Title: you laugh like there is no hope in our story
Summary: They don't really talk about it. Never really talked about it. Sometimes it all hangs heavy between them, but Tony is good at ignoring when he really needs to be talking through his issues.
Notes: (Post CA:WS in an alternate universe where Tony and Pepper never got together or they broke up after Avengers.)
Warning: There be NSFW funtimes below. Language like woah. also, unbeta-ed.
There is a shadow lurking in the corner of the kitchen. Tony knows it's Steve because he's the only one in the tower right now, between missions to find Bucky. They've fallen into a comfortable rhythm since SHIELD went down in a splash. Usually, Steve finds him after his workout loose limbed and water still clinging to his hair. They talk about anything or nothing until Steve reaches out, and Tony follows until they find the nearest surface and work through everything in their systems.
They don't really talk about it. Never really talked about it. Sometimes it all hangs heavy between them, but Tony is good at ignoring when he really needs to be talking through his issues.
But today is different. Steve's fresh back from a mission, a nondescript baseball cap in his hands. He's twisting it into knots when Tony looks up from the latest sim he's been running and catches Steve there. He's leaning casually on the door frame of the Tower's kitchen, a perfect study of calm, but while Tony's been fucking his brains out, he's learned Steve's tells. The frown engraved in the edges of Steve's smile. The intent way he is staring at Tony. The way he is cataloging every weapon near Tony.
It's like a sucker punch to his gut, all of that. Knowing that he actually knows that.
"Hey," Tony grins easily. He's been faking it since he was four, his Dad at his side as he smiles with the circuit board for the first of many newspaper clippings.
Steve's faces eases for a minute. "Hey."
Neither move in the stand off, and Tony half knows how this conversation will go.
(Steve will say, So that nurse you keep teasing me about in DC or So that guy trailing me around the globe while I look for my oldest friend or even, Bucky and I have always been close, you know?
A quick smile will be needed here. He'll say, Go for it Steve. We never made any commitments when we started this thing.
Steve will act hesitant, but he's secretly relieved. (They always are.) Are you sure?
Tony will lean against the quartz of the wetbar to keep him up, oh yeah. Go have fun. I've got a little black book of numbers to drain the pain of missing you in. He'll throw a smirk at Steve at the end.
Steve will smile and take the words at the value of Tony's patent sarcastic tone. They will part, and that will be it for this thing. They'll work together when the need arises. Tony will spend some more time in California, than New York, but he misses the sun and the crashing of the waves.
It'll be fine.)
"I have some news," Steve says from his place. Tony carefully makes sure his expression doesn't change.
"About the search?" Tony queries as he shuts down the compound schematics floating behind him. He still hasn't told Steve. Maybe he won't ever share this secret with him one on one. Something in his chest shifts at the thought, and Tony can barely breathe for a moment. "J told me you and the flying ace were in Russia last. You find any clues?"
"We were tracking down some old Hydra black sites. Natasha sent us a list a while back when she gave us the file from her KGB contacts for the Winter Soldier." Steve pauses, and there will never not be some sort of unbearable pain that lines his shoulders when he thinks about all those years, the freezing, the killing, the brainwashing, the screams that plagued Bucky Barnes. Tony knows, just like he knows Steve, this is something he can't smooth away. This part of Steve was ripped apart that night Barnes fell from the train - shredded to the point it can't be repaired.
Tony's glanced at the aforementioned folder, briefly. It had been open on the nightstand in between missions. Steve had been in the shower, and Tony had hesitated for a moment, skimming the Russian and focusing on the notations in Natasha's clinical translation. Shock therapy. Implants in the brain. Hypnotherapy. Once he would have been interested in how it worked, breaking down the solution until he could simplify it for his own curiosity and knowledge before locking all of that down and never picking it up again. Now he's seen Steve trail a broken man across the globe.
There is a science behind breaking a person, he knows. Tony's attended lectures, watched Ted Talks, read medical journals on the subject after the first time Steve left. It's an art - stripping someone down down until they are something else all together. Nothing Hydra did, from what Tony knows, would be considered an elegant a solution as what he would have done. Hydra threw everything including the kitchen sink at breaking the strongest man Steve Rogers knows, destroying a man and then trying to duct tape and chewing gum him back together. And then they had to repeat the process because Bucky Barnes was still in there - barely, but still there.
He only thinks about all of it when Steve talks about Bucky, about his fears of who his friend will never be again, about who he used to be, about what he means to Steve in the dark. They are secrets whispered into his skin, marked into the hollow behind his ear. They are the moments in between, the moments after. The ones Tony clutches close to his breast in the moments like this.
