-wave, the gold band around his finger glinting in the afternoon light.
“What.”

“We can’t deal with it any more!" Bruce admitted, running a hand through his hair, and then looking down to his sheet. “It was okay at first. When you first got hitched, we were willing to let it slide. it would only be when you two were caught up in each other, and that was okay.That was manageable”

Nat stepped forward at this point, looking at Tony seriously as she read off her page. “Then it started happening more regularly. You’d refer to him as ‘my husband’ when you were looking for him, or when you wanted his attention. A lot of the time, you would do it when he wasn’t even in the room.”

Thor piped up this time, “Tony- we have found ourselves accidentally referring to Steve as our husband just by exposure to your comments. This makes us feel rather odd and embarrassed. It must stop.”

Tony stared at them all, before scoffing. “It is not that bad-”

“You now regularly call him ‘My Star-Spangled Husband’ in your mission reports. Fury had to burn at least five different copies last week alone. Which mean this is now affecting the environment, not to mention the sensitivities of all SHIELD agents that have to go through them,” Coulson stepped forward gravely.

“Oh, come on-”

“There have barely been more than five consecutive minutes of you talking to me where you haven’t dropped in a ‘husband’ somewhere, Tony. I can’t imagine how it must be for the team to go through this, every day,” Pepper told him, placing a hand on Thor’s shoulder supportively as he looked on sadly, shaking his head a little.

When the fucking pizza-delivery guy stepped forward to put his word in, Tony finally put his foot down, yelling loudly and slicing his hand through the air to silence them all.

“ENOUGH! Fine! I may excessively call my h- Steve- that. But you know what? I DON’T GIVE A FUCK! He’s my fucking husband, so I’m going to call him whatever I please for as long as it pleases me-”

“Tony, you’ve got to understand how it affects us-” Clint begged.

“What would you rather I called him? Because I can think of a hell of a lot more sickly sweet names than that; what about ‘my love’? Or ‘Cute-Ass’? What about shawty, you think Steve will like that-”

“NO!” Everyone yelled again, and Tony laughed, fingers dancing over the smooth gold band that circled his finger.

He couldn’t even feel annoyed at his friends. He was still riding the post-marrige high, as he had been for the past month.

So instead of yelling at them, he simply skipped over to them and threw himself into the crowd, knowing that they’d keep him from plummeting on to the floor.

“Don’t worry you guys, you’ll all soon have husbands and wives of your own. No need to feel jealous, your time will come,” he promised them, cackling as the whole group groaned in frustration.

“Please, please stop. I’ll pay you so much money,” Clint begged.

Tony looked him dead in the eye, before saying “I’m not sure my husband would approve of that.”

Clint looked like he was going to start crying. Tony cackled again.

“What the hell is going on?” Came a voice from behind them all, and Tony felt an involuntary smile creep up his face as he registered the voice.

“Oh, it’s my husband! Steve, baby, sweetheart, darling, honey-pie, could-bounce-a-quarter-off-that-ass-Rogers! Listen, my love; our friends are staging an intervention!” He called out delightedly, ignoring the shove he received from Clint in order to turn and run toward Steve, jumping theatrically into his husband’s arms.

“What?” Steve asked confusedly, whilst kissing Tony’s forehead in greeting.

“They’re all grumpy because we’re too affectionate and it makes their emotionally constipated asses uncomfortable,” Tony whispered quietly into his ear.

Of course, at those words, a cheeky little grin spread across Steve’s face, and he looked down at Tony, who was nestled safely in his arms, and cocked his eyebrow. “Oh really?”

“Really.”

Steve looked up, right into the middle of his group of friends, for a good five seconds. It seemed Natasha had some sort of premonition concerning what was about to happen, because she suddenly turned on her heel and left the room very swiftly.

Unluckily, the others were not quite as perceptive. 

“Well, we can’t have them feeling uncomfortable, can we?” He asked, his face straight and deadpan as anything.

“That would just be rude,” Tony agreed.

There was a brief pause, before Steve suddenly lifted Tony out of the bridal-carry and turned him, until his hands were holding Tony up by the ass, lips crashing into Tony’s messily as he moaned. Loudly.

“Mmm, oh, darlin’,” Steve groaned, walking easily with Tony toward the group of people, who quickly started scattering, yelling and moaning in despair as they watched Steve squeeze his hands against Tony’s ass.

They briefly stopped, and Tony took the opportunity to briefly remove his mouth from Steve’s and grab at Clint, in order to pull him in and smack a wet kiss to his lips.

Clint screamed. 

Tony didn’t even get a chance to laugh, before Steve had pulled him back in, continuing to move until his knees hit the side of the couch and they both fell backwards, landing on the pillows with a dull thud. Tony ended up straddling Steve’s hips while they made out obnoxiously loudly on the couch.

The room cleared pretty quickly after that.

For the next month, both Steve and Tony made as much effort as they could to only use pet-names for one another. A ‘sweetheart’ here, a ‘my love’ there. There was even a memorable month or so where Steve called Tony ‘doll’, and Tony answered with a ridiculously accentuated ‘sugar’.  The team groaned each and every time, but it did nothing to deter them.

Eventually, it stopped being a joke. 

Neither of them had called the other by their actual name in years.

Chapter Text

Tony really should have noticed sooner.

On the surface, nothing seemed wrong. Steve was fine. A little ragged, maybe, but fine. He acted in the same way, smiled at Tony no differently, scolded Clint no less.

Fine.

**

“Cap, I need you to take nightshift- everyone else is absolutely exhausted. You okay with waking me up in a few hours?” Natasha asked, as they sat in their stakeout and breathed heavily- still burnt out from the fight they’d just been caught up in half an hour ago.

Steve nodded, stifling a yawn and looking down at Clint worriedly, as he lay passed out across the floor. He’d lost quite a bit of blood that night. “Sure. Get some rest, Tash.”

She smiled, and then got comfortable on her thin mattress. She was out in less than five minutes.

Steve didn’t wake her, in the end. He could manage the night shift on his own.

**

There was a cup of coffee in Steve’s hand, and Tony looked at it in surprise. “Didn’t know you liked it black. Or caffeinated. What happened to the ‘coffee is the devil’ shtick?”

Steve looked up and smiled at his entrance, rolling his eyes softly and then turning back to the morning newspaper. “Trying to see what all the hype is about. So far, not so good. You have shit taste.”

Tony didn’t bother with a speech; he chose instead to just slap Steve lightly around the back of the head and then snatch the cup from his hand, taking a sip before Steve could stop him.

There was the roll of the eyes again, and Tony had to admit he got a kick out of making Steve do that- it had been what inspired 60% of their arguments way back when they could barely look at one another without fighting, after all. “You know, you’re lucky I’ve got a moral standard to live up to, or I would’ve killed you by now.”

Tony grinned, and made a kissy face up at Steve. “Not if I got you first, asshole.”

“Like to see you try,” and it wasn’t flirting, not really- but Tony liked to imagine. It was early, he was allowed the wishful thoughts, okay?

Tony smiled, letting a hand rest on Steve’s shoulder, massaging the surprisingly knotted muscles there. “Want me to make you another one, get you really hooked on the stuff?”

Steve paused, and he looked almost wistful as he glanced over to the mug in between Tony’s fingers and shook his head. “Doesn’t affect me anyway. Keep your bitter mud, Shellhead, I’ll stick to orange juice.”

Tony just shrugged, making a mental note to give Steve a proper backrub later. The man was more wound up than a Jack in the box.

“Suit yourself,” he said, turning away toward the coffee machine.

**

“Guys, guys- you’re not gonna believe what I managed to get hold of!” Clint burst into the quiet living room, where Steve had only just drifted off on Tony’s shoulder.

Immediately, Tony watched his head jerk up at the noise, and he felt a brief wave of annoyance toward Clint. It was 12 at night, after all, and Steve had been happily nuzzling right up to Tony, until the damn birdbrain had blundered in-

“Go on,” Bruce said wearily, bringing Tony back to the living room.,

Clint pulled out 6 slips of paper, waving them around in the air. “Six motherfucking Hamilton tickets, that’s what! Funny story about how I got them, actually- I was just minding my own business, making my way back from SHIELD, when I saw this family getting held up by a group of assholes. Of course, ‘cause I’m a brilliant and generally well-rounded individual-”

Tony stifled a laugh behind his hand at that. Clint threw a pen at him. Steve caught it immediately, before it could land anywhere about Tony’s person, just as everyone had known he would.

“-I went and sorted them out. It was pretty cool-  even got to try out some of the moves we were practicing at the gym, Nat.”

“Is there a point to this story?” Thor asked, genuinely confused.

Clint nodded his head, waving the tickets again. “Okay, okay- to cut to the point; I saved their asses, they were very grateful but rather shaken up, so they decided to go home instead of watching their theater production, and BAM! Suddenly I’ve got six Hamilton Tickets, for free!”

That certainly caught everyone’s attention. Even Tony sat up a little straighter. Hamillton tickets were like gold dust.

“Are you serious?” Natasha asked, jumping to her feet and checking out the contents of the tickets, eyes widening a little as she read through. “Oh my God, you guys, we better haul ass- the show starts in 30 minutes.”

Immediately, the living room burst into action, everyone jumping to their feet and brimming with excitement at the prospect of a night spent watching the play be performed on stage.

Well. Everyone but Steve.

“I… I’m not really in the mood tonight, you guys,” he said weakly, looking away from the five incredulous stares above him as he curled up deeper into the sofa.

“Come on, Steve, this is Hamilton we’re talking about. HAMILTON. You don’t just pass up on an opportunity to see Hamilton,” Bruce said, horrified.

“Yeah, Steve, I second Brucie, let’s go, let’s go- I’m sure your super stamina can let you hold out for a night. I promise you’ll enjoy yourself,” Tony assured him, grabbing his arm and pulling him up.

Steve went with a fond sigh, mumbling under his breath until Clint thwacked him over the head and told him to savor the night, rather than grumble.

No one noticed the way Steve’s eyes were a little unfocused for the rest of the trip.

**

“Captain, I want that mission report by tomorrow morning, do you understand?”

Tony watched Steve’s jaw tense; saw the way he rubbed a hand across his forehead and sighed through the phone, but then gave a muted “yes” in reply.

The line cut out pretty quickly after that, and Steve remained seated at the table, staring into space ahead of him for a good minute before slowly standing up and making his way toward his bedroom, undoubtedly to fetch his computer.

“You know he won’t do shit if you just don’t finish it, right?” Tony asked him from across the room, nursing a coffee filled with a little more alcohol than he cared to admit. There was a reason for both their presences at the dinner table at 3am in the morning, after all- and it wasn’t because their dreams had been filled with too much fun.

Steve paused, hand tapping absently at the table. That was a new development, incidentally; Tony had never seen Steve tap before.- far too controlled for that.

“I know. But someone’s gotta set an good impression on this team,” Steve grinned tiredly back at him, before turning out of the door and moving to his room to start on the report.

**

Steve was in a shitty mood.

Tony knew it the moment he stepped in the room- Steve always had a vibe he gave off when he got like that, and Tony could positively smell it on the man that morning.

Unfortunately, Steve wasn’t the only one.

“Looking particularly crappy today, Rogers,” Clint breezed, looking up from his cereal to shoot Steve a sharp smile. His eyes were lined with bags, and his hand was shaking; barely visible, but still there.

They were coming up to the anniversary of Phil’s death, after all.

Tony sighed into his mug, and Thor mirrored him. They were the only other two in the room, and yeah, maybe Tony had a little hold over Steve, but Natasha wasn’t here to see to Clint, and he was by far the more cutting of the two-

“Guess what, Barton, no one asked you. Keep your damn mouth shut,” Steve snapped, and whoah, okay, that had got straight to the point pretty damn fast, Tony had never been able to elicit such a direct reaction out of Steve before, and they’d used to fight on a daily basis.

Clint paused, surprised for a moment. But like a shark sensing blood in the water, he quickly latched on, breaking out in a dangerous smile again as he twirled his spoon around his fingertips. “Wow, okay then Cappo, don’t blow your fucking top, I was only joking. Maybe just shuffle a little bit- the stick up your ass must have been pushed a little further up this morning.”

Tony looked to Thor, and he nodded silently, knowing what Tony meant. Get Natasha. This wasn’t looking good, and Tony had barely ever seen Steve this… skittish, before. It was freaking him out a bit.

Okay, a lot.

Steve was stood at the counter, stubbornly refusing to turn and look at any of them. Tony could hear his breathing. “Uh, Steve, hey- just take a breather, okay Cl-”

“Shut the fuck up, Tony,I’m not in the mood, just… shut up,” Steve hissed,fingers tapping constantly against the counter, fast and erratic and completely unlike him.

Tony was too worried to be annoyed, at that point- but Clint was going for it. It was really not a good morning for either of them to be speaking to one another, it seemed. “Ohh, shit, you must be real annoyed today- snapping at loverboy for trying to help? That’s a first. Usually all you do is laugh at all the shit he says and pine after him like a sick fucking puppy- old Pegs would be ashamed at your flirting, honestly-”

Tony barely managed to stand up and put himself in the path of Steve in time.

He stumbled back a little, bouncing off Steve’s chest as he took two impossibly large strides forward, but ultimately stopped when Tony got in the way.

“Steve, just let it go. Walk away. He wants to be an asshole, fine, but you’re better than that, come on,” Tony said quietly, a hand pressing Steve back a little, knowing it would do jack-all unless Steve relented.

Which he did. Thank god.

He snarled, actually fucking snarled, and then turned away again, beginning to make his way to the elevator, undoubtedly heading for the gym.

Tony followed behind him, trying to figure out what the hell was going on- Steve was never like this. Not ever. It was… scary.

Behind them, Clint clapped, long and slow. “Yeah, okay then Steve, get Stark to deal with your shit. You know he’d do anything for you- look after your sorry ass just because you say please, let you use him as your fucking punching bag, if that’s what you felt like. Hell, you know his rep- probably spread his legs if you batted your eyelashes right-”

And Steve was gone.

Tony barely managed to grab hold of the fabric of Steve’s shirt before he was sprinting back across the room, heading right for Clint, face absolutely carved with fury as he hurdled the couch like it wasn’t even there. Tony yelled and took off after him, but he knew it would be no use- Steve was faster and stronger than him anyway.

He just had to hope that all Steve was about to give Clint was a shove.

Luckily, at that moment Natasha and Thor rushed back in from the other direction; Thor meeting Steve in the middle and grabbing him in a bear-hug whilst simultaneously spinning him around so he wasn’t facing Clint. Everyone was yelling now, and Natasha had already started shoving Clint away in the direction of her room, but Tony could hear his bitter mumbling from the other side of the kitchen. “Fucking asshole- wonder who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, huh-”

“Maybe I fucking would’ve done if I’d have even gone to bed at all- but no, instead I was too busy worrying over the fact that you nearly fucking died yesterday, because you’re a reckless piece of shit!” Steve yelled, struggling against Thor’s hold a little as he tried to turn and face Clint once more.

But Thor, because he was Thor, didn’t let go. And after a few seconds, Steve just went completely limp in his arms- to the point where he wasn’t even using his own two legs to stand on, and he fell to his knees, head held in his hands.

Tony vaulted the countertop and jogged toward him, heart racing. He didn’t know what had happened to Steve, but it was definitely not normal, and it was quite frankly scaring the shit out of Tony.

Thor put out a hand as Tony got within reaching distance. “I would be careful,” he said gravely, “Steven may not be of sound mind right now.”

Tony clenched his jaw. “He won’t hurt me. Only reason he went for Clint in the first place was because he was trying to defend my fucking virtue, or something. I’ll be fine.”

He slowly lowered himself to the floor, until his knees were touching Steve’s. “Hey, is it okay if I touch you?”

“I’m not having a fucking episode, Tony, Jesus, yes, you can touch me.”

“Really? ‘Cause that sure looked like an episode of some sort back there,” Tony said sharply, the worry and panic seeping into his voice a little as he stared at Steve. The man looked gaunt; his hands covered his eyes, but it just accentuated how sharp his cheekbones were.

Tony bit his lip, hands rising until they were against Steve’s face. Gently, he pulled the hands that covered his eyes away, revealing Steve’s guilt-stricken expression underneath it.

“I’m… fuck, I need to go apologize- what the hell’s wrong with me, Jesus-”

“To be fair, Clint kind of deserved it. He was trying to get a rise out of you, you know that,” Tony rolled his eyes, gently running his fingers across Steve’s knuckles.

The other man didn’t say anything; just sighed and let his eyes flutter shut.

“Steve, tell me what’s wrong,” Tony asked softly, putting a hand up and pressing it against Steve’s jaw. He was worried- really fucking worried- and was briefly debating whether to get Thor to take Steve down to medical when the blond just shook his head, smiling stiffly.

“Just… shitty night. I’m tired. Had a few nightmares. It’s nothing.”

“Steve, that wasn’t nothing, you’re-”

“-Fine. I’m fine, Tony- now I need to go and find Clint and apologize, so if you wouldn’t mind-” Steve pulled Tony’s hands away, jumping to his feet briskly and refusing to look either Thor or Tony in the eye as he strode out of the room.

He stumbled a little when he got to the staircase, but neither of them saw it.

**

Clint was the one who apologized, in the end. He wouldn’t hear Steve try and get in first- which was both satisfying and frustrating.

Steve wanted to apologize. He was… he was so strong, and he’d just- when he’d run at Clint like that, it must have been scary as hell.
But when he remembered what the man had said about Tony…

He knew it would be another night of sleeplessness, thinking about what had happened that morning.

He never slept any more, anyway.

**

Steve was sat watching the TV, and he hadn’t moved a muscle since Tony had wandered in.

“Nightmares, I assume,” Tony broke the silence, and Steve… didn’t acknowledge the sound had been made at all.

Tony frowned. “Steve?”

It took a few seconds, but suddenly Steve shook his head and looked to Tony, eyes widening a little in surprise. “Sorry- what did you say?”

“I was asking why you were up,” Tony said again, coming to sit next to Steve on the couch as the 5am news bulletin played in front of them.

Steve shrugged. His fingers were tapping against his leg again- a habit he’d only picked up a few weeks ago, and now seemed to do constantly. “Wanted to be ready if we got another call. SHIELD said there was a chance they’d come back again.”

“Right. But you look tired, Steve, are you sure that’s a good idea? You should be well rested if we’re going out to fight again.”

Steve chuckled. “You’re one to talk.”

“What can I say, I’m a complete hypocrite,” Tony admitted, smiling softly at Steve, before nudging him with his thigh. “I’m serious, though, you need-”

“Can’t,” Steve interrupted. “Too many dreams. It’s fine. I’d rather be… not.”

Tony didn’t say anything- he knew that feeling all too well.

Instead of carrying on, he just grabbed the blanket on the side of the couch and placed it around the both of them, tucking his knees into his chest and leaning a little further on Steve. He was tired too- the whole day had been spent fighting, and more than anything, Tony just wanted to rest.

And Steve did make an excellent pillow.

In fact, he was only even aware he’d fallen asleep when he had to open his eyes again a few hours later, thanks to Steve shuffling around on his shoulder. The man was fast asleep, one hand thrown over Tony’s middle, legs curled in underneath himself. He looked peaceful, and his face wasn’t tight. It made a nice change.

He smiled down at Steve, letting his fingers run through the strands of blond hair. It was a little long, but Tony liked it like that. It was cute.

He knew the scene probably looked far too domestic to be platonic, and if anyone walked in on them right now, Tony would be dead. Not that anyone didn’t see his obvious crush at this point- he was pretty sure the hermits that lived in caves on the other side of the world were aware of it.

Steve too, probably. He was just good enough not to say anything. Yeah, maybe they flirted. A lot. Maybe even enough to make Tony hope, to push a little- even when he knew that ultimately, Steve wouldn’t want anything to do with him.

And it was only in rare times like these when Tony got to indulge himself in the little touches like this- when he got to just run a hand through Steve’s hair and not feel afraid that he’d get yelled at. He knew it was selfish, but what could he say?

Steve’s hair was really soft. It would be enough to tempt even the most selfless of men.

Tony smiled as Steve huffed again, turning around and properly squashing his cheek into Tony’s shoulder. “Don’t be pathetic,” he muttered.

Tony froze.

Full on, completely froze. He was pretty sure even his heart stopped.

And then he’d jolted away like Steve was burning, tearing himself away from the couch and then standing, ramrod straight as he stared down at Steve, horrified.

Steve, who had tumbled flat-out on the couch as Tony had yanked himself away, fluttered his eyes open, looking at Tony in confusion. “Tony, what’s wrong, are you ok-”

“Fuck you,” Tony hissed, stumbling away. His eyes were stinging, but he refused to cry, not here, not with Steve watching. “I don’t… it’s not fair, you can’t just fucking- you can’t flirt with me and mess with my head and then call me pathetic, okay, fuck you.”

Steve looked horrified, and he put his hands up, trying to reach out for Tony. “No, wait, Tony, I wasn’t… I was just… please don’ go, let me explain, I’m so tired, please stay with me, I just need to sl-”

Tony slammed the door, leaving Steve’s pleading behind him.

He didn’t watch Steve shut his eyes and choke back on a sob, whispering the same words, over and over again. “I’m so tired, please, Tony, I can sleep when I’m with you, please don’t leave, I’m so tired, please, Tony-”

**

Next time Tony saw him, Steve was making himself breakfast.

Tony froze at the door, wondering what the hell he was supposed to say. He didn’t particularly feel like starting an argument at this time in the morning- they’d already had to deal with the Clint and Steve fiasco earlier that week, and Tony was happy to leave it at that.

Steve hadn’t heard him come in anyway.

Well. He obviously must have done, because it was Steve, which just meant that he was ignoring Tony. Which was fine, if he wanted to be like that, then fine, Tony could give as good as he damn well got.

Chin up, eyes hard, he walked into the kitchen, steadfastly ignoring Steve’s presence as he directed himself to the coffee machine.

Steve looked up as Tony walked past him, eyes widening a little as a soft ‘oh’ escaped his lips.

And then he dropped his bowl.

Tony paused, watching the ceramic shatter across the floor, spilling cereal across the white tiles. Steve was looking at it too, his face blank.

His fingers were still tapping- no, wait, fuck, they were shaking- against his side.

“You just dropped your bowl,” Tony said dumbly.

“Yes,” Steve answered.

“You… you just dropped your bowl.”

It was impossible. Steve’s reflexes were too fast- he never ever dropped anything. He just didn’t. It didn’t happen.

A massive warning sign started flashing behind Tony’s eyes.

And then, in the time it had taken for the bowl to crash and split into shards, it all started coming together.
The tapping. The slowed reflexes. The short temper and the weary look and the seemingly constant presence of Steve down in the living room when everyone else slept soundly in their beds.

