He leans over the toilet, stands with one hand against the wall, holding himself up, and cries.
Cries bitter tears of guilt and self pity and loneliness and god damn it. He can't be doing this right now.
"Should I... go?"
He looks up and there's Tony leaning just barely into the room and he wants to say no, stay, please, but what right does he have, so he doesn't.
Tony disappears and Steve stands over the toilet, leans against the wall and breathes, deep, ragged, willing himself to calm down, to go catch him, to tell him to stay. But he just closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the wall and does nothing.
He can catch his breath right after crying. A perk of the serum no one would think to mention. But he still sinks to the floor, sits in front of the toilet with his knees up against his chest.
He can hear Tony in the kitchen, can hear the faucet running. He's not gone.
He sits there, hugging his knees, until Tony returns.
"I made you some tea," he says, sinking down next to him, leaning against him. God, he feels so good. Solid. Comforting.
Steve takes the mug, squints at it. "I don't have tea."
"I made hot water, then," Tony says, the corner of his mouth turning up.
They sit there like that for a few minutes, Steve holding the warm mug and leaning against Tony, who's leaning against him, and just... being there.
It's okay.
It feels good.
Tony's the first one to make any significant movement. And when he does, it's to reach over with two fingers and slide them over Steve's abs. They're – wet. Sticky. And Steve looks down and it strikes him as ridiculous, hilarious, that Tony is just casually wiping the cum off of his stomach. That he had forgotten it was even there.
He laughs at the absurdity of this situation soft, silent, shoulders shaking, and quickly it just turns into feeling good.
Tony smiles, kisses him on the corner of his mouth, and Steve's chest swells with joy. He can barely believe that Tony's here. With him.
"This is disgusting, by the way," Tony whispers. "You know, sitting on the floor of your bathroom. Naked."
"I clean it."
Tony grins, getting up. "Sure ya do."
Steve takes his hand, even though he doesn't need any help getting up. He'd forgotten how good that felt. Touching him. Casually.
Their hands remain together for the few steps to his bed.
"So I don't wanna ruin this," Tony says, jumping onto the bed, taking up as much space as his body possibly can. "But uh, you were just crying on the floor of your bathroom because we fooled around a little and I feel like it would make me a bad person not to at least ask about it."
"I wasn't on the floor," Steve says, instinctive, defensive.
Tony sighs. "Semantics. Avoiding the question. C'mon. I'm just trying to understand."
"I –" he's not sure what happened, this time. Why it was so bad. "I felt guilty."
"Why?"
He shrugs. "I always do."
"After you come?"
That catches him by surprise; is it really that obvious? Is it normal?
"Well," Tony says, like this is a completely unsurprising thing to have shared. "I guess that explains why you hate sex."
Steve frowns. "I don't hate sex."
"Okay, then, dislike, avoid, stop me when I find a word you like –"
"I'm just not in the mood all of the time," he says, a little too snappy, even as he knows that all he should feel right now is grateful. That doesn't stop him. "And it doesn't help that I know you'll make me feel even worse for saying that."
Tony looks like he's about to say something snarky and then he takes a second, deflates a little. "But you'd still tell me, right? You'd still – I mean, you wanted to do… what we just did, right? You would have told me if you didn't want to?"
"Yes, I wanted to," Steve says, and it really helps, to hear that concern. "I'm not talking about now, I'm talking about all those other times."
"Alright," Tony says, "okay, that's on me. I'll work on it."
Steve sits on the corner of the bed. "Thank you."
"This still doesn't answer the question of why you were crying."
Steve shrugs, looking down at his feet.
"I'm not trying to turn this into a thing," Tony says. "I just want to understand."
He shakes his head. "I didn't know if you actually wanted to get back together, or if you just wanted sex. And... I guess I never expected to see you again, and then you showed up, and –"
"Oh my god," Tony says, a note of actual surprise in his voice, and Steve turns around, quick, to see what's wrong. "I mean, holy shit, you were actually trying to break up with me?"
"Yes," he says, answering the question reflexively, not really understanding it. Why Tony's confused by that.
"You could have let me know."
"I did."
"Uh, yeah," Tony says, looking both amused and appalled. "In the middle of a sentence. That's not a real breakup. That's like, back off for a few days. If that."
"It's been two weeks."