"Okay," he states. Steve's mouth opens and closes a few times. "You're worrying me Steve. What's going on?"
"It's about your parents," Steve finally utters.
Everything in Tony goes cold.
(He's nineteen again. Tony's hungover on Dad's good scotch, maybe even still a little drunk, but he's stoic as he tells the officer, "Show me."
The officer nods and pulls back the sheet. Howard's beaten face stares back at him. It looks concaved a bit, like he was thrown against the car some - he always hated wearing a seat belt. Someone has washed away the blood, and his hair is untamed. Dad would hate to be seen like this. "That's Howard Stark," he confirms.
The second sheet comes off, and his mother looks like she's asleep except for the dull bruise under her throat. The lines of her face look starker in the morgue's light. She is still when he is so used to her in motion.
He wants to cry. He wants to rage. He wants to scream. He wants to beg for them back. There is a hand on his shoulder, and Jarvis, white haired and looking ancient, stands there beside him steady. "Yeah," he says, voice even. "That's Maria Stark.")
"What about them?"
Steve comes off the wall, takes half a step before stopping, like he doesn't know what to do. Tony can't feel his fingers. "Hydra had them killed."
He's adrift. "They died in a car crash," he repeats the old story he's told himself too many times. "Dad was drunk. They hit a pothole. He over-corrected and took them into a tree. Dad always hated seat belts, so it's not a surprise he was thrown from the car. Mom." Tony can't. He leaves the thought there. He shrugs when he focuses back in on Steve. "That's why I have a driver."
Steve has a collection of emotions on his face, too many to rip apart and figure out what they are. Tony just meets his gaze, breathing through the pain of ripping open an old wound. "It wasn't an accident Tony. Hydra had them killed."
It's his tone that does it. Definitive. Sureness that gives it all away. Tony connects the dots. "They had the Winter Solider do it."
Steve winces, but stays where he is, watching Tony. It's all the confirmation Tony needs.
Something inside of Tony just breaks, shatters, fucking falls to pieces on the floor and leaves him with his gaping hole in his chest that he can't fill. That he needs to fill. Needs to get something inside of it, make it stop dripping blood and spilling his guts on the floor, but all he can do is stare, stare at the floor, stare at the things that are just broken and fucked up and so completely him that Tony doesn't know what else to do.
"Oh," he hears himself say. "Didn't see that one coming to be honest."
Steve comes forward, "I've already called Rhodey, and he's on his way." Another person who knew before me, Tony thinks idly. I wonder what puts the tally at now. "What can I do?"
He can't look at Steve, not with all this swirling around in him. Tony knows this part of himself too well. The vindictive angry side that is dark and broken and what led him to burn his captors alive in Afghanistan. He can't. Not Steve. He can't.
He brushes past Steve, out of the kitchen, and almost heads down the lab, but he knows a version of his shaking, and knows it's a bad idea. JARVIS has probably already initiated a 24 hour lockdown protocol based on his erratic heart rate. He goes to his room, palm print to get in and locks it all down before sitting down on the bed.
But he's vibrating, like this mad energy was unleashed when his insides broke into a million pieces. Tony can't keep his hands from shaking, curls his fingers to hide it, to hide the fact the fact that he is losing his shit, completely out of control, spinning in a way that he has never descended to before - even back in the early days of taking on the billionaire playboy role.
He does the only thing he knows to do in a situation like this. He stands and puts a hole in his bedroom wall, plaster crumbling under his fingers and dust clinging to his clothes. And it doesn't make him feel any better. Doesn't take the antsy energy away. Doesn't do anything besides put a hole in his wall.
So Tony picks up the candy dish some ex assistant gave him and throws that against the wall. It shatters, raining down and clinking quietly, like rain, and Tony likes the sound. There is a queer amount of pleasure in him at the frenzied emotion. He pulls at a pillow, and pulls and pulls until the seams tear under his fingers, stuffing oozing out.
And he continues to systematically destroy his room piece by piece. The lamp goes, and then the other pillow, a magazine is torn. He kicks, punches and breaks everything around him, yearning for something more, something that could, would, might, fill this ache inside. Make sense after all this shit. Something that he can focus on.
He keeps going until he's standing in his room, barefoot and surrounded by glass, bent metal and shredded paper. Stuffing rolls around on the floor, and Tony stands in the middle of it, not fucking caring, because he still hurts. He's nineteen and raw all over, wanting to cry I miss my mother but Obie keeps needing him strong, For the company Tony. For your father's legacy. For the foundation. For your mother's memory.
