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The first time Tony Stark caught Captain America off guard in his bathroom, Steve was only just getting into the shower. It had been a grueling day of training for him, considering he hadn’t been very helpful in the Avengers’ most recent battle; in fact, the Captain had been mind-controlled from the very start and wasn’t able to snap completely out of it until all the fighting was over. Everyone told him not to take it too hard, that it happened to the best of them, but he didn’t see it like that. Steve knew he wasn’t the most skilled on the team; he really wasn’t anything on the team but the one that shouted orders, and Tony could do that just as easily.
Steve was staring at himself in the mirror, at the sweat pouring down his face and the bags underneath his eyes. He was exhausted, and he’d avoided the rest of the team during his training even though Clint and Natasha both offered to spar with him. Of course, he politely refused, and only took a break to munch on the lunch that Bruce dropped off.
This shower was going to feel amazing on his sore muscles.
He took off the shirt currently sticking to his back, his sweats and boxers following, and he wrapped a towel around his waist while he waited for the water to get warm. And about right then was when Tony burst in.
“Jesus Tony!” Steve jumped, squeezing the towel around him and thankful he had decided to wait. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
“If I recall, this is my tower,” He answered quickly, rummaging around in the cupboards. “But besides that, my sink is broken at the moment and since you are the closest room—” He stopped suddenly, seeming to notice the practically naked man before him. “…have you been working out?”
Heat rushed to Steve’s face and he turned away from Tony. “Do you mind?”
“Cap, I’ve seen another man naked before. We’re both adults here. I was just…complimenting your physique,” Tony grinned, his eyes raking over Steve. He always seemed to take pleasure in making him uncomfortable.
“Thanks,” Steve grumbled. “Can you just…get what you need and leave?”
Tony leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest and making his muscles in the tank top he was wearing appear much more prominent than they already were. “I didn’t realize Captain America was so self-conscious.” He chuckled and Steve glared at him. He raised his hands and continued fishing through the cabinets and retracted a box labeled “Emergency”. He turned to go, but glanced back and added, “You really have nothing to be self-conscious about Steve. You look good.”
Steve stood there for a minute or so after Tony left before realizing he had left the water running. He set his towel down on a hook and winced as it brushed against him. Looking down, he hadn’t realized how hard he’d become under Tony’s prying eyes, or maybe it was when he focused in on those ripped arms of his, or a combination of both.
Either way, the Captain turned the water to cold as soon as he stepped inside, and the shower wasn’t nearly as joyful as he thought it would be.
The second time Tony rudely interrupted his shower, Steve was already inside. It was a few days after the last incident, and Steve had been helping Bruce in his lab when some suspicious liquid spilled on him and Bruce suggested he go take a long, hot shower. Steve wasn’t going to complain; he liked Tony’s showers, and it offered an excuse to disappear, even if only for a short while.
Steve had stripped down and got in, taking a moment to relish in the hot water pouring on him before he started to scrub off whatever he had been doused in. And it was after a few minutes of that when Tony decided to make an entrance.
“For God’s sake, Tony!” Steve groaned, pinning his front against the shower wall. Tony’s showers, unfortunately, had glass doors instead of curtains. There was a lot of steam pooling around Steve, so much that he couldn’t even see his feet, but he was still a modest guy, even if Tony so obviously wasn’t.
“Hey Cap, I seriously need to pee and the plumbing in my bathroom has completely gone to shit,” Tony sighed. “Hope you don’t mind me using yours.”
“And if I do?”
"Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of me ignoring you.”
Steve shook his head and fought the urge to step out of the warm water and punch the man in his face. “Tony, I’m in the shower.”
“I noticed. Hygiene is very important, I’m glad to see you’re keeping it up.”
Steve slowly banged his forehead against the tile. “Have you ever heard of knocking?”
“That’s not really my style. And, as I mentioned before, this room is technically mine.”
“By that reasoning, since I’m living here, I’m technically yours as well.”
There was a long stretch of silence after he said that, and Steve turned around to see if Tony was still there, only to find him staring right back at him. A chill shot down Steve’s spine and he faced the wall again, praying for the erection he felt coming on to just go away for once.
“Only if you wanna be mine,” Tony finally answered lowly, and his voice was a straight shot to Steve’s groin. He bit his lip to suppress a groan and waited desperately to hear his toilet flush. It seemed to take forever, but eventually Tony finished, and paused in the doorway as he did before.
“And I thought Captain America only had a cute butt in his uniform,” Tony snickered, and then was gone.
And Steve begrudgingly turned his relaxing shower back to cold and didn’t peel himself off the wall until he was done.