There was nothing physical on his face- of course there wouldn’t be, Steve had been engineered to into perfection- so there was no deep purple bruising under his eyelashes or bloodshot redness to his eyes.

But he was tapping, and he was slurring his words a little and god fucking dammit Tony was an idiot-

“When was the last time you got more than three hours of sleep, Steve?” Tony asked slowly.

Steve shrugged, not meeting his eyes. “Last night, with you.”

“Before that.”

“…‘Bout’ta a week and a half ago,”

Tony gasped. That was… dangerously little. “Oh my god, Steve-”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Steve whispered, eyes haunted. “You can’t. They’ll take me off the team if they know how bad it gets, they’ll think I’m crazy. It usually wears off after a few weeks, I just need to wait it out, don’t tell anyone-”

“Steve, how often does this happen?” Tony asked incredulously, all anger forgotten as he stepped forward, sliding over the table in the center of the room and putting his hands on Steve’s shoulders.

Steve shrugged. “Since coming outta the ice? Maybe… 5 or six times. I don’t know what triggers it- some months I just… don’t sleep. And it’s so- so- I’m just…”

Tony felt his heart break into ten separate, jagged pieces as Steve’s face crumbled right after he trailed off, shaking hands coming up to his eyes and hiding them as tears spilled down his cheeks. He groaned, long and slow and painful as he whispered “I’m so tired, I just want to sleep, Tony, I’m so so tired-”

Tony’s choked, horrified. “Steve, baby, don’t cry, please, it’s okay, I… I know. I know you want to sleep, I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner, I was a jerk. But why the hell haven’t you told anyone? Do you black out? Is it making you sick? Are you hallucinating yet?”

Steve nodded, tiny and broken, “Black out in the gym, sometimes, but not for long. Only been sick twice, yet. And hallucinations- Just the one, and it wasn’t for long- only Peggy, when Clint brought her up- but it’s nothing, okay, Tony, please. I’m not crazy, I promise, just really… really tired.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy, Steve,” Tony assured, him, fingers working on the knots in Steve’s shoulders as he spoke. “Why were you able to sleep last night, then? What changed?”

“…Nothing-”

“Steve,” Tony said seriously, “we are going to work this out, okay, and if we are going to do that, you need to tell me what helps. Anything at all, okay?”

Steve looked at him then- shame evident in his eyes as he said “You,”

Tony went blank at that, and Steve hurried to justify himself. “I’m sorry, it’s pathetic, I know it is- that’s what I was saying last night, Tony, I wasn’t talking about you, I swear, I was talking to myself.  And I get if you’re mad at me, but when I’m with you it’s like everything else in my brain shuts off and I don’t have to worry anymore, because you’re warm and you smell nice and- yeah. Sorry, sorr-”

Tony put a hand over Steve’s mouth, cutting off any more garbled apologies. “Steve,” he said quietly, “we have an awful lot to talk about, and I fully intend to get around to that. But you know what we’re gonna do right now?” He leaned forward, pausing to kiss Steve gently on the forehead. “We’re gonna head up to your room, and I’m gonna stay with you until you get some sleep, okay? Sound like a deal?”

“You only just woke up,” Steve argued weakly, but now Tony’s shoulder was a little nearer, he couldn’t stop himself from resting his head against it. “God- I’m sorry, Tony, I’m fucking-”

“-Human,” Tony finished off for him. “And humans have a lot of problems to deal with. It does not make you weak, Steve. I promise.”

Steve sighed, and Tony gently shifted his shoulder, pulling a hand around the back of Steve’s neck and stroking the hairs there. “Let’s go take a nap, huh?”

There was a mute nod, and when Tony stood up, he had to pull with all his weight to get Steve to follow. How Tony hadn’t noticed this sooner, he had no idea, but he wasn’t going to let it happen again. Steve was obviously completely exhausted, to the point where it was becoming dangerous, and damn if Tony was going to let that slide. Once Steve had had a proper sleep, he was getting right on the phone with the best therapists he knew and arranging some appointments. And then have words about the size of Steve’s ever-growing schedule, and how to say no to some things for a change. Or how to tell Fury when to shove his reports up his ass. Although that one might be Tony’s job.

"good morning guys, we are going to bed,” Tony declared, pulling Steve forward and toward the elevator as Natasha, Bruce and Clint all filtered through into the kitchen.

Tony had to hand it to them, they didn’t even blink. Bruce just sighed and Natasha told them to have fun.

Once in Steve’s room, it seemed Steve lost all energy he had been clinging on to, because he pretty much collapsed on to the bed, lying spread-eagle across it, face buried in the pillows.

Tony wondered how many times he must have just blacked out in the middle of the gym or the kitchen or the couch, just like that- boneless, spread-eagle, probably hitting his head on the way down-

Tony shuddered, focusing on pulling off Steve’s running shoes and socks. That was not something he wanted to think abut. At all.

“Thank you,” Steve whispered, curling inward a little again, like a scared kid. “Thank you.”

Tony shuffled on to the bed, throwing all doubts out of the window as he burrowed down into Steve’s arms, forehead pressed up against Steve’s chest.

Steve needed this. And Clint was right- there was pretty much nothing on this earth that Tony wouldn’t do for Steve.

“Rest, Steve,” Tony whispered, pressing a kiss against his collarbone. “Just rest.”

Steve was out before Tony had finished speaking

Chapter Text

Dad and pops were fighting again.

They had been for at least a week now. Peter was used to the occasional blowup for a night, maybe two, before they got all stupidly sappy with one another again. 
This was new. Scary.

They avoided each other in the day and screamed at each other in the night when they thought he was asleep. Pops had been sleeping in the spare room for at least six of the seven nights it had been going on for. Dinner time had become a nightmare; Uncle Clint having to swap seats so he was sat in between them and prevent another fight from springing up while they ate.

He didn’t want them to split up. Divorced parents were a pain in the ass, according to the girl who sat next to him in math class. She was always talking about what a hassle it was, moving all her stuff from one house to another every weekend.

And it meant one of them would have to leave. Move out. Get a new life and a new partner and maybe even a new kid-

But Peter really didn’t want to think about that.

Today was the fifth day of Peter coming home to see only one of his parents in the kitchen, where there should usually be two. They tended to hang around, waiting for him in order to ambush him and ask questions about his day. Their latest fad was ‘so how was Wade today?’ or something along those lines, in that stupid sing-song voice that adults always did when they were being dicks.

It had been irritating- but Peter wouldn’t have minded now. If it meant they’d been doing it together, sending stupid smirky grins toward one another or just holding hands at the table rather than looking cold and tired- he wouldn’t have minded at all.

Today it was dad who greeted him. He was sat with a coffee in hand and tablet in the other, idly tapping at the keys and trying to keep his eyes open. Peter knew he hadn’t been sleeping well- it wasn’t exactly hard to tell. And although they never spoke to him about what they did with the avengers, Peter could guess that that had been the trigger for all the stupidity lately. 

He didn’t have to be the genius he was in order to figure that out. Pops hadn’t come back from the mission two Fridays ago; they’d hurried him off to hospital instead. And then three days later, once he’d been given the all-clear, dad had brought him home, where they’d proceeded to have  a huge argument. Right in front of Peter. 

Honestly, he’d just wanted to be able to sit with pops and make sure he was okay- let him stroke his hair and quiet his worries and say how tough he was, that he wouldn’t go down that easy. But instead he’d had to be hurried away by Uncle bruce, who was rolling his eyes and apologizing on behalf of them, saying that he’d be able to talk to his pops soon, but it wasn’t a good time right now.

Peter had scowled, told Uncle Bruce moodily ‘I’m thirteen, not an idiot- I know that’, and then slammed up to his room to wait it out. And, of course, Pops had hobbled up eventually; sitting on the bed with him and assuring him he was okay, he was tough as nails, and he would always, always come home to Peter.

Except he’d been alone. and usually, no matter how mad they were at each other, Pops and Dad had always talked to Peter about this together.

That had been the first warning. From then on, it had seemed things just got progressively worse.

“Hey squirt- how was school?” Dad asked, when Peter dropped his bag and began making his way into the kitchen in order to make himself a bowl of cereal (he was a growing boy, okay, shut up, cereal in the afternoon was perfectly fine, his Uncle Clint did it all the time).

he shrugged. “Eh- it was okay. Boring, as usual; they gave us a test, I aced it, again, as usual,” Peter explained, carefully avoiding the fact that they’d been learning about The Battle of New York in lesson that day. He knew it was a touchy subject for his dad, and he didn’t want to risk upsetting him.

Dad raised an eyebrow, taking a sip from his coffee and watching Peter with a look on his face. Peter just sighed. He knew what was coming.

“So how was Waaade?”

He sighed. “Ugh, Wade was fine, he smiled at me while i passed on the corridors today and that was literally all that happened. I honestly don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this, he called me cute once-”

“Once is enough,” his dad shrugged bemusedly, poking Peter in the side as he walked around the table to sit next to him and get to work on his snack. 

“That is not a snack, Peter,” dad said, because unfortunately he was good at reading Peter’s mind like that. “That’s like, a full meal. We’re having dinner in an hour, are you serious-”

“School is hard work,” Peter complained, flopping on to the stool and leaning on his dad’s shoulder theatrically, “It drains me of energy that I need to replenish with Lucky Charms.”

“Natasha will blow her top if she sees you eating that- it’s her turn to cook tonight. And if she chooses to murder you for eating beforehand, then there isn’t much I can do. I know you’re my son, but the whole parent-bond thing only goes so far-”

Peter bumped him on the shoulder and he laughed quietly. It was nice to see the tension ease off his face a little.

Of course, then everything went wrong again.

“Hey Peter, didn’t know you’d be back so ear- oh,” his Pops said, entering the room and faltering when he saw Dad already sat at the table.

There was an awkward pause. Peter guessed they must have got the days wrong for which one of them was going to go and talk to him about his school day. 
That tended to happen when they didn’t actually speak to one another and acted like they were Peter’s Goddamn age.

Pops managed to collect himself, though- walking forward and smiling as he reached out to squeeze Peter’s shoulder, before heading to the cupboards and grabbing a mug. “You had a good day today?”

Peter shrugged, wishing it didn’t feel as tense as it did. Why the hell did parents have to argue anyway? It was stupid. They were being stupid, and Peter just wanted them to kiss and make up already- because that’s what they did, that’s what they always did, right? This wasn’t going to last, it couldn’t- Peter didn’t want to have two homes, he didn’t want Dad to marry someone else or Pops to have different kids-

It was only then that he realised Dad and Pops had moved, resting a hand on each shoulder while he leaned forward on to the table and hid his crumpled face in the crook of his arms.

 “Peter! Hey, baby, what’s happened, did something go down at school-”

“Do we need to go in, because we’ll go in, okay- whatever’s wrong, we’ll sort it out. Are you being bullied?”

“Did someone hurt you?”

“Did you have an argument with your friends?”

“Were y-”

“IT’S YOU TWO!” Peter yelled, jerking upward again and throwing his hands in the air. “God, this is the first time you’ve been this close to each other in ages! I haven’t seen you look each other in the eye when you’re around one another except to argue! Why the hell are you both being so stupid? I don’t…I don’t want you to get divorced! But you will and then you’ll both find stupid new people and have stupid new lives and leave me behind and we won’t be a family any more and I don’t want that so just STOP FIGHTING!”

He didn’t stop to listen to whatever stupid crap they tried to throw at him; instead kicking the chair he was sat on over and storming out of the room angrily, ignoring their calls and running up into his room before they could bother him. 

He’d have to start packing a suitcase of things he wanted to take to the new house Pops would get. And then he’d be one of those kids- the one with the divorced parents and two of everything because his dads were both trying to one-up each other in the Who Loved Their Kid Most competition, which sounded great in theory but really just sucked.

God. They were probably yelling at each other right now- over Peter himself this time, which might mean it was his fault if they split up, if this was the argument that set everything in motion, oh God oh God oh God he’d just made everything worse-

“Petey? Can I come in?” Came Pops’ quiet voice outside his room.

Peter sniffled, not wanting his Pops to start explaining what was going to happen, but knowing the talk had to come sometime anyway. “Fine,” he said gruffly, turning on his bed so that his Pops couldn’t see his face when he walked in.

The door was opened, and Peter heard the soft, anxious sigh his Pops let out upon seeing Peter, curled up on the bed with his back facing him. 

Pops didn’t say anything, but he started moving across the room, and then sat down on the edge of the bed. They were both quiet for a while, and it was obvious that his Pops was trying to think of something to say.

Peter just waited. Whatever form it came in, at the end of the day, the outcome would still be the same. They weren’t going to be a proper family any more.

“When I met your dad for the first time, I hated him,” Pops said eventually, still quiet, still calm and collected like he always seemed to be around everyone but  Dad. “I thought he was jerk, thought he was selfish and rude and flashy in the way that everything else in the 21st century was. I hated him because he was the future, and me? I was a guy from the past. We were like oil and water.”

“Pops, I don’t want to hear about how much you hate dad, okay, please-”

“I’m not finished,” Pops interrupted, and Peter could see the tiny little smile his Pops was wearing out of the corner of his eye. “He managed to make me rethink all those preconceived ideas in the space of 24 hours. Every last one of them. He went through a portal and saved New York and I felt like an ass, because I’d told him that was the last thing he would ever do, and that he wasn’t a hero.” Pops laughed, and it sounded fond. “God, Pete, if there was one thing on this world that I could possibly have gotten more wrong, I’d love to hear it.”

Peter frowned. That sounded nice. He hadn’t thought they were still going to be nice to each other, after all this. It was odd.

“And your dad… that was just what he did. That was… he was something I couldn’t solve. Unpredictable and impulsive and a real goddamn idiot sometimes, but I learnt how to see the good sides of it, rather than searching so hard for the bad. It started being less like water and oil and more like a well-fitted machine. We were still totally different people, with totally different upbringings and outlooks- but we worked. Effortless on the field and natural as friends. I fell in love with him so easily, because he was just Tony. And that was enough. That was all it took.”

“It’s not enough any more though, is it,” Peter whispered, shutting his eyes and hugging the pillow a little tighter.

“Oh, Peter,” Pops said sadly, turning himself a little and bending down to scoop him up into his arms, holding tightly as Peter bit on his lip and tried not to cry.

“i’m not saying this to show you I’ve fallen out of love with him. I’m trying to say that every day- even now, when I’m angry and upset- I still manage to fall a little bit more in love with him,” he whispered against Peter’s hair.

Peter froze, brow furrowing in confusion. “Wait- what?”

His Pops sighed again, and kissed the top of his head. “Your Dad drives me up the wall. And I do the same to him. Like I said, he’s so different to me in so many ways, it’s bound to come out sometimes. And when we have jobs like the ones we do-” Steve paused, and it looked like it pained him to say it. “I will sometimes make mistakes. Do things I shouldn’t do and put myself in danger when it could be avoided. And your Dad will do stupid stuff too, that makes me angry at him. Very angry. Angry enough to have us both refusing to speak to one another and acting like we’re in fourth grade again.” 

He broke off, and Peter felt the little rumble of laughter that shook his Pop’s chest as he spoke the next words.

“But Peter- there is not, and nor will there ever be, anyone else who I would chose to spend the rest of my life with. Ever. I love him more today than I did yesterday, and tomorrow I will love him more than I did today, because he’s an idiot and he’s difficult and he’s an asshole and I am completely, utterly devoted to him.”

Peter grasped a little tighter at his Pops’ shirt and in return, his Pops gave him a gentle kiss on his hair. “You… you mean that?”

“Of course I do Peter,” Pops said, sounding a little pained, “I hate the fact you, or anyone else thinks otherwise. We… we’re not ever going to be perfect, Pete. It’s unfortunately just a part of who we are, and our relationship. We’re gonna fight, and we’re gonna get mad and we’re gonna act like idiots. But at the end of the day, we’ll always come back to one another. He’s… I don’t know, he’s just always gonna be the one I turn to in a crowd full of the world’s most beautiful, powerful, wonderful people and think, ‘damn. That’s the one’. That won’t ever change.”

Peter couldn’t hold back his sigh of quiet relief, but he quickly schooled it into a huff of annoyance as he pulled a face against his Pops’ chest. “Okay, no need to overdo it with the sap, I think I get the point-”

Pops laughed again, and let go to ruffle his hair, a twinkle in his eye. “You asked for it, Pete- we’re gonna be the old folks who yell at pesky teens from their porch. We’ll still be making out in public places when both of us are wrinkly and ancient, and everyone will think we’re cute old people who prove that love last foreverrrr-”

“Stop, stop, ew, don’t talk about kissing in front of me, old people don’t kiss, gross!” Peter squealed, trying to wriggle out of his Pops’ grip as he laughed outright and poked his side.

“Your pops is technically over a hundred years old, Peter, and he still kisses me”

Both Peter and Pops turned, and Peter saw his Dad, leaning casually with his arms folded against the doorframe, a small smile on his face as he watched them.

Pops looked over to him curiously, and Pops and Dad seemed to share a silent conversation between them that Peter couldn’t catch, before Dad finally sighed fondly and stepped forward, dropping down next to both of them. He put an arm around Peter’s shoulders and pulled him in, giving him a quick kiss on the temple before releasing and then turning to his Pops.

They looked at each other for a moment, before Dad huffed and dropped his head on to Pops’ shoulder, whilst Pops looked relieved and wound an arm around his waist, shutting his eyes and turning his lips to the crown of Dad’s hair.

“I’m still mad at you, by the way,” Dad said, but there wasn’t any heat to it, and he smiled a little as Pops looked rather sheepish and nodded. “I do like the thought of us being gross old people who make out in front of everyone, though.”

Pops laughed again, and some of the tension appeared to have drained magically from his shoulders as soon as Dad had made contact with him. “You heard that, huh?”

Dad nodded, and pressed a kiss into Pops’ shoulder. “You’re still my ‘damn, that’s the one’ too, y’know.”

“I know,” Pops paused, hand finding Dad’s and winding their fingers together, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Can you not do this in my room, please? God, you know what, never mind, I preferred it when you were fighting,” Peter grumbled, but ultimately failed to convince anyone, what with the immovable little beam on his face as he watched his parents, seemingly back to normal once more.

Dad rolled his eyes and lifted a foot to push Peter down on to the bed with a thunk. “Shut it, squirt, we’re having a moment.”

“You wouldn’t be having an anything if it weren’t for me! The least you can do is respect my wishes!” Peter argued, grabbing his dad’s foot and pushing, jerking him out of Pop’s arms and sending him rolling off the bed.

“Oh, you’d prefer us fighting again, then?” Pops asked, with a raised eyebrow as Dad’s head popped back up into view and looked smug.

Peter paused, opening his mouth to say something, before shutting it again with a clack and scowling. “I guess not. Whatever.”

“That’s his way of saying ‘I love you both so much forever and ever’,” his Dad said with a grin, as he tackled Peter back on to the bed and then hugged him tight. “Don’t worry Steve, I speak fluent Angsty Teen.”

“Hey, I’m not an Angsty Teen!” Peter yelled, but it was muffled as Pops decided to initiate a group hug as he pulled both Peter and Dad into his arms. 

“Aww, it’s okay Petey-bird, everyone goes through one. I’m sure Wade will help you through it,” Dad told him, and then yelped when Peter poked his ribs in penance.

“You know, I’m pretty sure sons aren’t supposed to attack their fathers, but whatever-”

“And I’m pretty sure that both of you need to stop squabbling and join in the group hug,” Pops muttered, giving them both a shake and then screaming as Peter and his Dad both dug into opposing ribs at the same time.

Okay, yeah- Peter could admit- this was definitely better than the fighting.

Chapter Text

The world burnt around them.

“Nice day for it,” someone muttered by Steve’s right, and he felt the movement in the air as someone came to sit by his side amongst the rubble. 

It didn’t take much to know it was Tony. He’d memorised the walk, the breathing, the pressure Tony asserted against his shoulder from the first week of knowing him.

He huffed out something that could almost have been a laugh. “You could say that.”

Beside him, Tony’s eyes fixed on Steve’s face. He didn’t turn, but he still knew he was being watched. “View’s quite something.”

Steve was silent. They didn’t have long left. How was he supposed to finish…all of this? Everything he had meant to say, every argument and confession they’d meant to have together- it was never going to happen. And Steve couldn’t decide what words were most important now.

Guess it didn’t really matter, anyway.

There was a rumble in the distance, and the ground shook underneath them, but neither of them jumped to their feet. Neither reacted at all, really. They knew it was too late now. Too late for them, anyway. 

Steve just shuffled a little closer, and Tony, surprisingly, let him.

“Hey,” he began softly, turning to face those soft hazel eyes, wanting to capture it, save it, burn it on to his mind so it was the last thing he saw, “I just wanted to say I’m sor-”

“Don’t,” Tony cut in with a hand coming up to smack over Steve’s mouth. He’d abandoned the suit a while back, after it had stopped being useful, so Steve was feeling the warmth of Tony’s skin against his lips. “Don’t bother. I’m not going to have our last words being about… that, okay. I’m not. Let’s just… sit.”

Steve looked at him, and Tony looked right back. Locked in a staring match that was intense enough to have been a physical embrace, he allowed himself to just stare. Again- social etiquette really didn’t mean much anymore, so who the hell cared?

It was a while before Tony leaned back and pulled his hand away.

They were silent again- simply watching the view ahead of them as everything disintegrated. They had minutes, maybe. Not long enough for anyone to swoop in and save them, now, but enough to be able to appreciate everything fully, before…. you know.

“I love you,” Steve said, surprised at how easy it fell from his mouth, now there was no future for either of them. No chance of making things worse, or losing a best friend. “I’ve loved you for years. Never stopped. Not through the civil war, not through anything. I loved you so much some days it consumed my entire fucking being, honestly. It was kinda crazy.”

Tony paused for a second, before shrugging. “Yeah, me too. From the moment you smiled at me- probably before that, actually; I knew you my whole life, after all.” He laughed- the special self deprecating one that was a bit too sad to be real. “Picked a hell of a time to confess, didn’t we? Now that there’s no chance of anything ever happening. We’re toast. The most toasted toast to have ever been toasted. We’re more burnt, than toasted, really-”

“Tony,” Steve said, looking over to him with a fond smile. He’d missed those rambles. “Look. The sun’s just about to set.”

He raised a hand and pointed North, squinting through the heavy smoke and watching as the alien star glowed deep red through the atmosphere, bathing the foreign planet they were trapped on in a blood-red that should have just added to the fear.

It didn’t. If Steve squinted hard enough, it was almost like a sunset in Brooklyn; when the chemicals and smog had tinged the light unnatural colours, just like this one.