What about me? He rages twenty some odd years too late. Aren't I a part of that equation too? Aren't I more than something to parade around for a legacy of two dead people?
Tony looks up from the floor, ignoring the fact that he is going to have to clean this up later, and sees Steve standing just outside the room, eyes dark as a storm as he watches Tony gaze back at him.
Tony can't bring himself to care about the destruction around him, drum up the emotions, instead something in him itches, like when he's in the suit and hits the villain of the week a little harder just because he wants a fight. Wants to get his fist in someone's face and just wants to work off this energy.
"What?" he says, eyebrow raised, but Steve doesn't take the bait, just kind of sits back and watches.
Tony sneers a little. "Why are you even here Cap? I thought I locked the doors."
Steve keeps his mouth shut, lips in a thin line.
"Oh wait, I guess you decided to use your Captain America overrides in a non mission capacity. Guess I need to fix those protocols," Tony continues, stepping around the glass, finding a path that takes him closer and closer to Steve.
"Tony," Steve says, but Tony doesn't allow him to get any further.
"Don't ask if I'm okay. I think we both know the answer to that one." And Tony kind of grins, just a little hard around the edges, face not so friendly and expression not as welcoming. But Steve doesn't leave, just stands there. Holding the line.
Tony's still itching, still gearing for a fight, and his fingers jitter at his sides, just twitching up and down. "Go away Steve," Tony says, quiet and dark.
Because he needs to be alone with this, wants to be alone with this. Doesn't need Steve for this. Doesn't want to need Steve for this. He's been alone for so much in his life, he doesn't have to have anyone.
It's Steve who moves first, reaches up and pulls Tony to him, bringing them crashing together with a bruising kiss that is fierce and punishing, and Tony doesn't sink into it. They don't - not this. He pushes back, fighting back just as hard, scrambling for a hold, digging his nails into the back of Steve's shoulder blades, while Steve is creating an impression of his hand all the way to the bone on Tony's hip.
But he doesn't give in, just wraps the other hand into Steve's hair, and yanks, pulling at the spikes and trying to pull them closer, intertwine them in ways they in the only ways he knows how. Steve's other hand drifts further down, down the curve of Tony's spine, fingers trailing until they curve around his ass, gripping on tight enough that Tony goes a little breathless for a just a moment.
Steve takes the moment and angles his head quick enough to latch onto the covered side of Tony's shoulder, biting down fiercely, and Tony tries to hold back a groan, bites it down, down down, but instead it tumbles out, low and urgent. Steve move to full back, pulls his teeth away just as the nerves in his skin shift into pleasure, and Tony begins to feel it all over his body. He tightens his grip on Steve's hair and pushes him back down as he moves closer, hips bumping and pressed as closely as he can.
Tony can feel Steve smile into his shoulder as he varies the pressure. He shudders at the move, fingernails digging into the Steve's skin as he shifts and pushes up. Steve pulls his head back, catching Tony's eyes as Tony wraps his legs around Steve's waist. Steve groans this time as he adjusts and gets a better grip to hold Tony up. Tony can feel Steve even through the denim.
Steve takes them to the bed, holding up Tony one handed as he pulls back the comforter before depositing Tony on the bed with a soft bounce. Tony stays there, vibrations still there, buzzing until his skin feels like a swarm of bees about to take off, head feeling like something is closing in on it, and chest too tight.
He watches as Steve sets himself in front of Tony, watchful. "You okay?"
"No," Tony bites out. "Get over here."
Steve's eyes dilate, but he doesn't move. "Tell me you're okay with this." His hand is on Tony's jean clad knee, hot and heavy even through the fabric.
"I want to punch you or ask you to fuck me," Tony replies. "I can't figure out which, so you make the first move, and I'll follow."
He's tense, ready to move if needed, but the pressure on his knee stays there for a moment, Steve just watching for a beat. Then two. Then three. Something bleeds out of him at the pressure Steve keeps there on his knee, and Tony knows something shows in his face because Steve finally moves, cupping Tony through the jeans.
"Steve," he barely says, before Steve applies a little pressure, and Tony feels it all the way to his toes. "Oh God," he gasps out, half prayer, half curse as the fingers drift again, moving up, stroking in circles as they go. They got higher and higher until Steve's fingers curl around the zipper and pull it down as Tony fumbled with the button of his jeans. Steve reaches in, stroking Tony's cock through the thin cotton of his boxer briefs.
