Work Text:
The door sounded with a quiet, welcoming ding as the elevator arrived on your floor, the lights of your suite already on and pleasantly dimmed to accommodate to the tenderness of your eyes this late at night. It was a little before three in the morning, and while your flight had had no major issues and the traffic between the airport and Avengers Tower had been blessedly in your favor, it was still agonizing to be getting home so late.
Home.
It still surprised you how quickly you’d come to think of this place as more than just a place to sleep, more than what had originally felt like a ridiculously over-sized hotel room. It had been only six months since Loki’s attack on New York, and while the renovations to the Tower were not yet finished, your suite had been one of the first floors to be completed. And now it somehow felt far more familiar to you than any of the countless beds you had claimed over the last twenty-seven years.
“Welcome back, Ms. Y/L/N,” the cool, friendly voice of Tony’s personal assistant sounded from the invisible speakers above you. “I trust your journey was pleasant.”
“It was, for a nine-hour flight in a broken seat,” you replied with a sigh, stretching out the lingering kink in your lower back. You set your suitcase down by the elevator doors. “And how many times do I have to tell you; it’s just Y/N.”
“I’m sure only once more,” he replied. “As always.”
You chuckled, a small, tired smile lingering on your lips. “Are the others here?”
“Only Mr. Stark is in residence at the moment,” the A.I. informed you as you made your way further into your suite. You toed off your shoes, shedding your jacket and tossing it onto the nearby sofa. “Shall I inform him of your arrival?”
“Oh, no, I don’t want to wake him.”
There was a slight pause. “Mr. Stark is not asleep, Ms. Y/L/N.”
How an A.I. could have a variation in tone, you weren’t sure, but you stopped halfway to unbuttoning your jeans. “And how long exactly has Tony been awake?”
“…Almost eighty-three hours, ma’am.”
“I think I hate ‘ma’am’ even more than my last name.” you sighed, casting a glance towards the room to your left. The door was ajar, and you swore your bed was calling to you. “Where is he?”
“In the lab.”
“…Okay.”
***
A wall of sound greeted you as you stepped into the lab, and you flinched. It lowered immediately to a more bearable level, and you silently praised whatever part of JARVIS’ programming it was that could pick up on your discomfort like that.
“JARVIS,” Tony said without looking up from his work. “Don’t mess with my music.”
He was at the far end of the lab, moving between a couple of workbenches and the hologram of his latest designs with the disorganized, staccato rhythm you had begun to recognize as being a sign of sleep deprivation. There was a half-empty coffee pot on the bench closest to you, the scent of it gone stale. Tony’s clothes were rumpled, as was his hair, and you frowned when you noticed the shadows under his eyes. They were made darker by the blue light of the hologram between the two of you.
“I think we can do better on these reflector panels, J.,” he continued as though he hadn’t noticed you enter. “If this suit is going to work for stealth, I’m going to need the change to be instantaneous.” He waved a hand, and parts of the suit projected in front of him dropped away. “Scrap ‘em. Take it from the top.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hello to you, too, Stark.” you said snidely despite your concern. “Or am I expected to call you ‘sir’ in here, too?”
“Only if you want me to get all tingly over it,” he retorted teasingly, finally pausing long enough to meet your eye. He gave you a genuine, if distracted and exhausted, smile.
“Most people just say ‘welcome home’.”
Tony returned to one of the benches, eyes fixating on a tablet screen. “Are you implying that I could possibly be ‘most people’?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you replied, sidestepping an abandoned helmet prototype. There was an empty coffee mug sitting inside it. The crockery was stained with dark brown rings. You made you way around to his workbench, pushing yourself up to sit on the edge of it beside him. “Tony, when was the last time you got some sleep?”
“You know the answer to that,” he said, pointedly avoiding your eye and focusing his gaze on the work in front of him. “Or did you come all the way down here just for a hug?”
“A hug? Hardly,” you said with a scoff.
Tony met your eye, raising a brow. There was a teasing tilt to his lips, a challenge in his expression. “I don’t accept that.”
“Accept what?”
“I can’t believe that you don’t like hugs.” he said, straightening. He moved to stand in front of you, his hands claiming your knees. You felt a warmth spread up from where he touched you to heat your belly, and you straightened slightly, wetting your lips with the tip of your tongue. “I refuse to accept it. I mean, for a woman completely capable of breaking every bone in my body with her bare hands, you’re downright cuddly.”
