It was a long time before Steve Rogers showed his fellow Avengers a side of himself that wasn't all the stark professionalism and military bearing of Captain America, and much longer still that Tony himself was allowed to see it. While very rare, Tony did catch glimpses of it.
Sometimes, Tony would walk in on Steve talking alone with 'Tasha or Bruce or Thor or—hell, Clint even- and catch him being human. He would be smiling, laughing, sometimes slouching- to Tony's utter shock- and the super soldier looked in that instant so innocent, so pure and so alluring that Tony found himself captured by the sight of it. But then it would vanish and there in it's place was the talking action figure again. It frustrated Tony. It wasn't just the idea that Steve was hiding aspects of his personality from him- or any form of personality for that matter- in fact, Tony didn't think Steve's tendencies of sudden frigitity in his presence had anything to do with him. At all. What frustrated Tony was that the man didn't seem in control of the on and off switch. He was physically incapable of not being the robotic Captain America for more than a few moments at a time. Despite Tony's genuine efforts to get the man out of his patriotic shell, the man was all business. With every attempt Tony made to kindly reach out to the probably friendless social dullard, Steve just walled himself up all the more. Tony couldn't be to blame if the man simply wanted to island himself off from everyone. Tony had made every effort to welcome the man into their fold. Steve was inconsolable.
Bruce didn't seem to appreciate Tony's efforts either. It was four times already that the soft-spoken man had pulled Tony aside to tell him to "ease off the fucking jokes." Tony would usually moor off a bit for a while, but he still didn't get it.
The New York incident did have a warming effect on their rapport, Tony noted, but nothing significant or lasting. Now that Tony has seen that the Captain has another side, Tony has made it his personal project to coax it out further. In his extensive studies of the evasive mutant, it has become clear to Tony that Steve is having a difficult time maintaining this other, sweeter, more relaxed version of himself long before the uncool, uninteresting, super-boring Super-Flag Man takes the wheel. The philanthropist in Tony cannot sit idly by and watch this poor, boring man suffer any longer. And he's tired of him being the only one at Tony's parties not black-out drunk. It's unjust.
Tony decides he's going to help Steve.
Steve looks at him sceptically, but, Tony notes, with only a fraction of the righteous disapproval that was once a permanent laser trained to his back every time he opened his mouth when they first met.
Steve is sternly silent and his eyes are searching. He's been the butt of too many of Stark's jokes and he doesn't trust the man so easily anymore, even though they're admittedly on much more cordial terms lately.
Steve stares, eyes squinting. He wants to know what Tony is doing, if Tony is just making fun of him again. But they're alone and they're in Tony's quiet lab. The only noise is Stark's odd, robot arm who's busy toying idly in the corner with some trivial chore to which Tony had banished him so he'd stay out of the way.
"No tricks," Tony says without a glimmer of a smirk. His theatrical eyebrows are raised high in expectance. The offer is on the table. The ball is in Steve's court.
Steve is still unsure though so he tentatively accepts, but folds his thick arms across his chest and maintains his doubtful expression to show that he's not fully convinced, in case Tony is still planning some elaborate ruse to make Steve look foolish and naive.
Tony takes him over to the complicated arrangement of vials and tubes and lifts a small glass tube filled with a deep purple fluid. Steve eyes the small vial sceptically as Tony tells him what it is and explains its function in a long string of scientific words that cause Steve's eyebrows to furrow.
"It'll fuck you up," Tony elaborates.
Steve blinks and shifts where he stands, but doesn't reach for the vial.
"If it's so effective, why don't you take it?" Steve challenges.
Tony looks at him and again there is no joke in his eyes. Steve is already faltering.
"If I were to drink this, I would either certainly die or never wake up again," he says simply and the challenge in Steve's eyes fades completely, "but if consumed by someone of your metabolism, strength, and immune system, the effects are no more than a slight light-headedness, a fogging of the vision, and a muscular relaxant. It would be like a good buzz."
He waits a moment and when Steve does not object, he hands him the vial.
Steve takes it.
When Tony explains it to the Avengers days later in the board room, he begins with, "our humble Captain," and expertly masks his excitement with a dutiful professionalism that convinces no one. He's building up to the big reveal and he can see in their faces that they don't understand where he's going with this. Bruce is already fixing him with a tired, disproving look because, Tony knows, the scientist thinks he's about to make yet another needless jibe at the captain's expense.
Tony holds up a finger. He pauses. He waits. He tells them.
There's a brief silence and everyone turns to Steve, who's been silently playing spectator to the entire event.
A small smile begins to play on his lips and Tony is impressed that the chronically honest man was able to hold it in so long. The room suddenly erupts with cat calls and laughter. They smack their captain jovially on the back and congratulate him. The man who worked tirelessly, leading them into battle, plotting every precise movement on the field; the man who spent all his off-time training his body mercilessly in the gym to better perform on the battlefield and sharpening his mind to perfect his playbook of strategies; the man whose posture had never been described as anything less than board-rigid or 'damn impeccable'; Steve Rogers, their captain, was finally going to get drunk. And he was going to do it with his team.