Tony bites his lip and presses his face into the pillow and grips Steve's shoulders, unable to do anything beyond keeping from moaning loud enough that the people three floors down could hear him.
Steve get his hand behind Tony's balls, curling the fabric around them and rubbing softly, slowly, and then trails it down, the cotton rubbing against his nerve endings and causing Tony to see flashes of white behind his eyelids. Steve strokes his way up Tony's cock and then, he rubs the pad of his thumb across where the tip is straining against the thin fabric, where a wet spot is already forming.
Tony throws his head back, making his left hand into a fist, so he can bite down the noises he wants to make - needs to make. Tony's trying to pull himself back together when Steve looks up, a filthy smile curving across his lips. He feels a little better, a little less strung out when Steve shifts, and places his mouth over Tony's boxers.
Tony lets out a long whine from low in his throat that is more of a wordless, animalistic thing than actual words. The damp pressure overwhelms him, sends feeling he has on fire and makes everything go black for a second.
Steve aimlessly licks at his boxers, and with every swipe, Tony feels more and more pressure. Feels like he cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot do anything beside raise his right hand and curl it into Steve hair and hold him there.
And Steve keeps moving, keeps build until he stills for a second and just sucks. Sucks like he would on a lollipop, takes him all in and sucks and suck and sucks until Tony cannot hold on, cannot stop. He comes, and Steve still sucks, taking in the cum through the cotton, drinking it in until Tony is boneless and slumped in the bed, barely able to keep his eyes open.
Steve finally pulls back and stares at Tony for a long moment. He has a little bit of something at the corner of his mouth and Tony reaches up and swipes at it. Steve wraps a hand around Tony's wrist and holds him there. They stare for a while, just breathing, and Tony finally says, "I should return the favor."
"Or I could get to that other thing you were asking for earlier," Steve replies softly before helping Tony wriggles out of the dirty underwear, using it to swipe up some of the mess. Tony feels useless, letting Steve take control, but there is an emptiness in his head that hasn't been there in a while, pleasant without any errant thoughts rolling around.
The frenzied feeling from early is still there, but sated for the moment. Raises his arm when Steve pulls his shirt off, naked and fully bared to a dressed Steve, but isn't he always?
Steve takes it slower, softer, this time, ghosting over Tony's hipbone , twisting his tongue as he tattoos all his secrets into the skin there, soothing the spot where his hand is imprinted into Tony's skin, stark against the pale skin. Steve works his fingers around the curve of Tony's ass, pressing closer as he bends. His mouth edging closer to Tony's dick.
Tony is gasping for air, breathless as he says Steve's name like it's the last thing he will ever say. Tony loses all speech the second Steve pulls back, fingers readying Tony with only spit and not enough time, but he wants this to hurt, wants this physical reminder that Steve is here, Tony writhing under him.
Tony has glassy eyes as he watches, boneless on the bed, as Steve presses down. His eyes shut so tightly as he sees stars. He bites his tongue against the pain because the quick job wasn't enough, and Steve only has a little lube on him, but there is no condom between them. It's just them, together, skin on skin and side by side like they have been for a while now.
And Tony just tenses at the sudden feeling. Just for a second. He's hissing in pain hisses at the pain, biting back a scream for about five million different reasons. There are tears at the back of his eyes, burning, threatening to come out. Because it fucking hurts. The stretching burns his entire body. But everything with Steve always burns. White hot knives every second, so it's not much different from anything else in his life that is twisted around Steve Rogers.
Steve's fingers find his on the sheets, and they curl together, gripping so tightly that Tony thinks he may break a few fingers. But in the backdrop of all the pain, he can hear Steve whispering. Quietly, barely muttered words from someone so close to the edge that their voice is already shot. Tony, he says, barely able to get the word out. Oh Tony.
But the way he curls Tony's name, the utter reverence that Tony has only ever heard from Tony's mouth is on the level with very few things that Tony has in his life. He squeezes Tony's hand, holding on as tightly as he can, lifting himself up.
Tony whimpers, hips jerking upwards and meet Steve's on his way back down. And Tony keeps his eyes trained on Steve, the way his skin glistens from the beading sweat. The way Steve bites his lips to keep from making any noise, a remnant from the past Tony thinks. The way he is always seeking Tony with his hands or mouth after he pulls his cock back before easing back in at the steady pace they are going. Steve's always trying to find him again the moment they aren't together. Pressing whatever he can reach to him, curling into Tony.
Steve presses closer and closer, and Tony has to roll his head back and keep from screaming as Steve angles just right hitting the spot that makes his vision explode. Tony fights past the feeling, because he has to watch Steve.
