Tony gets to a good stopping point on the armor upgrades and stops because he knows Steve will wait up for him.
Or come down and throw Tony over his shoulder like a caveman and carry him off to bed, pinning him down with that All-American body so Tony's only choices are sleep or stare at the ceiling. Sometimes Tony deliberately stays over his limit for just that reason.
But not this time.
He says goodnight to the bots and rides the elevator up to the penthouse, slouched into a corner because he's tired enough to not want to have to think about balancing in his own feet. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and his head is bent and it takes him a moment to realize he's arrived, but he does eventually and shakes off the torpor settling over him.
He strides leisurely out of the elevator and a slow smile spreads across his face as he spots the blond head just visible over the top of the couch. A hand appears to have gotten stuck halfway into raking through it, fingers limp among the entangling locks.
Tony's gait is more of a prowl now as he approaches, eyes taking in the papers spread over the coffee table with mild interest, but most of his awareness focused on the form hunched over them.
The hem of Steve's shirt has ridden up, exposing a strip of skin between it and the waistband of his jeans, and if it wasn't likely to end with Tony being crushed against the back of the couch, he'd be tempted to lean over and lick it.
He settles instead for leaning over and wrapping his arms around Steve's neck, easing the super soldier back against the cushions as he tightens his grip.
Steve is so engrossed in what he's doing that he doesn't even notice what's going on until he reaches for a chart of some kind and it's just beyond the reach of his fingers.
Then his muscles bunch and tense under Tony's arms and he turns his head to see who's there.
Tony thinks Natasha would be very disappointed, except, well, it's Steve so unless it was someone like Thor or the Hulk—neither of which are known for sneaking up on anyone—then he's probably not in a lot of actual danger.
"Oh, hey, Tony," he says, but his brow is furrowing and his eyes are already back on the papers before him.
When he goes to lean forward, Tony doesn't let go and is half dragged over the couch before Steve stops.
He cranes his neck and, with a wry smile, says, "Are you trying to choke me out? Because if so, we really need to step up your weight training."
Tony rolls his eyes and huffs, but he can't stop smiling himself. He stretches his neck to drop a kiss on Steve's lips, since you know, he can and then wiggles his hips until gravity takes over and he falls over the couch next to Steve. He doesn't stop there, though, scooting and wriggling more until he's planted firmly in Steve's lap.
"Whatcha doing?" he asks as he nuzzles the underside of Steve's jaw, smiling when Steve obligingly tilts his head back.
"JARVIS and I were going over the grocery list."
Tony snorts, and then follows that with a much more appropriate lick of the tendon in Steve's neck.
"You know," he murmurs, pausing to suck a hickey just below the collar line of a button down shirt. Steve will wear them until it vanishes and Tony has to admit, he's not at all put out about that. "JARVIS can do that all by himself. And what he can't anticipate our fellow superheroes are more than capable of adding themselves."
Steve shivers and Tony grins against his skin like the cat that has been let loose in the cream factory.
"I know," Steve says, voice already husky. Tony's hoping to get it just a little bit lower, though, so he doesn't let up, moving to the other side of Steve's neck to leave a few marks there. For balance, you know.
"I know he can even arrange to have it delivered and the bulk stuff I let him do that for, but," he shrugs and Tony makes a noise of disgustingly needy desire as the movement jostles him, the fabric of his shirt rubbing against increasingly sensitive skin. "I like to shop for some of it myself."
God, why was he still talking?
Didn't he get what Tony was trying to— Wait, hold on.
Tony pulls back, Steve's hands on his waist tightening instinctively to keep him from falling backwards.
"What?"
Steve blinks, Adam's apple bobbing, and Tony has to deliberately stop himself from leaning in and sucking on it.
"What?" Steve says and his flushed skin and slightly glazed eyes are one helluva distraction, but Tony is capable of ignoring that, thank you very much.
When he has to. Or really, really wants to.
Like now.
Ish.
"What did you just say," Tony says, fingers tightening when Steve's tongue flicks out and wets his lower lip. Steve's fingers tighten as well and Tony has to call on reserves of will power he didn't know he possessed outside of battle.
Steve's gaze unfocuses and it takes him a minute to come up with an answer. "I'm making a shopping list with JARVIS?"
"After that."
"I... know he can do it himself?"
Tony waves an impatient hand. "After that. Come on, Rogers, the last thing you said."
Steve's brow furrows and Tony unconsciously leans forward a little, his lips drawing toward that adorable wrinkle above Steve's nose like some high-powered magnets are involved.
"Oh!" Steve says, expression clearing to be replaced by one that was even more dangerous: The Embarrassed Puppy.
If Steve had chewed up his slippers and then given him that face, Tony would have no choice but to give him a steak.
Seriously, it should be logged in his SHIELD file under "secret attacks".
His shoulders hunch up under his ears, then drop, his skin flushing from his hair on down and Tony very nearly misses his next words at the thought of where that blush would stop.
Spoiler: nowhere.
It goes allllllll the way to Steve's toes.
"I like to, you know, do some of the shopping."
"Why?" Tony inexplicably finds himself asking instead of pouncing on the chance to extend the life of the blush by licking everywhere it's spread.
Steve shrugs again and his eyes dropped, following his thumbs where they were slipping up under Tony's shirt to tickle his stomach. He would normally help by stripping off his shirt right now, but he really wants to pursue this conversation for some reason.
