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After the late dinner and after hours Thor had made his leave, it was just Steve and Tony chatting in the sitting area in the enormous dining room.
Steve glanced once more at the spacious library on the open upper floor, his fingers itching to touch the books, and then looks back at Tony. He forgot what the brunet was saying.
“You know, you can take a look if you want,” Tony grins, clearly amused by Steve’s internal debate to see the library.
Steve throws him a confused expression for a second until the words catch up with him.
“I don’t want to impose, Tony. Even Jarvis already retired for the night,” Steve tries to give as an excuse.
“Nonsense,” the brunet sips from his wine glass and, with the same hand holding the glass, points his forefinger to the left. “The stairs are behind that door over there.”
Even with Tony’s permission, he still feels reluctant. Steve knows if he goes there time will fly by; he loves books, and that will be disrespectful as a guest. Gail would probably talk his ear off about his lack of manners, about overstating his stay.
“Thanks, Tony. I’ll be back in a few,” He stands to go, curiosity winning his will.
What matters what Gail would think anyway? She married another man, Steve reasons to himself. He's trying not to feel bitter about her and Buck, but failing miserably.
Time moves on, people can’t afford to wait. He forces himself to remember his own words to Bucky when he visited their house.
“Oh darling, take your time. I certainly will be taking mine,” Tony also gets up, picking up the wine bottle with his clever hands on the coffee table. The genius smirks with his dancing blue eyes.
“Don’t call me darling,” Steve says sternly.
Tony is lucky to live in a time one can’t be arrested for one’s libertine ways, but it doesn't mean he has to be explicit about it.
Tony assess him through his long lashes, dipping his head a little. His gaze so intense that Steve feels as it passes through him, into his bones. . . towards his soul. As soon as it came, it was gone.
“Whatever, Captain. Suit yourself, I’ll be on the balcony,” The brunet nods at the lounging chairs outside the door glass. He doesn’t wait for the blond to respond and leaves with his bottle.
Steve sighs in annoyance at the dismissal as he watches Tony’s retreating back. He attempts to diverge his eyes from the curved buttocks, delineated by the purple robe.
Tony is temptation walking on two legs. And what beautiful legs! He thinks wistfully for a moment, forgetting the reason he got up in the first place.
As Steve climbs up the stairs he makes an effort to remove from his mind the sight of Tony’s sultry eyes peering up at him; his plump lips a deep red from drinking too much wine. And how Steve wants to kiss those lips to oblivion, to pull the smaller man into his lap and debauch him.
Steve scratches the back of his head, going up the last step.
He knows he's in denial, but he can’t help it. Every time he ogles Tony, he expects someone to see it and make a fuss that could lead to the loss of his title as Captain America, the only thing he has on these days. It would be a scandal on the media and a PR nightmare. The Ultimates don’t need any more fires to extinguish.
He goes on the first shelf, looking at the book’s titles, and discovers he's in the engineering area.
As he goes he notices the books are spotless. No trace of dust anywhere. Jarvis probably makes sure of it, he muses.
He keeps going until he finds the really old books, the history books. Steve recognizes the outdated book covers; it seems that came from his own time period.
He glances at the titles, searching for something familiar.
He spends some time staring at the shelves, moving books around here and there, until a noise draws his concentration away. He looks back, towards the direction of the noise, and realizes that it came from the floor below.
How long it passed since he’s been up there? He slides his fingers through his blond hair, picking up the Cold War book he separated earlier, glancing at the time on his wristwatch. Just past two in the morning, almost forty minutes of wandering around in the library. Time to go.
As Steve climbs down the steps, he sees the cause of the noise thanks to his serum improved eyes. Tony broke his wine glass and is drinking directly from the bottle.
He crosses the room with large steps, wanting to know if the brunet hurt himself. He puts the book on the coffee table and goes to open the glass door separating the balcony from the room. Cold air blows at his face.
“Stark, are you all right? I heard a noise,” Steve says, looking at Tony's visible skin for possible cuts, and telling himself that his concern is only because Tony is a valued teammate and nothing to do with feelings he has for the smaller man.
“Oh, I just broke my glass. Jarvis will yell at me tomorrow, it was from his favorite collection,” Tony tells him with a doped gaze, his blue eyes swimming in a shallow shade of red.
