As far as rehashes of old wars went, this was the best one Tony had ever had.
Lying on his stomach on the unnecessarily large, white-sheeted bed, Tony was somewhere between sleep and coma, Steve's fingers playing over his skin, "Where'd this one come from?"
Steve's finger was on his right side, just at the beginning of the nip of his waist, "Kidnapper when I was seven. Hit me in the face, and I fell in the chair I was tied to. It shattered, and one of the pieces got me." Steve's lips pressed against the mark that was left, his arms tightening lightly because this was causing him pain more than it'd ever caused Tony.
"And this one?"
A little higher, a little further over on his side, "Blew up...something...in the lab when I was fifteen. I don't even remember what it was, but that wasn't the first time I'd been tossed around, and it certainly wasn't the last." Tony chuckled. Steve made a small sound of unhappiness, pressing his lips to that mark, too, his hand skimming, warm and gentle, over the expanse of Tony's skin. Tony melted into the heat a little bit. Steve's hand stopped, and traced back to where he was looking now, the scar he needed the story of, on the very bottom of Tony's shoulder blade, "Fell down the stairs to my dad's workshop when I was five." Steve didn't kiss him there, waiting, because he was a bastard and he knew Tony too well for either of their own goods. Tony huffed a sigh, "My dad was drunk. I was running from him because I was scared and I didn't want to get hit when he found my hiding spot. Protocols were in place to keep him out of the workshop, if I could've gotten there, I would've been safe...I fell down the stairs because he grabbed me and I struggled." He was really trying to keep his voice flat and uncaring, and because he was a bastard and he knew Tony too well, Steve was having none of that. He lavished attention over the spot, the huge, muscular bands of his arms tense and protective on either side of Tony's body. "I made it, I survived, I'm here now." Tony told him softly. More told the pillow, but it was exactly what Steve had told him when he'd first caught Tony in one of his PTSD nightmares, because it's what Steve needed to hear when he had nightmares of his own.
"You're here now." Steve murmured back, moving so that his body was draped over Tony's, warm and solid and heavy, and comfortable. "I don't want to know about the other scars, do I?"
Tony laughed lightly, "I know that if I tell you that you don't, you're going to flip me over and start asking about them anyway."
Steve's smile was pressed against his shoulder, and Tony chuckled, letting himself be moved over onto his back, Steve's body settling back down against his, his head tucked against Tony's collarbone, his fingers studying the muscle in Tony's arm, skimming until he reached a scar over Tony's bicep.
"I got zapped a couple years ago. The Hammer-Venko incident. One of Venko's whips left some of the wiring in the suit a little raw." Steve littered tiny little kisses along the line, then kissed his way down to another scar, glancing up through his lashes in a way that made Tony's heart do things that could probably be bad with the arc reactor. "Bar fight. Broken bottle, I think. Rhodey started it, I was seventeen and he was the only family I really had anymore, so I got into it 'cause I needed to have his back." Lower, on Tony's wrist, and he didn't want to talk about that particular scar, not here.
"Please?"
"It's...I don't want to see-"
Steve leaned up on his elbows, looking up into Tony's eyes worriedly, "Stop." He ordered softly, his huge hand resting over Tony's eyes for a moment, and panic that Tony didn't know was rising subsided a little, "I ask because I love you...all of you. I want to know."
"Even if it hurts you?"
"Especially if it hurts me."
Tony stroked Steve's hair, soothing him back down, Steve's head resting back down with his face in Tony's neck, "After my parents died...I tried to kill myself." The admission was small and quiet, and Steve didn't kiss the scar; he kissed his way to Tony's mouth, taking his time, drawing it out long and sweet, "I won't do it again, I promise you."
Steve smiled against his mouth, holding Tony tighter as pride bloomed warm in his chest because, really, Tony could read him, too.
"I love you." Tony murmured, tracing down Steve's spine as Steve settled back into his chest.
"I love you, too." Steve murmured, tracing the scars over Tony's chest, the snaking white lines that marred his tanned skin. "These...I've always wanted to kill the people that caused these."
"It was my own weapon-"
"It wasn't your doing, though, Tony. You never caused all the blood you think is on your hands." Steve reached down to lift Tony's hand to his mouth, fingers tracing over his callouses and lines, "You need to remember that sometimes, Tony. Stane's hands deserve that blood, not yours." Steve kissed his hands, work-worn and wonderfully rough, no matter how manicured they were.
Steve loved Tony's hands. He loved how they felt wrapped in his in the early hours of the morning; he loved the tiny little tremble in them every time he touched Steve in the mob of paparazzi; and he loved how careful Tony was with touching him-from the first time to just forty-five minutes ago. Those hands saved lives and worlds and they touched him in a way that would take him apart just as surely as they'd put him back together. "Most of those are soldering scars and papercuts." Tony murmured, a small smile in his voice.
"You're beautiful." Steve replied easily. "All of you. All of it. Everything you went through. Everything that's gotten you here. It's all horrible and tragic and I wish you didn't have to go through all of it, but it's beautiful. All of it. And I will never stop loving it."
Tony got quiet for a long, long moment, and Steve finally had to raise his head, seeing the vulnerability that Tony wasn't even trying to hide. "Don't make me a promise."
"I already have." Steve told him, skimming his hand over Tony's chest until his chin rested on both of his hands, his blue eyes shining with far too much innocence up at Tony, "Well, it was a promise to myself more than it was a promise to you, but it involves you, so we may as well call it yours." Tony rubbed Steve's golden hair between his fingertips, waiting. Finally, Steve smiled, dimpling, and rolled his eyes, "I promised to keep you safe and make you happy." Steve reached over to the nightstand, two rings looped over his finger, "Left hand, please."
"Y-You're…"
"I'm not giving you an option, so I wouldn't call it a proposition. I'm marrying you. End of story." Steve slipped the ring on Tony's finger before he could say a word, laid out on top of him, trapping him there.
Tony raised the ring to eye-level, staring at it in shock, "You-"
Steve covered Tony's hand with his own, "I will not hear argument here, Stark. I've been around for a while. I know your weaknesses better than you do, I think; and I know your faults. I know where you're hurt, and where you've been hurt so many times you've just gone numb. I know where I've hurt you in the past; where I can't reach the wounds to kiss them better, where I have to try again because it's worth it if I can take even a little of the hurt away. I have a list of things that I have to try to convince you to stop accusing yourself of; and I have a catalogue of scars that I need to hear you talk about, because I never want to see another one form while I'm around. I fully intend on kissing every inch of your skin and I will not stop until I have everything-absolutely everything-memorized. I love you so much it's physical pain, Tony, every time you hide or pull away. I don't want to be without you; I won't be without you; and so, because I am a stubborn bastard and Natasha would help Pepper hide my body if not outright kill me, I am marrying you.
"Because I'm the only one you talk about your scars to. I'm the only one you trust enough to let kiss every inch of your skin. I'm the only one you've made an effort to stop hiding and running from. As much as I love you, Tony, I know you love me, too. Because you know what hurts me and what doesn't and you knew when we were at each other's throats, but you still wouldn't take the swing. So, you're marrying me. Because we make each other insane and wild and dangerous and so gloriously happy I scuff my shoes on the sidewalk sometimes to make sure I'm not floating away. No more words, Anthony Edward. I don't care what you have to say about the matter, you are mine."
Tony waited until Steve had scowled him into apparent submission and subsided to laying against his chest, tracing the arc reactor with his fingers as if proving his point that Steve was the one Tony trusted most. He waited, smiling to himself and trying not laugh, "I should not have trusted Pepper not to tell you that I was planning on proposing."
Steve grinned, caught, "No, you really shouldn't've."