Tony covers Steve's hands with his own, stilling the nervous gesture, and says again, more softly, "Why?"
"I—" Steve shakes his head. "It's silly." He sits up and moves like he's going to start paying Tony back for the earlier hickies, but Tony stops him with a hand on his chest.
"Why?"
Steve sighs and presses forward, easily overriding Tony's resistance, but just rests his head on Tony's chest, staring at the soft glow of the arc reactor through the shirt.
"When I was a kid," Steve starts, and it's hesitant and low, and Tony can't help bringing a hand up to Steve's neck, squeezing, then sliding up into his hair. "We didn't have..." He stops and Tony can feel the muscles in Steve's jaw tighten. "We were poor," he says, flat and hard, stating a fact he didn't like but couldn't deny. "Me being sick all the time didn't help and then my father was killed before I was even born, so it was just me and Ma and..."
Tony's other hand comes up to join the first, head bending as he presses a kiss to the top of Steve's head.
Steve turns into Tony's chest, says quietly, "Things were bad for us before the stock market crashed, and, though we didn't have anything invested in it, they only got worse after. Ma was working all the time and taking in laundry and mending in between and trying to take care of me when I couldn't get out of bed for the wheezing and coughing. It just... It wasn't easy. I did whatever I could to help, when I actually could," he adds, guilt thick in his voice, "but I remember times when I'd go to the corner store for groceries and find the shelves empty—or worse, full but the prices were too high for what money I had in my pocket. And I know," he says, a sort of wet-sounding laugh escaping, "it's ridiculous, and you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but I just... I like seeing the full shelves. I like having my choice of everything I see and knowing that I've got enough money to buy whatever strikes my fancy, to buy extra if I want it, and not have to worry about having to give up something else because of the cost." He shrugs again and then sniffs, wiping his face on Tony's shirt before pulling back with a grimace.
"Sorry. I got your shirt all..." He waves a hand, then adds, "and for killing the, you know, mood."
Tony shifts so he's sitting across Steve's lap instead of straddling it and says, "Don't worry about it," then, before Steve can continue in that vein, picks up one of the top sheets and scans it, says, "So tell me about this. How are you... Whatever," he finishes, the sheet crinkling loudly as he waves it back and forth.
Steve doesn't immediately respond and Tony finally looks at him and says, "Well?"
"Tony," Steve says, "you don't have to—"
"I know. I want to."
Steve gives that a second, probably, like Tony, processing the simple sincerity of the statement.
"Are you..." he says hesitantly. "Are you sure? I mean, really, there's no rush on this. I don't shop until Thursday, so—"
Tony cuts him off with a kiss, short and sweet, then loops one arm behind Steve's neck and lifts the spreadsheet he's got in hand again. "Explain," he orders.
"Okay," Steve says, and for all he starts out slow and uncertain, glancing at Tony every other second to check his interest levels, he warms up quickly to the subject.
Before Tony's quite sure what's happened he's learning about the rates of consumption for this little household he's set up and how Steve has a plan to subtly nudge them toward a few more healthy eating habits through his selective purchases.
Tony's grinning at the surprisingly devious—and unsurprisingly patient—scheme and is soon offering a few suggestions if his own, gleaned mostly from years of Pepper slipping nutritional pamphlets into stacks of technical documents.
He gets JARVIS to set up a database that tracks all of this electronically and shows Steve how to manipulate the data and shape the reports to see exactly what he wants to see.
It's after two am when they finally wind down and end up cuddling—for lack of a better word—there on the couch.
Tony's still playing with the database a little bit, tweaking here and there, and Steve is drifting in and out of sleep.
He's got one arm wrapped around Tony's waist, his long legs are stretched under the coffee table, and now it's the front of his shirt that's riding up to show skin.
He sighs gustily and Tony looks down, recalled suddenly to the here and now.
He smiles fondly and twists to kiss Steve's forehead.
A sleepy stare is his reward, blue eyes half-hidden by heavy lids.
"Tony?" Steve tries to say, but it's warped and smeared by the yawn that threatens to crack Steve's jaw, barely stifled behind a fist.
A spine-popping stretch is involuntarily wrung out of Steve's torso and then he falls limp once more, moving only his eyes to look up at Tony.
"Sh'd go to bed," he mumbles, glancing at the glowing data being projected over the coffee table.
"Yeah, we should," Tony agrees and closes the files with a gesture. "Keep those on the local hub," he tells JARVIS.
"As you wish, sir," JARVIS says.
"Come on," Tony says, disentangling himself and standing, following Steve's example and stretching luxuriously.
It takes more coaxing to get the sleepy soldier on his feet and shuffling toward the bedroom, but eventually they make it there.
Tony strips Steve down and turns to get nightclothes, but as soon as he's facing away he hears the tell-tale whump! of Steve collapsing onto the bed.
With a chuckle and a quick dance to remove his own clothes, Tony abandons the idea of pajamas and joins Steve in bed.
He barely gets under the covers before Steve is rolling over and wrapping himself around Tony, like he's afraid Tony will vanish while he's asleep.
Tony just cards a hand into Steve's hair and brushes a kiss against his temple.
"Night, Steve," he whispers.
"N'ght, T'ny," he feels more than hears against his shoulder.
With a smile still on his lips, Tony surrenders to sleep's—and Steve's—sweet embrace.