Tony followed his pointed hand, a tiny smile on his face as he watched the Red giant as it slowly fell through the clouds. His lip was cut, so the grin was tinged with a wince, but still. Just as beautiful as Steve remembered.

Tony turned, noticing Steve as he stared. He didn’t make a comment, though, he just smiled and shook his head again. Steve knew what he was thinking, because the same thing was running through his mind, too.

In another life, we could have had this.

“Cigarette?” Tony asked suddenly, digging a hand into his pocket and pulling a pack from inside.

Steve huffed in surprise as Tony pulled two out and offered one to Steve. “Where the hell did you find them? And since when did yousmoke?”

“I picked them up on the way. Had a feeling I’d be needing them,” Tony admitted, and Steve was sent back to the past, heard tony as he told everyone ‘This is it, guys. The last stand. The final battle. If we all walk away from this, we’ve not done it right’. “And I smoked for years, all the way through my twenties. I quit a good while back, but I’ve never been able to get rid of the craving. Figured there’s no point holding back now, is there?”

Steve wondered briefly if Tony always carried cigarettes with him on missions, just in case. But he didn’t ask. Instead, he just said “ohGod yes.”

Tony laughed, those lovely brown eyes curling in delight. “I fuckingknew it. I knew you were a smoker, secretly.”

Steve rolled his eyes, plucking the cigarette from Tony’s fingers and trying not to wince as a mound of rubble landed somewhere close to them, making the ground quake and the air ripple. “Back in the forties, they used to think smoking cured asthma, you know.”

“Yeah, your lot weren’t so bright, were they?” tony replied, jostling his shoulder and then curling a hand around the lighter as he lit up with the ease of an expert. 

“Hey, they managed to create me, so they must’ve been doing somethin’ right,” Steve took the lighter from Tony’s hand once he was done, and then sucked in a deep breath as it lit.

They both groaned simultaneously in pleasure.

“God, it’s been too long, my love,” Tony breathed out, smoke blowing from his parted lips and whipping into the wind around them, lost almost immediately. Steve was caught in the action for a while, eyes wide and mouth a little dry. He wished he’d seen that sight sooner- although, then again, it may have made things an awful lot more uncomfortable, especially if they’d been in public.

Tony shot him another look, face smug as he watched Steve try and pull his eyes away from Tony’s mouth. “Hot, right?”

“A lot of things you do are hot,” Steve muttered, “damn you”

“Mmmm, you’re one to talk,” Tony answered quietly, head slowly tilting until it was resting against Steve’s shoulder. “Your uniform could never damn stay on in a fight. Always hanging off you like you’d been in a scuffle with a bear.”

Steve laughed, shutting his eyes as he took another drag. It had been what- ninety years, now, since his last smoke? He didn’t even have the craving any more, but it was so familiar, it had almost the same effect as if he had.

“Not long now,” Steve whispered. The air was already too hot to be comfortable, and the ground itself was beginning to form ominously large cracks as the world shook itself apart.

Tony took another drag, and let the smoke fall from his lips. Steve felt the pressure as he pressed a kiss to Steve’s shoulder. “Just watch the view, darling.”

Steve knew Tony had his eyes closed against his shoulder, but he followed the orders anyway. His head tilted a little, and his eyes settled on Tony’s profile, bruised and bloodied and peaceful.

Tony’s hand found Steve’s free one. Steve gripped it tight. He couldn’t decide which one of them was shaking- probably both.

Together, they smoked, and held on to one another. Until the very end.

Chapter Text

On the first day of the month, Steve arranged things.

Hotel and cab booked, tickets sorted, overnight bag packed. He was ready to go at a moment’s notice. He’d even pre-written his letter of apology to the others, in case he didn’t have time to say goodbye.

He was prepared.

Last year, he’d been stupid. Left it too late, and then faced the consequences throughout the whole damn week. 
He wasn’t going to be stupid this time. He was prepared, see.

Unfortunately, it was very difficult to plan anything when you had people like Tony Stark living in the same tower as you. That man was predictably unpredictable. Damn him.

“Steve?” Came the confused voice from the door, and Steve jerked, turning around quickly and looking up, spotting Tony leaning against the wall with his arms folded, looking at him in confusion.

Well, not him. The bag he was re-packing was what was grabbing all the attention right now.

“What… what are you doing?” Tony asked, brow furrowed deeply as he stepped further in and took a shirt from the pile of luggage. Steve quickly snatched it back, stuffing it into his bag defensively.

“Nothing, Tony, I’m just…packing,” Steve muttered, searching for his toothbrush among the mess.

Tony paused, and Steve got the feeling he was holding back a sigh of exasperation. “Hmm- yes, I gathered that much. I was just wondering, y’know, why?”

Steve kept his eyes fixed on the shirt he was folding in front of him. “Birthday plans,” he lied, before spinning around to face Tony, preparing to usher him back out of the door.

He stopped when he noticed how obviously Tony’s face had fallen, and the hurt look that was lingering on his face.

Fucking Tony. It had to be Tony who had caught him. Anyone else, and he probably could have just let it slide.

“What’s wrong?” he said with a sigh, because he was a fucking sucker.

Tony quickly smoothed his face over and smiled, that horrible brittle one that made Steve want to argue relentlessly with him, just to bring out some semblance of an emotion on his face instead of that thing. “Nothing, nothing. Go, be free, it’s your birthday, you need to relax. I’m happy you’re actually taking a break for onc-”

“Tony,” Steve asked, raising an eyebrow and grabbing his shoulders between two hands, “what’s wrong?”

Tony paused, and for a moment it seemed as if he was going to continue to bullshit his way through it, but then his face just sort of…fell again, and he shook his head. 

“I…uh, remember we had- uh- plans? Your big party at the tower! and then you and me were going to catch a movie afterward? I don’t… I mean, obviously, you’ve got other plans, and that’s fine, I don’t mind, honestly,” Tony assured him, blustering around back and forth between his two feet and generally looking like he’d rather be anywhere else than in Steve’s room.

As soon as Tony had begun speaking, Steve realised he was right. Shit. He hadn’t been paying too much attention to the dates when Tony had spoken about it- too busy having a little crisis over the fact that Tony had pretty much asked him out to notice the when and where of it all.

Shit.

“I…” Steve stumbled, trying to think of what to say to try and fix this, to try and not be such a stupid fucking idiot, “I’m really sorry, I forgot completely-”

Oh, fuck, that just made Tony look even more sad. Steve was pretty sure if he looked any more upset he’d make Steve start crying through fucking exposure.

“No, wait, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly, grabbing Tony’s forearm desperately, “I was just… God, I just need to leave for a week. Okay?”

“Why?” 

Steve winced. “I just… have to, okay, but we can do it when I get back! I-”

“Steve, if you don’t want to, and you’d rather be alone, that’s absolutely fine,” Tony said, giving him a sad smile as he began backing away, “you go, uh, do your thing. Have fun, be merry, it’s your birthday, you deserv-”

“I can’t handle the fireworks,” Steve blurted, and then immediately balked.

Shit. Shit shit fuck shit fuck fuck shit, he shouldn’t have told Tony that. He’d made sure not to let anyone know that, God dammit, it was so fucking stupid-

“What?” Tony asked blankly.

“Nothing,” Steve jumped in immediately, desperately trying to quell the sickening shame in his gut and the red on his cheeks as he put an arm on Tony’s shoulder and started pushing again, more forceful this time, “listen, Tony, I’ve really got to get back to-”

“You can’t handle fireworks?” Tony asked again, and shit, it didn’t seem like he had missed that like Steve had hoped.

Steve stopped. Sighed. Let go of Tony’s arm and turned away. “uh, yeah- no, I can’t. It’s a thing, I don’t know, I just… I’m fine, I’m just gonna… head out to the country for a week or so, because, y’know,” Steve gestured vaguely to himself, “4th of July and all.”

“Lots and lots of fireworks,” Tony said slowly, eyes widening a little in understanding. “Right.”

They stood in silence for a moment, before Tony opened his mouth again. Steve, however, got in first.

“Please don’t, Tony,” he said, shaking his head, “whatever you’re about to say, I don’t… just leave it. I’m fine.”

“But it’s your birthday,” Tony said weakly, “don’t you want to… I don’t know, celebrate that?”

“Maybe in a world where I’d never gone to goddamn war, yeah,” Steve snapped angrily, “I would love to get through one fucking birthday without screaming, y’know, would be swell, but unlucky for me, life doesn’t agree. So sorry I’m not gonna be present this week, but believe me, it’s for the best.”

He was fucking tired. What the fuck was it with people setting off fireworks a week in advance to the fucking celebration? It made no fucking sense and Steve was sick of coming back to himself after a minute of sheer panic and realizing he’d crawled under his fucking bed to stop the non-existent shrapnel burying itself in his skull-

Tony said something, but it was white noise to Steve, and he’d marched out of the room before any of it could sink in anyway.

It was 4am. Everyone was asleep. No one would notice him slipping out, and he’d left his note for them in the morning. Turns out it was easier to explain his absence on paper than it was face to face.

“Steve! Just wait a second!”

God fucking dammit.

Wearily, he turned again, watching Tony hurry toward him, jumping down the stairs two at a time in his ratty jeans and faded band tshirt. “What do you want, Tony?” He asked.

Tony stopped moving once he got to Steve’s side and grabbed his hand excitedly. “Listen- I’m going to propose something awesome to you that you really should have thought of before deciding it was best to fuck off into the middle of nowhere on your own, but whatever, I won’t hold it to you, I am a genius-”

“Tony,”

“Right, yes, yes, okay,” Tony paused, and took a breath before looking Steve in the eye. “Let me come with you?”

Steve stopped. That was… certainly an idea. Bad or good, Steve wasn’t too sure.

“ I know you might think it’s weird and forward or whatever, but a) fuck the stereotypes, just as a matter of principle more than anything, and b)-” Tony’s hand tightened briefly around Steve’s as he shrugged in an attempt at nonchalance that, in Steve’s opinion, didn’t work out for him very well, “you shouldn’t be alone on your birthday, Steve. That just sucks. You… you deserve better than that. You deserve someone to be there with you.” He shrugged again, biting his lip, “and I know I’m not like, y’know, this Special Thing or whatever, and really you should have someone better here for you, but at the moment everyone else is asleep and-”

Tony was cut off as Steve laid his hand across Tony’s moving mouth, effectively silencing the fast-derailing thought process. He couldn’t help but chuckle a little as he watched Tony just stand there, Steve’s hand over his mouth, not knowing quite what to do.

It was honestly more than a little adorable.

“That would be… nice,” Steve admitted softly, “but Tony- it’s really late, and you have work, and I don’t want to inconvenience you-”

Tony scoffed, removing Steve’s hand to speak. “Believe me, this would be my pleasure. I’m pretty sure Fury’s out for my head this week anyway, so I need somewhere to lay low. Don’t sweat it, Rogers, I’ve got it all sorted.”

Steve looked at him for a moment; watched the way his gaze flickered briefly from Steve’s eyes to his mouth and then back up, or the way his heart was beating just that little bit faster than normal through the pulse in his wrist.

“Sure, Tony- come along for the ride,” Steve said with a smile and a fond roll of his eyes.

Tony positively beamed, and then held up a finger as he rushed over to the kitchen counter, where he pulled out a bag of his own and then hurried back to Steve’s side, still grinning.

“You were confident, then,” Steve said dryly, eyeing the bag full of stuff.

Tony raised his eyebrows. “I am very persuasive. I hedged my bets.”

Steve just huffed and hid a smile behind his hand as he pulled Tony into the elevator with him, feeling the all-too-familiar sensation of butterflies in his stomach as Tony smiled up at him.

The sky was beautifully clear, and the place was utterly, utterly silent.

Well. Apart from Tony. Of course.

"Don’t you think it’s so incredible? Literally, Steve, look at them. Look at those insignificant, stupid little dots in the sky. They created every atom in your body. Every atom on this planet. Each atom in the visible universe. And they’re up there. We’re looking at…creation,” Tony gushed, hands waving through the air as they pointed at random objects in the sky.

They were both sat on the grass outside the tiny barn Steve had rented, a blanket under their backs as they stared up into the blissfully clear skies.

The stars hadn’t changed. That was all the same, at least. It was comforting.

“-and, I mean, there’s so much we don’t know yet, and probably never will. It frustrates the damn hell out of me. I hate not knowing stuff. Main reason I never pursued astronomy or theoretical physics. Theoretical physics, Steve- a whole branch of science dedicated to not knowing things,” Tony shuddered, and Steve felt it reverberate through his shoulder, “Good lord, the horror.”

Steve just smiled and nodded along, listening as Tony explained how stars were made and something about dark matter. Steve didn’t really follow it. He was more interested in how Tony’s hands moved, and the way the moonlight illuminated each curve and crease in Tony’s face, and the fact that he hadn’t thought about bombs even once since this trip-

“Thank you,” he whispered suddenly, cutting through Tony’s speech more effectively with those two quietly spoken words than Fury could in a direct scream.

There was silence as Tony paused, and turned his head to look over at Steve. He opened his mouth, undoubtedly to ask‘what for’ before he caught on and nodded in understanding.

He didn’t say anything. Just grabbed Steve’s hand and linked their fingers together. 

Closing his eyes and once more reveling in the silence and lack of terrifyingly familiar hisses or whines that had always haunted his birthday before, he brought Tony’s hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles there.

Steve heard Tony exhale ever so slightly, and felt with amusement as his pulse suddenly spiked. Neither of them said anything, but Tony shifted a little after a few moments; shuffling closer until his body pressed against Steve’s. 

“Happy birthday, Steve,” Tony said softly, his head falling against Steve’s chest.

It was soft and silent and perfect, and Steve let his spare hand trail aimlessly over the soft curls of Tony’s hair as they lay there on the thick grass in the dead of night. Honestly, they probably needed to talk about a few things that had changed tonight.

But for now, Steve was just going to enjoy the stars above him and Tony beside him and the fact that the world appeared to have stopped, just for tonight- just for him.

Chapter Text

The whole battle had been sort of a laugh, really.

They’d attacked the helicarrier. A whole ship, jam-packed with trained agents and the Avengers. It had been destined to fail from the very beginning.

As the alarm started to blare, Steve, Tony and Bucky all groaned in annoyance. “Absolutely fucking typical,” Tony cursed, shutting his eyes and running a hand through his hair, “villains choose the one time my suit is a thousand miles below me to attack us all. Great.”

Pursing his lips, Bucky pushed his tray of food to the side and silently handed Tony a semi automatic. The other man took it with a grunt of thanks, checking the cartridge and then wincing. “Three bullets? Seriously?”

This time it was Steve who handed him the new cartridge, standing up from his position opposite both Bucky and Tony and then walking over, taking Tony by the shoulder. “Stay with us,” he said shortly, letting his hand linger against the juncture of Tony’s neck before slipping away again to retrieve his shield from the corner of the room.

There was a resounding crash from somewhere- possibly the hull, and Tony groaned again. “They’re stupid. Stupid stupid villains, trying to attack the damn SHIELD helicarrier. Do they want to die? Really? Is that their plan here? Death? Jesus Fucking chr-”

“Tony,” Bucky said with a roll of his eyes, pushing Tony in the shoulder before he could continue, “it won’t last long. You can just stay here and hide if you really want-”

“Alright, robo-cop, that’s enough of that talk,” Tony groused, cocking his gun and pulling a face. “Hey, babe!” He called over his shoulder.

Steve looked up. “Hm?”

“First to ten picks dinner?”

Steve shot him a look. “We don’t even know how many there are here.”

Tony shrugged. “Semantics. I bet I’ll take more than Bucky, anyway.”

Steve gave an audible laugh, walking forward and then bending down to press a kiss against Tony’s forehead. “Whatever you want to believe, sweetheart. Just try not to get shot.”

No one was worried as they made their way out of the cafeteria. Tony was firmly sandwiched in between two grim-looking supersoliders, both with enough weaponry and strength to take out two thirds of the ship on their own.

There was nothing to be afraid of.

According to the SHIELD speaker system which gave them all a handy overview, The Villains of The Day were using some sort of sonic device among the usual machine guns as their chosen weapon, and there appeared to be about 30 of them, all dropping on to the helicarrier from a small aircraft up above. 

“Where are the others?” Bucky asked, grunting as he came into contact with the first enemy; punching him square in the face and sending him into Steve’s waiting arms, which quickly brought unconsciousness along to their attacker.

“Nat and Clint are down with the recruits,” Tony explained, lifting his leg in order to tap Steve’s hip and push him out of the line of fire, “Bruce’s in the labs with Thor. They’ll both be a while- the place goes into lockdown when the siren sounds.”

“Helpful,” Steve muttered, flinging his shield down the corridor and watching in satisfaction as it bounced on the corner and knocked three people to their feet. It appeared they had ended up on the floor in which all the thugs were descending from- useful if Tony had been fully equipped with a functioning Iron Man suit, not quite so useful when all he had was Bucky’s old semi-automatic and a sore neck from working too many nights down in the lab.

There was a sudden tremor, and whilst all the assailants appeared to remain on their feet, all three Avengers went sprawling on the floor. Tony bit back a yell, feeling the shockwave reverberate through the corridor. It was lucky he’d had his jaw unclenched, or all his teeth would’ve been smashed in by the pressure wave.

A hand curled around his waist, pulling him back from careering into the wall head-first, and Tony knew it was Steve’s grip as the man instinctively clutched Tony tight to his chest, preventing any further damage. He could see Bucky, already pushing back off the wall and firing another round down the hall, taking out the final two on the other side. 

“What the damn hell was that?” Steve asked, holding Tony for an extra second to check over for injuries before releasing again when he found none.

“I’m guessing it was a sonic blast- looked like it came from the top of the ship. The whole airstrip is probably in pieces after that,” Tony replied, hurrying forward and following Bucky as he made his way down the hall again, “it should be fairly easy to dismantle, though. They’ll have to be firing it from the ship they came from; there’s no way to get a blast that big from anything smaller than that. All it’ll take is for me to hop up and pull some wires out.”

Steve glanced over to him, shaking his head fondly as he rounded the corner which led to the stairwell. “You know, I’m pretty sure that would be a big job for anyone else.”

“Do I look like anyone else, Rogers?” Tony gestured to himself and scoffed.

“Will both of you quit flirting for one goddamn second and focus on the mission at hand?” Bucky grumbled, “we’re trying to defend our ship from invasion and all you’re goddamn doing is yappin’ at one another-”

Another quake; this one even more powerful than the other, rumbled at their feet, and once more sent all three of them flying around the corridor. This time it was Bucky who grabbed hold of Tony- and in any other circumstance, Tony probably would have had something to say about all this coddling- but for the time being, he was simply glad Bucky had saved him from braining himself against the floor.

Steve was up a second later, two hands pulling both Bucky and Tony up off the floor. “You okay?” He asked Tony quietly, once again doing a cursory check.

Tony batted his hands away gently, rolling his eyes. “Right as rain. I can handle myself, you know.”

Steve grimaced. “I don’t like it when you don’t have your suit.”

Just as Tony opened his mouth to undoubtedly start a quarrel, Bucky called out to the both of them. “Got the hatch open, if either of you losers fancy actually doing your jobs and stopping this shitshow.”

Steve turned; letting go of Tony and hitching his shield up. “Try not to get shot,” he murmured, before stepping in front of the smaller man and marching on ahead.

“Already said that!” Tony grumbled, but followed on behind him all the same.

Slowly, all three of them made their way through the hatch and out into the exposed, cold air of the surface. Tony had been correct; the entire airstrip was in disarray. Aircraft and vehicles, turned on their heads; bits of the ship that had crumbled away entirely, falling a thousand feet into the ocean they were hovering over. Fire licked across the floor, and angry-looking soldiers in telltale black and red uniform let them know it was HYDRA initiating the op.

“Idiots,” Tony muttered for the fifth time, shaking his head. 

“We need to stop that…thingy, from releasing another burst,” Bucky began, pointing his gun over to the main aircraft which was placed at the edge of top deck, “no doubt the other agents are on their way, but the’re being hindered by the shakes it’s giving off.”

“Well, to be honest- if we get caught in the blast now, then it’s probably gonna be the equivalent of being hit by a brick wall,” Tony frowned, cocking his head and looking over to it, “fortunately- it takes a while for it to garner all that energy. And seeing as we aren’t lucky enough to be wearing HYDRA’S reinforced uniforms, I’m just gonna have to work fast, aren’t I?”

Bucky nodded, and Steve looked less than pleased by the outcome, but didn’t speak out. “Me and Buck will cover you. There aren’t that many left anyway- it should be fairly easy.”

There was another round of agreement, and then Bucky loaded another cartridge into his gun, raising an eyebrow at everyone. “Onward and upward then, fellas?”

Wordlessly, they all began to run. 

The sprint to the aircraft was relatively short, and with both Bucky and Steve shielding Tony, it was almost easy. They all reached the ship after a few seconds, and Steve quickly turned, lifting his shield up in front of Tony’s path so that the other man could leap on. With a grunt, Steve swung the shield up high, and Tony flew upward with it, landing gracefully on the wing of the ship as the momentum propelled him.

“I’ll need two minutes, max!” Tony called, before yanking open the door and quickly dealing with the pilot sat in his spot.

Steve watched him anxiously for half a second before twirling around and hitting an attacker in the face when they got too close. “Bucky, watch the ship,” Steve gritted, sprinting a few paces away in order to try and open the hatch on the other side of the deck, where their backup was undoubtedly waiting behind.

Once he’d managed to open the door for the remaining SHIELD agents to flock through, the fight was short-lived. There weren’t nearly enough HYDRA to combat the wave of defenders, and Steve knew he wasn’t needed any further in regards to the round-up of enemy forces.

He saw Natasha and Clint as he did a quick once-over of the deck, and Clint did a little salute before swinging the butt of his pistol across the temple of some poor HYDRA soldier. Steve grinned back.
It never stopped being satisfying, watching Nazi’s get hurt.

He turned back, wandering over to the ship he’d started out next to, where Tony was still working. “How’s it going?”

Bucky turned, grinning at Steve’s smug face and jogging over to him. “Tony says he’s got it sorted. Should be out in a few seconds.”

Steve nodded,”you had any trouble?”

“Few of the stragglers, yeah- but they weren’t a problem. They were dealt with accordingly.”

“DONE!” Came a familiar voice, and both Steve and Bucky looked up with grins on their faces as Tony stuck his face back out of the door and beamed over to them. His hair was flicking all over his face in the wind, and he had somehow managed to get yet another streak of grease across his neck from the work.

Steve could feel himself smiling adoringly over at him, but he didn’t even care. Not even when Bucky smacked him across the back of the head and called him a sap.

“You had fun?” Steve called out, beginning to walk forward as Tony started his clamber back to the deck.