Steve sighs and takes a seat on the chair beside the brunet, resting his sore muscles on the comfortable cushion; the fight with the Hulk yesterday tired him out for good.
He peers back at Tony, at the bottle between his hands. “How did you break it?” Steve asks, feigning nonchalance. His father had been a violent drunk; he hopes that isn’t Tony’s case. It would certainly be a deal breaker on their friendship.
Tony chuckles and tilts his head to the side. “I forgot I was holding it.”
Steve knows he should be relieved at the nonviolent answer, but that just made him more troubled.
He reaches for the bottle on the brunet’s lap. “I think you had enough for tonight, pal,” As Steve picks up the bottle, he notices it’s empty.
Of course it’s empty! You left the host alone for forty minutes. Forty minutes, Steve! The blond holds on a sigh, he needs to find a way to shut up the Gail he has going on his head.
He takes the bottle away nevertheless. Tony would probably forget he has a bottle in his lap too; better safe than sorry.
“You're a genius, Stark. Why don’t you behave like one?” Steve voices his disapproval as he puts the bottle on the ground.
“I also am a dying man, Rogers,” Tony taps his head, recalling their conversation during dinner. The very reason he's Iron Man.
“We’ll fix this, Tony. We are The Ultimates, there is must be a way,” Steve tells him with conviction.
The truth is. . . Steve can’t accept that his friend, his first friend in the future, will be leaving him too. Be it in six months or five years, he's leaving. “You can have my blood, to run tests. I know SHIELD has some, but you can draw new samples.”
“Thanks, Cap, but no thanks. Don’t wanna be Hulk number two,” Tony says while searching for something in the pockets on his robe. He takes out what Steve thinks is a cigarette, along with a lighter.
Steve rests his head on the cushion again. Tony is right like always. Over fifty-seven years a lot of people tried to replicate the serum, and only Banner did it. And look at the good it brought: a big, killing, possessive, green monster.
Suddenly his mantle as Captain America doesn’t seem important anymore. The only person he wants is dying slowly before his eyes from brain cancer, and there is nothing he can do to change that.
He hears Tony chuckle beside him. He releases smoke through the air, making it look like a fog.
“Can’t believe you kicked him in the nuts,” Tony starts laughing with an arm over his belly, looking so carefree that makes Steve want to kiss him.
As soon the smoke reaches his nose, though, that changes. Steve wants to shake some sense on the supposed genius.
Tony turns his head and grins at Steve’s face of disapproval, dragging out a smoke.
“Really Stark?! You think this is funny? Hulk killed three hundred people and you're smoking pot!” Steve is livid. He gets up and stands by edge of the brunet’s chair, towering over him.
He grabs the joint from Tony’s hand and crushes it with his fingers, making it crumble on the floor, just over the broken glass.
“That was so uncalled for,” Tony says, looking forlornly at the small embers fading to blackness.
At this close proximity, Steve can scent Tony’s cologne, and soon he is intoxicated by it.
He looks at the fleshy red lips, the curve of his collarbones leading to a naked chest hiding beneath a silk purple robe. Narrow hips that would look beautiful with his hands braced over the small little gap he knows Tony has on each side. He saw him on SHIELD’s locker room before the mission; he had been shocked Tony went almost naked under the metal suit.
He glances at Tony’s face again, observing the long eyelashes that frames his eyes and his pale skin. He aches to feel the high cheekbones under his fingertips. Steve already moving towards it when he catches Tony’s sapphire eyes staring intently at him.
“Like what you see darling?” Tony draws the words slowly through his lips, looking at him under his lashes.
Steve is abruptly taken out from his reverie; “Don’t call me that,” Steve motions to get away. “I should get going, big day tomorrow at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
But a word from Tony stops him and makes him shudder with desire.
“Steve."
Tony says his name like a prayer, placing a hand on his forearm; anchoring him on the spot.
“Tony,” he says, feeling dizzy under Tony’s heated stare.
The brunet observes puzzled at his face. “I don’t understand you,” he says, stroking his thumb in circular motions on the blond’s forearm.
“Wh-what?” Steve stammers, feeling the heat point of connection between them spreading on his arm, raising goose bumps, and making his cock stir in his army pants.
“I know you want me,” He says without preamble, lifting his hand to Steve's shoulders in a caress, leisurely drawing the blond closer.
“But every time I get closer, you run away,” Tony says in a whisper, playing with the little hairs scattered on the back of his neck.
