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“Damn.”
The whole room filled with laughter as soon as Bucky and Steve stepped into the room and Bucky couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth.
“Is it just me, or is it boiling in here?”
Steve stood at the door, unmoving. It was as if he’d stepped in superglue, feet firmly planted on the soft carpet as he stared at the scene in front of him. Tony had been weirdly involved in the wedding planning and had asked if Steve was open to surprises for the ceremony itself.
Despite knowing, or maybe because of knowing Tony inside out, Steve hadn’t been worried in the slightest and had agreed in an instant.
The thing was, there wasn’t even a rush to get married. They’d been together for years and Steve planned on them being together even longer. Tony had told him they could wait, that they could have another six months to plan and get married in the summer. Get married under the burning sun, on a beach somewhere so hot they’d have to run inside by midday just to be able to breathe.
But Steve had said no. Everyone had looked at him as though he was crazy – and he could understand their confusion. His insistence on having the most special day of his life in the middle of his most hated season was something to question, but to him it made perfect sense.
Steve didn’t want to waste another moment not being married to Tony and, therefore, that meant a winter wedding.
“It’s like a sauna,” Bucky muttered, reaching up to yank at his collar. “Did I miss the memo for this being a beach theme? I’d have worn a hula skirt if someone had told me I’d be sweating off my suit.”
Steve was barely listening to a word leaving his best man’s mouth. Truth was, he’d hardly noticed the room was any different to that of the one they’d gotten dressed in. He’d only just been able to tell that they’d walked into a sheltered hotel instead of standing on the snow-covered street a few hours ago.
It was no secret that Steve hated the cold. He hated everything about winter, from the icy breeze that whipped around his ears to the frost that covered the sidewalks from dawn till dusk. He hated how the leaves of full trees fell off and rotted on the floor and the way that it always seemed dark, no matter what time of day it was. Nothing but darkness for months on end with no apparent end in sight.
As soon as the air turned a little chillier, Steve felt it in his bones. He would start to shiver as soon as he woke up in a morning and by the time he was crawling into his bed – already pre-warmed with an electric blanket under the sheets and at least two fluffy ones piled on top of them – his teeth would hurt from chattering.
Every time the wind whistled past him faster than a bullet train or his take-away coffee practically froze in his hands, Steve was taken right back to the war. Thrust back in time to that moment; that moment when he had had no choice but to bury his plane into the depths of the ocean and had then spent the last moments of his life feeling the cold water seep into his very bones.
“Well,” Tony said when Steve had finally gotten his feet moving and arrived at the altar, “hot enough for you, babe?”
A surprised laugh shot past Steve’s lips as he nodded, still not sure he wasn’t dreaming. He could tell from the flush rising on Bucky’s cheeks and the short clothing of the guests that the room was close to being unbearably warm. “What did you do?”
“Not a lot.” Tony reached out and brushed his hand over the sleeve of Steve’s dress blues, eyes raking over Steve’s body in a way that made him want to squirm. “I just had them turn the heat up a little. Thought we could reflect the heat of our love.”
Another loud laugh shot out from Steve as his cheeks grew rosy. Trust Tony to have turned something so beautifully thoughtful into a joke about their sex life.
“It’s – I’m…” Cold. That was how that sentence usually ended.
It was cold. It was always cold. He was always cold, no matter what the sun was doing outside or how high he turned the heating. Steve didn’t think he’d ever really been fully warm, not since he’d been defrosted and he’d felt the blood in his veins literally unfreeze and flow through him once more.
Only this time, he didn’t think the word on his lips was going to be what it normally was.
“I’m warm.”
The smile on Tony’s face was brighter than any sun could have been, bolder than any shout. He reached out for Steve once more and Steve met him halfway, turning his hand over to twist his fingers with Tony’s. The absence of Tony’s cool ring was a shock, but the heat radiating from his fingertips was almost enough to burn and Steve relished in it.
Smiling, Steve lifted Tony’s hand high, brushing his lips to the smooth skin for a moment. “I missed you.”
“Missed you too, sunshine.” Tony’s voice was soft and Steve wanted to bathe in it, drown in it. “I’ve thought about this for days.”
“So have I. Nothing but.”
Steve felt silent as their officiant stepped up to them and asked them a silent question. With a quirked eyebrow in Steve’s direction, Tony took his hand back and nodded to start the ceremony.
Someone started talking and Steve was almost sure there was music coming from somewhere, but he couldn’t focus on anything but the full force of Tony’s beam and the way his suit was starting to feel tight.
It couldn’t have been nerves. Steve had never been surer of anything in the world; nothing felt as right as the feeling of Tony’s hand in his or the way that their lips slotted together so perfectly after a long day apart.
There was a weird feeling spreading through him, though, like his head was swimming and there was something akin to sweat starting to drip down his back.
The guests laughed at something and Steve was jolted out of his thoughts just in time to catch the wink that Tony shot his way.
Warmth, he realised with a rush of something deep in his stomach. Steve was finally warm.