Tony isn't used to waking up next to someone. He's always done things the easy way, crawling out of bed while the sun is still a dot below the horizon, sneaking off to his workshop, and leaving the cleanup to Pepper. It's easy, it's quick, no strings attached – that's the way he likes it. And yeah – sometimes he wonders if it wouldn't just be better to be woken up by sunlight. To stretch out in bed and wrap his arms around someone, to feel like it's all more than just sex. It's nice in theory, but even Tony can admit that he's a little emotionally stagnant, and that feels like it would be a lot to process all at once, so he sticks to his routine. It's easier that way.
Point is, when he rolls over one morning and he's not alone, Tony is a little startled. Only a little. His eyes fly open and the light assaults them. He usually keeps the windows blacked out, but it seems like this time he's forgotten, because the sun is streaming in, making the sheets warm and his skin glow. Tony sucks in a breath and blows it back out, until the grogginess in his head starts to fade out and his eyes don't burn with tiredness when he closes them.
Steve is a warm, solid weight beside him. He's lying on his side, facing away from Tony, and Tony can see the expanse of his back, the unflawed, cream-colored stretch of skin, and he wants to reach out and run a hand across it. Steve breathes evenly and deeply, and when Tony lays a hand on his skin, he can feel his heart beat steadily, too.
In any other scenario, Tony is sure he would have been gone by now, out of the bed, out of the room, down alone where no one could find him. Instead, he stays where he is, strangely comforted by Steve's warmth, by the brush of the silk sheets against his bare skin, the sparkle of sunlight in all the corners of his room. Tony stretches out his legs, toes curling up, and then he pulls his knees up to his chest. His muscles ache, but it's a good ache, and when he looks down at his forearms, there are two pale little bruises dotting his skin, purple and red marks that Steve had left there with his mouth. It all seems like a distant memory – the way that he had let Steve lead him to the bedroom, how he had pushed Tony onto the bed and kissed him like the world was ending, slow and soft and hungry.
The processing thing? Tony thinks he's handling it very well.
Tony rolls a little, stretching his legs back down, and reaches out to run a hand along the line of Steve's waist. He drags his fingernails across the skin and revels in the way that it brings goose bumps to the surface, dots that travel all the way up and down Steve's forearms. He stirs a little, shifting and turning until he's rolled onto his other side and suddenly he's facing Tony, all sleepy blue eyes and mussed blond hair. Tony grins a little, and wonders if it's strange that he finds seeing Steve all dishevelled like this unnaturally hot. He'd write it off as the pleasure of soiling a beacon of virtue, but Steve isn't exactly virtuous. Tony has the evidence.
Steve catches the grin and flashes Tony with his own lazy, sleepy smile.
"What?"
Tony curls up under the blankets a little tighter, because he's cold now, and shakes his head, "Nothing. Just thinking."
"About what?" Steve whispers, and he reaches out a hand that pulls Tony into his side with ease.
It's too early to have this discussion with Steve, this 'I'm-not-used-to-physical-affection' talk, and so Tony just shakes his head again and curls into the warmth of Steve's body like a cat. He breaths in, and he can smell his own particular brand of cologne on Steve skin, and that makes him a kind of happy that he can't begin to describe. Tony presses kisses to the spaces in between Steve's ribs, soft and open-mouthed.
Steve squirms away after a little bit and cups Tony's face. He leans in so that their noses touch and their lips brush together whenever they speak, and when the room is too silent, Steve kisses Tony with chapped lips on his jaw, his nose, and finally his mouth.
"I love you," he whispers, pressing the words into Tony's mouth like he's known this for years, like this is a secret that the two of them have had for a lifetime, as if it hasn't been just one night.
He wants to say it back, but Tony's eyes flicker open and all he can see is the blue of Steve's eyes, the ring of color circling pupils that are dilating black, and he has no words, nothing that can even come close to expressing the mess that is his mind, and maybe it's better off that way. Tony closes the gap between them, and now he's the one kissing Steve, feeling the warmth of his mouth. Tony bites down on Steve's bottom lip in just such a way that makes him gasp, and then he's running his tongue along the line of it, soothing and slow and everything that Tony isn't, but wants to be.
When they break apart, searching for air, Tony leans his head back against a pillow and closes his eyes, still tucked neatly in Steve's arms. He could get used to this, he thinks, this kind of easy contentment, the warmth and the love, patient and undemanding and balanced. It could be nice to wake up like this.
Steve's hand moves along the flat plane of Tony's stomach, rough and warm, and then Tony can feel the pads of his fingertips pushing into the sides of his hips. When he opens his eyes again, Steve is hovering over him, and Tony tilts his head to the side to let Steve kiss his neck. His movements are hungry, scraping teeth and searching lips, and Tony lets out a sigh, a moan, a whimper, because he hasn't felt this calm in forever. Steve nibbles at his jaw.
"I love you," he whispers again, and the vibrations travel down the length of Tony's spine, "I love you."
Tony wraps his arms around Steve's neck and hangs on, and thinks that maybe this is how it should be – strings attached, complicated, warm. It might be easier than waking up alone.