They have sex twice on Sunday and then again Tuesday, and again Wednesday, and by Thursday he's afraid that if they keep doing it all the time it'll stop being special, but he still drags Tony out of his lab in the early afternoon so that he can 'practice' giving him a blowjob.

And by drags, what he means is he shows up and raises his eyebrows and Tony divests himself of his clothing, so he imagines it's not too much of an interruption.

It makes him feel a little bit immoral, and very guilty, and every time he promises himself that he'll at least wait longer before doing it again. But when he's with Tony he forgets all of the objections.

He reminds himself that it's wrong, not just that he's having sex but that he's doing it with Tony, that they're both men and that's not what sex was intended for. And that thought makes him hate himself even more, but it's still not enough to make him want to stop.

At least if he's going to hell for this Tony'll be there too. In fact, he hopes he is going to hell for this, because that's the only way they'll wind up together in the afterlife.

The sex itself is exhilarating and a little bit terrifying at the same time. He loves the way it feels, of course, the physical and emotional sensations that are stronger and better than he'd imagined could exist. But he loves the way it makes him feel when he's not doing it more, the way that he doesn't have to worry about holding Tony too close, or about an innocent touch turning into something he's not willing to do, so they can touch, innocently, as much as they want to.

He loves the innocent touching, the little moments where his hands just happen to fall on Tony's hips, or their shoulders brush together then stay that way, like they're just a part of each other now. And he loves the way that it turns into something not so innocent, he's just not the one to push it in that direction. That's a level of culpability, of acknowledgement of what they're doing, that he's not ready for.

On that first Sunday he comes in Tony's mouth without saying anything, and sure, it's only the second time Tony's ever given him a blowjob, but still it's his fault, it's entirely his fault because he knows it's about to happen and the words won't form anyway.

Tony takes it in stride but he brings it up when they're cuddling, when he's almost asleep, runs a hand through Steve's hair and says, "I wasn't kidding about warning me."

Steve nods.

"Can you... not tell?"

Steve blushes. "I can tell," he says, closing his eyes. "I'll say something next time."

Tony curls up against him, laying an arm across his chest, sleepily pressing his face against Steve's neck. And Steve thinks that's the end of it, but it's not.

"You're not comfortable with sex, are you?"

"I like it."

"That's not what I asked."

Steve shrugs. It doesn't matter.

Tony sits up and yawns, looks him up and down and runs a hand along his back. "I want you to masturbate for me."

Steve swallows, feeling the sudden need for a blanket, or a pillow, or anything to cover him. "Pardon?"

"I want you to get yourself off while I watch."

He exhales like the air has been punched out of him, and he'd be lying to say that the thought doesn't arouse him, but it scares him too. And he thinks about it, curls up a bit so he's not on display in case his body decides to betray the undercurrent of want that's running through him. "I'd rather not."

Tony smirks. "Didn't think so."

And Steve squirms. "I'll do it."

"Why?"

"Because you want me to."

"Oops, nice try, wrong answer."

"Then why'd you ask me?"

Tony smirks. "Because I want you to."

Steve sighs. "Quit playing games."

"I want you to want to."

"Well, I don't," he says, grasping the sheet in his fist and wondering why he says that so forcefully when it's not even completely true.

Tony puts his hand on Steve's hip. "What if I give you a handjob?"

Steve swallows. "Okay."

"So why's it okay if I do it?"

"It's not."

"No." Tony sits up again, bouncing on the bed a bit, and slaps Steve playfully on the butt. "No, wrong answer. Come on, I'm trying to make a point here and you're completely not helping."

Steve stretches for the blanket and tugs it across himself. "Then make it."

Tony frowns. "What's wrong? Is it that I just said I'd give you a handjob and I haven't yet? Because I'll get to it."

"Everything's fine," Steve says, pulling the blanket a little tighter around himself. "I'm just tired."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Right."

"Get to the point."

"I made it already."

"Oh." He pulls Tony against him, holds him tightly so he can't get back up. "Great point."

Tony sighs against his shoulder. "Really, this is a conversation we need to have."

"Not right now."

"You know you're perfect and sexy and don't have anything to be ashamed about, right?"

Steve yawns. "Okay."

"And there's nothing wrong with having lots of great sex with me, all of the time?"

"I'm sleeping."

Tony sighs again and wrestles the blanket over himself, sliding his knee between Steve's. "We're talking later."

But they don't. They have sex again when they wake up, and Steve makes extra effort to seem like he's enjoying himself – which he is – and Tony seems satisfied.

So Steve decides that he just needs to practice.

After Thursday afternoon's encore performance Tony suggests that he blow off the rest of work so that they can go out to a proper dinner, and Steve has to decline because he has plans.

Tony raises an eyebrow. "You have plans?"

