Steve managed to fire off a quick text with shaking fingers to Natasha before he hung up and threw the phone across the room. It bounced off the wall and landed amid some boxes he'd left in the corner of the bedroom.

His face was flushed bright red. It had been weeks since he'd heard from Tony. And of course the billionaire/genius would have to call now.

He had ignored the call to begin with. He probably wouldn't have picked up if he had been sound of mind either, to be honest. But as fate would have it he had been right in the middle of dealing with a wave of his heat when he got the message. A short voicemail that demanded he pick up the phone or else the object of all his shameful fantasies would show up right on his doorstep.

While he was practically wrist deep in himself and pretending it was him.

So with little other choice Steve had called back hurriedly to prevent the other man from coming anywhere near him. Not while he was like this. He didn't even have a supply of suppressants anymore, having Tony in his vicinity while he reeked this way sounded like nothing but trouble. So he calls, and then what does Tony do? He apologized? All sweet and earnest with that soft baritone voice, right in Steve's ear. It caused that burning heat in him to writhe and spiral out of control while he was still on the line.

He swore loudly into his pillow as he palmed his erection. How could he have been so careless? Tony might have heard him touching himself to the sound of his voice. The brunet had said his name in that commanding tone and he hadn't been able to keep the noise down. The thought horrified him for a fleeting moment before he pushed that problem to the back of his mind. He could berate himself later. He couldn't focus well enough to quell his voice and jerk his weeping dick the way his body craved at the same time, let alone deal with guilt and embarrassment while he fucked himself on his fingers through copious amounts of slick. The waves just kept coming, each more intense than the last. He was unsatisfied by the lack of a knot, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to go to a sex shop in the middle of broad daylight so he was just going to have to deal with it.

When he came amid his sheets he finally had the clarity of mind for a few minutes to really consider what had happened.

Tony had honestly apologized to him. Where the hell had that come from? Tony had called a few times, but Steve had been afraid to pick up in case the conversation went south again. Had he been trying to apologize this whole time? Still, there had been complete radio silence for at least a week; he had assumed Tony was finally finished trying to reach him.

Natasha insisted over and over again that he should just call Tony, or at least pick up and let him talk just once. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. And since Nat refused to play middle-man, they had no other means of contact. He hated that he was being such a coward, but he couldn't come up with any good reason why Tony would want to say anything more to him. He had thought Tony hated him, for God's sake, and it had hurt.

Did this mean Tony didn't hate him after all?

He was so confused. The hormones swimming in his brain really did not make things any easier to process. Another wave of heat was stirring in him.

All he knew for certain was that he had been seconds away from telling Tony to just forget about everything. Moments away from begging him to please, please just come and take him. Anywhere he wanted, on any surface they could find the bare minimum amount of traction on. Thank God he had restrained himself. A month later and he was just as pathetically in love with the other as he had been before this whole mess. Desperate for the other man to notice him, craving his attention, and too embarrassed to ask for what he wanted. Just because Tony might not hate him after all didn't mean he wanted him either.

Did Steve ever want him, though. Steve convulsed violently as the new wave of crippling warmth washed over him. He wanted the alpha to order him around, to dominate him, to bite him, roll him over and love him like no one else could. To make Steve belong to him in every sense of the word, and he wanted Tony to belong to him too.

Steve's eyes get wet as he rolled over onto his stomach and pushed his hips up by the knees, as though submitting. He wrapped his own fist around his cock again and jerked it fast and hard but pretended that hand belonged to the object of all his desires. This truly had to be rock bottom. He was so ashamed, but he couldn't stop until it was over.

oOo

Tony's phone rings again.

"Where are you?" the female voice asks him when he picks up. He huffs a deep breath before answering reluctantly.

"Going to Steve's."

"Really? Now? How do you guys have such horrible timing all the time? Tony, stop."

"If I'd known this is what I was going to get, I wouldn't have picked up the damn phone," Tony snapped in reply.

He was just over halfway to Steve's apartment when his phone rang again. He picked it up without thinking about it. He assumed it might be Steve again calling to tell him not to come, or at least to explain what was going on when he called the first time. Instead of his soldier, who he would happily listen to for hours on end talking about anything after not hearing a single word from him for more than a month, he gets Natasha telling him adamantly to go home.