“Defeated HYDRA, got to take apart a ship, saved the day? Obviously,” Tony replied, making to swing out of the door before stopping, a tiny little frown on his face.

Steve should have started running, then. If he’d been on form- if he’d been alert, he should have started running.

“Something’s wrong,” Tony said suddenly, humour gone from his voice as he looked back down to the cockpit. “Oh, shit. Failsafe.”

Steve’s eyes widened, and he felt Bucky tense in readiness beside him.

It happened in less than a second.

Tony threw himself forward- sudden and jerky, not bothering to land back on deck with the grace of before. Steve was already moving forward, but Tony looked up, hand moving, telling him to stop. 

“STAY AWAY!” Was the last thing Steve heard Tony say, before one more, final shockwave blew through the air.

Steve felt himself being thrown back, landing a good few meters away and sensing the vibrations on the floor as everything was once more turned on it’s head. There were yells and cries of pain from all over the deck; agents forced to the floor, landing amongst the wreckage that was already littered there- but Steve didn’t care about that.

Tony. Tony was at the epicentre of the wave.

Rolling immediately to his feet, his head shot up, eyes wild as he threw himself forward mere seconds after falling to the floor. His wrist cried in pain, and Steve assumed he’d injured it when he’d stuck the landing, but again, it wasn’t important.

“TONY!” He called, searching through the smoke and rubble.

There was an ominous growling sound that came from below Steve’s feet, and he hurried to steady himself as the entire ship shuddered. “TONY!” He called again, sprinting forward, toward the wreckage of what had once been HYDRA’s aircraft.

That was when he spotted him.

Tony. 

Getting unsteadily to his feet, hair full of dust and face smeared with blood; looking for Steve, waiting for Steve. His balance was shaky and he looked like he’d been pretty injured, but his smile was beautiful and genuine as he spotted Steve hurrying toward him. 

Steve watched Tony open his mouth, readying to call out. Undoubtedly something witty or sarcastic, thinly veiled to hide the genuine relief underneath. But the words never came.

It happened as if in slow motion.

There was one last final growl from below deck, and suddenly a tremendous crashing noise cracked like a whip through the air. Everything shook; huge, violent tremors that sent Steve stumbling to his knees once more. 

Tony yelled, and Steve rolled instantly, turning to face him- just as a horrifying crack tore through the floor.

Steve spotted it immediately, but lost sight of Tony as the plumes of dust shot through the opening it had made. He heard himself call out in panic, but aside from that, it was as if everything else had gone silent.

There was just him, and Tony, and the ledge that was seconds from falling away.

Steve was on his feet like a man possessed. Tearing across what was left of the deck, he ran and he ran and he ran.
Even though a part of him knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Even though he knew he was too far away.

In the distance, he saw Tony’s frame, stumbling forward, hand outstretched.

Someone yelled after him, but he didn’t register it. The ground was beginning to crumble away under his feet, he had seconds left, and Tony was going to fall.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.

His feet were aching at the speed in which he was running, and he could hear himself screaming Tony’s name again- but the voice was being drowned out by the sound of metal bending and concrete crumbling away.

“STEVE!” 

That was Tony. Tony was calling him. He had to get to him. This couldn’t happen.

Not again.

There was one final crash, and then Steve watched, horror-stricken, as the entire ledge, aircraft and all, simply fell away.

Mere meters away, Tony hurled himself forward, hands outstretched and eyes wide, terrified.

Throwing himself down and clutching on to a jagged shard of metal that had been left exposed, Steve stuck his hand out wildly, to catch Tony- stop him falling to his death.

He felt Tony’s fingers brush against his.
And then they were gone.

Steve watched Tony fall; slamming into the remnants of the ship, hands flailing wildly for purchase as the floor fell apart around him.

For a moment, Steve couldn’t tell if it was the helicarrier on SHIELD, or the train running through the mountains.

Steve felt his grip slip a little, and sensed the pain as the metal cut through his skin, but he couldn’t let go- he had to stay and get Tony, stop Tony falling, save him, dear God, he had to save him, this couldn’t happen again-

Tony’s hands found a ledge.

He stopped falling.

Wheezing in audible terror, Steve gauged how far away Tony was. “Oh god, okay- Tony! Tony, sweetheart, just hold on, okay, hold on, I’ve got you, I won’t let you fall, I won’t, I swear-”

Tony was breathing heavily, and his entire body was being slammed against the sharp edges of what had been left of the ship. Every gust of wind made him cry out in pain. “Steve, I can’t- I can’t hold-”

“YOU CAN!” Steve screamed, looking desperately for something, anything he could use to drop lower, to get to Tony, “please, love, please- a little longer, there are people coming to help us, I’ve-”

Tony looked up at him. One last time. And then his fingers slipped away.

Steve stared, silent- rooted to the spot as he watched the second person he loved more than anything else in the world fall to his death.

He had to follow. 

Bucky had survived, the first time around. Steve could survive this. He could get Tony- curl around him, take the impact for him- he was enhanced, he could do it.

“STEVE! STEVE, STOP!” Someone called, and he felt it as someone yanked roughly on his shoulder, pulling him up against his will, throwing him backward on to the deck again.

Steve snarled, and rolled right back on to his feet, sprinting back to the edge, readying to throw himself back off, but someone put out an arm, catching his waist and spinning them both around, using the momentum to shove them to the ground.

That same person pinned him, and Steve lashed out wildly. He could feel himself screaming, desperately attempting to push his attacker off- he had to get back, he was running out of time, Tony was falling.

“STEVE!”

He wasn’t sure who’s voice that was- Tony’s or Bucky’s. There were images in the back of his eyes that didn’t fit the surroundings, and he felt like he was going to be sick.

Tony was dead.

“Thor’s gone after him, he’s okay, Steve, stop screaming, stop it,please, buddy, stop!”

He was on the train and they were in the middle of a war and Bucky had fallen and that was it, Steve had failed him and his best friend was gone-

“Steve, please- I’m okay, Tony’s okay, Thor’s got him. You gotta get back in the room- Tony’s fine. He’s okay. He’ll be back in less than a minute.”

His cheeks were wet, hands pressed tightly into his eyes as he curled into a ball and shook. He felt cold. In his bones, in his soul- Bucky was talking to him, Bucky was pinning him, but he was saying things that didn’t make sense; Tony was gone. Tony had fallen.

Steve had let him fall.

“Please,” Bucky whispered, and he sounded so sad, Steve looked up to him despite himself. “He’s okay, Stevie. Tony’s okay. Look- Thor’s got him, they’re coming up, right now.”

He turned his head to where Bucky was pointing- feeling somewhat as if he was in a dream as he watched the Asgardian fly through the air, rising up above the ship with a hammer in one hand and Tony’s body in the other.

That wasn’t right. Steve had let him fall. 

“He’s there, Steve. He’s okay,” Bucky repeated quietly, voice laced with sadness as he looked down at Steve.

He felt like he was dreaming. Some sort of warped nightmare, where he lost Tony in the worst way possible, and then got him back, only to have him taken away again. 

He was shaking like a leaf, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the ice in his heart or the complete, all-consuming grief.

“Tony,” he choked, grabbing hold of Bucky’s shoulder and looking him in the eyes, “is that… he’s…”

“Yes,” Bucky assured him, “you didn’t let him fall. I swear. It wasn’t your fault.”

Steve didn’t wait for Bucky to speak again.

Scrambling unsteadily to his feet, he gasped in a lungful of air and ran. Ran forward, to Thor, to Tony- who was being let down gently, searching the deck, looking for-

he spotted Steve a second before he was bowled over by the frantic supersoldier. Tony was warm in his arms- heart beating a little fast in his chest. He was alive.

Steve didn’t believe it. 

“Steve?” Tony asked, voice a little panicked as he squirmed, “Steve, baby, I’m okay- but you gotta let go, you’re hurting me.”

It didn’t feel real it didn’t feel real it didn’t feel real.

He knew- some part of what was left of his rational mind- that he was going through a severe PTSD attack, and it was horribly dangerous to keep Tony near when he was like this. But he couldn’t let go. He didn’t know what was real and what was a memory any more, and if he lost Tony’s warmth, the ice that had set in his bones might consume him entirely. He had to hold on. He had to.

“Steve!” Tony called again, and there was someone else, someone else calling too- but his eyes were clenched shut against Tony’s neck, and he couldn’t see who they were. They were irrelevant. 

Strong hands pulled at his shoulders, but he held on. He had to hold on- that was all he knew. He had to hold on. If he let go, they’d die. Bucky and Tony and everyone he’d loved, all of them, gone, because he couldn’t catch them-

Suddenly, there was a sudden jolt, and Steve felt the pain flare up against his temple as it was hit by something sharp and brutal.

Darkness was almost immediate. The last thing he noticed before unconsciousness swept over him was that the near-perpetual screams he’d been hearing since Tony’s fall had suddenly stopped.

It was only in the final millisecond that he realised he had been the one making them.

Waking up the hospital bed a few hours later, the first thing Steve saw was Bucky.

“Don’t scream, please, or you’re gonna make me cry,” Bucky hurried to say, eyes widening as Steve gasped.

There was a cool hand resting over his, and Steve looked down at it, noting how it moved, how it was attached to the rest of Bucky’s body- real and living and breathing.

“I…” Steve began, voice hoarse as he turned his hand over and clutched desperately to Bucky’s, “you…I’m sorry-”

“Steve,” Bucky interrupted, his own voice sounding almost as haunted as Steve’s as he leaned forward and rested a hand over his forehead, “it was not your fault. What happened to me, was never your fault. You did everything you could. I didn’t… I didn’t know you were so affected- I’m so sorry. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t,” he whispered adamantly.

Steve kept looking at him. His mind felt fuzzy and it hurt like a motherfucker from where he’d been hit-

“Tony,” he shot up, sitting ramrod straight and grabbing Bucky’s shoulder, “where’s Tony? Is he okay? What happened to him?”

“He’s fine,” Bucky assured hurriedly, standing up with Steve, pushing against his chest, “but you’ve got to stay here for a bit, okay, you’re hurt-”

“I need to see him,” Steve told him, his voice slowly becoming more frantic as he pushed back. He was stronger than Bucky, and if he really wanted to, it wouldn’t be a problem to get him out of the way.

He had to find Tony. And he would find Tony- whether Bucky attempted to stop him or not.

Wriggling out of Bucky’s hold, he ducked under the arm that stretched across the door and looked both ways.

“Yeah, okay, so how the fuck do you think you’re gonna find him then, bright spark?” Bucky asked dryly, leaning against the frame of the door and shooting Steve an unimpressed look.

“I’m not fucking around, Bucky,” Steve began angrily, but Bucky raised his hands and shook his head.

“He’s gone to get some food from the canteen, he’ll be back in a minute,” Bucky told him, taking his arm and leading him back inside, “you need to lie down until then, buddy, okay- Thor hit you pretty hard.”

Steve followed him; lying back down on the cot and then taking a good, long look over at his best friend. “Are you okay?” He asked quietly.

Bucky nodded, patting him on the shoulder. “Coupl’a scrapes from having to haul your ass back from that ledge, but nothing serious. I’m good, Stevie.”

Bucky sat back, lacing his fingers together and propping his feet on the bed. He looked so calm, so collected; but all Steve could see was the version of him that was seventy years younger, screaming in terror as he fell from the train-

He shook his head and took a breath. That wasn’t now. That was done. Bucky was back, and he was stronger than ever.

(It had almost happened again.)

“You’re awake,”

Steve shot up again in an instinctive response to the sound of that voice. He felt his heart hammer a few times faster as he laid eyes on Tony, bandaged and battered and wonderfully alive.

He made to move, but suddenly Bucky’s hands were there again, sharper, firmer this time, holding him on the bed. “Gently, Steve,” he warned quietly.

“Hey, it’s fine. He’s fine,” Tony told Bucky before Steve had a chance to open his mouth.

He looked in confusion between the two men as they shared a silent conversation between themselves. Eventually, Tony just rolled his eyes and stepped forward, reaching out for Steve’s hand and curling his fingers around the bigger man’s palm. “Just give us a minute, Bucky.”

“Tony, maybe I should just stay, in case-”

“He won’t do it again,” Tony argued, tone firm, hand holding tightly to Steve’s own.

Steve stared in confusion at the two of them. He had no idea what they were talking about- what did he do?

…what did he do.

“Tony,” Steve said quietly, looking up to him with a slowly growing expression of dread on his face, “I didn’t… what happened?”

Tony looked down at him, and then turned back to Bucky. “Five minutes. Then you can come back and mother hen the both of us to your heart’s content,” he told him.

Bucky grimaced, but nodded his head and gave Steve’s shoulder one last squeeze before standing and walking out of the room.

Tony watched him go, before turning back to Steve and running gentle fingers through his hair in greeting. “Hey, babe. You doing okay?”

Steve didn’t bother answering; just wrapped an arm around Tony’s waist and pulled him in, tucking his face into Tony’s stomach and clutching his hands across the planes of Tony’s back.

Safe. Warm. Alive.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Steve whispered, eyes shutting in horror once more. “I thought I’d let you fall-”

“but you didn’t,” Tony said, hands cupping the back of Steve’s head, holding him, grounding him, “I’m fine. Thor had my back. It’s all good, baby, I’m okay.”

Steve wrapped his arms a little tighter around Tony’s waist, but upon feeling the squirm of discomfort Tony desperately attempted to mask, he released immediately, pulling his arms back so they were resting lightly against Tony’s hips and looking upward in concern. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Tony said, a little too fast. “Well- I mean, yes. But in all fairness, I did have an aircraft land on my head, so-

Steve delicately lifted Tony’s shirt, despite Tony’s weak verbal protest, and gasped as he saw the bruises which mottled Tony’s right-hand side. They were an angry, deep purple; running from waist to-

Steve stopped as he got to Tony’s shoulder.

“Tony,” he said, very, very softly, “they’re… they’re from hands.”

Tony pressed a hand against Steve’s jaw, tilting it back up to face him once more. “They don’t matter-”

“It was me, wasn’t it,” Steve whispered, mouth falling open in horror. “When I… when I grabbed you. I made them.”

Tony looked like someone had just run over a puppy in front of him, and he pressed a self-conscious hand across his ribs where the bruises were worst. “Steve, you weren’t in your right mind, okay, it wasn’t your fault-”

“Did I break them?” Steve choked, delicate finger tracing the outline of Tony’s ribs, a feather-light caress, before seemingly coming back to himself and snapping it away in horror.

Tony made a whining noise in the back of his throat and grabbed Steve’s hand, pressing it back against his skin, despite Steve’s initial refusal. “Baby, come on- I’m fine. They’re just bruised. Please don’t be like that, it wasn’t your fault-”

“IT WAS!” Steve yelled, absolutely stricken. “I let you fall, I let you… you fell, and I promised myself I’d never ever let that happen again, and then when I get you back I hurt you, oh my god, I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry-”

And Steve just couldn’t contain it any more.

With a final racketing choke, his face crumbled and he felt the sting of hot tears as they spilled over on to his cheeks. He was emotionally exhausted, he was hurt, and so was Tony. Because of him. Because he was too strong, because he hadn’t even been able to hold it together enough to keep Tony safe-

“Oh, Steve- it’s okay,” Tony said softly, dropping on to the bed and pulling Steve in again, “we are all very acutely aware of what PTSD attacks do to a person. I’ve suffered a lot worse from other people and given a lot worse myself. This will heal. It was an accident. You literally did this from hugging me too tightly, babe, that’s really the best way I could imagine getting bruised ribs.”

Steve sniffed, leaning in against Tony’s uninjured shoulder and letting his fingers grip softly against the other man’s neck. He made sure to keep his touch impossibly light- the images of what he’d done before were burned into the back of his mind, and he couldn’t rid himself of them.

“You know, it’s okay to still be fucked up about what happened,” Tony said softly, “it’s okay. And Bucky might look like you just shot his grandmother, but if you need to talk to him about it, I’m 100% certain he will be there-”

“I was supposed to be able to save people,” Steve said suddenly, wiping his eyes with the heel of his palm, “the serum was supposed to… what use am I if I couldn’t even save the people who mean the most? What’s the point?”

Tony made another pained sound as Steve coughed on another sob, and his fingers gently stroked down Steve’s cheeks, wiping the tears from his face and smiling. “See, Steve- the great thing is- the people who mean the most to you?”

Tony bent down, kissing his forehead softly. “They can look out for themselves. Seriously- how many times have both me and Bucky ‘died’? We’re nightmares, honestly, it’s a wonder you keep us around, I’m pretty sure we’ve been cursed.”

Tony stopped, letting his nose fall into Steve’s messed-up hair. “Point is, you are not solely responsible for our wellbeing. You, at no point in history, have ever been to blame for either of us ‘dying’. Because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you would do everything and anything in your power to make sure that does not happen.”

Steve bit his lip, fighting back the urge to clutch Tony a little tighter as the other man leaned into him, hands pressing into the knots of Steve’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said again after a while, shaking his head and pulling away, looking at the floor, “I… for everything.”

Tony made an unimpressed noise in the back of his throat and quickly pulled Steve in again, kissing him soundly on the mouth.”Please don’t be,” he said honestly, “just… let it out. You went through some shit today. It’s okay. I won’t hold it against you.”

“That a promise?” Steve asked, a watery smile on his face as he watched Tony.

“You don’t cry enough for me to be comfortable with, anyway,” Tony said gruffly, “you owe me tears, Rogers- I’m doing all the crying in this relationship right now and that is something I am not comfortable with at all.”

When Steve remained silent, Tony placed a hand on the back of his neck and smiled. “It’s okay. I’m here, baby. And I’ll stay as long as you want me. Just…let it go.”

Steve looked up at him- Tony- battle-worn and and tired and bruised, but alive. Steve hadn’t failed him, Tony was still here.

Steve let his head drop back on to Tony’s shoulder, and he cried.

Chapter Text

“PETER PARKER, YOU BETTER GET YOUR BUTT OFF THE CEILING RIGHT THIS INSTANT OR NO TV FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT!” Steve yelled, arms folded and giving his best ‘don’t fuck with me’ look up at the ceiling above him.

It had been seven days since Steve and Tony had decided to finally adopt the 3 year old spider-kid they’d found looking desperately for a home, 2 days since Tony had left said spider-kid in steve’s care in order to go for an emergency business meeting, and 6 hours since the rest of the team had decided to go into hiding in order to avoid parenting duties.

That had left Steve. With Peter. Alone.

Unfortunately, no matter how freakily good tony may have been with kids, that talent didn’t quite extend to Steve. Peter still wasn’t coming down, and Steve was seriously considering getting a broom and just dislodging the kid-

“Honey, I’m home!” Tony sung, flinging open the doors and searching for Steve, dropping his briefcases and beaming.

The beam dropped a little when he actually spotted his husband, stood with his arms out underneath the toddler that was hung precariously on the kitchen-lights.

“That’s… probably dangerous,” he commented nervously, wandering forward.

Steve just scowled. He hadn’t slept for the two days Tony had been away- too busy worrying after Peter- and the noise that those tiny lungs were managing to produce was pushing him close to tears. He didn’t have the energy to snap a sarcastic reply at Tony right now.

“Petey, why are you up there?” Tony called out.

“Fun!” Peter yelled back. He chose that moment to lift his hands away from the ceiling, and both Tony and Steve yelled and rushed forward to try and catch him until realising that he was still stuck by his feet.

“Okayyy…” Tony said cautiously, hands still half-lifted, “how about, rather than just sticking to the ceiling, I take you for a ride in my flying suit? Then you can stick to the biggest, highest, coolest thing you can find! While I supervise, obviously,” Tony added, when steve looked horrified.

Peter considered this for a moment, before nodding and giving both of them no other warning than a giggled, “cash me!” before he dropped into Steve’s waiting arms.

Steve looked horrifiedly at the boy squirming excitedly in his hands for a few seconds, before sighing in relief and placing him back down on the floor, where he instantly began running back to the tv in the living room, still full of energy in a way only kids that age were.

“That was exhausting and terrifying and you’re not allowed to leave me alone with him ever again,” Steve muttered, letting his eyes close and head rest against Tony’s shoulder as the man walked forward to pull him into his arms.

Tony laughed, patting Steve gently on the shoulder and kissing him on the cheek. “Welcome to fatherhood, babe.”

Chapter Text

The room was quiet and dark when Tony walked in.

“Steve! Light of my life, apple to my pie, straw to my berry, I have excellent- oh” he stopped at the door, noticing Steve’s curled up form on their huge bed, facing away from Tony and clutching at pillows he’d grabbed from the head of the bed.

Without saying another word, he quietly closed their door and crept further in, keeping his footsteps loud to make sure Steve was aware of his presence until he made it to Steve’s side. He quickly sat down beside him, leaning on his elbows and looking down at Steve, who had just pulled his eyes away from the view out of the window in order to look at Tony.

“Rough day?” Tony asked him quietly, letting his fingers wander over to Steve’s hand and stroke softly at his warm skin.

Steve just laughed woodenly and nodded his head a little. “Could say that, yeah,” he looked down, watching Tony as he played a gentle rhythm on Steve’s pulse. 

Knowing that it was something for Steve to focus on, Tony kept it up, leaning down further until they were lying face-to-face on the soft bedsheets.

“Is it problem I can help with?” He asked, knowing that it wasn’t- Steve’s problems rarely were.

Steve opened his mouth, and Tony knew he was gearing himself up for a speech; but the fight seemed to drain from him suddenly, and he shut his mouth with an audible clack again, falling back on to the pillows and closing his eyes.

“Just… just smile. I really need to see you smile right now,” Steve told him, his voice horribly fragile in the quiet room.

Tony had a brief second to wonder why he was being made to smile his horribly wonky and odd smile- but steve wanted it.

So he did.

And, for whatever reason, it seemed to do the trick. His lopsided lips and wonky teeth gave Steve the opportunity to breathe in deep and and then exhale, once, twice, three times- until he seemed to relax more against the pillows he was resting on.

Wordlessly, Steve found his waist and pulled him in close, Tony instinctively tucking his hands up between their chests in the same way he’d always done each time they’d embraced for the past two years. He felt Steve brush his lips across Tony’s hair and inhale again, shaky and relieved at the sense of familiarity. 

“Why?” Tony asked, after a minute. 

Steve shrugged, letting his thumb brush up against Tony’s bottom lip for a moment, before he ducked down and pressed a soft kiss there.

 “It reminds me that I have a purpose here. To make sure you smile like that every day.”

Chapter Text

Shit.

I’m going to vomit, Tony thought vaguely, falling on to all fours as he gagged up the phantom water that he could feel crawling up his throat.

