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If anyone asks – not that anyone has so far – Tony would be happy to report that there’s little to critique about Steve’s ability to be a fun date. Not that Tony’s grading Steve or anything like that, but he had wondered, when he’d first pressed the matter and finagled a date out of Steve, whether awkwardness would win out over interest.
After all, they’re co-workers, then teammates, then friends – and oh boy has that last one been an uphill climb before it turned into one of the best things of the second wave that is Tony’s life. Trying for something romantic seemed like it’d be pushing it too far, and that’s before considering their spotty experience in braving the dating field.
But no, the first date goes swimmingly. Steve’s charm and quiet enthusiasm has Tony bringing his A-game and then some, and at the end of the night it feels inevitable that there’d be an encore.
The second date goes even better than the first. So much so that Tony throws his resolution to the wind and, after relentless mutual flirting and innuendo over a nightcap in the tower’s common area, he grabs the lapels of Steve’s jacket and drags him to his room.
Yeah, they have sex. Yeah, it’s great. It’s nothing fancy but it doesn’t have to be, not this early in the proceedings. What’s actually important is the fact that they laugh between pawing at and rubbing against each other, and that Tony’s still grinning after they’ve finished and are sprawled sweaty on top of the sheets.
“That was great.” Tony means it, so much. “Wasn’t that great?”
Steve hums his agreement against Tony’s shoulder, where he’s still dropping lazy kisses.
“You have a fantastic dick,” Tony adds. “Not that it’s a competition. But if it were a competition – no, scratch that, ‘competition’ implies I’m looking at other dicks, which I can firmly report to you that I have no interest in—”
Steve laughs, his face now pressed against Tony’s collarbone. “Wow, all right.”
“Promising now, it’s the one dick! Wait, no, I have one and I quite like it, so that makes this a two-dick household, I guess—“
“Oh Tony,” Steve exhales, a smile still in his voice. “I love you.”
Tony laughs. “Okay, no, that wasn’t that funny. I appreciate the spirit, though, but you should save the hyperbole for after I’ve used my mouth you. Just saying.”
He looks at Steve, fully intending to leer at him and make him laugh some more, but he’s brought up short by the confusion on Steve’s face. Steve’s still relaxed and at ease – an orgasm will do that to a person – but there’s a little befuddled knot between his eyebrows, like a train jumped tracks somewhere when they weren’t looking.
“What?” Tony says.
“Hyperbole?” Steve echoes.
“Yeah, I mean. Better to save the accolades for when I’ve actually blown your mind, you know?”
“You think ‘I love you’ is hyperbole?” Steve doesn’t sound upset, just baffled.
“Steve.” Tony sits up and holds Steve’s face between his hands. “You’re a sweetheart, and I’m into you, and I do appreciate the sentiment, but some friendly boner-on-boner wrestling does not an ‘I love you’ make.”
Steve scowls. “Funnily enough, I agree with you there.”
“Okay.” Then Tony’s brain catches up with his ears, and he sits back. “What?”
This is definitely a two-track conversation, then. Tony looks at Steve, who looks right back at him, and as Tony’s eyebrows slowly go up, the tips of Steve’s ears turn pink. Steve’s eyes flicker away for a moment, but when they come back to meet Tony’s, they are solemn and sincere.
Tony considers and then discards the first two responses his brain immediately supplies him with. This is Steve, after all, whose forthrightness is all kinds of sexy, and he should be rewarded for it instead of punished. Steve doesn’t lie either, so if he said that, then he must mean it. The problem must be in the definition, then.
“Okay, so.” Tony clears his throat. “Well.”
“Goodness, Tony, I don’t expect you to say it back.” That feels like the correct series of words that Tony needs to hear, except he also recognizes the tone that’s accompanying them. Self-conscious and sheepish, but trying not to be. “I know it’s… This is new.”
“Yes, so you can’t be,” Tony says.
It’s Steve’s turn to pause, his mouth falling open around what is obviously meant to be a righteous protest, before he swallows it back. “Okay,” he says instead.
“Because we literally have only started seeing each other,” Tony continues. “I asked you out like, a week ago.”
A shifty look passes over Steve’s face.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tony demands.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah, I heard you not saying anything. Loud and clear, Steve.” Tony crosses his arms, which somewhat helps to convince himself that he’s in better control of this conversation than he probably is. He also has a reasonable idea where this is going, but he needs Steve to say it. Better yet, he needs Steve to deny it, so that his brain can spiral in a completely different direction.
It takes a while for Steve to answer. “I’ve had feelings for you for a while.” That’s clearly a factual statement right there, and though Steve hesitates to deliver it, it’s not because he’s embarrassed to be called out on it. Steve wouldn’t hedge to tell the truth, but he would pause somewhat if he thought the listener doesn’t want to hear it, as he apparently reads clearly off of Tony.