The third time it happened, Steve hardly noticed at first. It had been two days since their last incident, and Steve had desperately tried to forget about how he was finding himself turned on by Tony’s husky voice and unyielding compliments. He tried to tell himself that Tony was just a male version of Natasha; he liked to flirt, was good at flirting, and only ever had his own agenda in mind when he did flirt.
But reasoning like that only made Steve sad and give him a motive to prove himself wrong.
That particular day, Steve had gone out on one of his few free days that Fury granted the team. He threw on a leather jacket, grabbed the motorcycle he’d stolen from S.H.I.E.L.D. and kept in Tony’s garage, and drove around the city. New York traffic definitely had gotten worse since before he was frozen, and a hell of a lot more complicated, but Steve still loved seeing the city. He loved going through Brooklyn, and though a lot had changed, everything still had that vague sense of familiarity that comforted him just slightly.
Of course, Captain America can never really have a day off.
He noticed the fight before it really even became one. The kid, probably in his late teens, was backed against a wall, his fists in front of him and his jaw firm set. The three guys in front of him were easily bigger and probably more skilled at fighting than the kid. Steve sighed; yea, he was definitely reliving the good old days, pre-serum.
He stopped his bike next to the alleyway. He had left his shield at Stark Tower, and even if he were completely useless to the Avengers, he still knew a thing or two about old fashioned fist fights.
“Three on one? That doesn’t seem very fair,” Steve clucked, walking up behind the goons. They turned, and the two on the sides widened their eyes, gripping on to the middle one, who stared solidly back at the Captain. He was the leader, then.
“Captain America? Almost didn’t recognize you without your ballerina costume,” He growled. “This small fry ain’t none of your business. Back off.”
Steve sighed. “Just let him go and I’ll be on my way. This doesn’t have to get messy.”
The two on the sides looked at the leader, who produced a gun from the back of his pants. Steve frowned; they were planning on killing this kid? The leader pointed the gun at him, shouting a bunch of gibberish that Steve tuned out, looking to make sure they were focused on him and not the kid.
“Hey, I’m talking to you!”
The sound of a gunshot rang through Steve’s ears, but he didn’t feel the bullet go through him until he felt his shirt start sticking to his skin. It had only grazed his side, in the front and out the back, but it still didn’t help his mood.
It took Steve less than a minute to knock the three of them out, and he offered a hand to the kid, who was shaking and probably on the verge of crying. Steve paid for a cab to get him back to wherever he lived and then rode his motorcycle back to Stark Tower. Luckily he didn’t run into anyone on his way to his room, and was able to stumble inside his bathroom without any awkward explanations.
The wound wasn’t anything major; it was just barely over skin-deep, didn’t even hurt, and had passed through him anyhow. He would wash it out and then put a patch over it and wait for his regenerating cells to kick in. Steve undressed himself carefully and turned the shower on, standing under the water for a fairly long period of time. Now the wound was starting to sting a little, but he knew that this was what was best for it.
Steve didn’t know how long he had been in the shower when Tony came in, and—as stated previously—he didn’t even notice at first. He had his head hung low and was watching his blood mix with the hot water and flow down the drain. He probably wouldn’t have noticed if the glass door to his shower didn’t decide to randomly open.
And there was Tony.
“Hey Capsicle, I was wondering if you would mind me borrowing your shield for about an hour? I promise I won’t break it or use it to take over the world,” he grinned.
Steve jumped and covered himself as best he could with his hands. “You need to stop doing this Tony, Jesus Christ! I’m taking a shower! Do you have to ask that right now?”
Tony cocked his head with an expression that read Isn’t it obvious? “Well, I need your shield right now—”
“Yes, fine, take it!” Steve pinched his nose and sighed.
Tony’s eyes moved from looking at Steve’s face, down his chest and torso, until landing on the bullet wound in Steve’s side, which made him frown. He reached forward slowly, his eyes glancing back up to meet Steve’s, who wasn’t paying attention, and brushed his finger against it as gently as he could manage. Steve winced and slapped his hand away.
“You should get that checked out,” Tony mumbled, collecting himself.
“I was in World War II, Tony, I know how to deal with being shot.”
“I can get JARVIS to—”
“Tony!” Steve interrupted loudly. “Please just leave.”
Tony blinked, and a look of a kicked puppy crossed his face before he gave a curt nod and exited the bathroom, this time with no compliment that both embarrassed Steve as well as turned him on. But still, he felt the need to turn the shower to cold and finish up like the other times Tony Stark had wandered unwelcomed into his bathroom.