He couldn’t breathe. His chest was concaving in on itself, there was a jagged gap where his heart should be, someone had their hands in his chest on a dirty bench in a cave and he couldn’t fucking breathe, shit, all he could feel was water, all he could taste was sand and dirt and blood in the back of his mouth, Obie was there and he was laughing and Tony had no one left in the world to trust anymore-

“Today you woke up and ate two gluten free waffles, before stealing the remainder of Clint’s cereal to be petty.”

There was smoke and fire and bombs and screams and it was Tony’s fault, it was all his fault, he was going to die knowing that he could have prevented this, he could’ve stopped it-

“You said you wouldn’t have sex with me ever again if I didn’t protect you from his wrath when he found out, and I told you that you couldn’t go more than four days without me. You agreed, and said I had to protect you anyway. I did, because I’m a pushover for you in the mornings. Well, who am I kidding- I’m a pushover for you all the time.”

Tony was being dragged away now, and he could taste the disgusting water as it choked on the back of his throat- but now it was something else too- someone else was there, there was… someone was laughing. About cereal.

And Tony felt warm despite the freezing water that ran down his back.

“Clint came down the stairs and you looked like you were literally about to be murdered, so you launched yourself across the table and kissed me like it was the last time you ever would, and of course that was enough to persuade me to defend you from the oncoming wrath of Barton when he discovered his favourite box of cereal in the trash.”

…Things were getting confusing. 

Tony couldn’t- he didn’t know what was real any more, he was choking on bile and water and dirt and laughter, as he hightailed it through the tower in desperate attempt to avoid Clint’s outraged cries and projectiles while Steve just shook his head in the background and Natasha cheered them on.

He couldn’t… it didn’t… everything was a goddamn mess in his head, holy shit-

“Tony?” The voice was soft and gentle and near, but Tony didn’t flinch, because Tony knew that voice better than anything; that voice was safe. That voice was home.

He opened his eyes. Steve was crouched next to him, a safe distance away on the floor.

“If I’m allowed to touch you, just give me a nod,” he said.

God, if it had been any other person, Tony would have screamed at the very thought. 
But Steve… Steve was so warm. So much warmer than that horrible fucking tank of water-

He nodded his head.

And suddenly, he could hear something that wasn’t his own screams. He felt something that wasn’t cold or scratchy or agony. He smelt something other than blood and stale air.

“Hey, hey,” Steve soothed, his arms so very gentle around Tony’s waist, “calm down, love- they can’t hurt you any more. I swear.”

He could hear the wracking shudders of his own chest as it rattled against Steve’s; feel the shaking of his fingers as they curled into the fabric around Steve’s shoulders so hard that his knuckles turned white. 

It was proof that this was real. This was where he was. A broken mess of a man sobbing on the floor as the love of his life held him through it all. This was real. It was embarrassing and humiliating, but it wasn’t…

It wasn’t the cave.

He gasped, lungs failing to do their job effectively enough as he struggled to find air- but Steve was still there, rubbing his shoulders and gently coaxing the life back into his body, bit by painful bit, each second broken by the sound of steve’s voice, explaining his day so far and somehow making it into a great adventure, when Tony knew it was really quite dull.

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there. But when he finally pulled away from Steve, he could not longer taste anything in the back of his throat.

“It will never happen again, Tony.” Steve whispered, his lips feather-light against Tony’s forehead.

Tony laughed, and his voice was broken from the crying. “You seem sure of that.”

Steve just gave him a long look, stroking the hair from his eyes and letting his thumb linger across the outline of his cheekbone.

“I am, yes. Because there is not a lot I can’t do when I put my mind to it, and Tony Stark, I would move heaven and Earth to make sure you never suffered like that. Never again.”

It was ridiculous. It was ridiculous and unrealistic and a perfect example of steve’s idealism. 

And yet-

“i believe you,” Tony whispered.

Chapter Text

“Tell me you need me.”

The words punctured through their angry silence like a knife slashing through a tire, and Tony’s head shot up from where it had been staring at the table in order to look over at Steve in surprise.

Of all the things he’d expected Steve to say, that certainly hadn’t been it. 

“I…what?” Tony asked, momentarily forgetting his fury in order to stare at Steve in confusion.

They were in the middle of a fucking screaming match. Tony had just been yelling about how he was sick of Steve's shit, and Steve had been yelling right back, harder and sharper and more furious, because they always had to try and fucking one-up one another, they always had to have the last word. 
You didn’t ask that in the middle of something like this.

And so Tony immediately knew that something was wrong.

“Tell me… just… you know what, fucking forget it, I don’t care-” Steve waved it off, shaking his head and clenching his jaw as he turned his back again and leaned over the tabletop.

And god- Tony wanted to just let it go, like Steve was telling him to. He wanted to get back to the screaming; he wanted to ask why the hell Steve had been so rude and cold and distant over the past few weeks; why he’d chosen to drive off to fucking Washington on their goddamn anniversary and leave Tony with nothing more than a note to apologise for it.

But Tony’s brain was fast; it was his goddamn curse sometimes, but it meant he could connect dots pretty quickly, and in the space of a few seconds he was meticulously breaking down all the events over the past few weeks, working out the source, finding the root of the problem in the same space of time as it would take a person to click their fingers.

“Three weeks ago. We were fighting Loki again. You disappeared for a few minutes,” Tony said quietly, and he watched as Steve stiffened minutely under his gaze, and knew he was on the right track.

“What did he show you,” he eventually said, crossing his arms and standing up straighter.

“Oh, just fuck off and leave it, Tony,” Steve said, but it lacked the anger of before, and now it just sounded resigned. Tired. Sad.

“What the fuck did he show you, Steve,” Tony hissed.

There was a tight silence, and then, “nothing I didn’t already know.”

Tony sighed irritably, but his anger was beginning to be clouded with something more similar to worry now, and damn Steve for making him like this; damn him for forcing him to worry when he should just be allowed to be furious.

“He told you something, or showed you something, or- I don’t fucking know, maybe he’s fucking possessing you- but whatever it was, Steve, you need to clue me the fuck in, because I’m stood here and I assure you I’m not dropping this until you-”

“He showed me what life would have been like without me,” Steve cut in, whipping around and turning to face Tony, hands clenched so tightly that the knuckles were stark white. “He showed me what your life would have been like without me, Tony, and you know what? It wasn’t any fucking different. Not one bit. Aside from the fact that I wasn’t a part of it, absolutely nothing had changed.”

There was yet another silence, but this one was weighted with shock, rather than anger. It was only broken when Steve spoke up again. 

“My whole… I’m pointless. I don’t need to be here, Tony. Everyone else could have filled in my roles in life. I made absolutely no difference- i didn’t invent shit, I didn’t single-handedly save the world, it barely even looked like I had a damn effect on your life-”

“Shut the fuck up, Steve,” Tony jerked wildly, hand slicing through the air and cutting him off, furious all over again. “Shut the fuck up, okay? If you say another word I am seriously walking the fuck out of here.”

Steve just stared at him, jaw clenched stubbornly and eyes hard- but so much sadder than Tony had realised before.

“Do you have any idea how angry it makes me that you could fucking believe that bullshit, even for a single second? Are you out of your God-forsaken mind? Did Clint accidentally shoot your fucking brains out? What the fuck is wrong with you! Steve, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even fucking be here! And not just because you saved me from fuck only knows how many shots and explosions and aliens, because you saved me from my goddamned self, you bastard!” Tony screamed, his fist slamming on the table and cracking through the room.

Steve looked slightly taken aback by the sudden outburst, and his eyes were a little wide as he looked at Tony, out of breath and staring murderously back at him.

“Do you even… did it even occur to you for a second that Loki was just.. y’know, lying? Steve, fuck you, I love you so much it burns me, you fucking idiot- you’ve saved so many people and changed so many lives. Without you, HYDRA would have taken over humanity. Without you, the Avengers would have no one to lead them. Without you, I’d probably have just jumped off the fucking roof a damn long time ago. But nope, none of that matters, because motherfucking Piece of Shit Loki Laufeyson must be telling the truth, right?”

Another brittle laugh, and then, “You ask me to ‘tell me you need me’, but I don’t. i don’t need you. In the same way heroin addicts don’t need another fix, or I don’t need a coffee in the morning. I don’t fucking ‘need’ you- but I sure as hell wouldn’t know how to survive without you.”

He took a deep breath, and then when that failed to calm him, he settled with grabbing the nearest mug and throwing it across the room, trying to expel all his anger out in the shards that flew out from impact. “Steve. I love you more than I ever thought I could ever love anything or anyone, and I will for the rest of my life. And I fucking hate you for making me say that right now. After everything you’ve done. After you fucking hurt me, continuously, for three shitty weeks, because you let some shitass trickster get in your head.”

Tony kept his eyes fixed on the table, and wished there was another mug to throw. There wasn’t- so he turned away.

Steve caught his arm.

“i thought it was real. I did, and I…” Steve stumbled over the words, quiet and frantic and pleading, apparently finally realising his mistake.

“And you thought that you could just randomly start pulling away from a three year relationship because you thought I didn’t need you in the first place,” tony finished for him, his voice unable to keep from cracking toward the end.

“Yes. Tony…I’m so sor-”

“Don’t,” Tony pulled out of Steve’s grip and turned his back, so Steve couldn’t see the traitorous red of his eyes. “You made me worried sick, you shit. I thought you were cheating, I thought you were bored of me, you missed our goddamn anniversary, do you know how fast my heart fell to my fucking shoes when i read that note, asshole-”

Shit. He was crying properly, now, and Steve sounded like he was struggling for air too, as he stumbled forward and reached blindly for Tony’s hand. “I know, Tony, I know, and I’m so sorry, I thought it was what you wanted, please-”

“What I wanted? How could you-” He couldn’t finish, his throat wouldn’t work; and he was still trying to pull away but it was weak, and Steve was on his knees, fingers shaking as they curled around Tony’s waist, whispering broken apologies into Tony’s stomach, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I love you, I’ll make it up to you, I’m sorry baby, please-”

“I… I know you are,” Tony whispered, the fight draining out of him as he let his knees buckle, knowing Steve would catch him.

Because that’s what they did. They screamed and threw mugs and spewed venom at one another, declaring they were finished or they hated one another.
But it was bullshit. If Tony fell, Steve would always be there. Without hesitation.

As soon he’d dropped, he was being pulled into Steve’s arms, wrapping tightly around him in a way he hadn’t felt properly for almost a month, and had missed like the air he breathed.

“I’ve got a lot of making up to do, haven’t I?” Steve said quietly, kissing Tony’s hair, and then his cheeks, and then his eyelids, moving across every inch of Tony’s face with a gentle press of lips.

“You have no idea,” Tony mumbled, and he remembered as he rested against Steve’s chest that the last time he’d had a proper sleep was about four days ago. 

He was really tired. Not to mention emotionally drained.

“I’ll do it,” Steve promised fiercely, gripping Tony’s waist and rocking them back and forth, “I swear I’ll make it up, and I’ll book us a whole week away if you want, to make up for our anniversary- we can get the best hotel you want, have a candle-lit meal and everything, and then I’ll take you back to our room and lay you on the silk sheets and-”

He glanced down. Tony was asleep in his arms.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered sadly, knowing that Tony probably hadn’t slept well ever since steve had started acting like the world’s shittiest boyfriend, three weeks ago now.

He shut his eyes and pushed the guilt down for a moment in order to scoop Tony up and begin carrying him out of the room, feeling the beautiful sense of familiarity and home that he’d been missing for weeks now.

“I don’t care what you think- I certainly need you,” Steve told him, kissing his forehead.

Chapter Text

It was pouring with rain when Steve arrived outside the tower. Typical. He’d only just showered, and now he probably smelt like wet dog all over again.

Well. It was better than blood and dirt, he figured with a small, exhausted sigh.

The mission had been long and tiring and ultimately worthless. They’d lost anyway- too many people had died for it to be anything worth celebrating. Steve could still see some of their faces if he thought about it too hard- looking at him, pleading with him. 
The journey back had been rough on everyone.

He felt tired. Bone-deep weariness that was difficult to shake. It clung to him like the rain did; sticking in his hair, coating his clothes with coldness. He just wanted to curl up and sleep- let the storm pass over his head until he awoke and it had all dissipated again. And more than anything, he wanted Tony.

Tony always helped.

Pushing his card in the door and opening it with a sophisticated swish, Steve slipped through quietly, shaking off his hair as he did so to try and dislodge some of the raindrops. He was wearing a SHIELD uniform after his Cap one had been destroyed, and it felt a little too tight, a little uncomfortable. It obviously hadn’t been designed by someone who knew his body as intimately as Tony did- knew the lines and divots he’d traced with his hands countless times.

God, Steve had missed him.

Coming back home was always nice. Warm. Lovely. It was hard (although not impossible) to feel glum when he knew what was waiting for him upstairs. It was a bit of a gamble as to what exactly he got- whether it be a Norse God or an Archer or all of them at once- but Steve didn’t mind. They were all family to him anyway. 
Even if they did piss him off to the ends of the earth some days.

As he wandered into the elevator and pressed his finger against the button up to the penthouse, he heard JARVIS greet him with a soft ‘welcome back, Captain Rogers- the tower has missed you’ and smiled automatically. He loved hearing JARVIS’ voice- it was like the first sign of home. Wherever there was a JARVIS, a Tony wasn’t far behind.

Good.

“Who’s about?” Steve asked through a yawn, hoisting his kitbag a little higher on his shoulder.

“Only Mr Barton and Sir, currently- although Barton is down at the archery range in the basement and seems preoccupied, and sir appears to be napping in the living room.”

Steve nodded, feeling the tiny shift that signified they had come to a stop. “Thank you,” he told JARVIS politely.

“You’re very welcome- it is a pleasure to have you back in the building. Sir’s sleeping patterns have become increasingly irregular since your departure, and from my initial scans, so have yours. It will be nice to bring some balance back into the world.”

Steve huffed, and then the doors slipped open with barely a sound and suddenly, he was back on solid ground again. The penthouse floor span out around him- the kitchen somewhere off in the left and the large open-plan living room directly ahead of him- and Steve felt his face split into a content little beam of relief.

He loved coming home. That was his favourite part of missions.

Padding forward, he made his way to the living room. The TV was on, but turned down to an almost silent volume, and the couches appeared empty. Far off to the right, the windows of the tower glistened and tapped with the sound of rain against their panes. It was quiet. Peaceful.

Steve sighed in relief. Much as he loved his friends, he didn’t think he would have been able to handle loudness just then.

He reached the back of the biggest couch and placed a hand over it, spotting the figure curled up against the pillows immediately as he did so. Drenched in a jumper five sizes too big for him, hair a mess and face relaxed peacefully, was Tony. He must have taken a nap whilst waiting for Steve.

It was adorable, and Steve found himself unable to stop smiling. Yeah- coming home. Definitely the best part.

He was quiet as he slipped around the armrest and then slid to his knees in front of Tony’s face, hand slowly rising to stroke softly across Tony’s cheek, into the thick hair. Curled up like that; Tony seemed so small, so vulnerable, and it made a burst of protectiveness and sheer, pure love erupt in Steve’s heart. He found often after particularly trying Ops, that he became a little more attached to Tony, if only for a few days. Those sort of things just… made a guy think. Remember exactly what he had to lose.

In his sleepy haze, Tony instinctively rose up and pressed his face against Steve’s palm, a half-smile forming across his mouth as he hummed happily. Steve’s stomach twisted- and it was almost funny, the fact that Tony could still give him butterflies, all these years in.

“Hey, love.”

Steve kept his hand in Tony’s hair as the man slowly woke; his eyes fluttering open and spotting Steve immediately. Steve just continued to let his fingers play against Tony’s nape, against the adorable curls that looped across the back of his head when it went too long without a cut.

“Steve?” Tony asked sleepily, as his brain finally kicked into gear.

“Yeah, sweetheart, I’m back. Sorry I took so long- you know how it is,” Steve whispered, even though there was no-one there to hear them and barely any other noise in the tower aside from the staccato beat of rain against glass.

Tony paused for a moment, eyes drinking in Steve and his tired face, his wet hair, his badly-fitted clothes. Then he rubbed a sleeved hand over his eye and yawned, the other set of fingers curling softly around the collar of Steve’s jacket. “C’mere, baby,” he muttered, still half-asleep.

“Tony, I’m soaking w-”

“Don’t care. Wanna cuddle. Deal.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh as Tony tugged him forward, manoeuvred him so that Steve was lying against Tony’s chest with his arms curled loosely around his waist- all while the man was still half asleep. It didn’t even seem as if Tony had properly woken up at all, and that was definitely an indicator as to how little the man had been sleeping since Steve had been away.

Well. He could rectify that later.

Tony’s nose scrunched adorably as Steve’s wet hair touched his chin, and Steve was about to move away, but Tony just made a noise of disapproval and clutched tighter, wrapping his arms stubbornly around Steve’s shoulders and sticking his whole face into the blonde wetness without another complaint. Steve just laughed again. “God, I love you,” he said softly, placing his greeting kiss against the plating of the reactor, “I love you so much.”

Again Tony just hummed and curled himself tighter around Steve. “Missed you so much,” he mumbled, and Steve couldn’t see, but he’d bet their joint fortune that Tony was pouting at that moment.

His hand curled around Tony’s; finger tracing feather-light against the slightly faded gold band Tony wore. “Go back to sleep, darling,” he whispered, shutting his own eyes even as he said it.

One last time, Tony gave his little hum, and then immediately after Steve felt him switch off again, his hands still curled tight around Steve. He was like that, sometimes- unable to sleep even if you fed him horse tranquillisers some days, and out like a light as soon as you said the word on others. Steve preferred the latter- less hassle, after all.

He sighed in contentment, and felt a little bit of the tension drain from his shoulders. 
He was home. Tony was there. The couch was warm and the weather was dreadful and they were both there, safe inside, watching the rain from against the panes of glass as it fell quietly around them.

He was home.

Slowly, his eyes fluttered shut, and his breathing levelled with Tony’s.

Chapter Text

“I brought pie and Asgardian booze- shall we begin?”

Steve turned his head back down, grinning as Tony pushed his way through the doors and walked over to him. “I don’t know, Stark, are you gonna ruin the mood? I mean, you’re already ruining the view,” he looked pointedly over Tony’s shoulder as the man leaned over him from his place on the deckchair atop the roof of the Avengers Tower.

“I am the view,” Tony shrugged, dropping the box and the bottle in order to run his hands through Steve’s hair.

“Lame. You totally took that off the internet,” Steve replied, hands rising to Tony’s waist as he let his head fall into Tony’s stomach, “how you feeling?”

“Better. Shoulder’s still having a bad day, but aside from that,” Tony trailed off, and Steve felt him shrug again, “I mean, hey- at least there’s one silver lining to this clusterfuck of a day.”

Tony looked up, face splitting into a soft smile as he stared at the thousands of stars glittering above them. 
He’d always loved the stars- even after the portal and the nuke and everything- Steve still saw that little smile play on his face when he talked about space. It was… comforting, in a way. That Tony could still love the stars, even after nearly being left to die amongst them. Made Steve feel like their jobs might not ruin everything. That something good might persevere through the nightmares.

Tony’s hands ran through his hair a few more times (and Steve knew him- knew he was checking, because the battle had been hard and Steve was pretty beaten up after being thrown through that wall), before he pulled away a little and let his knees buckle; falling into Steve’s lap fluidly. Steve watched fondly as he wiggled his butt and got comfortable between Steve’s legs, lying back against his chest as he looked upward. “Really is something, isn’t it?”

Steve kissed his temple, before his own head drifted upward. “Definitely. I never thought I’d be able to see something like this here, in New York.”

“Well, you can thank our friendly visitors for that, “ he heard Tony reply, hands reaching for the pie and then ripping open the lid, “they were the ones who went and sat on the goddamn power grid.”

Steve swooped in and snatched the piece of pie Tony was cutting into, shoving into his mouth rather unceremoniously, despite Tony’s protests. “That’s fucking rude, Steve.”

Steve smiled with full cheeks and pressed another kiss to Tony’s face, even when the man yelled and smacked him away. “Ew, Steve, I bet I’ve got crumbs all over my damn face now. Coming out here was a mistake- in fact, just dating you in the first place was a mistake I shall regret to my dying day-”

“Liar,” Steve sung, arms wrapping around Tony’s body and mouth littering kisses across Tony’s face, laughing throughout each and every one.

Tony just sighed, in the end, and let Steve attack his face. “The worst,” he mumbled, although the way he leaned into Steve’s touch suggested otherwise.

Steve chuckled again, and then he finally sat back, pulling Tony a little higher onto his chest so that the top of his head was resting under Steve’s chin. They both leaned back; heads once more titling to the stars above them, and admiring the strange contrast their peace and tranquillity brought to the still-bustling streets below them.

“Do you want a star, Steve?” Tony asked suddenly, after a few seconds spent staring.

“Hmm?” Steve hummed in question. He could feel Tony’s fingers playing absently with his own, and he squeezed fondly.

“A star,” Tony repeated, “I can buy you one. We can name it whatever you want. And then for the rest of history, that’ll be yours.”

Steve paused, and then he huffed a quiet little laugh. “What if I wanted Polaris? Think you can wrangle that one for me?”

A short pause. And then “I could have it arranged. I know people.”

Steve laughed louder this time, and he looked down at Tony, who was still staring avidly above them.

He was so perfect. Even though bruises mottled the side of his face, and stitches ran along the top of his shoulder. Even though he could be the most stubborn bastard on heaven and earth, or the worst when it came to keeping their goddamn room clean.

Perfect.

“I love you, you big idiot,” Steve wrapped him up a littler tighter, nose pressing against Tony’s temple as he smiled down at his hopeless boyfriend, “and no, please don’t buy Polaris. That wasn’t a request, or a challenge-”

“Well, see, now I’ve got Polaris on my mind, Steve, how am I supposed to not-”

“By looking up at the sky, thinking- ‘oh, hey, that’s the most famous star in the sky and changing it to something obnoxious would make my boyfriend cry real tears, so I’m just gonna put my credit card away, this once’,” Steve told him firmly.

Tony grunted discontentedly. “Sounds boring.”

“I like boring,” Steve said simply, “boring is simple. We don’t have enough boring.” 
Hah- wasn’t that the fucking truth?

Eventually, Tony just sighed. “Fine. No Polaris. Only because I love you very very much, though, or I would totally be having my way.”

Steve rolled his eyes fondly, but didn’t reply. Just opened his palm a little further so that Tony could trace his patterns into the skin there.

And there they stayed. Watching the stars glitter and move slowly through the sky as their little planet turned- still going, still (relatively) unscathed, thanks to their efforts.

It was easy to imagine you were meaningless, when you looked up at something like that. But Steve… it just made him more desperate to look out for the stupid rock they called home. They still had to make their place in the galaxy. They still had so much to give. And Steve would protect that until his dying day.