Steve nods.

"Wait, no, let's give this proper weight. You. Have plans. With other people?"

Steve shrugs. "I'm going out to dinner."

"With whom?"

"Theresa. She's a nurse."

"Oh." Tony raises an eyebrow. "Like, a motherly, doting kind of nurse?"

"I don't know. She's friendly."

"But she's unattractive."

"No."

"Older than you?"

Steve's not sure. "Maybe?"

"So," Tony says, on the exhale. "Like a date?"

"No."

"It's okay, it can be a date."

"It's not." He's not even sure why he's going. But he's never had a female friend before, and if the 30s and 40s taught him that men were for friendship and women were for relationships, well, maybe the 21st century can be the opposite.

"We're not exclusive."

Steve sighs. "It's not a date."

"Okay."

He wants to change his answer to that statement as soon as he realizes what Tony means by not exclusive. But the phone rings, and when it's over Tony looks over at him and rolls his eyes. "Important meeting, Pepper's pissed. I gotta go."

"We're not exclusive?"

Tony doesn't hear that or he doesn't acknowledge it. "I'm going to LA this weekend. Wanna come with?"

He does. "No thank you."

Tony shrugs. "Have fun on your date."

"It's not a date."

It's not a date. He asks right away, and she seems shocked, get flustered enough that he wishes he'd gone with his gut and not even gone. He doesn't need other people, he has Tony and Peggy. Even if they're "not exclusive."

"Not that I wouldn't date you," she adds, after another furtive glance at his chest. "But I, um, I have a boyfriend."

"Me too." And then he regrets being so candid. That's not something he should be admitting.

Theresa smiles. "Oh. And she thought it was a date?"

Steve nods, so very glad that it's her assumption. "Yes."

"Have you seen I Love You, Man?"

"Don't think so."

"Oh, right," she says, blushing. "I don't know why I asked. I just keep forgetting that you're from the past."

Steve offers a thin smile.

"Well, anyway, it's about this guy who's trying to make a new friend, and everyone's always telling him only to go out to lunch with the guys, never dinner, because dinner means it's a date. And then he goes out to dinner with a guy his mom thinks he should be friends with, and it turns out the other guy thinks it's a date."

Steve smiles broader, wonders if it's too much information, but - "I've done that."

Theresa raises an eyebrow. "Done what?"

"Went to dinner with a guy thinking we were there as friends."

"Oh." Her eyes get bigger, as does her smile. "Oh, wow. What happened?"

"Figured out it was a date. We're still friends."

"How'd you figure out it was a date?"

Steve shrugs. This is too far. This is way too far. He kind of wants to tell her. "When he kissed me."

She laughs, almost spilling her water, and then she covers her mouth and tries to stop laughing. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing at you," she says, continuing to laugh at him nonetheless. "I oh, that's great, sorry, just a second."

He can't help smiling, even though there's a part of his brain that has to keep reminding him that it's only funny because he's lying.

"So, well, now I understand why you'd want to check," she says, catching her breath. "Or, why your girlfriend might want to check."

Steve shrugs.

"Did it bother you? When he kissed you?"

"No."

"Oh. That's really cool! I mean, because you're from the 1940s, right? But you're cool with gay people?"

Steve shrugs. There's a part of him that wants to end this line of questioning before he gives anything away. And there's another part of him that really likes that he can talk about it. "I don't think there's anything wrong with it."

Theresa smiles. "That's really great. I mean, because everyone thought it was a mental disorder back then, right?"

"Yeah." Steve's not as interested in that conversation.

"What's the biggest change?"

"Pardon?"

"From then to now."

The rest of the night goes that way, she spends it quizzing him about his past, but she doesn't ask about him being Captain America and so he doesn't mind it so much. She asks about the boring stuff, the everyday stuff. And when he points out how mundane everything she's asking about is, she smiles, and apologizes, explains that she "minored in history," whatever that means.

It's actually a fun dinner. He gets to talk about things he thought no one would want to hear about, things that Peggy already knows and that would bore Tony to death. He's glad he went.

He calls Tony when he gets home, but there's no answer. It's late though. He shouldn't expect one.

Still, he can't help imagining Tony out on a date with someone else. And, he knows how Tony's dates end.

They don't even talk until Saturday, and it's a short conversation.

"I miss you," he says, once they've run out of mundane things to talk about. He does. At very least they usually talk most nights.

Tony just makes a small noise of agreement. "Should've come with me."

Steve sighs. "Next time."

"Mhmm."

And then Tony has to go.

Sunday he's at the nursing home, spending the day with Peggy. Theresa's there in the afternoon and the three of them play bridge, out in the common room, where Steve hasn't spent very much time. The flurry of activity is nice, and having more than one friend there is nice too.