When the fourth time came around, Steve definitely wasn’t expecting it. It had been a week since their last fiasco, and Tony had been…distant. Steve thought he might’ve hurt his feelings somehow, but then reckoned that if the man got hurt over invading someone else’s privacy and that someone else demanding they leave, then maybe he needed a little space to brood alone.
Thank God that didn’t affect how they worked as a team, however.
Some idiotic newbie supervillain had decided that it would be funny to repeat the events of the partial nuclear meltdown of Three Mile Island (of which needed to be quickly explained to Steve in the Quinjet while they flew to Pennsylvania) because of some mutant thing that “he swore to his dying breath he would get revenge against”, as Agent Hill put it. All the Avengers save Thor were there—he was back ruling Asgard—and it almost seemed normal.
Up until they actually arrived at Three Mile Island.
Tony immediately got to work trying to figure out a way to stop the meltdown while Natasha and Clint helped evacuate the area as far back as they could. Steve and the Hulk, in the meantime, were attempting to take down the psycho lunatic that had started it all. But that was proving a lot more difficult than they previously imagined.
“What are mutants?” Steve hissed over coms, dodging and just barely missing being blasted with a bolt of whatever this guy was shooting at him.
“Mutants are people who were born with mutated genes that often times result in various…abilities,” Hill answered.
“Like being able to absorb nuclear energy*?” Steve asked, watching the Hulk jump on the villain only to be thrown to the other side of the island. “And to use that energy after he absorbs it?”
“Yea, something like that,” She sighed.
“How come I haven’t heard of them before?”
“We aren’t the ones generally dealing with them,” Natasha cut in. “We have mutant allies that tend to take care of their own.”
“They’re very touchy about their kind,” Clint muttered.
“Hawkeye is just complaining because he got his ass handed to him by one,” Tony added.
Steve sighed. “How can we possibly defeat an enemy that just takes in whatever is fed to him?”
There was a moment of silence and Tony answered, “We feed him until he explodes.”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t think that’s the greatest idea Stark,” Natasha warned. “If you’re planning on pumping him full of energy, then the aftermath of that explosion is not going to be pretty.”
“I’ve already stopped the meltdown, I just need to get him a safe distance away from everything and then shoot him with everything I’ve got.”
Steve frowned. “I don’t feel comfortable with this, Stark.”
“You don’t feel comfortable with PDA but you still deal with it,” Tony retorted. “Now, I need to get him to follow me…I could probably do it in the upper part of the troposphere if I could get him high enough.”
Iron Man came flying towards Steve and the nuclear bomb of a guy hovering ten feet above him that was yelling at the Captain about the atrocities that had occurred on this island and how it was time mutants got revenge on those that took advantage of them, blah, blah, blah, the usual villain monologue. Iron Man shot at his back with his repulsors, and the mutant was startled but absorbed it nonetheless. Stark started flying off but the guy didn’t bite, and instead started attacking Steve, saying it was heroes like him that made mutants seem like freaks.
Steve, with his trusty shield, was attempting not to get blown to smithereens. Stark was trying to get his attention but to no avail, even taunting him with words that Steve didn’t think he would be able to ignore.
Instead, the mutant stopped shooting Steve, and when the Captain lowered his shield, he found himself lifted off the ground and heading for the sky. He tried attacking the villain holding him captive, but he just chuckled and rose higher and higher until Three Mile Island seemed like a spec beneath them.
“Soon you’ll get a glimpse of the pain I felt,” He hissed, and began laughing. But it didn’t last long, seeing as he was quickly shot in the back of the head by another repulsor beam, and this time, it did make him turn around.
“Hey, hot head, don’t take my stuff,” Iron Man said, hovering five feet away from them.
“Oh, is this yours, Mr. Stark? I’m sorry, you can have him back.”
The guy smiled sweetly before dropping the Captain, who immediately told Stark to focus on making the nuclear bomb go off. It took only a few seconds to overload the poor mutant, and Steve felt the heat of his explosion even after dropping for all that time. He was getting closer and closer to the ground, and just when he was at the height of the nuclear towers, Iron Man caught him and, slowly, set him back down.
Steve took a moment to catch his breath, and when he had finally regained the ability to talk, the rest of the team had joined back up and Hill was touching down in the Quinjet, ready to pick them up and head back to Stark Tower.
It was an exhausting night, and when they finally got back to base, it was turning into dawn. Everyone retreated to their own rooms, and Steve headed straight for his bathroom, dropping his clothes off as he walked. He immediately set his water for hot and took a deep sigh of relief when it came pouring down on him.
And that was when Tony Stark felt it appropriate to make his entrance.