“Right,” Tony says.
“You’re upset.”
“No. Maybe? I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to go?”
Tony frowns. “Fuck that, I want to cuddle.”
Steve regards Tony carefully. “Not right this moment, though.”
“Actually, smartypants, I do. But first of all, how long is ‘a while’?”
Steve shrugs. “A few months.” He exhales quietly at the way Tony twitches. “Okay, you’re definitely upset. I should go—”
“No! Just.” Tony rubs a hand over his face. “I’m gonna shower. Then you can have a shower. If you want to go, you can do that, too, but I don’t want you to go. Okay?”
“Okay,” Steve says with a nod.
He stops talking, and so does Tony, who deviates his energy into having a shower and percolating his thoughts during said shower. Unfortunately, a hefty chunk of those thoughts involve trying to force quit his overthinking, as well as the guilt-tinged reflex to figure out who between them is responsible for ruining what had otherwise been a really nice night. It’s easier to blame Steve, yes, but he shouldn’t blame Steve because he likes Steve; but if he doesn’t blame Steve then he’d have to blame himself, and if he blames himself then he’d have to kick Steve out of his room in order to feel sorry for himself, and he doesn’t want to do that either.
Round and round it goes.
By the time Tony’s done in the bathroom, his body may be sparkling fresh but his thoughts? Not so much.
Waiting out Steve’s turn in the shower gives Tony the chance to try to step back and analyze at his own thoughts, but he gets distracted by the merry disarray of their clothes all over the floor and starts goofily waxing nostalgic over memories that are literally less than an hour old.
In no time Steve’s stepping out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. As Tony watches, Steve hunts through the collateral damage on the floor to find his boxer shorts, which he pulls out. If Tony weren’t so busy being confused by his own emotions, he’d pout and say something lewd but sweet about Steve’s hips.
“Hi,” Steve says.
“Hey,” Tony replies. He scoots backward, giving Steve space to crawl into bed and join him.
Tony tries to ease his facial expression into something more welcome, but the scowl he can still feel there doesn’t quit. Can’t quit. Not even when Steve lies down and Tony slithers into the cozy as fuck space under Steve’s arm, tucked right up by Steve’s side.
“Your shower’s really big,” Steve says. “I figured it would be, but why do you need three showerheads?”
“Because I exist in three dimensions, obviously.”
Steve laughs under his breath. The sound still makes Tony’s stomach swoop a little, like he’s parked permanently on the rollercoaster that is being a part of Steve Rogers’ life. Steve’s fingers find Tony’s hair, and the gentle massaging motion makes Tony’s mouth fall open into a quiet moan.
“Why are you upset?” Steve asks quietly.
Right. Far be it for Tony to be annoyed that Steve doesn’t want to leave that matter hanging either. “Because you said… that.”
“I shouldn’t have, I get it.”
Tony rolls his eyes. “Buyer’s remorse doesn’t solve anyone’s problem, Steven.”
“Oh it’s a ‘problem’ now?” Steve takes a deep breath. “Sorry, it’s just. It feels like you’re throwing it back in my face, when I know you’re not.”
Tony tilts his head back to look pointedly up at Steve, from where he’s nestled in perfect contentment in the circle of Steve’s arms. “I like you a lot, Steve.”
“I know you do,” Steve says, mouth quirking in surprised pleasure, before he seems to suddenly remember that they’ve been arguing. “All right. Let’s take it from the top. Why does me saying that make you upset?”
“Because…” Tony can feel the shape of his distress, but hell if he can grasp it in both hands. When Steve agreed to go out with him, it was the best fucking headrush in the world, and Tony had walked on air for days afterward. He hadn’t cared about making any pretense that he was above it all, and took all the friendly mockery from the rest of the team with good cheer because goddamn, Steve said yes. Steve was interested.
Steve kissing him the first time damn near short-circuited something in Tony’s brain. In a good way. He hadn’t been able to sleep well that night at all, almost fearful that he’d dreamed it.
So why does Steve throwing big words at him bother him so much?
“Because I don’t want it to be true,” Tony says.
“Ow,” Steve says, once again frank about the sting of it. Despite that, he adjusts his hold around Tony and brushes his lips at Tony’s forehead. “Why?”
“Because…” I don’t love you back. That’s it right there, that’s what it all comes down to. He knew that the moment that he realized Steve wasn’t joking and letting his mouth run off in the euphoria of the moment. But that’s not the kind of thing Tony can say out loud unless he wants to emotionally kick Steve in the balls. Which he doesn’t.
It’s the truth, though. Tony respects Steve, admires Steve, is proud to be Steve’s friend. In recent times, he can add that he also enjoys spending time with Steve and making him smile, and gets the very pleasant tingles from looking at Steve’s face, his shoulders, his waist, his butt. (What a butt.)