He opened his mouth a few minutes later, but the words died in his mouth as he glanced down and saw that Tony was fast asleep in his arms. His hair was falling over his eyes, mouth hanging open vacantly as he slept soundly for what was probably the first time in a few days by that point.

It was quite honestly adorable. Although maybe Steve was slightly biased. But who the fuck cared, really?

He smiled, pressing his mouth into Tony’s curls once more before shifting them. “Come on, love, I think that’s enough stargazing for one night.”

“Wuh- what? No, no, ‘m… I’m good,” Tony mumbled as Steve shifted him, sitting upright and then tucking Tony into his side so that his head fell easily onto Steve’s shoulder.

“Of course you are,” Steve agreed absently, hands wrapping around Tony’s back, hoisting them both upright as he brought Tony into an easy bridal carry, “but we had a long day. I think sleeping is in order.”

Tony made a few more tiny noises that may have been words, but his hands tucked around Steve’s neck and he buried his head down into Steve’s chest, so it wasn’t like he was complaining much. 

The next time Steve looked down, Tony’s eyes were closed once more.

He shook his head and shot one last fleeting glance upward; watching Polaris glitter through the atmosphere. 

For a single second, he thought it might be cool if he got to rename it. Maybe he’d call it Anthony. Seemed like a good name for it.

“Nope,” he warned himself, pushing the thought out as he turned his back and slipped back through the doors. “Don’t even fucking go there, Steve.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, baby, you know I love you, but I gotta ask- what the goddamn fuck.”

Steve stared down at their room in shock, coat dangling off his fingers as he got caught in the motion of throwing it over the chair. He looked around their bedroom- or at least, what was left of it, with a gaping mouth.

It seemed in the night Steve had been away, Tony had disassembled…everything. Cupboards, bed, electricals- it was all lying in pieces on the floor around Tony. It looked like someone had taken a bat to the place and started swinging with abandon.

And slap bang in the middle, lying on his stomach as he cackled hysterically at the bizarre device in front of him, was Tony himself.

He looked up at Steve as he entered, and smiled brightly. “Hey, Steve,” he waved in front of him, and Steve frowned, watching as the multi-coloured slinky went over and over and over, “I just solved the mystery of creating perpetual motion… and guess what I’m using it for?”

He pointed down at the toy- and then he burst out laughing again.

Steve couldn’t help but smile fondly- Tony must have been pretty tired to be this far gone. “Do I want to know why you decided to change the world of physics forever whilst sat in your underwear in the middle of our bedroom, using-” he turned a little, holding the door as it suddenly collapsed, “-door hinges?”

Tony shrugged. “I got bored. You said you’d come home hours ago. I didn’t wanna go to sleep before you got here.”

Steve sighed, beginning to take a few tentative steps forward and trying not to crush various objects that littered the floor. “Honey, how long has it been since you got a good rest?”

Tony just stared at the slinky a little more, snorting. “God, I love my brain.”

“Right,” Steve declared, bending down and taking Tony’s shoulder softly, “come on, love, I think it’s time to stop, for now.”

Tony slapped him away weakly, pointing to the machine. “But Steve. Steeeeve. It… it hasn’t stopped moving yet. I wanna watch it stop.”

“It won’t ever stop, sweetheart, that’s why they call it perpetual motion,” Steve scooped him up gently, and he felt Tony’s laugh against his shoulder as the man’s head dropped in exhaustion.

“I’m so damn clever,” he muttered, arms winding instinctively around Steve’s neck as he hoisted them both up.

“Yes, you are,” Steve answered, kissing him on the temple, “but you’re also very stupid. Next time, just go to sleep, rather than wait up for my sake.”

“But I like seeing your face,” Tony grumbled, head jerking up, looking at Steve before he pressed a messy kiss to his cheek.

It didn’t last too long- he burst into another round of laughter shortly after. “A fucking slinky, holy shit, I am the best-”

Steve just shook his head in fond amusement; placing Tony down at his side of the bed and then pulling the covers over him. “Close your eyes, love- it’ll still be spinning in the morning.”

“Damn right it will,” Tony muttered, still smiling, “‘m gonna take a selfie and send it to CERN- I hate those stuck up assholes.”

“You do that,” Steve stroked the hairs off Tony’s forehead, pressing a kiss there before hopping around to his side and getting comfy next to Tony. There was a rather ominous creaking noise, and Steve felt something snap underneath him, but he didn’t want to deal with that right now. Tony would fix it all in the morning. Hopefully.

Tony chuckled to himself once more, before it merged into a little snore. Steve wondered if he’d even been awake at all whilst he’d been making that machine.
 It said something about the both of them that Steve genuinely couldn’t tell the difference, sometimes.

Steve huffed, rolling over and sliding his arms around Tony’s waist. He pressed a soft kiss into Tony’s hair, and the man sighed happily, tucking himself further into Steve’s hold.

Solving the mystery of perpetual motion. All in a day’s work, really.

Chapter Text

Steve loved watching the man dance through the windows of the studio.

Okay. Okay wait. That sounded weird. He wasn’t… it wasn’t in a creepy way! He was’t a weirdo, honestly, and the guy knew he was there. So it wasn’t like- not in a stalkerish sense.

He just… found the man beautiful, that was all.

And yes, yes, maybe that did sound a little creepy considering they’d never actually shared anything more than a smile through a window, but damn- Steve had never seen anyone move like that before in his life. Never had he laid eyes on anyone who could flow around a room like he was made of liquid; every position perfect and wonderful and so very graceful. It was insane. It was like watching magic.

Steve adored it.

He came every week on a Friday evening after he got off work, and he’d bring his sketchbook each and every time. Rain, snow or shine- he’d be there. And so would the ballet dancer.

And each and every time, his muse would catch his eye through the window and smile softly, that perfectly angled face catching the light and making his skin glow. 

Yeah. At this point, he was half convinced the man was a literal angel. Bucky said he just needed to go in there and ask for his number, but honestly? Steve was a little terrified of him. God- the man probably had people drooling over him at every chance they got. He was probably already with someone. It would be crazy for him not to be.

So Steve was fine just watching, and drawing, and sharing smiles through the huge french windows.

That day was no different. Steve still had a good forty minutes before his bus came, so he was absolutely fine with getting comfortable on the bench and pulling out his sketchbook from the folds of his bag.

It was a particularly cold January day, and Steve’s fingers were a little shaky as he pulled the pencil out from behind his ear. The man was already fully engrossed in his routine; a sequence he had been practising religiously for weeks by that point. It was fast and energetic and truly magnificent to watch, and Steve had probably captured each and every pose by that point.

Steve began the rough outline of the man’s perfect body as it flew through the air, and as he looked up to watch him spin perfectly, he bit his lip and swallowed a little harshly. It was… it was certainly appealing to the artistic side of Steve, but then there was the more simple part of him- the part that would sure as hell love to get his hands on that quite ridiculously amazing ass.

He shook his head. It was probably bad to think of strangers like that. Or acquaintances. Or… whatever they were. Serial-Smilers. Something like that.

His fingers worked, all his focus entirely engaged on the man as he twirled and spun and worked his magic upon the room. Soon enough, there was another little sketch sat roughly in the corner of his sheet, and Steve smiled happily. The man really was perfect- his whole aura was something Steve felt as if he could physically latch onto and draw for days on end.

With a fond sigh and a soft thumb which rubbed over the graphite, he looked up, and jumped upon seeing the man himself, leaning against the window and looking right at him. He was panting; hair stuck to his forehead and body glistening with sweat as he grinned over.

Steve had to swallow again, but this one went a little wrong, and he only ended up choking on air.

Fuck. He was glad the guy couldn’t actually hear him- that would only have been more embarrassing.

The man cocked his eyebrows and then jerked his head backward a little, and Steve’s eyebrows furrowed. He wasn’t too sure what the dancer was trying to say.

He did it again, hand jerking a little this time, and Steve just jutted his chin out a fraction and squinted his eyes in question. Eventually, the man rolled his eyes, doing a little spin on one foot and then pointing to himself- hand moving into a thumbs up, then a thumbs down.

Oh.

Oh! He was asking Steve what he’d thought.

Steve grinned, holding up his finger in the silent request for ‘one minute’, and then turned over the sheet of paper quickly, fingers working fast across the paper with a bold marker.

A few seconds later, he held up the book and showed the dancer a cartoon thumbs-up, hoping it was emphasised enough to be seen across the road.

It appeared to do the trick, because the man laughed and then walked forward again, hands coming up to the glass as he breathed onto it.

Steve watched in amusement as his dancer friend stuck out his tongue in concentration, writing out ‘thank you!’ into the condensation left by his breath. Steve was the one who giggled this time, and he turned back down to his sketchpad, intended to write out the fateful question of ‘what’s your name?’- but unfortunately, he never got around to it.

Because at that moment, a lorry veered around the corner and skidded next to the curb, sending a sheet of freezing cold water directly toward Steve.

He was man enough to admit he screamed a little. He hated the cold. He fucking hated it. Especially cold water. And suddenly it was all over his clothes, his face, his sketchbook, Jesus Christ.

Well. That sure was a swift end to his good mood. He’d never get the thing dry in time, because everything he owned was now soaking-

“Hey! Hey, art boy!”

Steve’s head jerked up, and he watched with an open mouth as his dancer suddenly stumbled out of the main doors to the studio, coat slung haphazardly over his shoulders as he rushed across the street and over toward him.

The man got across the road quickly. His ballet shoes were hanging off his neck and- holy shit was he barefoot-

“What the hell,” Steve blurted, looking down at the man’s exposed feet, “why aren’t you wearing shoes? It’s freezing!”

“Quick, quick, put this around your sketchbook,” was all he got in response, and then a soft towel was placed into his hands, “try and get it dry. And whilst you’re at it-”

And then another item was shoved in his face- this one was a sweater, apparently.

Steve wrapped his sketchbook delicately and then took the sweater, a little dumbfounded. His dancer was staring down at him in concern, toes wiggling from the cold. “Jesus Fucking Christ, it’s freezing out here, art-boy, how do you do this every Friday?”

Steve blushed. “I… I’ve got wait for the bus either way, so i figured- I figured I might as well put my time to good use,” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

The man smiled a little bashfully, and rolled his tongue over his lips. Steve had the feeling he was looking slightly foolish at that moment- drenched from head to foot and staring adoringly up at a person so perfect he could well have passed as a fucking Greek God.

“Oh God, seriously, I can’t even stand out here for another second, come on, come on, let’s get back inside,” and suddenly there was a hand on his arm, tugging him upward off the bench with a surprising amount of strength.

Or, well- not surprising at all, actually, considering what the man could do on a dancefloor,

“I- what?” Steve asked in confusion, as he was led briskly over toward the studio he’d been watching intently for months by that point.

His dancer turned to him. “We’re going inside and getting you goddamn dried off. Duh. Come on- another second and you’ll start gathering frost.”

Steve could only follow as he was led toward soft lights and warm walls in which the dancer had spent his many hours practising in. It was very simple, Steve realised, once he was actually inside. Just nice pastel walls and polished wodden floors, with white carpeting that had somehow managed to retain it’s cleanliness running along the corridors and main lobby.

“My name’s Tony, by the way,” his d–Tony– informed him, finally letting go of his arm (pity) as he slammed the doors shut again and then shucked off his coat.

“Steve,” he responded with, sticking out a hand, “it’s nice to finally meet you,” he said through a smile.

Tony nodded his agreement, and then spun on his heel. “ I’m sure the staff keep some spare clothes here somewhere, if I can just remember where they keep them-”

Steve watched, still a little dumbfounded by the whole situation as Tony vaulted over the reception desk and began trawling around underneath it. “Are you- uh, is that allowed?”

Tony waved him off. “I practically live here, the guys who run it consider me their son. Or annoying cousin, possibly. It’s fine. Ah- there they are!” He yelled, hefting up a box onto the counter and then gesturing for Steve to come over.

Steve found himself watching his movements again. It was funny- even off the dancefloor, Tony moved with a sort of grace that was almost hypnotic; all flowing hands and easy strides. He seemed like a person who knew where he was going,

It was enrapturing. His whole demeanour was just… enrapturing

“You’re looking again,” Tony stated, even though his eyes were buried in the depths of the storage box.

Steve jerked, feeling his cheeks heat up again. “No I’m not- I- how do you even know that, you can’t see me.”

Tony pulled his head up, and the look on his face was something between smug and seductive as he leaned forward a little. “I know everything, Steve. I’m all-seeing.”

Steve just huffed, and then held out a hand as Tony threw a pair of sweats across the room. “They look like they should fit. I couldn’t find a shirt though- sorry.”

Steve checked his watch, fighting back the shivers as the droplets of ice water seeped through onto his skin. He still had another 35 minutes until the bus came, and he was fucking freezing.

With a shrug, he unzipped his jacket and then pulled off his shirt, hanging it on the coat-rack. When he turned back, Tony’s eyebrows were raised. “Boy oh boy- you almost look fit enough to be a ballet dancer yourself,” he said in approval.

Steve shot him a look. “Hah. Unfortunately for me, I was born with two left feet. Ballet career doesn’t seem like quite my thing,” he answered with a shrug, knowing his cheeks were probably bright red by that point.

Tony observed him for a second, before an excited little grin appeared on his face. “How much time do you have?”

How much time are you offering? “Uh- well, I mean, I don’t have anywhere to be-”

“Then I’ll teach you,” Tony nodded to himself, hopping back over the desk and then walking up to Steve, “I just finished my routine anyway. I’ll teach you how to dance better than most pros will know with years worth of lessons.”

Steve gawped, shaking his head. “I- I couldn’t possibly ask that-”

“Steve,” Tony rolled his eyes fondly and took him by the arm, “hey, look, I’m just gonna make it simple for you. You’ve been staring at my ass for a solid 3 months now, and I’m getting tired of waiting for you to make the first move. Pretty pretty please let me give you a lesson?”

Steve choked again, and Tony waited patiently by his side until he was finished. “It wasn’t just your ass,” he said in the end, a little weakly, “you have a very nice…everything.”

Tony laughed again, and his hand slipped from Steve’s forearm to hand as he pulled them through into the studio, “how sweet. I could say the same thing about you, art-boy,” Tony’s gaze flicked down to Steve’s chest before coming up again, “and I expect to see all those drawings of me at some point, too. Just saying.”

“After your lesson, if you want,” Steve said, unable to hold back his foolish smile as Tony’s eyes widened in excitement.

“You’ll miss your bus,” he said with a frown, but Steve just shrugged.

“Eh. Bus can wait. I’ve got a date with my dancer.”

Tony grinned, and stepped a little closer “Then let’s get moving, art-boy.”

Chapter Text

Tony came up from the workshop and joined the rest of the team approximately one hour into the movie they were all watching.

“Oh, great timing, Stark, you might just get in for the credits if you’re lucky,” Clint called out to him, chucking a peanut across the room as Tony wandered further in.

He caught it absently in his fist and then popped it into his mouth, much to Clint’s annoyance. “Sometimes people do this thing called work, Barton. It’s actually pretty productive, you should try it sometime.”

“Now now boys,” Natasha called out, pausing her meticulous brushing of Pepper’s hair in order to shoot them both a look, “no fighting during movie night, that’s the rule.”

Clint made a face, and Tony shot him the bird absently before flopping down into Steve’s lap and curling in. “Mmmmf,” he groaned into the shoulder he’d pressed his face into, glad of finally having somewhere decent to sit. The floor only served as a viable seat for so long.

Steve laughed absently, arms instantly curling across Tony’s body and adjusting him so that he was facing the TV instead. “Nice to see you too.”

“Ugh, it’s been a long day,” Tony let his head drop backward, leaning into Steve’s shoulder as his back pressed up against that truly magnificent chest, “I don’t ever want to look at another circuit ever again.”

Steve’s arms squeezed for a moment, and he pressed his mouth into Tony’s throat. “Then don’t. We can just sit on the couch and watch movies until we die of old age,” he murmured.

“Sounds good to me.”

“It’s a deal, Stark.”

“Great.”

“Hey!” Pepper clicked her fingers, “some of us are trying to watch a heist over here.”

“Oh, as if you haven’t seen Oceans 11 a hundred times,” Tony snapped back at her as she rolled her eyes, “I see the way you look at Clooney, don’t even deny it.”

“Who says I’m trying to deny anything? George Clooney would have been my husband if you hadn’t pissed him off back in ‘04,” Pepper’s face soured, and she turned back to the screen, “I still hate you for that, by the way.”

Behind him, Steve laughed, soft and deep and lovely. “I don’t even want to know what you did to piss off George Clooney enough to back away from marriage to Pepper Potts. Must have been bad.”

“Oh, darling, you don’t even know the half of it,” Tony grinned and turned a little, and Steve kissed him softly for a moment before his attention was caught by an explosion on screen and he turned his head back.

Tony pouted, but only for a moment, before he too got caught up in the film and turned to watch just as avidly as Pepper (He might have been a dick, but Clooney was still eye candy, alright?)

Tony happily zoned out for a good long time, allowing the film to give him an excuse to let his brain take a breather for a moment. Steve’s body was warm underneath him, and his arms curled gently across Tony’s stomach, grounding him firmly. By his feet, Clint was sat against the couch, and Bruce had taken residence next to Thor on the armchair that was really far too small for two people. Pepper and Natasha took the loveseat as they did every week. All in all, it was pretty domestic- not something Tony could have said he’d have desired a few years back, but now something he would happily have given up the world for.

There was a sudden light pressure on his arm, and Tony looked down for a moment, watching Steve absently begin to trail a pen across the skin on his forearm. He did that sometimes; when he wasn’t really thinking about it. God knows where he kept the pens in those tight sweatpants of his, but Tony was happy to just let him go for it anyway. The only downside was having to watch them fade away after a few days- Steve’s little drawings were adorable and funny and so very Steve it just made Tony ache with happiness whenever he saw them. Pavlovian response, what could he say.

He pressed a little kiss against Steve’s cheek and turned back to the TV, letting him get on with it.

And get on with it Steve did, because by the time the movie was over Tony’s whole forearm was covered with little doodles. Flowers and patterns and cartoon Avengers spattering across his skin, painting a lovely picture as to what exactly went on in Steve’s head.

Tony stared down at it for a few seconds before smiling widely and turning up to Steve. “You had fun, then,” he said through his grin as he leaned in.

Steve just hummed his reply against Tony’s mouth and let his arms wrap tighter around Tony’s waist, teeth biting gently on his bottom lip. Tony shuffled a little for a better angle, legs and arms tangled together on the sofa as they kissed.

“Eurgh, do you two mind? We’re all still present- keep it in the bedroom, please,” Clint threw a pillow at them and they broke away, Tony searching irritably for the stupid little bastard as he rolled quickly over to the shelter of Natasha.

Steve just sighed, and then lifted them both up effortlessly. “I think we’ll do just that, actually.”

Tony’s arms wrapped immediately around Steve’s neck and he grinned lewdly over to Clint, who pulled another face.

“-To sleep,” Steve turned his head a little, raising an eyebrow, “considering how long it’s been since you actually engaged in that activity.”

This time it was Clint who laughed, and Tony who pulled the face. “I think we should engage in other activities first,” he argued, beginning to kiss Steve’s neck in an attempt at conviction.

“I’m gonna veto that for now.” Because apparently Steve refused to be swayed.

“Ugh,” Tony whined, but let his cheek sag against Steve’s shoulder in defeat. In all fairness, he was pretty exhausted. 

Eh. They had the rest of their lives. Tony could wait until morning.

Probably.

Chapter Text

There were three things Steve Rogers considered important in his life.

One was, of course, family. This included his friends, his team- they were as close as he was going to get to blood relatives anyway. His mom was the only real family he knew, although even she was growing more fragile with each day. Soon, he knew he would have to let her go. But for now, there was not a task on heaven or earth that he would not complete for those he considered family. For those who he was loyal to, and who were loyal to him. 

The next thing was his morals.

This was a tricky one, see- it was notoriously difficult for an infamous mob boss like himself to stick to his morals, because there would always be an occasion in which he would end up having to abandon them for the sake of the cause. He’d strayed from his path a few times too many- he knew that. But when you got caught up in the life he did, it was bound to happen. He was trying his best, though. And to this day, he knew he had never spilled a drop of innocent blood. Everyone who ended up on his radar ended up there for a reason, and they were not good ones.
But until the streets were clear of scum, then he and his team would continue to do their job and fight to get rid of them. Many feared him- a few didn’t believe in his existence at all- but Steve's path was clear, and he didn’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

The last thing was Tony.

Just thinking his name brought a smile to his mouth. Tony was… Tony was Steve’s everything. Sun, moon, and Stars- Tony encompassed Steve’s very existence. Without him, Steve would be nothing. He would have nothing.

He’d met him at a bar on the rougher side of New York, just over three years ago now. Leaning over the counter and asking for a drink with a slick smile on his face- he’d been gaunt and thin and desperate, Steve knew the type. Later on, he’d find out that that had been the night Tony had run from his abusive partner (an abusive partner that now lay somewhere at the bottom of the Hudson, last time Steve checked), but in that night, all Tony had been to Steve was a man too vulnerable for a place like that. 

Steve had been planning to start a rather large and rather dangerous fight in said bar- and he did, in fact, end up fulfilling that goal- but for a rather different reason. See, it just so happened that Steve’s target ended up being the one with his hand circled just tight enough around Tony’s wrist for him to start looking uncomfortable, and really, that had been all Steve needed. A quick slamming of his head into a table had done the job- and after that, the fight had mainly just carried itself. With a quiet word and a gentle hand against the small of Tony’s back, he’d quickly led them both out of the fight. 

After that- well- the rest was history.

Tony knew about his life. He knew what Steve did, because he had to. And honestly- Steve had gotten in fights with 90% chance of mortality; he’d brawled with the best and been put through the worst and most horrifying that the underworld of New York had to offer- but to this day, the most terrifying thing Steve had ever done was admit to Tony about the life he led. The prospect of losing him had been overwhelming, it had sent Steve into a panic- he’d put it off for months in his fear of the response. But when he finally, finally managed to tell him the truth, Tony had barely even batted an eye.

“I’ve never been the best at risk assessment,” he’d said with a shrug, licking off a stray fleck of cream from Steve’s lip, “but I appreciate the apology muffins anyway. Taste better on your mouth than they do in mine.” 

And that had been that. 

Steve was thankful for Tony every day. For keeping him sane, for holding him steady. Tony was his Godsend. He was ridiculously smart and brilliant at what he did- which, to Steve’s delight, turned out to be weapons designs. He’d equipped the whole of his team with new gear by the end of the week and fixed all their broken tech whenever Bucky sat on it or Clint dropped it. Everyone loved Tony, and if Tony was happy to run his garage by day and then create weapons for all of them at night, then so was Steve. 