As he said the last words he reached up and touched the tip of his finger to your nose tauntingly, and you wrinkled it in response. He chuckled, and you rolled your eyes at him. Something about sleep deprivation always made him lighter, more teasing. While his usual jokes were witty and occasionally flirty, when you found him like this, he was… softer. “Has anyone ever told you that you are a massive dork?”
Tony’s grin widened, and he stepped back, holding up his hands as though you’d just proved his point. “See, anyone else would call me an asshole, but you – sweet, innocent thing that you are – go with ‘dork’.”
“Oh, Stark. Trust me,” you snickered, pushing yourself up off the edge of the table. It closed much of the distance between the two of you, your chest almost meeting his. You made a show of casting your eyes down over him before meeting his eye with a smirk. “If you actually knew me, the last word you’d be using to describe me is ‘innocent’.”
Intrigue flashed in his eyes, a curve to his parted lips sending an unexpected thrill up your spine. He made move to speak, but you pressed a finger to his lips. His smile widened against your skin.
“I’m sure whatever you were about to say would have been rife with innuendo, Tony,” you said. “But honestly, you kind of stink. How long’s it been since you had a shower?”
***
“Y’know, I’m not really sure why I had to stick around for this.” you called out over the sound of rushing water, folding your arms over your chest. You were standing outside the penthouse bathroom, your back against the wall beside the door. Steam billowed out of the open doorway, clinging to your bare arms.
The water shut off, and Tony’s reply came a few moments later, his voice echoing off the tile. “And here I thought you were worried about my wellbeing, sweetheart.”
“You’re not exactly at risk of drowning in the shower, Tony,” you pointed out. You heard his answering chuckle and the sounds of cabinet doors opening and closing. There was a long silence, punctuated only by the quiet sounds of shaving cream being sprayed and a razor against skin. “And you survived it. So, can I go to bed now?”
“And miss out on this quality team-bonding time?” he called out. “Shudder to think.”
You scoffed, rolling your eyes with a smile. “‘Team-bonding’? We’re missing a couple of key members here. Unless you’ve got Rogers stashed in your shower caddy.”
“Not exactly the member I’d pick for that,” he replied as he stepped through the doorway, wiping at his jaw with a towel. Another was slung securely around his hips. Rivulets of water marked his bare torso, droplets clinging to his chest. There was a teasing smirk on his lips, and you swallowed. “Now, Romanoff on the other hand—”
“I’m going to stop you there before this conversation devolves into casual misogyny,” you eye-rolled, holding up a hand.
“I’ll have you know I’m an equal opportunity lech.” Tony shot back, amused. “I just didn’t think Thor would fit in the caddy.”
You snorted a laugh.
“Right…” you said. He’d missed a tiny patch of shaving cream on the corner of his jaw, and you reached up to wipe it away with two fingers. Tony’s smile widened as you wiped it on his bare chest. You cleared your throat as you realized the intimacy of your actions. “Well, you’ve managed to navigate the perils of a penthouse bathroom, Iron Man. Congrats.”
“So, what’s your excuse now?”
Confusion creased the skin between your brows. “For what?”
Tony’s smirk twitched, and you recognized the challenge in his eyes. Something in the pit of your stomach fluttered. “For turning down a hug.”
You laughed, shaking your head disbelieving. “God, Stark, you are such a—”
Tony took hold of your arm, surprising you by pulling you toward him and bringing his lips to yours. They were soft and warm, teasing with the taste of spearmint. The clean scent of his body wash enveloped you, his fingers gentle but firm on your arm. The warmth of his body – still bolstered by the heat of the shower – leached into your skin, wrapping you in a ghost of an embrace that made you lean into him. The kiss lasted only a moment before he pulled back again, that expression of taunting flirtation still in place.
You pressed your lips together, your skin tingling. “What was that for?”
He shrugged a shoulder, tightening the towel around his waist. There was an annoying note of nonchalance in his expression, and self-assuredness that told you he knew exactly what kind of effect he’d just had on you. “Call it a thank you.”
“I—” you swallowed, forcing your breath to steady. “Most people just say ‘thank you’.”
He grinned, his teeth grazing his bottom lip. “Didn’t we agree that I’m not ‘most people’?”