He blinks until he clears the tears from his vision, still moving, and looks up to Steve to see Steve half smiling, sweat at his brow. It's the look Steve has after a good fight with the team. It's the loop he always has when he meets Tony's eyes across a room, over a file, across the dinner table surrounded by the team.
Steve's hips shudder, and Tony's do the same, but Tony doesn't blink. He just watches Steve watching him, gulping back as they both fall off the cliff they have been on the edge of for a while. Gripping on tight to each other, pressing so close that Tony doesn't even know where he ends and Steve begins. Because they've been that way for a long time. So entangled, so immersed in each other's lives that there isn't any dividers any more.
After a moment, he pulls off, pulls back, and settles breathless beside Tony. Fingers still curled around each other, hip bones pressing and sweat soaking the sheets.
"Hey," Steve says, tracing patterns on Tony's hips. "You with me?"
Tony groans, boneless, into the pillow. The buzzing in the back of his head has settled to a dull hum. It'll come back to haunt him, he knows, but for now he feels settled in his skin. He feels like himself. "Yeah," he finally replies.
He opens his eyes, and Steve is watching him, intent. "I'll be okay," Tony adds. "I just…" he lets it linger for a moment, trying to find the right words. "That day is something I avoid thinking about. I honestly don't remember much of that year. Just parts, starkly."
He chuckles a bit at the pun. Steve moves his hands and traces his forehead, smoothing the lines there. "I'm sorry," Steve mutters. "I didn't think you would want to be blindsided by this one day."
Tony hums as Steve traces his eyebrows as he continues, "I just didn't know how to tell you."
"There's no good way," he whispers as Steve's fingers trail down his nose until he stops right before his fingers brush Tony's lips.
Tony takes a breath, lungs expanding until it hurts, holds it in for a moment longer than he should before letting it out in a rush. "You don't need to babysit me."
Steve props himself up on his elbow. "You think all of this?" he waves to Tony's rapidly cooling body, "was because I was trying to babysit you?"
Tony tries to find the spot over Steve's shoulder he tends to favor in tough conversations, right above his ear, but Steve lays a heavy hand on his keep that gently directs his attention back to the man's face. "Why did you kiss me?" Tony asks instead.
Steve looks faintly surprised at the question. "I wanted to," he responds. "Why?"
Tony shrugs, eyes listing down. "We don't kiss usually," he states. "We actually kind of avoid doing that."
"Not on purpose," Steve assures, thumb moving on his cheek. Tony continues to avoid catching his eyes. "Tony?"
"Didn't think you liked it," Tony mutters. "Thought you wanted this more casual."
Steve chuckles softly, and Tony turns his head back into the pillow. Soft fingers card through his hair. "I thought you wanted this casual Tony. I was trying to not make any assumptions."
Tony shifts and catches Steve's face, soft and slightly pink. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Steve confirms. "Make all the assumptions you want."
Tony smiles back, small and soft. "Same here."
Steve moves in slowly and Tony watches, beard twitching and giving away the smile threatening to spread across his face. His lips brush for a second, before pressing in for a chaste kiss. Tony chases him as Steve pulls away after a moment, half on top of Steve when their lips press again before peppering kisses all across Steve's face, obnoxiously loud.
Steve's laughing when Tony pulls back to watch Steve's eyes crinkle. "I like you Steve Rogers," he admits breathlessly. It feels like the arc reactor is constricting his heart, even though Tony knows that isn't what's happening.
A hand cradles his cheek. "I like you to Tony Stark, even if you are impossible to understand sometimes."
"Good," Tony murmurs as he leans in. "Can't have you knowing all my secrets."
Steve smiles filthily at him. "I think I know a few. Like the Avengers compound you think you have been hiding from me."
Straightening, Tony queries, "How did you know?"
"SHIELD had a version of the plans you filed with them. You're building us a clubhouse?" Steve retorts.
"A home," Tony shrugs. "For all of us. Even Bucky."
Steve sits up and captures his lips in a slow, long kiss. "I don't deserve you."
Tony laughs at the idea. "I think people would say that about me." Steve grips his shoulders before slipping in his tongue, exploring the cavern of Tony's mouth, inch by inch. When he pulls back, foreheads pressed together, they are both gasping for air.
"Thank you." Steve breathes out.
Tony shrugs. "I wanted to do it for everyone."
"Still," Steve presses. "Thank you. For all of this."
He captures Tony's lips again, and they don't speak in coherent sentences for quite a few more hours.