Their foreheads are so close, almost touching.
“I - we can’t,” Steve seals the short space between them. Running his hand over the brunet’s cheek, he enjoys how big his hand is, that he can cradle the side of the genius’ face.
“Why,” the brunet asks softly.
Tony sounds so innocent right now with his dilated pupils that his excuse almost doesn’t pass to outside his mouth.
“If someone catches us, I can lose my job," Steve closes his eyes and fights the need to kiss those red lips senseless.
“They won’t fire Captain America. Fury isn’t sane but he is not crazy,” Tony nuzzles his face on the gap on the blond’s neck, breathing him in deeply.
“I’ll lose the respect of my troops,” Steve shudders with lust, burying his fingers on the black strands of hair, holding it tight.
“I can protect you. If we were able to keep people from knowing Hulk is one of ours, I can keep them from knowing about us,” Tony tells him with need in his husky voice.
“Tony, the Captain America mantle is all I have,” Steve grabs Tony by the hair and gently pushes the smaller man away from his neck.
Tony can’t hold the moan that escapes him and wets his sinful lips. “You can have me too.”
Steve groans and pushes Tony’s head further back, baring his Adam's apple and the curve of his throat. He noses the pale skin, sensing the expensive cologne imprint into his long- term memory.
“Please.”
Tony’s word, no more than a whisper, shatters his resistance.
Steve lets the brunet’s hair go and Tony looks at him, searching his eyes.
“We just meet here, in your place,” the blond says, trying to control his breathing. His blood burning in his veins and making his prick throb inside his pants.
Tony smiled, nodding his head in agreement.
“And stop calling me darling,” he said as an afterthought.
The brunet makes a face.
Steve relents, “Alright, don’t call me darling in public at least.” He knows that keeping Tony from saying that word is the same thing that telling a fish to not breathe water.
Tony smiles bigger this time, passing the palms of his hands on Steve’s collarbones and chest. “I'll take care of you, darling," He looks up at the blond’s face with blue eyes so soft that it could melt Steve’s insides.
Steve can’t believe what he just agreed to.
He places his two big hands on each side of the brunet’s face. He wants to be calm and slow, he wants to savor the moment. The desire is stronger than him, however, and consumes him from inside out.
He brings his lips down on Tony’s like a starved man, all fast and devouring. He outlines Tony's bottom lip with the tip of his tongue, asking for entrance. And when the brunet concedes, he tastes the inside of his mouth, the sweet taste of wine and a bit of weed. It's perfect.
He licks the roof of his mouth, making Tony moan and tip his head back, letting Steve dominate the kiss, manhandling him for the position he wants.
His hands aren't able to keep still; they wander inside Tony’s purple robe, undoing the lace on the middle, baring the gorgeous lean muscles to the chilly air.
He breaks the kiss momentarily, appreciating the sight before his eyes. The object of his attention that now he can touch and cherish like he always wanted since he waking up from the ice.
Steve feels his cock harden, desiring the man before him. He lets his hand travel down to Tony’s hips, playing with the waistband of his briefs.
He looks up at Tony’s eyes, like a condemned man waiting for the verdict of his sentence.
Tony’s eyes are dazed and a minor part of his brain, the still functional part, says Tony is too out of it to consent. But soon that small part also stops functioning when the brunet grabs the hand Steve has on his cheek and lick his middle finger deliberately, sucking the entire digit into his mouth, pink tongue lavishing his skin.
“My bedroom is two rooms to the left from the dining room,” Tony says, holding his hand up, kissing the pad of his finger.
Steve doesn't need to be told twice. He stands up, pieces of glass shifting beneath his boots, and bends down to pick Tony up into his arms in one move.
Tony lets out a yelp that he knows the brunet will deny later.
“Oh dear, I can get used to this,” Tony tells him with a smirk, resting his arm on his shoulder.
Steve looks down at him, purposely letting the robe fall from covering the brunet’s legs. “Me too, darling.”
Tony laughs at the trope-reversal as Steve carries him across the room.
And if tomorrow at St. Patrick’s Cathedral his eyes glances at Tony’s when the priest asks to show respect and bow their heads in honor for Hulk’s victims they share a meaningful look before complying, no one notices.
And if Steve starts calling Tony ‘his doll’ during sex by contrast with his darling, no one’s needs to know either.
-end