Tony was Steve’s universe. It was bad, he knew, to be this emotionally compromised- but in all honesty, Steve couldn’t care less. At this point, everything revolved around that man, and the world knew it. Tony was, essentially, the safest man in New York. The single attempt three months and twenty-nine days ago (Steve would never, ever forget) to try and use him as leverage against Steve had not gone well for the perpetrators. They still hadn’t found all the parts of their bodies. Undoubtedly they never would- Steve had been very, very thorough.

Unhealthy? Definitely. But it didn’t change things. Were someone to hurt a hair on Tony’s head, Steve would not stop until they were dead at his feet. He’d made that much clear the first time around. 
There would not be a second. 

Turning over on the bed, he curled his arm around Tony’s waist and tugged him in closer, feeling the other man fit himself subconsciously against Steve’s body. He smiled at the action; pressing a kiss against the soft crown of Tony’s head whilst his fingers traced delicately around the scar on Tony’s shoulderblade. Bullet wound, he knew- he’d run his fingers over it enough times to be able to identify it to Tony’s body with his eyes shut. 
Evidence of Steve’s failure. Just once, perhaps- but once was enough. Once was far, far too many.

“Stoppit,” Tony mumbled into his chest, his hands rising to stroke messily down Steve’s arms, “m’fine.”

Steve just frowned, opening his hand until his palm splayed out against the mark and his fingers curled around the top of his shoulder. “No thanks to me.”

“Steve,” Tony said his name in exasperation, eyes pulling themselves open and head tilting upward to look at him, “it was not your fault. Please. It happened, it wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, but it’s over- wallowing in guilt isn’t going to reverse time and stop them trying to take me. What are you going to do about it now?”

Tony was looking up at him with sleep-heavy eyes; his head leaning on Steve’s forearm as he stared inquiringly. And honestly, how on Earth was Steve supposed to argue with that? He was notoriously bad at resisting Tony- mob boss or not, he was only human. 

With a sigh, he stroked his finger down Tony’s jaw, pressing lightly under his chin in order to tilt his head further. Soft lips rested on his forehead and he closed his own eyes, savoring everything that was so familiar, so much like home to him. 

“I’m going to keep you safe,” he murmured against Tony’s face, “I’m going to do better. No one will ever touch you again. Ever.”

Tony just rolled his eyes and dropped his head into Steve’s chest. He felt a long kiss pressed into his skin, just over his heart. “Mmm- if it’ll help you sleep easier. Want me to wear a hazmat suit at all times too? Just in case, y’know?”

“You say it like a joke, but that would probably make me feel better, yes,” Steve admitted, laughing a little when Tony batted him lightly and shook his head. 

“Gonna have to settle for sharpening your knives and looking a bit more threatening whenever someone looks in my direction, sweetheart,” Tony told him, voice slurred from the exhaustion that was already pulling him back under. 

Smiling adoringly, Steve wrapped his arms around Tony properly and let himself imagine that alone would somehow keep Tony safer. The worry plagued him constantly- would probably never leave, to be honest- but he knew that the likelihood of Tony ever being hurt was slim. Steve was too good at what he did for that to happen. Tony was no fool either- when Steve had arrived at the scene after Tony had been taken, he had already been halfway to freeing himself of his own accord. He was always carrying now, anyway- which made it even more difficult for someone to take him. Tony had a true aim and a particularly petty nature if provoked- no doubt the next person to try anything would get a bullet in a rather unsavory place.  

With a sigh, Steve let his head come to rest on top of Tony’s. “Sorry for waking you,” he mumbled, “just go back to sleep honey.”

With an incoherent mumble and one last messy kiss against Steve’s collar, Tony did. Steve let himself watch for a moment before he too shut his eyes and let sleep pull him under. 

Everything and anything. For Tony, Steve would do everything and anything.

Chapter Text

it hit him one day like a freight train. Like a brick wall. Like… like a very heavy thing, hitting him very very hard.

Steve was close, and he was smiling softly down at Tony, and he’d just complimented Tony on how smart he was looking for the New Years’ party whilst his hand guided them over to the buffet via the small of Tony’s back and it just hit him. It became so stunningly, blindingly obvious in that moment that he simply refused to believe that he hadn’t seen it before. It was impossible- he was Tony Stark, he always noticed these things. Always always always.

“Wait,” he stopped them both in the center of the room, which, in hindsight, was probably not the most subtle or Generally Great way of doing things, “are you fucking hitting on me?”

And hell- Tony exaggerated a lot of things on the daily, but he sure as fuck wasn’t lying when he said that he would have done anything in the entire world to never see Steve look the way he’d done at that moment ever again.

His face dropped like a stone. The hand on Tony’s back snapped away like he was burning and he opened his mouth quickly, eyes wide, a little bit horrified, like a rabbit caught in the biggest brightest headlight you could think of.

“Uhh,” Steve stumbled, and Tony watched his face burn crimson as he looked down at his shoes in mortification, “I… I- I don’t- I mean… I was just… I’m-”

A few people had turned to look at them both curiously, and Tony would have said something, done something at least a little bit more fucking tasteful, but honestly, he was too far deep in shock to do anything but stare blankly and watch as Steve became more and more embarrassed.

Finally, Steve just looked at him once last time more before mumbling an unintelligible excuse and then turning on his heel, walking through the crowds with remarkable speed for a guy so big.

Tony just kept staring. He couldn’t fucking help it- he had no idea how to process what he’d just realized. 
Years. They’d known eachother…. so long, and Steve had always…. and it had been- it had… all this time?
All this fucking time?

“What the hell are you waiting for, buddy?” Someone gave him a gentle shove forward, and Tony didn’t know who they were, couldn’t really say he cared much either, but they seemed to be wanting to help, so he listened to the last bit anyway. “Go after him before he runs for good!”

Slightly dazed and definitely confused, Tony… well- Tony did.

Jerking forward like a man possessed, he pushed through the crowds incredibly impolitely, hands moving people out of the way as effectively as he could without just outright shoving them out of the way. People yelled and drinks were spilled but honestly, it was Tony’s fucking champagne so they could deal with it or they could get the fuck out. “Steve!” 

The blond head ducked out of the door before Tony could catch it, but he refused to be deterred. Leaping onto one of the dining tables, he shouted off hurried apologies to the general area beneath him as he ran over the expensive tablecloth and pristine food, before dropping off at the end and then running to the door, the crowds having finally thinned out by that point. “Steve!”

Tony caught him just as he was about to turn the corner, and this time when he said his name, it was more a breathless yell with the starting sound of an ‘S’, due to the fact Tony had begun sprinting the length of the corridor in order to catch up with him. Steve turned, looking at him in mild terror as Tony careered forward, shoes leaving little bits of mashed potato as he went. “Tony, what are you-”

He would have finished his sentence, were it not for the sudden presence of Tony’s mouth on his own, sealing the words right up between both of their lips. 

It was a bad kiss. Or- well, not a bad kiss, exactly, because Tony never gave bad kisses- just a slightly… disorganized one. Tony was still slightly out of breath and Steve hadn’t turned right, which sent them both stumbling into the wall, and then Tony went and slipped on the wood-paneled floor, which just sent him half-crashing into Steve’s stomach, only stopped from getting a faceful of floorboard because of Steve’s fast reflexes.

Yeah. All in all, not his finest moment.

“Tony, what in the fuck-” Steve started, beginning to pull him up gently, but Tony wasn’t giving up this time- not now he knew, not now he’d connected every dot and cross and line and saw with his own stupid eyes what Steve had been trying to tell him for so long now-

So he kissed him again. Made sure to angle up right and everything. He curled his hand around the back of Steve’s neck and put the other one on Steve’s shoulder, pushing him gently back against the wall and then putting everything he had into that damn kiss. “How long have you been trying,” he spoke the words into Steve’s mouth and Steve, who had previously been distracted by the fact that he had discovered another tongue in his mouth, shivered a little and then tugged on Tony’s hips, drawing him in.

“Long enough to make me start lookin’ stupid,” he replied quietly.

Tony just laughed, unwilling to actually remove his lips from Steve’s own and so saying “you’re not the idiot who didn’t fucking realize he could have been getting this for years,” against Steve’s teeth instead.

Steve smiled, but then pushed Tony away gently, which was not what he wanted at all. Tony went, though- pouting the entire way, mind you.
“Do you… do you mean this?” Steve asked softly, his eyes flicking nervously around Tony’s face like he was searching for a tell, “do you really… I thought you seemed pretty- uh- unwelcoming-

“That was not unwelcoming, oh my God,” Tony squeaked in mortification, dropping his head into his hands, “that was… that was ‘this can’t be real, in what universe is it possible that I am allowed to have this’. Not… never unwelcoming.”

When Steve still looked at him with the flutter of doubt, Tony stepped forward and put his hand on Steve’s cheek. “I promise,” he said desperately, “I am utterly head over heels, madly stupidly embarrassingly crazy for you, Steve, I’m not sure whether or not you noticed-”

This time it was him who found himself being shut up, and it was quite possibly the first time in his life in which he was happy about someone cutting him off mid-sentence, because it meant more Steve-kisses, and in the space of roughly 1.2 minutes, Steve-Kisses had managed to become his most enjoyable practice in the world. Which was saying something.

“Hey,” Tony said, looking down at his watch for a second, “New Year's day in five minutes.”

Steve, bless him, didn’t even pause for a moment, muttering “If we keep it up, we get to kiss eachother into the next year,” into Tony’s jaw.

A grin split Tony’s face and he lifted his watch. Four minutes, fifty-four seconds. 
Yeah. They could probably manage to make out for that much longer. “I’ll start the countdown now,” he informed Steve, before grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and then tugging him in again.

Despite Tony’s promises, the New Year came and went without them actually noticing. Turns out they ended up… rather occupied.

Chapter Text

His eyes stung; a hot burn, poignant and painful as he felt the tears spill over onto his cheeks, and then his white shirt. In front of him, Tony was watching- every line of his body looking like it was in pain. His eyes- the ones that could shine deep red in contrast to Steve’s golden- were mournful. Hollow. Filled with loss.

“You know this has to happen,” Tony whispered after a second, and Steve looked up- up from the floor, over to his lover with a frantic rebuttal already forming on his lips. “You knew this had always been going to h-”

“No,” he shook his head in desperation, voice barely even making his words into a coherent form as he tried to hold back the chokes. He was already feeling drained, just from the few minutes being spent with Tony. It had used to be months before the effects would start. Tony had always been fascinated by his ability to withstand the magic demons carried- angels were never supposed to be in the same space as their kind for that long. It was how nature had designed them both.

For years, they’d been telling the ancient laws what they thought of that particular rule. For years, they’d been happy.
But life never stayed kind for that long, did it?

“Steve,” Tony said his name on a thick tongue, hand clenching at his side as he restrained himself from naturally reaching out to comfort him, “this has been going on for a while now. I know you’ve been trying to hide it. But you can’t stop me from noticing how my own powers get stronger whenever I touch you now. You’re getting ill. I… I’m killing you, my powers- they’re draining the life out of y-”

“They’re not,” Steve lied vehemently through his teeth, stumbling forward and reaching out, only to have Tony leap away before they could connect, “Tony, they’re not, please, look at me. Look at my wings. They’re fine. Healthy. I’m-”

“You’ve always been different, Steve,” Tony told him, a broken smile flitting across his face, “it’s how we managed to do this for so long. I thought- I thought maybe they’d last forever. I was selfish and stupid and I was so desperate to believe it I didn’t… I didn’t think about the fact it might affect you. And it’s obvious now that it has. We were wrong. You aren’t immune to my magic, and I can’t stop it. You don’t- God, you’ve no idea how hard I’ve tried,” he laughed humorlessly and then shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. 

Steve’s mind flashed back to every time he’d touched Tony freely and without consequence, before. Linked fingers and brushed shoulders and faces so close they were touching noses. Back-to-back as the read books under the sunlight. Teeth on skin and muttered curses and when Steve had been so consumed by Tony that it was the only important thing in his entire universe, and they’d whispered their promises of eternity on one another’s lips-

It seemed the end of eternity had arrived. And Steve’s entire world was crashing down around him.

“Tony,” he said numbly, walking forward and sinking to his knees in front of the beautiful demon, his beautiful demon, “please.” 
Please don’t leave where I can’t follow, not ever. Not ever.

Tony looked down, and the tears slid over his cheeks. “I don’t belong here, with you,” he whispered, “this was never my world. And being here is killing you. I cannot let that happen, and I refuse to be responsible for that.”

“You think I’ll be better off alone?” Steve yelled throatily, and he could almost feel the pain in his heart as it tore itself in two- like Tony was just reaching in and yanking, “you think any life that remains is anything close to what I have with you? I’d rather die and spend what’s left of my living with the person I fell in love with than live out the rest of my days without you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Tony didn’t answer for a moment, and he wavered dangerously, like his legs were seconds from giving out. Since meeting him all those years ago, he’d barely aged a day. Steve- Steve had developed laugh lines and a few silver hairs, but… well, demons took their power from other beings, and stayed forever young. Angels shouldn’t have aged as quickly as Steve had, either, but he figured that’s what happened when you spent all your time in the company of someone who naturally sucked away your life force. 

The laws of their species’ had always been strict. The Demon’s magic had been put in place to make sure they never mixed themselves with angels. And no one had ever wanted to before, either, so no one had worked out how to fix it. Not even Tony- even after all those nights spent working until dawn to try and find a solution, especially in the last year, when the effects had finally begun showing.

Everything had been against them.

Steve had thought they’d make it anyway.

“I won’t be responsible for killing you, Steve,” Tony told him, so small and fragile as he wiped a hand across his face and scooped up the tears, “I couldn’t live with that.”

Steve wanted to scream, but he was too exhausted. There was a hopelessness in the pit of his stomach- aware that Tony was going to do this, whether he wanted it or not- and when he did, it would be for good. Steve would never again see his face, touch his skin, feel his unwavering presence by his side.

“I’m begging you,” Steve looked up at him, straight in his eyes- and if anyone saw the image in front of them: an angel on his knees in front of a demon, crying, begging him to stay- they could start wars over this.

“Don’t go,” he choked out desperately, one last time.

And in another universe, Tony would waver. He would agree, and then he would kiss Steve’s tear-tracks and work out a way to fix this, to let them be together, the way they had been in the beginning. They would live true to their whispered promises in darkened rooms and stay with one another forever- because the only way Steve would be able to stomach eternity was when it was Tony who was taking him through it.

This was not another universe.

Tony looked down at him, and then his knees gave out. He landed on the ground right in front of Steve. From the way his face looked so utterly desolate, Steve knew he’d already made up his mind.

Slowly, Tony curled his hand around the back of Steve’s neck and pulled him in. Their lips brushed, the softest of touches, and Tony whispered his goodbye against Steve’s mouth. 

Exhaustion slammed into him suddenly, and he could no longer hold himself upright. He felt Tony’s hands wrap around him, lower him steadily to the soft earth with the care only he had ever shown.

The last thing he saw was Tony pressing a kiss against his own fingers and then brushing them across Steve’s cheek. Then his eyes closed against his will, plunging him into darkness.

“Goodnight, my love,” Tony’s voice whispered to him in his sleep.

Chapter Text

If there was one person Steve Rogers hated, it was Tony Stark.

God, that asshole. Thought he was hot shit because he was popular and the star player of the school soccer team and smart and funny and beautiful. And he always walked around wearing that ridiculous leather jacket with about a hundred zips and buttons on it, and it wasn’t cool, no matter what he said.

And the worst part about Tony Stark was definitely how nice he was to Steve.

Because it didn’t make sense, alright. For the first few years of highschool, Tony had laughed at him, he’d thrown pencils at the back of his head in class and bumped him in the halls and Steve had automatically bitten back on a sigh whenever he’d seen Tony in the corridors with him. He’d known Tony Stark was an asshole from day one, when he’d been twelve and Tony had told him how weird his backpack was.

And yet over the past few years, Tony’s attitude had changed. He’d stopped being such a dick. He smiled at him rather than laughing at him, and he waved on the corridors rather than just shove him, andSteve didn’t get it. Tony Stark was definitely plotting something, and was in it for the long haul here, because he wouldn’t just be nice to Steve for no reason. No way. 

Steve always watched him, just in case. Seeing as an attack could be at any moment, it was better to always be alert. He glanced over to Tony in math class and kept his eyes on Tony’s ass back when he walked through the corridors. Sometimes Tony would say hi, and Steve would say it back warily, keeping a hand tight around his backpack as he watched where Tony’s beautifully hazel eyes went, and whether they were plotting anything. 

One time, he’d overheard Tony talking to his friend Rhodey about one of his dates when they’d been sat nearby one another in bio, and Steve had heard all about how shittily it had gone, which definitely made him feel good. Because not only was Tony Stark an asshole, but the guy he’d been on the date with- Tiberius Stone- was an even bigger asshole, and Steve felt uncomfortable with the thought of Ty being anywhere near him.

Because then they’d just make each other worse, and it’d be bad for Steve, obviously.

He thought about it a lot during that biology class, actually. How, if he were to go on a date with Tony Stark (for information gathering purposes), he’d make it perfect. He’d learned a lot about Tony over the years. He knew that the boy liked Metallica, but he also had a soft spot for Frank Sinatra. Steve had a record of that which he’d play. And then Tony loved Twinkies, too. Steve could buy them, and he’d declare it their main course, and Tony would laugh that pretty laugh where his mouth curled up and his eyes crinkled and-

And yeah. That Steve would have the bastard right where he wanted him. Totally. 

But God, he’d never do what Ty had done- a shitty movie and then copping a feel in the back of the cinema? So fucking trashy. And cheap. Steve might be broke as shit, but if it was a date, then he’d put some Goddamn effort into at least making it nice for Tony, Jesus-

Hypothetically, of course. Because Steve wouldn’t ever date Tony Stark.

That being said, he probably shouldn’t have been talking about how crap Ty’s dating skills were to Bucky when the guy’s friends had been right behind him in the corridor anyway, hypothetical or not. Because as soon as they saw him again when Steve was alone, they didn’t waste any time with shoving him up against the lockers and then doing their level best to shove him inside one of them.

God, Steve hated highschool.

“Get the fuck off me,” Steve growled, yanking away as hard as he could against their hands as they tried to shove him backward. It wasn’t much use though- two versus one, and Steve wasn’t exactly fighting material, no matter how many times he managed to get into them. 

“Shut the fuck up, loser,” the bigger guy spat on him, actually fucking spat on him, and then punched him in the mouth for good measure, “this’ll teach you not to talk shit about people who are gonna be more than you ever will. The fuck were you even talking about- Ty’s a fuckin’ beast, he’s got people fallin’ at his feet.”

Steve rolled his eyes. What, were they going to start worshipping at his alter now? 

“You’re only jealous,” the second guy said with a sneer, and Steve laughed out at him blindly but the first guy pulled him back, opening him up for a bodyshot to his ribs that definitely made something crack, “we see the way you look at Tony. You’re obsessed with him. You got Rogers + Stark written on your notebooks, huh?”

“Fucking pathetic.”

“As if he’d ever look twice at you.”

Steve snarled, lashing his head forward and actually managing to brain one of them. “Fuck off- Tony Stark is an asshole,” he told them- the same thing he told everyone, because it was true-

“He’s right, you know.”

Steve’s head jerked as his brain recognised the voice immediately, and he watched as none other than Tony Stark himself marched forward, coming up behind the two guys currently doing their best to fit Steve into the locker. A strong hand curled around the first guy’s shoulders, and then Steve felt a sharp relief of pressure as Tony flung him off Steve and into the opposing wall. The second one backed off in surprise, putting out his hands as a show of peace.

“Whoah, hey, Tony, just calm it,” he said hurriedly, “I didn’t know you were buddies-”

“We’re not buddies,” Steve said viciously, raising his fists and then wiping his bloody nose with his sleeve. In front of him, Tony just looked vaguely amused. “If you want to try it as well, go the fuck ahead,” Steve growled, “I’ll fight all three of ya, I don’t care-”

“No one is doing any more fighting here, thank you very much,” Tony said, raising a hand. When he did, all of his stupid fucking zips jingled. “Morris, Elland- get fucking lost. You’re both getting black eyes tomorrow, and if I see you putting hands on Rogers again then I’m burning your Air Jordans, understand?”

Steve blinked in confusion, watching the two guys nod nervously and then scurry off down the hall, muttering to one another and glancing back as they did so. Which just left Steve and Tony with his stupid jangly zips.

“What do you want,” Steve said, not lowing his hands.

Tony leaned against the lockers, shrugging. “I was coming back from detention and saw them beating on you. Thought I’d step in.”

Steve frowned, wiping his hand across his face and probably smearing more blood everywhere. “Yeah, well I don’t need your help,” he said gruffly, “I totally had that.”

Tony’s eyes twinkled. “They definitely seemed like they were only holding on by the skin of their teeth,” he said in amusement, as Steve just scowled and turned away.

He heard Tony step forward. “Hey, I didn’t mean that to sound… I’m sure you would’ve survived on your own, God knows you get into enough altercations as it is- just thought I’d help you out. They shit their pants when I get mad at them because they’re fucking pussies, so.” Tony shrugged, “it’d be cool to have someone like that on your side, I figure-”

“You’re not on my side!” Steve snapped, stepping forward, “you’re just… you’re just being weirdly nice so that I let my guard down and then you can make fun of me again, or humiliate me in class or shove me over in the halls. Don’t think I’m not onto you, Stark, okay, I know your game!” He waggled a finger menacingly.

Tony just sighed, and looked genuinely remorseful as he said, “yeah, really sorry about that. I was a prepubescent teen with no idea what to do with the sudden influx of gay thoughts I’d have whenever you entered a room. So I pulled on your pigtails in order to get your attention.” Tony pulled a face, before smiling, “but I’m cooler now! Comfortable with my sexuality, at least thirty percent more stable and also, still kind of crazy about you.”

Steve just blinked. “No you’re not,” he said.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Nope. No you’re really not.”

“Well, I beg to differ.”

Steve made a face. “You don’t even know me!” he spluttered, “you’re not… you don’t like me, don’t be ridiculous. You think I’m dorky and uncool.”

Tony laughed, and God, it really was a nice laugh. “I do,” he agreed, “and that is the most endearing thing in the world.” He paused, before adding, “actually no- the face you’re making right now is the most endearing thing in the world.”

Steve… had no idea how to respond. He… well… I mean, for starters, he didn’t even like Tony. “I don’t even like you.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“You’re- you’re an asshole, I hate you! I’ve always hated you. You suck.”

“Yes to the asshole part. No to the ‘you hate me part’, Yes to the ‘you suck’ part, but probably in a different context to what you’re thinking.” Tony paused, before looking at Steve’s face with a frown. “You might want to go A&E for that nose. Looks broken.”