He even opts to stay for dinner, although the sandwich he has with him hardly makes for a dinner. But it's the being with people that he's trying to make himself do again.

The television in the dining room is showing the Academy Awards red carpet, and Steve watches it idly throughout the meal, feeling completely out of touch. He doesn't recognize anyone, and they really don't even look like movie stars. It's a stark reminder that he's not from this era. And then there's a familiar face.

He blinks, rubs his eyes, but there's Tony, still looking unbelievably perfect in a tuxedo, Pepper Potts hanging off his arm.

"And I've been been invited here to present an award, of course you're going to have the man who singlehandedly saved New York City present an award, do you get what I'm saying?"

Pepper smiles demurely and puts a hand over Tony's. "I think what Tony is saying is that this is a big honor, and he hasn't quite figured out how to graciously accept it."

"That is not what I'm saying," Tony says, wandering off nonetheless, his hand on the small of Pepper's back. She's wearing a dress that's all crossed in the back so that he's touching her bare skin, and he leans in at something she says, and laughs, and they look so very much in love. Then the camera cuts away.

Steve thinks he's going to be sick.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he says, as one of the nurses comes by. He doesn't know her name, he doesn't know any of their names. "What we're watching, it's happening right now?"

She glances at the television. "Well, it's live..."

Peggy looks up from her food. "You could have asked me that."

Steve smiles, pretending he's okay. He's gotten good at that. "Thank you."

He has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from crying. No wonder Tony said they're not exclusive. He wonders if he's Tony's dirty little secret, or if Pepper knows, if they laugh about it when he's not around.

He knows that he's overreacting. Clearly Tony doesn't think his relationship with Pepper is a secret. But then, he wouldn't expect Steve to watch the Oscars.

He spends the rest of the meal in a little bit of a downward spiral, glad he hasn't told Tony anything he would regret, glad Tony doesn't know how he's broken. His virginity, that's all that Tony has that Steve really wishes he could take back, but even that he didn't give up on purpose so it's not the same, really. It's not like he thought Tony would love and cherish him and then made an adult decision to sleep with him, he'd just done it. Because it felt right at the time.

Because he'd ignored every opportunity he'd ever had saving himself so long for someone who he never even got a chance to be with. And after that it hadn't seemed worth saving anymore.

But that still didn't make it a good decision.

He's glad to get out of that room, to get away from the people. And he's about to head home alone and think about what he's done when he gets a different idea. "Mind I stay to watch the Oscars?"

Peggy wrinkles her nose at him. "Have you even seen a movie this year?"

"Tony's there." He rubs the back of his neck self consciously. "I want to see if they'll show him."

He wants to see if they'll show him with Pepper. He knows it's a public event, and that he's not going to see enough to satisfy his curiosity, but he still wants to know. He wants to know that he's not overreacting. Because he could be. There's a good chance that he is, because in the last couple days Tony has been distant and hasn't initiated contact once, and plus they're not exclusive. Steve could just be seeing all of that and erroneously thinking that means Tony's dating Pepper.

He doesn't tell Peggy this, though. It's bad enough that she even knows about Tony. She doesn't need to know that Steve's been wasting all of his time thinking about Tony, and now he's going to waste all of his time worrying about what he thought he had with Tony.

She smiles, and lets him stay, lets him lay on the bed and strokes his hair as he watches the mind-numbingly dull ceremony. He doesn't see Pepper once. He sees Tony present some award, and he tries to remind himself not to love him but it's hard.

Peggy tells Steve she loves him, when he leaves. She always does. It's just how they say goodbye, a perfunctory but also genuinely caring statement, as though she were his grandmother. It makes him feel like he matters to someone, makes him feel good, on the days that he feels good.

On the days that he doesn't, when he's at his lowest, his most damaged, that's when he hears it, and he says it, and all he can think is that at least if she dies before he returns he'll never have to regret his last words to her.

Today's not his lowest day in the normal sense. It's not like that. It's worse, in some ways. He hears her words and he imagines them stronger, higher pitched, the way she used to sound. He imagines a life where they'd gotten to be together when she was young and still wanted him.

A life where it's him and Peggy, and Bucky's still there, and everything is great. A life where he didn't have to sacrifice all of his happiness for a little town in New York.

He wishes he'd never created the Howling Commandos, never ruined his life, and ended Bucky's, for a country that didn't need soldiers, not when they were willing to drop a fucking atomic bomb on innocent civilians. He wishes he hadn't fought for this future because he doesn't exactly approve of it.

He'd thought Tony was worth it all but even at his absolute best Tony's not even close.

And he knows he'd do it all over again, do it for Brooklyn if not for America, and the future, even if he knew how that'd turn out. But god damn it, he wishes he didn't have to.