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"Shut that mouth, you coffee addicted fiend!"
There's laughter and an indignant squawk as Steve pins Tony to the couch, pressing on his shoulders to keep him down. He kisses every inch of Tony's face except for his mouth with quick, sloppy, annoying smacks of his lips. "Where ya gonna go?" he teases. "I got ya right where I want ya- Away from the coffee! It's sleepy time, Tony!"
Throwing his weight to one side in an attempt to throw Steve off, Tony shoots back, "That's what you think, Steven! I'm going to kick your ass, you giant gorilla!" Steve giggles, wrapping a leg around Tony's to pin him tighter as Tony grunts out, "Nothing stands between me and caffeine! Not even ginormous beefcakes with pecks the size of his cock!"
"Keep that up, and I'm going to yank that thing out of your chest just to make you shut up for a while!" It's said with a playful grin; Steve doesn't mean it, nor would he ever actually do it. They're playing- wrestling around like teenagers, which is essentially foreplay for the both of them. If it were anyone else with an arc reactor in their chest, it may not have been even close to a big deal. But this is Tony Stark- reigning prince of trauma, and he jolts and tries to jerk away from Steve with a deep flinch and panicked eyes. Steve knows he's messed up the moment Tony tries to get away, even if he doesn't understand exactly why.
"Tony?" Steve releases his shoulders and jumps back, standing quickly. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?"
Tony's breath hitches, and he sits up, scooting back to the corner of the couch and far away from Steve. "Nothing, I'm fine. You're just heavy."
Steve doesn't believe him, but he needs to test the waters, see just how upset Tony is. "You weren't complaining last night when I pressed you face down into the bed and-"
"Stop!"
This time, it's Steve who flinches. There's a tenuous moment where this can go either way and Steve's on the highwire, tilting this way and that with the wind. He doesn't want to fall off and potentially ruin this new and exciting endeavor he and Tony have embarked on.
Carefully sitting but keeping some distance between them, Steve asks, "What did I do that upset you?"
Tony's hand is over his chest, covering the arc reactor and squeezing the edges. The tips of his fingers are turning white with the strain. He looks away, blinking quickly to hold back the tears that are filling his eyes and- Oh no. This is so much more serious than Steve had initially thought.
"Tony?" he prompts gently, reaching out to put a hand on Tony's knee. It's telling of the trust they've built that Tony doesn't rip himself away from it.
"Don't-" he starts and stops, swallowing hard and forcing himself to look at Steve, "Please don't ever…" He takes a deep, ragged breath before continuing, his voice tight, "Don't take it out. Don't...don't yank it out. Don't-" Another breath, this one sounding a little watery, "I trust you."
It's all there in what Tony doesn't say, and Steve feels his heart crack open. He knows. So much of Tony's life is still a mystery, so much of his past and his collection of traumas still unknown to almost everyone in his life. But this? Steve knew this. He knows this.
"Stane," Steve says with the purpose of giving an answer. It's not a question. What Tony hasn't already told him is in the file Steve read before he even met him. Forgetting and blundering like this is unacceptable.
"Obie… He--uh--he took it. He left me to die. I trusted him too; I loved him too. In a different way but still-" Tony's hand has yet to release the arc reactor, and his other hand comes up to cover it. It's shaking. "He broke me."
Steve reaches for him; he wants to take Tony in his arms and hold him, tell him he's not broken. It's okay, it's all right.
It's okay, it's okay, it's okay…
It's not okay.
Tony chokes out a sob and presses a hand into his face, the other still blocking out that beautiful blue light. They had promised each other they would be open, had broken down their own walls and swore to bear all trauma to one another in an attempt to heal and build a solid foundation that nothing could tumble. Nothing! But in doing so, they let themselves be so much more vulnerable and exposed and… And Steve doesn't feel like enough. It's the blind leading the blind, only Tony can at least see shadows. He can see around the corners of Steve's heart and Steve… Steve's got pretty words that are backed up with very real emotions, but he's stifled by his own issues. He wants to give Tony everything- all the love Tony never got as a child, all the right attention he could never obtain as an adult. He wants to give Tony something more than just another wrecked human being stumbling through the world, feeling for sharp edges and hitting them anyway.
He wants to be enough.
Steve's own traumas climb up his throat. Fingers pressing into his esophagus- each one a different bolt of terrible experiences. The ice. His mother's death. Waking up in the future. Bucky. Tony had danced and tangoed with each of them, guiding Steve into therapy and support groups. He'd wiped his tears and held Steve's head on his lap, gingerly stroking through his hair as Steve cried and cried over Peggy, over Dum Dum… Over everything he'd lost.
Steve had rubbed soothing circles on Tony's back as he threw up on the anniversary of his parents' deaths- When he finally divulged the horror that was his childhood and how losing both his biggest advocate and his tormentor all at once had driven a wedge between his brain and heart. He'd held Tony when the nightmares tore open his vocal cords in the middle of the night- the alternating psychological fuckery that was Afghanistan and the wormhole.
But Tony hadn't spoken of the arc reactor yet.
Steve thinks it is beautiful. Brilliant and gorgeous and the prettiest shade of blue he's ever seen. He loves it because without it, Tony wouldn't be here. Wouldn't be his. For just once, Steve wants Tony to have something that doesn't reek of horror and trauma and unfortunate circumstances, something that is just brilliant and beautiful and blue.
His color. Steve's color.
But as much as they try, everything that makes up Tony and everything that makes up Steve is tied together with one stroke of bad luck after another.
So, Steve reaches for Tony, afraid that he'll shrink away, petrified that this will cause them to break open like an egg falling from the safety of the carton. Left to stink up the room and rot like everything else in their lives.
But they had promised to tell- Promised to be open.
And Tony looks at him from behind the one eye that isn't covered and falls into his arms, his hand finally leaving the arc reactor and grappling against Steve's shirt, clinging to the comfort Steve is so willing to give.
Not all of it is rotten, it seems.
Pressing a kiss to Tony's hair, Steve closes his eyes, pulling Tony to his chest and rocking him softly. "I will never take it from you."
Tony looks up at him, eyes wide and glossy with his tears, his deep brown irises dark and light at the same time, so perfect , so loving, so trusting. "I know."
And it's enough.