There was no safer place, they all agreed.
Tony watches the boisterous show and sees the meek joy peaking out through Steve's eyes. He's nervous and excited. Tony can see the sweet, pure and alluring man shining through the rigid uniform and he knows he's doing a good thing.
Bruce, who was perhaps the only one who wasn't piling all over Steve with raucous abandon, eyes Tony with concern.
"Exactly, what did you use," Bruce asks quietly later in the loud and bustling lounge of Stark Tower.
Tony tells him the name and the spoken string of long, conjugated titles is a true accomplishment in diction.
"You gave him a fucking horse tranquilizer," Natasha guffaws.
Steve, who's sitting next to her on the large couch, looks over at him.
"Don't, you're scaring the kid," Tony says with mock concern, but somehow Steve is laughing, and everyone else joins in. Tony can't help thinking that if Steve hadn't already taken a dose of the purple fluid, he might not have found it so funny, but he's pleased regardless.
It's Friday night at last and they're sitting around Tony's lounge in Stark Tower. On the couch across from the billionaire, sits Natasha and Steve. To his right is a seedy Bruce Banner, who has never made for a jovial drunk. Clint is thrown halfhazardly across an armchair to his left and Thor is by the bar, impressing three interns with his unmatched chugging capacity. The lavish room is bustling with all ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D personell in all ranges of intoxication, and nobody wonders why Tony get's away with so much.
They laugh and they joke and for once, Steve is not left out of the stupidity. It's a refreshing change that has all the Avengers on a high. One at a time and sometimes all at once, they each pile on Steve to experience their captain in his basest form- which admittedly, is barely trashed. Even when drunk, Steve maintains his unblemished modesty and dignity, Tony muses with disappointment. He had hoped the man would really cut loose tonight. Jump on a table. Break a glass. Curse. The worst the man had done all night was laugh at a suggestive jab Tony had tossed at 'Tasha about her 'interrogation methods'. The soldier apologized immediately after, still laughing. Cliff was more upset by it than anyone, but the archer had never really appreciated Tony's humor either.
It's nearly midnight now and Tony lounges on the couch with his drink in hand, Bruce mumbling drunkenly next to him, half asleep, about the harsh futility of technological advancement, or something. Tony's eyes are on the far wall of the room.
Steve is more relaxed and unguarded than Tony has ever seen him. The proprietor of Stark Industries watches as the unlaced, and debloused soldier laughs openly with Natasha by the window and even allows Thor to pull him close under his arm in a fierce and overly touchy hug. His face is red and he hasn't stopped smiling since his first drink. Tony wonders briefly how much of the serum Steve took but waves the thought away. Steve is among friends and safe to unwind. Tony is glad to see him like this. He is more sweet and pure and alluring than Tony could have imagined and the party host wonders, not for the first time, why he would ever want to hide it.
It's hours later now and they're alone, sitting on Tony's couch. The others have all gone and left their captain because he's safe and he's among friends. The super soldier is still holding a half-empty glass as he eyes Tony with a worn and tired smile that is no less sweet and pure and alluring.
"That wasn't so bad," Tony chides, "being a person for a night."
Steve's smile doesn't falter, though Tony has never seen him look more tired.
"It's been so long."
Tony points to his glass and asks if he'll need anymore. The drink is not for looks. The purple serum, though potent, is only fully effective when ingested along with an alcoholic beverage. Steve looks down at the glass as if noticing it for the first time and admits he hasn't taken a sip from it in an hour and is definitely done for the night.
Tony grabs a few of the left over empty glasses splayed around the dim room and leads his last guest to the kitchen.
Steve is suddenly at the sink and he's washing dishes.
Tony watches him for a moment, eyeing the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows. Tony imagines Steve preparing for this night, going through his prim and modest wardrobe and thinking that the navy blue button-up with the white undershirt would be appropriately casual for the occasion. On anyone else, the outfit wouldn't draw a second glance from the two-time "Style-Headliner" of People Magazine, but on the captain, it was just almost too quaint. The sight was enough to make Tony grin to himself when he'd first invited his awkward comrade in at the beginning of the evening, eyes wandering as he sauntered smoothly after him into the expansive lounge to join the others.
Tony finally rolls his eyes and slides in behind the superhuman washing his dishes.
"Please. Stop," he say's reaching around Steve and halting his scrubbing hand with his own. His chest is brushing against the soldier's back and when Steve turns, their faces are inches apart, "you're new to this whole party-guest thing, I know, so I'm only going to give you a warning. You're doing it wrong." Tony's other hand falls on Steve's hip as he guides him aside.
The beginnings of a sheepish smile spread on Steve's face as he visibly works out that Tony is teasing him again.
Steve lets Tony move him away and he rests against the counter while his host takes his place at the sink.
A moment later, Tony returns to take the last glass from Steve. Their hand's brush and a sound passes Steve's lips that catches them both off guard. Tony says nothing but moves back to the sink to rinse the glass. When he moves to set the cleaned glass in the cupboard, Steve is in the way. Instead of asking Steve to move, Tony's hands go to the narrow hips and guide the larger man aside again. Tony barely catches the soft hum as the soldier complies.