Steve’s head was spinning. Tony was completely bamboozling him here. Why was he saying that he liked Steve? That was… that couldn’t be true, could it? Anyway. Steve didn’t even like him.

On a completely irrelevant note, he bet that if he kissed Tony now, he’d probably taste faintly like the strawberries Steve had seen him eating for lunch. 

“I’m not going to the hospital,” Steve said, shaking his head and pressing gently on his very sore nose, “it’s f-”

“Yeah, you’re going to the hospital,” Tony nodded slowly and then pulled out his phone. “It’s fifteen minutes away. I’ll drive.”

Steve looked at him incredulously. “Stop ignoring me! I’m not going!”

“You are, Steve.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.”

Steve spluttered indignantly, hands going to his hips. “Then- then come over here and make me!” He said, attempting at confrontational. 

But Tony just cocked an eyebrow in amusement, and before Steve knew what was happening, Tony had swooped down and then picked him up in a perfect fireman’s carry, walking them both down the corridor with absolute ease. Steve just froze in complete and utter shock. This was the first time he’d ever been this close to Tony. Oh God, he smelt like metal and lemony things, and Steve was looking right down at he perfectly shaped ass.

“I hate you so much,” Steve said grumpily, “and I really hate being carried.”

Tony continued on, unfazed. “Okay, so I have a proposition,” he said casually, pushing open the main exit doors and then plodding easily down the stairs. He stopped halfway down, however. “I’ll let you down if you agree to go on a date with me.”

Steve froze. “That’s not fair,” he said weakly. 

Above him, Tony sighed. “Okay. So that was a lie. I’ll let you down right now if you want me to, I’m not an asshole, and I’m not going to force you to go the hospital, but I really think you should. And. Also. The date thing. You should do that too. Because I’m an asshole and my jacket probably does have too many zips, you’re right, but I also really like you and have done for six years, I’ve always just been too scared to tell you?” Tony shrugged sheepishly. “But there. Offer’s on the table. Hey! Kill two birds with one stone- the hospital trip can count as our date, and then if you decide that actually I’m not evil whilst we’re there, we could maybe go for a second one sometime?”

Jesus, Tony actually sounded nervous. Steve couldn’t see his face, but he knew what it would look like, because he’d memorised all of Tony’s facial expressions. 

Shit.

Okay. 

So maybe he didn’t hate Tony Stark as much as he thought.

“Put me down,” Steve told him, and with a small sigh of defeat, Tony did. He looked down at his expensive shoes and stepped back, readying to accept defeat. 

Steve just sighed. “I suppose I could go to the hospital,” he muttered, “if you insist. And. Uh. The date, too. We could do that sometime as well.”

Tony paused, but then his head jerked up and he practically beamed. “Really?” He asked, beginning to bounce on his toes. 

Steve couldn’t help but laugh, even though it really hurt. “Yeah, really,” he said, “I guess I was kind of exaggerating how terribly evil you were in order to save myself from uh- going too far the other way.”

Tony’s smile, if even physically possible, grew bigger. “That’s the biggest compliment anyone has ever told me,” he said, holding out a hand for Steve to take, “now can you please take my hand and let me escort you to the vehicle?”

Steve raised an eyebrow, but tentatively slid his fingers through Tony’s. “I can walk, you know.”

Tony squeezed their hands together. “Oh, I know. I’ve just wanted to hold hands with you since I was twelve.”

Chapter Text

“Tony!” A happy, familiar voice called out to him across the room as soon as he walked through the door, “Tony, you’re here! Guys, look! He’s here!”

Tony himself was stood at the doorway, having only just walked in from a late night at Stark Industries. He’d been aware that Thor had intended to have a ‘small gathering to celebrate the day of his birth’ that night- but when he looked around the open-plan communal floor, he had to say, it definitely didn’t look like it had been ‘small’. There had to be at least fifteen people passed out on the floor alone. Not even counting those still standing. 

Including, apparently, Steve.

Tony looked up and saw him, his fluffy blond head peeking out over the sofa. He was beaming at Tony as if he were the best thing since sliced bread. “Guys, look!” He said again, bringing his hand down and smacking a shoulder that looked like it could possibly have been Clint’s. It seemed he used enough force that he managed to dislodge Clint from the couch entirely, and Tony watched with a small wince of sympathy as he was sent rolling onto the floor below. Steve, however, seemed not to notice. “Tony’s here guys!”

“Nnnrgh,” Clint muttered as Tony walked forward with a laugh, “I don’t give a shit. Not my husband.”

Steve looked scandalised. “But… but it’s Tony!” He said in confusion- like that was supposed to make people care. 

“I think that Barton is a little too drunk to sit up right now,” Bruce declared, popping up out of nowhere. Tony jumped and turned, spotting the man as he sprawled over the coffee table, playing with Thor’s fingers whilst the God merely sat still and hummed a happy tune. 

“So,” Tony began, looking around the room, “seems like you all had fun.”

“Steve… he did not,” Natasha commented, a little of her Russian lilt slipping into her voice as she spoke. Her eyes were glued with a wild intensity to the TV screen, where what looked to be a Spanish version of Peppa Pig was playing. “Kept asking for you. Mаленький ребенок.”

“I’ll pretend I know what you just said,” Tony declared, taking another step forward until he was within touching distance of Steve. The man reached out a hand immediately, making a grabby motion with his fingers, and Tony laughed as he locked their hands together. The laugh quickly turned to a yelp, however, when Steve tugged him forward quickly, sending him tumbling over the couch and straight into Steve’s lap. “How much of this Asgardian shit did you give Captain America?” He called to the room as Steve’s happy face loomed over his. 

“I am not sure!” Thor said jovially, his voice about ten times louder than usual, which was saying something- “but it certainly seems to have worked!”

Tony shut his eyes and let himself giggle as Steve leaned down and then started pressing dozens of messy kisses into his face, making exaggerated ‘mwah’ noises as he set each one down. “Yes, I can see that,” he responded, hands curling around Steve’s neck. “Steve, sweetie, I’m happy to see you too.”

“You know, I would not ever say this unless I was incredibly monumentally drunk,” Clint declared as he watched the two of them from his position on the floor, “but man, I wish I had a relationship as sickening and disgusting as yours.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “I’m sober, and I will be remembering that you said that, you know.”

Clint just waved a hand and flopped back onto the rug. “Remember reschmember. S’all love in this house, baby.”

Tony grinned and shook his head, yelping with surprise when he felt Steve suddenly decide to lick his neck and suck messily on the underside of his jaw. Seemed Steve was rather fond of the PDA when he’d had some of that Asgardian Mead. Tony attempted to sit up, but Steve simply kissed him on the mouth and pushed him back down again. He tasted like honey and apples. 

“Love you,” Steve said with a smile, kissing his nose, “love youuuuuuuuuuuuuu.”

Tony, despite all these damn years of having Steve tell him that, still blushed a little, loosening his tie and then looking up at Steve with a fond roll of his eyes. “Love you too, you wasted fratboy puppy.”

Steve laughed and kissed his eyelids- or at least, tried to. He ended up hitting Tony’s brow instead. “Those words don’t make any sense,” he murmured, before leaning back and pulling Tony up smoothly. It was moments like these when Tony was reminded very promptly of how strong Steve was, even while drunk off his ass. He repositioned Tony onto his lap so that Tony was straddling him, nodded to himself at his handiwork, and then immediately started to try and remove Tony’s clothes. 

“Whoah, slow down, Soldier,” Tony said with a laugh, taking Steve’s wrists and gently pausing their descent down the buttons of his shirt, “I don’t think our friends would like it if we got naked in front of them.”

Across the room, there were various murmurs of ‘actually that’d be kinda hot’ and ‘no we don’t care’- which didn’t really help Tony’s point much. He sighed, bringing Steve’s wrists to his mouth and kissing them gently before shaking his head. “Still a no,” he said with a small smile, trying not to burst into laughter when Steve pouted and groaned sadly. However, a second later it seemed as if the other man developed a better idea, because his eyes sparked like fireworks and he suddenly beamed.

“I’ve got a plan!” Steve declared, shifting Tony off his lap and then stumbling upright away from the couch. He turned back around to look at Tony, and then a second later Tony watched in amusement as Steve tentatively dropped lower, getting to one knee. It took a few attempts for him to find his balance, and Thor had to help him in the end, but after about thirty seconds he’d gotten it, and he looked up at Tony with a huge smile on his face.

“Baby,” Steve began, leaning forward and resting his hands on Tony’s lap to steady himself, “you’re… real swell, you know that?”

Tony leaned back and bit down on his tongue so he didn’t burst out laughing. “Mmmm, really?” He asked, and then watched as Steve nodded vigorously. 

“You are the most awesome, kind… hot… kind guy I know,” the man continued solemnly, taking Tony’s hands and squeezing, “you make me pancakes for breakfast sometimes and I love you. And you’re really hot, did I- did I mention that? Like, Jesus fuckin’ Mary and Joseph, that ass. I love that ass. I love you.”

On the other side of the room, Natasha briefly turned away from Spanish Peppa Pig and pulled a face. “I’m sure we have done this before,” she said, but Clint threw a pillow at her and told her to shut the fuck up, so she just shrugged and turned back around. 

Tony could hardly keep a straight face by that point. “I love you too, sweetheart,” he nodded and then leaned forward to kiss Steve’s forehead. By that point, Steve had given up with the whole one-knee schtick, and was no simply kneeling at Tony’s feet and draping himself over his lap like a very large golden retriever.

“Will you, Anthony Edward,” Steve declared, sitting up as straight as he could and then looking Tony in the eye, “do me the honour of marrying me? I would love to love you forever. We’d be the best husbands ever. I think you should say yes.”

Tony was a good man. A kind man. And a devoted husband. 
But dammit, the opportunity was just too good to miss. 

Tony sighed dramatically. “Oh, Steve,” he said, lifting his left hand and then waving his fingers, “I wish I could, but I’m already married.”

Steve’s face fell like a tonne of bricks. He looked like he was going to cry as he said “oh,” very quietly and then looked down, his hand slipping dejectedly off Tony’s lap. 

And Tony could stand up in the face of the biggest, richest men on the planet and tell them where they could shove it, sure, but he could not last two seconds of Steve looking like that. Not even when he was wasted.

“Oh Jesus- Steve,” he said with a small laugh, taking the man’s face in his hands and tilting it back up so he was looking right at Tony, “sweetheart, I’m married to you. Remember? The big ceremony in Monaco that got crashed by mutant frogs? Then we went on our honeymoon to London and you fell into the Thames trying to take a picture of me. Ring any bells?”

Steve looked at him in confusion for a few moments, before the light dawned in his eyes and his mouth dropped open in delight. “Oh!” He said again, much happier that time, “oh yeah! So does that mean we’re already married?”

Tony could hardly stop laughing enough to confirm it, by that point. “Yes, baby, we’re married. Don’t worry. There’s no one else.”

Steve raised his own left hand, looking at it in awe. “Oh my God, we are,” he breathed disbelievingly, “this is… this is so fucking cool. I can’t believe I got to marry you! How did I do that?” He asked, “God, I’m so fuckin’ lucky. Oh, hey- let’s have sex!”

Tony’s mouth hurt from the size of his smile and he leaned in and kissed Steve’s warm cheek fondly. “I love you very very much,” he told Steve firmly, “but I am not dragging your ass up to our bedroom to have you attempt to get it up and then drunkenly fuck me until you fall unconscious half-way through. I have standards, darling.”

Steve sighed, leaning forward and resting his cheek against Tony’s shoulder. “S’pose that’s fair,” he muttered, “I am pretty tired. But I wanna… touch your ass. S’nice.” He looked up at Tony again with his deep blue eyes, so genuine and honest as he asked “please can I touch your ass? Just a little bit.”

Tony, for a moment, contemplated his life. But then he decided to just fuck it, and turned over on the couch, lying down across the whole length of it with his stomach facing the floor and his ass right by Steve’s face. “Go nuts, babe,” he said with a wave of his hand, “long as no pants are removed, I’m good.”

Steve hummed happily. And then a second later, his head slumped and his eyes closed, a small snore escaping his mouth as he fell immediately asleep, his face smushed up against Tony’s left buttcheek.

Tony blinked, looking behind him and then turning to the rest of the room, where the remaining conscious friends were all sat. “Has he seriously just fallen unconscious on my ass?” He asked with a wave.

Bruce rolled his head lazily, observing the situation from underneath his steamed-up glasses. “It appears so,” he declared a good five seconds later, before he rolled off the coffee table and fell to the floor with a heavy thump and a small ‘ow’.

Tony simply sighed, and then let his own head flop down on the pillow. “Remind me never to let any of you drink again,” he muttered as he closed his own eyes, “you quite clearly cannot be trusted.”

Against his ass, Steve snored loudly enough that Tony felt it vibrate up his butt. He wondered how this had become his life.

“God, I’m going to hate you in the morning,” Tony said quietly to his catatonic husband, looking behind him one last time and thinking of the terrible stiffness in his neck that he was going to wake up to. Steve didn’t respond, obviously- and Tony’s eyes found themselves drifting down, over to Steve’s left hand that was resting on the couch cushion. The gold band blinked back at him, and Tony smiled tiredly. 

Well. At least Tony knew that Steve still liked the idea of marrying him five years on. Although he was probably going to yell at Steve in the morning for forgetting he was married in the first place. Quietly, though. Because poor Steve was going to wake up feeling a little hungover, and Tony was a good husband who didn’t fancy cleaning up vomit. 

He sighed, shutting his eyes. Join the Avengers, Fury had said, you’ll be a hero, he’d said.

No. No, instead, he was a butt-pillow for his husband. 

Brilliant.

Chapter Text

“So,” Tony cleared his throat and attempted to act like there was anything vaguely normal about this situation, “you’re telling me Steve was hit with a… pheromone, of sorts. Which has given him… pack instincts?”

Across the room and through the pane of thick glass, Bruce nodded and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Uh, yeah,” he said with a shrug, “from what we can tell, he’s basically just. Uh. Imprinted, I think? That, mixed with this primal protective urge and the, uh, the growling. We’re pretty sure that it’s some sort of chemically induced… animalistic behaviour.”

“Right,” Tony said with a  few rapid blinks, “and that’s why he’s currently holding me in a bridal carry and refusing to let go?”

Bruce could only nod, pursing his lips and trying not to laugh, the fucking bastard. Tony scowled at him through the glass and shuffled a little in Steve’s arms, patting the other man reassuringly. Steve glanced at him and then huffed, pressing his nose into Tony’s temple and- well- sniffing, really. 

Yeah, the worst thing was, this wasn’t even the weirdest thing that had ever happened to them.

“How long is this going to last?” Tony asked, “I’m hungry.”

Bruce pulled a face. “I honestly don’t know. And I’m sort of wary to send anyone in there, because he’s, uh-”

“growling and pouncing on anyone who comes near me?”

“Yeah,” Bruce looked like he was about to laugh again, “basically.”

Tony clenched his jaw and sighed, turning to Steve and poking his cheek. “Fancy letting me down for a bit, big guy?” He asked, “it’s been about ten hours since I consumed any liquids and my kidneys are starting to complain about it.”

Steve frowned, hands flexing against Tony as he looked up and around the room, as if expecting food to magically appear for them. When it didn’t, he growled again quietly and then, surprisingly, shifted his weight and lowered, placing Tony very very gently onto the floor. Tony looked up at him, and Steve nodded once, his hand pressing firmly into Tony’s chest. “Stay,” he murmured, nuzzling Tony’s head gently once more before straightening up and turning on his heel.

“Uh,” Bruce began, “Steve, if you can hear, then we can- uh- we’ll get you some supplies. You probably shouldn’t be going out into the real world right now.”

Of course, Steve didn’t even acknowledge him- simply placed his fingers against the hinges of the door and inspected it for a few seconds. Tony folded his arms and watched from his vantage point on the floor. Steve, feral or not, had a very spectacular ass.

Then, a second later, there was a tremendous bang as Steve slammed his foot into the door frame and sent the whole thing flying off its hinges. Tony jumped in surprise. “Isn’t that supposed to be reinforced?” He asked Bruce in incredulity.

Bruce just flailed his hands a little. “Well, yeah.”

“It’s not doing a very good job.”

“Have you ever tried to stop Steve from fulfilling a task that would make you happy?” Bruce retorted quickly, “That door did not stand a chance.”

Tony felt himself blush as he watched Steve stride forward confidently, before stopping and looking back at Tony. His face creased in worry, and he looked between the corridor and the room where Tony was still sat. He seemed conflicted.

Then, his mind apparently made up, he walked back over to Tony, crouching down to his level and getting close enough that their noses brushed. Tony remained still, watching on as Steve pressed their foreheads together and did what Tony could only describe as purring. rubbing their faces together like they were fucking cats.

This was so weird.

… But also, admittedly, kind of cute. Tony was going to tease Steve senseless when all this was done.

“Come?” Steve murmured, cocking his head.

Tony quirked an eyebrow. “Sweetheart, I love you, but my reputation will take a very steep nosedive if the entirety of SHIELD sees me being carted around by y- oh, okay, sorry, guess that wasn’t actually a question, huh?” Tony scrabbled for purchase around Steve’s neck as the man gently wound his arms around Tony and then hefted once more, picking Tony back off the floor as easily as if he weighed nothing at all. “You know, I really can walk by my own, you don’t need to do this, I know you are currently in Big Strong Alpha Mode or whatever, but I am actually a human with legs that work, and so I think I’ll be-”

“-Shhhh,” Steve murmured as he walked out of the door once more, this time with Tony in his arms, “Safe, Shh.”

Tony sighed, letting his head fall back against Steve’s shoulder. “Right,” he griped, “right, I guess this is just my life, huh? Fine. Okay. Lead the way, Pack-Wolf Rogers. Just please, don’t try and feed me anything raw. I will throw up. Go fetch some jello or something, I could eat a bit of that.”

Steve hummed. “Jello,” he repeated softly, which was good. Sounded like a confirmation. Tony couldn’t help but grin a little, kissing Steve’s shoulder fondly as they moved smoothly through the hall. 

They passed Bruce along the way, and Tony didn’t miss the phone that he had in his hand, filming the two of them with a barely contained look of glee on his stupid face. Tony scowled at him, resisting the urge to tell Steve to attack. It would only induce a Hulk-Out when Steve invariably attempted to kill him, and Tony really couldn’t be bothered dealing with that on top of everything.

“Just take me to the jello, Soldier,” Tony muttered, flipping Bruce the bird behind Steve’s back, “then we can go make a nest or whatever your hind brain wants to do next.”

Steve hummed happily again, tilting his head and once more nuzzling Tony’s cheek. Tony let him, and even nuzzled back a little, just to hear Steve do his weird purring thing again. It was kind of cute. In a super weird way. 

Well. He supposed, in the grand scheme of things, this wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to them today.

Chapter Text

Tony had this problem every morning.

“Steve,” he murmured sleepily, rubbing his eyes and then stroking a hand gently over the arm that was stretched across his stomach and curled into his waist, “Steve, baby, I’ve gotta get up for work.”

“Nngh,” Steve murmured decidedly, rolling further into Tony’s side and nestling his head against the skin of Tony’s shoulder. A morning Supersolider was a clingy supersoldier, and Tony sighed at the challenge ahead of him. Disentangling himself was going to take skill and tactical ingenuity. Luckily, Tony was more than capable of both those things. 

“If I don’t get up and go to work we’re going to lose all our money and live in a box,” he declared, turning his head into Steve’s hair and nodding solemnly, “Do you want to live in a box, Steve?”

“Mmmf,” Steve answered simply, tightening his hand against Tony’s hip and then opening his mouth on Tony’s neck, beginning to spread little kisses into his warm skin. Tony shivered and hummed against his will. “Will the box have you in it?”

Tony debated it for a moment. “Well, I mean, we’ll probably be too poor to afford two boxes, so-”

“-Then I don’t care,” Steve mumbled, rolling his body so that he was draped entirely over Tony. He kept his head tucked into the warm body next to him, mouth moving down to Tony’s neck and over to his sternum as his hands lifted to Tony’s wrists, essentially pinning him down to the bed. 

Tony sighed, and looked up at the ceiling. Seemed like this supersoldier was not going to give up easy.

“Pepper will yell at me,” Tony went for a different angle, pouting down at Steve, “is that what you want? Do you want her to yell at me?”

Steve paused his journey across Tony’s body, looking up at him briefly. His eyes were half-shut with sleepiness, his hair messy and tangled. He was adorable, and he knew it. Which is why he leaned up and then caught Tony’s mouth in a soft kiss, nipping gently at his pout and grinning like he knew exactly what he was doing. How on earth was Tony supposed to resist that? He was not the only tactical genius in this bed, and Steve was very… persuasive.

“Not my problem,” the man mumbled, before slipping downward again, moving to Tony’s throat and then scraping his teeth gently across it, “I jus’ wanna keep you right here. Pepper… irrelevant.”

Tony’s eyebrows raised. “I’ll tell her you said that.”

“No you won’t, cuz you’re stayin’ right here.”

“Except for the fact that I am not.”

Steve nipped Tony’s skin again with his teeth in chastisement and then groaned petulantly, looking up at Tony with a truly adorable pout. He harrumphed and set his chin down against Tony’s reactor, the simple glance turning into a melancholic & longing gaze as he pulled out the full power of his dumb puppy eyes. 

“Please,” he asked softly, in his stupid terrible tired little voice, and for fuck’s sake that was just playing dirty.

Tony looked down at him, managing to hold his resolution for all of four seconds before huffing and then slumping back down onto the bed with a dramatic sigh. “You are the worst,” he declared as he shut his eyes- but when Steve laughed happily and then swooped in for another kiss, he still reciprocated anyway. Unfortunately, his will was very, very weak. 

“‘Kay,” Steve conceded contentedly, before flopping down across Tony once more and pillowing his head against Tony’s chest, “back to sleep now.”

Tony gaped in betrayal. “What? We’re not even having sex?”

“No. I’m sleepy.”

“Steve Rogers, I am not your personal pillow whom you can take naps on like some stray cat-”

Steve slid his knee between Tony’s open legs and pressed gently down on his crotch, and yeah, okay, wow, that shut him up pretty fast. Tony swallowed and looked down at his bastard of a husband- but the other man’s eyes were already fucking closed. He quite clearly was not intending to do anything with that knee. 

“Sleep,” Steve muttered, kissing his shoulder absently.

Tony thought he should probably have learned how to argue better with Steve by now. It had been two years, after all.

“Fuck off,” Tony tried, but unfortunately the way his arms wrapped around Steve’s back and then rested there loosely gave away his true intentions, which was a shame.

He’d get up soon. Probably.

Just five more minutes.