Steve just watched him this time, not saying a word or turning around, too tired to fight or argue or yell. He simply wanted to relax for however long it took for his muscles to not ache anymore and then crash in his bed until someone forced him up.
And Steve was just going to let Tony do whatever he needed without a word.
Until the man started stripping.
“What are you doing now, Tony?” Steve sighed.
Tony glanced up, almost as if he forgot he was in Steve’s bathroom, and gave a lopsided grin. “If you remember correctly, the plumbing in my own bathroom has decided to stop working, and I am very tired and very sore, and I need a shower.”
Steve’s eyes narrowed. “And you think you’re just going to…hop in here with me?”
“Oh, I don’t think, I know.”
“Tony!”
“Yes Captain?” He opened the bathroom door, forcing Steve to stand up straight as he squeezed inside. The showers weren’t small, thank God for that, but they probably weren’t designed to house two grown, stocky, muscled men at the same time. “We’re adults, are we not?”
“Yes, but—”
“So there should be nothing weird about two grown men showering together.”
“Well no, but—”
“Steve,” Tony interrupted lowly, turning to face him. His hair was already soaked—Steve had never seen his hair not styled—and his face looked worn. He hadn’t shaved his face in a couple days, and when he turned his back to Steve, the Captain could see marks from where the battle and previous battles had taken their toll.
They both stood in silence for a few minutes, letting the water pour over them.
“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever called me by my real name,” Steve said with a small smile. “Usually it’s Captain or Cap or something referring to me being frozen.”
Tony glanced back at him and shrugged. “I don’t like your name. I don’t feel that ‘Steve’ lives up to the magnificence of Captain America.”
Steve frowned. “I’m not magnificent.”
“That’s what I don’t get about you,” Tony laughed, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re perfect in mind, soul, and body, more of a god than anyone on this team besides the literal god, and yet you still see yourself as nothing more than a common man…Why?”
Steve shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sure, I was a successful lab rat that got all muscly with super strength and some healing abilities, but I’m nothing compared to the rest of you. I’m not a god wielding a magic hammer that can control lightning, or an agent that has advanced skills in more than just a specific combat field, or a scientist that can turn into a kick-ass weapon, or,” he smiled humorlessly, “or even a billionaire with the intellect of everyone else on his team combined. I’m nothing more than a beefy soldier pretending to be a hero.”
The two stood in silence for a while longer and Tony sighed, reaching behind Steve to get his soap. Steve chuckled and merely watched him clean himself off while never letting his eyes wander farther down than his chest and the arc reactor.
"You know, I never thanked you for saving me today,” Steve said quietly.
"Did you think I was going to let you face-plant into the Earth? I’m pretty sure my dad would’ve come back from the dead to kill me if I did that.”
“No, I just…thank you.” Steve stuck out his hand.
Tony stared at it and looked back at Steve with a raised eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“What?”
“You’re actually a bigger dork than Banner,” Tony sighed, and quickly washed all the soap off himself before stepping out and looking around for a towel. Steve couldn’t help his prying eyes as he watched the toned man struggle, and though he wanted to help, he instead just leaned against the tile, chewed his lip, and felt himself grow hard. Eventually Tony grabbed a towel, waved to Steve, and exited Steve’s room.
“Damn,” Steve hissed, clenching his fists tightly. “Damn.”
The first time Steve interrupted Tony in the shower, it was actually purely accidental. Tony told everyone the day after their encounter with the nuclear bomb guy that he had finally fixed his plumbing and everything was getting back in order, and his eyes crossed Steve’s for a moment longer than the others as if to say, “No more shower visits, sorry,” which made Steve look down at his eggs and force back a blush.
However, after his training that morning and in his bathroom preparing for a shower, he noticed that Tony’s clothes from the other day were still bundled on his floor. Steve rolled his eyes, picked them up, and left his room to enter Tony’s. He didn’t see him in his bedroom, but heard the man’s shower going, and he hesitated. Should he do what he was annoyed at Tony for doing? And yet, thinking about it, that wasn’t really what he was worried about…
More like how turned on he was going to get by seeing Tony naked.
Again.
Steve shook his head, opened up the door slowly, and walked inside. He shut it behind him and set Tony’s clothes on the counter. He hesitated, keeping his eyes low, and turned to leave when the man in the shower spoke up.
“What, you’re not going to join me, Captain?” Tony asked, offended.
“I think we’ve both had enough shower experiences together,” Steve replied smoothly.
“Well obviously you came in here for a reason.”
