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Steve looked around the room, glancing covertly at his teammates as they talked with a few of the horde of senators and congressmen that seemed to have poured from the woodwork just for tonight. Steve should probably know their names, but he couldn't have mustered the effort to care at gunpoint. His gaze caught on Tony, leaning too close to Senator Snake-Smile and gesturing loosely. Steve looked more carefully, watching as the champagne sloshed dangerously close to the lip of the flute. Steve felt his jaw hardening and looked down at his own glass to conceal his expression. Tony was drunk, or well on the way to it. After the last event of Tony drunk in public had ended in the fire department and a press conference, Tony had promised it wouldn't happen again.
Resigning himself to another argument, hopefully not in public, Steve tried to relax his scowl and focused the woman in front of him. (A senator, or was it the wife of the man who had just left? Or, no, maybe it was the person about to run up for reelection?) He tried his sincerest to show that he was giving his utmost attention, but given that the topic of conversation was real estate taxes, Steve found the amount of effort required was only slightly less than attempting to use his shield to lobotomize himself. Would that be a self-lobotomy? Auto-lobotomization? Was that even a word? He could practically hear Tony saying it, see the grin on his face, so probably not.
He could feel a headache blooming from behind his right eye. His jaw felt like it was going to lock into place. The effort to keep the Captain America smile on his face was so great that no amount of super soldier serum could keep his cheeks from hurting. He was exhausted after a week-long mission in Russia and wanted nothing more than to take the glass from Tony’s hand and go home.
So concentrated was he on his own misery and hiding it that when a hand came in contact with his back he nearly jumped. “I’m terribly sorry, Senator Freeman, but there’s apparently no rest for the wicked. Lovely to see you again!" Steve turned to see Tony kiss the woman on both cheeks before pulling Steve aside. His face was so serious that Steve believed for a moment that somewhere in the city there was an attack by yet another villain on another ethically-controversial corporate building. Not that Steve would use a threat on civilians to leave (escape) a PR event.
"I swear you looked like you were a minute away from breaking your glass and using it to take yourself hostage. So, how about we blow this popsicle stand? Not in the literal sense of ‘boom,’ although I can think of other things involving blowing when we get home." Tony winked at him before continuing right on. “So, we’re going to totally use our superhero status to leave right now. Follow my lead and we’ll be halfway home before anyone realizes the rest of the team is still here." Tony squeezed his arm quickly before turning and striding with purpose towards the doors. Steve, left with no other choice but to follow, drew his shoulders back and marched after him.
They made it back to the limo in silence, where Happy nodded solemnly (Tony must have texted him that they would be leaving) and the door closed behind them. Tony instantly collapsed into his seat, shrugging off his suit coat and yanking his tie off, talking a mile a minute. “I kid you not, Steve, I could just see the press conference we were going to have. And paperwork, Coulson would make us do paperwork, I hate doing paperwork." Tony stopped his struggles to get the top button undone and looked over at Steve. Since Steve hadn't moved at all since they’d entered the limo, Tony took in his bewildered look with a soft, wry smile. “She cornered you with the taxes, didn't she? You looked like you had a headache starting up."
Steve looked at Tony closely, and realized that this close, he couldn't smell any alcohol. Tony didn't look drunk, either, he actually looked—well, frankly, he looked exhausted. Tony usually stayed in his lab when Steve was away on a mission, but a week? Steve felt something kick over in his stomach and leaned forward, undoing the buttons of Tony’s shirt one by one. Top of the line, premier apple juice, made from golden apples squeezed by virgins and chilled in the melting glaciers of Greenland, he could practically hear Tony saying. He had played to everyone’s expectation of the bumbling drunk, using the way people underestimated him to his own advantage. And still watching over Steve, knowing Steve’s limits when the genius with ever increasing doctorates didn't even know his own.
Keeping his promise and watching over Steve all the while.
Looking down at Tony, he wondered if he would ever stop being amazed by this man and by his own depths of love for him.
Steve leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to the arc reactor, the vulnerable hollow of Tony’s throat, skipping up to each eyelid, the tip of his nose, before finally placing a reverent kiss on Tony’s lips.
"I love you," he whispered, resting his forehead against Tony’s.
Tony sighed happily, nuzzling into Steve and settling himself into Steve’s side. “I know. Love you too, you know?"
Steve swallowed thickly and kissed Tony again, like he was unbearably precious, like he had more value to Steve than anything else could possibly ever. And he was, he did. “Always," Steve whispered against his skin.
"Always," Tony repeated, in a rare state of content that Steve saw more and more frequently. “I like the sound of that. Has a nice ring to it. Well, not ring in the physical sense—would it be the auditory sense then? But the auditory sense doesn't have the same—ha—ring to it." He sighed, and Steve could feel his breathing becoming slower, even as he talked. “Maybe it’s an onomono—an onamana—mata—the onomapee thing, Steve. What is it?"
Steve chuckled softly, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Time for bed, that’s what it is."
Tony made an agreeable noise back in his throat. “Bed. That sounds nice, too. Another ‘O’ thing."
Still chuckling, Steve carded a hand through Tony’s hair. “Bed as in sleep, Tony."
"Orgasms are great sleeping aids, Steve."
Love for this confounding man welled up in Steve, even as he stifled a laugh against Tony’s hair and kissed the top of his head. He would never get enough of kissing Tony, of showing Tony he was something special. “Sure, Tony. If you’re awake enough when we get back to bed, then you can have an orgasm and other O things."
Tony was asleep before they even reached home, his head nestled in the crook of Steve’s shoulder and his mouth open, even in his sleep. Steve smiled, lifting Tony’s left hand to his lips to press a kiss to the vibranium ring there. A year and a half of loving this incredible human being, of loving his husband more deeply every day, of knowing he was loved the same way. “Always."
Always.