But love, though? Tony’s far from an expert in matters of the heart, but he knows what he feels for Steve right now is the fresh, sun-bright excitement of something new. It’s the Big Bang, a chaotic unformed mess of sense and senses that could potentially coalesce into label-ready emotions, but not yet.
Not yet.
The realization comes in a sudden jolt, making Tony inhale sharply. He says, “It’s because I thought we were in this together.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been flirting,” Tony says, automatically smiling at the memory. He’d realized his appreciation of Steve took a change one fine day a few weeks ago, after a mission that went well and Steve pulled Tony aside to tell him that he did a good job. Tony tried to brush it off at the time, but Steve pressed, making sure that Tony heard him and believed him. That insistence was so very Steve, and when Tony recognized it and accepted that he liked it, it made something click into place in his head.
After that, Tony tentatively ramped up his appreciation and innuendo back in Steve’s direction. Steve seemed confused at first, but then reciprocated, and then Tony took the leap to ask him out. He was proud of himself at the time, too.
“I started flirting with you like, properly, and not just the way I do it on automatic, and then you started flirting back,” Tony continues. “So I thought that we were figuring this out together. I thought both of us didn’t have any idea how this would go – me and you in the middle of our very not-normal lives. That’s exciting, you know? Going on this who-knows-the-fuck-what’s-gonna-happen journey together? But turns out I’ve been lagging behind. Makes me feel kinda crappy, actually.”
“Tony, no,” Steve says, shocked. “Lagging? It’s not a race.”
“Not a race, sure, but we’re not in the same place, are we? Not the way I thought we were.” Tony grits his teeth, irritated that he’s made Steve go quiet and contemplative. “Sorry, I’m shitting all over your feelings.”
“Look,” Steve says gently. “You’re happy, Tony. I haven’t seen you this happy in a long time, and the fact that that’s my doing? I’m so grateful for it, and for you. But I don’t how to tell you how much that means to me, except to say that… I feel the way that I do. I’m sorry that saying it has put pressure on you—”
“No, it’s not about pressure.” Tony sighs and bites the bullet. “What if I never love you back the same way?”
“We’ll figure that out, too.”
“But never, Steve? You can’t tell me that that won’t mess you up?”
“There are many other reasons that this might not work out,” Steve says simply. Tony feels his stomach lurch with rage and offense – how dare Steve suggest that their relationship might not work out. But Steve’s not wrong, and Tony himself has thought about all the ways that this new venture might go badly. “It could be that, or it could be something else,” Steve continues. “I’d like to try anyway.”
“Me, too,” Tony sighs.
“See,” Steve says with a grin. “We are in sync for that.”
“Okay, that’s nice,” Tony admits.
“I think you feel bad because you believe I feel bad,” Steve says. God, yeah, that sounds right. Tony’s new mission is to give Steve all the good things he can, and that includes reciprocating everything good that Steve does for him. But Tony also wants to be honest, too, and especially for these most delicate and important matters. “But I don’t feel bad, Tony. I really don’t. This is wonderful just the way it is.”
“But months, Steve,” Tony whines. “You’ve been into me that long?”
“That’s on me, not you,” Steve says, firm but gentle. “Can you imagine, then, how thrilled I was when you, uh. When you made a pass at me?”
Tony grins. “Must’ve given you a heart attack.”
“Felt like it. Hmm.” Steve tightens his arm around Tony, bringing their bodies flush for an indulgent squeeze that Tony is content to let happen. “Thank you for that,” he says.
Love, huh. It’s still unsettling to know that about Steve, and Tony predicts that he’ll self-consciously freak out about it soon – at least a few times tomorrow, probably, and with decreasing regularity afterward – but he can also predict that the knowledge will settle. Depending on how this dating thing plays out, it might even become comforting to know that about Steve, and to have a declaration to hold on to whenever his occasional doubts come sniffing around.
Tony could love him back, too. Not right now, but… maybe. Probably. He hopes so, and Steve hopes so, but it’ll come when it comes.
“You’re still thinking really hard there, Tony,” Steve says.
“Yeah. This is stupid.” Tony pushes himself up and put his hands on Steve’s shoulders. Wonderful Steve, amazing Steve, Steve with the wide blue eyes that always track Tony so closely as though he doesn’t want to miss a single moment of anything.
They may be out of step in some ways, but isn’t that normal for them? They made the friendship work out anyway, so why not this?
“I want to make out,” Tony declares. “Come here.”
“Sure thing,” Steve says politely, as he slides a warm hand around the back of Tony’s neck and hauls him in. Tony closes his eyes, and feels Steve’s face move into smile just as their lips meet.