Steve stays in the kitchen as Tony moves around, cleaning up and wiping everything down and Tony doesn't ask him to leave. The weary man watches, eyes hazy and following lazily after every movement. Tony notes the soft furrowing beginning in his brow.
He asks how Steve is feeling and Steve stares distantly for a moment before meeting Tony's eyes.
"I feel very strange," he says.
"Strange bad?" Tony inclines his head and brushes passed Steve again to rinse a cloth he'd used to wipe the counter tops. It is only a graze of their forearms as Tony wheedles a cloth to the bottom of the narrow cup but Tony lets the touch linger.
The static of their skin makes the hairs on their arms rise and cling and Steve looks like he's been shocked.
"It's... it's good I think," He struggles for the words.
Tony sets the cup aside and drops the cloth in the sink.
"Good?" He turns directly to Steve's who's still holding himself against the counter and staring down at his arm where Tony had touched him.
"How long have you felt this way?" he asks genuinely curious.
"I think for a while," Steve thinks back, looking suddenly like a lost child, "a lot of the night."
Tony makes a clipped humming sound like he's making a mental note.
"Did it feel good the way Thor was touching you earlier?" he asks suddenly and catches the odd twinge in his own voice. He ignores it.
Steve screws his eyebrows as if he's having a hard time recalling it.
"I think so," he says finally, with some clarity.
Tony nods dutifully as if he's come to some evasive diagnosis.
"It's very natural," his voice is soothing and parental and he runs his hands up and down Steve's relaxed arms.
"Does that feel good," he asks.
A small hum is Steve's response.
"Yes, then?" Tony squeezes his shoulders.
"Mmmyes," Steve's eye lids fall to half-mast.
"And this?" Tony's hand slides to Steve's defined trap muscles at the base of his neck and he squeezes firmly again.
Steve hums. Tony thinks about the serum.
His fingers slide up to glide along Steve's jaw, then graze flushed lips. His other hand slides back down to the drunk man's hip and he presses circles into him with is thumb.
Steve's mouth is open and his breaths sound more and more like moans.
It isn't only the serum, Tony thinks. The boy is new. The boy is fresh and he's new. He doesn't know touch and the concept is a new kind of intoxication for Tony.
"How is this?" his voice is soft as it creeps out from lips slackened with hunger. He is standing directly in Steve's space now and he can no longer stop himself. It is already happening.
They're on the couch now in the dark lounge and Steve is on his belly beneath him and his pants are tugged to his ankles and Tony has never seen the captain in such a state.
Suddenly, Steve twists around and his hands are on him but he doesn't push Tony away. Would he push if he weren't too weak? Did the serum do this?
Tony waits and waits but Steve doesn't push anymore.
Tony shoves his knees between Steve's thighs and wrenches them open.
The puckered flesh between the muscled mounds is pink beneath sweet blonde wisps of hair and Tony wants nothing more than to see it stretched and inflamed around the base of his cock, to feel the air-locked, humid insides twitching and convulsing around him, unable to accommodate the size and unable to eject him.
In a moment he feels it with his finger, then two. Steve is panting and unopposing. Did Tony know the serum would do this?
Steve is tight, he's so tight, Tony can't breath. The hard, muscled thighs don't tense to fight him and Tony's mind tells him it's not the serum, that the boy is deprived and needs this and wants this like he does.
His fingers are fucking Steve, and the man's moans are wheezing and guttural. His eyes are shining and pleading and- God, he's innocent, Tony thinks. He's sweet and pure and alluring and Tony is going to fuck him all the harder for it.
But he can't.
Steve his gulping between gasps and Tony has somehow squeezed three fingers into his clamped opening.
He's watching the body that's rolling like waves beneath him. He leans over and captures the mumbling, clumsy lips and it's so sweet, even as he's fucking him fiercely with his fingers to the knuckle. He's sweet and he's pure and he's here and Tony can't do it.
His fingers slip from him and he retreats.
He's backing away and the erratic turbulence of the body of an unwound Steve Rogers begins to still like a calming ocean.
He pulls up the pressed slacks that are now crumpled and soft and clamps the smart belt around narrow hips. Tony covers the heaving body in a knit throw and the captain's moaning, that sound more like weeping, are soon dying down until he is in a drunken, deep sleep.
When Tony goes to his own room to sleep, he tries to forget.
If Steve remembers anything that happened that night after everyone left, he says nothing to Tony or to anyone. In the coming weeks, he is stoic and he is professional and he is walled and Tony thinks that the captain has been saved from the memory of that night. But Tony cannot forget. He cannot forget the sweet mouth, the pliant thighs spreading beneath him, the tight, moist insides of the man who's walls were so thick. Tony still sees the sweet, pure, alluring man beneath the uniform as he stands at the head of the table, relaying plans and mapping out their next attack, and Tony knows how close he came to having the man...how close he came to losing him.