“I came to return the clothes you left—”
“Then why come in the bathroom when you could’ve left them on my bed?” Steve frowned and started blushing, his mouth open but nothing coming out. He didn’t have a good answer to that, and anything he might’ve said probably would’ve been stupid anyway. “Mm, that’s what I thought. C’mon Capsicle, no need to be shy.”
Steve should’ve just left.
Steve should’ve told Tony that he wasn’t interested.
Steve should’ve been the team leader that advises against team relationships.
What Steve shouldn’t have done is start taking off his shirt and pants.
But that’s exactly what Steve did.
He opened up Stark’s shower door, and his shower was actually slightly bigger than Steve’s, and had a seat in it? Thinking of how many other people Tony’s probably had in the shower, Steve swallowed and tried to be thankful that at least clean water washed that seat daily.
“Now this is cozy,” Tony grinned, sidling up to Steve.
“You seem confident,” Steve managed to say.
"I’m just a man that knows what he wants,” Tony shrugged. “Unlike you.”
“I know what I want.”
“Then show it.”
The two stared at each other for a long moment before Steve grabbed Tony’s face and pressed his lips to his, pinning him against the tile in the process. Tony seemed slightly taken aback, but bounced back quickly, threading his fingers through Steve’s wet hair and pulling him down farther. Steve kissed Tony feverishly, as if he had been dying from waiting, and Tony responded in kind, slipping his tongue into Steve’s mouth and surprising the man. Steve had never kissed or been kissed passionately, the only ones ever being the rushed one from Peggy and that one blonde that forced herself on him back in the ‘40s, and this was something else entirely. Steve pulled back for air and his lips felt numb. Looking at Tony’s, he saw that they were red and swollen.
“Well then,” Tony laughed, looking up at the Captain with his signature smirk. “I didn’t think you could be so dominating.”
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Steve admitted breathily, lowering his forehead onto Tony’s shoulder. “I’ve never…done this sort of thing before.”
“What, like with a man?” Tony glanced at Steve and his eyes widened. “Or at all?! Seriously Captain?!”
“I haven’t always been a muscled hunk, you know,” He muttered.
Tony blinked and grinned. “Wow, my very own virgin. I’m going to have fun with you.”
Steve looked up at him and Tony kissed him, but this time softer, with more meaning. He placed a hand on the wall to stabilize himself and pushed upward into the kiss until Steve wasn’t hunching over Tony anymore. Steve grinned, and in the process, bit Tony’s lip, which caused the older man to take a sharp breath. The Captain raised an eyebrow and pressed him against the wall again, gently nibbling on Tony’s lip before moving downward to his jaw and neck, tasting the water on his skin and relishing in Tony’s unique smell coming off of him.
"Fuck Steve, are you sure you’re new to this? Because you sure don’t—”
Steve bit him, making Tony interrupt himself with a moan and causing his fingers to dig tightly into Steve’s arms. Steve chuckled and resumed his necking, finding various spots that caused Tony to emit various noises Steve had never heard before, each one making him more delighted than the last.
“You’re such a tease,” Tony growled.
“Well that’s what you’ve taught me to be so far,” Steve smirked.
“I’m the only one allowed to be smirking around here.”
Steve drew his face back up to look at Tony and kissed him gently, smiling against Stark’s lips, and the genius billionaire emitted another sigh. Steve raised an eyebrow at him, but Tony just shook his head with a chuckle.
“I should probably be honest with you about something,” Tony drummed his fingers against Steve’s chest. “My plumbing…actually never stopped working. Well the sink did that first time, but after that I more or less invented excuses.”
Steve blinked. “Wait…so all those times you came in—”
“Just to see you naked.”
Steve stared at Tony, unsure how to feel, and simply huffed out a laugh. “You should learn to be more direct, Stark.”
“Well I got you to come to me, so obviously something worked,” He grinned wickedly. “But on top of that, I think there’s an even more serious matter to discuss.”
“Mm, and what’s that?”
“The fact that I have to actually pay the water bill.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “Since when is billionaire Tony Stark worried about his water bill?”
“Since he realized he’s going to be taking a lot more longer showers. Well, that and the fact that, once you’ve moved on from being the world’s worst tease and are almost as good as me in bed, we’re going to have the most mind-blowing sex this world has ever not seen, and everyone else is probably going to move out from how loud I’m going to make you scream.”
Steve smiled and pecked Tony. “Or the other way around.”
“We’ll see, Captain.”
Tony turned the shower off and the two stepped out, drying themselves off in silence. Steve wrapped his towel around himself and opened the door to Tony’s bedroom. He walked out slowly, then glanced back at the bathroom.
“You know, I think I’ve grown fond of showers,” he said with a laugh.