Tony growled into the line. "No. I waited, I did what you all told me to. I waited to apologize to him because he didn't want to talk. I tried to respect that. But I have a chance to fix this now and you want me to do what? Wait another month before talking to him again?" His voice rose accusingly. "What's the problem now?"

"Another month exactly would be counter-productive, actually." Natasha muttered.

Tony was growing increasingly impatient with all of this.

"What exactly does that mean?" Tony snapped. He could see Steve's apartment building on the corner of the street. A crumbling brick building that looked at least half a century old. If she didn't convince him before he got there he was going in. Really he would probably go in either way if he was being honest, but he felt like he should at least give Natasha a chance to explain anyways.

"Look, you remember that me and Steve are keeping secrets?" Tony felt a flicker of annoyance but made a noise to show he was listening. "This is a part of that. You just can't butt in there right now, okay? Not like this. You already apologized, right? So let that settle for a while and meet up with him again later. A few days, at best. He'll call you."

"No," he found himself replying.

"Excuse me? No, there is no room for 'No' here, Stark, you can't invade his privacy like this. You might make things worse!" Natasha's voice demanded he comply and offered no room for argument. But Tony had never been very good at respecting or adhering to authority.

"Well that is a valuable opinion. I'll take that into consideration right now while I–" He cut himself off by hanging up as he reached the front door of these apartment building. The phone rang again almost immediately, but he sent it to voicemail and turned off the ringer.

He wheezed as he buzzed Steve's apartment and waited. He found himself practically trembling at the prospect of seeing the super soldier again, all perfectly coiffed blond hair and bluest blue eyes that he just knew would turn his insides to jelly as soon as they met his. He tried to suppress the hope that fluttered in his gut at the idea. At the very least getting to be friends after everything was said and done would be good. He would be happy with that, or so he told himself. Even if Steve was with someone else. He repeated this over and over.

It was minutes before Steve answered the buzzer. Minutes that Tony spent wavering between self-doubt and hopelessly unbearable optimism. One second he had himself convinced that Steve wasn't even home. That Steve was out fucking that omega he'd smelled on him before and not in need of him at all. The next second he was convinced Steve would let him upstairs where they'd be awkward and quiet for a moment before they would rush at each other and kiss fervently and that would become their story.

When Steve eventually did answer the buzz he tried his best to lower his expectations, but the problem was that he was not sure how low he was willing to place them. At the very least, he vowed, he was going to keep his cool this time.

oOo

Steve hesitated before he pushed the button that unlocked the front door to his complex and croaked into the speakerphone to tell Tony to come up. After he'd done it the rational side of him instantly regretted the decision and tried to undo it. He clicked the button again and again shouting that he needed Tony wait there a minute so he could stumble back to his room, grab his phone from wherever it landed after bouncing off the wall, and call him to tell him properly that he just couldn't have him come up right now.

It wasn't a good idea, since Tony had been repulsed by his omega scent before and it would be so much stronger now, at the height of his heat without a single suppressant to take. That scent had been what had triggered their fight before. Steve wasn't sure if he could stand it again.

But it was too late. If Tony was still near enough to the speaker to hear Steve calling for him to stop, he made no response. Tony Stark would be in his apartment in a matter of seconds.

Steve stood there staring at the door, waiting for the inevitable. In pants that he pulled over his over-stimulated lower half with immense difficulty. God, this was embarrassing. The pants felt tighter than anything with his painfully hard cock trapped inside their confines, and he hadn't been able to pull a shirt over his skin because it had felt so suffocating. He looked utterly indecent, he realized in complete horror. His room was a horrible mess of clothing strewn about haphazardly around still-packed boxes that he had torn apart in his need to nest.

At least he wouldn't have to figure out what to do with Tony when he got there, this would probably scare him off well enough.

Hi there! Two chapters today because I posted one on Valentines on AO3 and forgot to x-post here. I hope you're enjoying so far! There will be another 2-3 chapters or so. I would also like to take this opportunity to remind you that this is an M-Rated fic. The next part will definitely be M.