"In which I have called you repeatedly, waited very patiently for you to call me, asked you to call me, and almost went to ask Peggy why the hell you weren't calling me. And well, at least now I know why you weren't calling me."
"You went to see Peggy?" He feels that in his gut.
"I said almost," Tony says. "This seemed like the more direct solution."
"Oh." Steve exhales. He shouldn't feel relieved. He shouldn't care. She can talk to whoever she wants to.
"So, are we good?"
They're – no, they're not. "Why were you such an ass at SHIELD?"
Tony shrugs. "We were doing a bit. Keeping our private lives private."
"I wasn't."
Tony raises his eyebrow, a hint of a smile in his eyes. "So what you're saying is that you actually do hate me."
Steve squares his shoulders. "I might." He sounds like a petulant child. It's harder to keep a straight face than he'd anticipated.
Tony grins, slowly, like he's trying not to show how much that amuses him, looking him up and down, just threatening him to crack.
"All right, Rogers," he says finally, drawing the word out, an obvious attempt to imitate himself from a few days ago. But it's just as amused and affectionate as it's trying to be harsh. He pushes Steve on the shoulder like he's trying to unseat him. "You wanna go?"
Steve shrugs his hand off, smiling with everything but his lips, determined not to give in that easy.
"No, come on," Tony says, still grinning. "You wanna fight? Let's fight."
It's so easy to overpower him, to pin him to the bed, and then Tony's laying there on his back, still struggling, breathing hard, and Steve's barely exerting any effort at all.
"If I had my suit, things would be a little different," Tony says, giving one last bit of effort before he gives up, smiling, panting just a bit. "You're lucky I just came or this would really be turning me on right now."
Steve grins and kisses him, lets go of Tony's hands and lowers himself onto his elbows so they can be closer and kisses him.
"You're not gonna crush me," Tony says, his hands on Steve's back, pulling him down further.
And Steve just… gives in. Trusts him.
"See?"
He shifts his weight off to the side so he's not really on him at all, wraps his arms around him and buries his face against Tony's neck and smiles.
They lay like that for a while, and it feels good to hold, to be held. To feel like an equal and still feel comforted, wanted, loved. He needed that. He needs that.
They drift apart, slowly, until they're just laying side by side, holding hands. Looking up at the ceiling.
"What now?" It's a broad question. He means – for them. For him. However it applies.
"We could get dressed," Tony says. "It'd make it harder for me to jump you."
Steve smiles. "Is that really a concern right now?"
"I'm forward thinking," Tony says. "Give it like twenty minutes."
Steve rolls his eyes.
"I didn't bring a change of clothes," Tony says. "I didn't think I'd be taking mine off."
"Bullshit," Steve says, with another lazy smile, rolling back to kiss him.
"Hey, you're the one who jumped me."
"You started it."
"How, by looking at you?" Tony rolls his eyes and nudges him with his chin. "C'mon. Up. T-shirt and boxers. I'll wash em before I give them back, if you want."
"You want to wear my underwear?"
"Your clean underwear, presumably," Tony says, swatting at his ass as he gets up. " I mean, not that they've touched anything I haven't already touched. Or licked. Or…"
"Okay, okay, fine," Steve says. He rummages through his drawers, imagining how each of the shirts would look on him. "Wait, what was coming after that last or?"
Tony grins. "Didn't have anything. Smelled, maybe?"
Steve wrinkles his nose and settles on a plain white t-shirt. "Forget I asked," he says, tossing the shirt and a pair of black boxer briefs onto his bed.
"I didn't say you smelled bad," Tony says. "I like the way you smell. Huge turn on."
He presses the boxer briefs against his face. "Smells like soap and flowers. Which isn't bad, I guess…"
"You want me to rub them on my balls first?" As soon as Steve says it he's horrified, thinks he went too far, that he got too comfortable, but Tony just grins, wide, like he's genuinely delighted.
"You're dirty, Rogers," he says. "I like it."
Steve smiles, hoping Tony can't see just how proud that makes him. Not being called dirty, specifically, just... the way Tony says it. The approval.
He pulls on his own clothes, sits back down as Tony gets up. The shirt looks good on him. A little too big, just barely, in a way that makes him look lean and cute.
Tony picks up his pants and pulls his cell phone out of the pocket. Squints at it for a moment and then he puts it back, drops the pants, and turns to squint at Steve. "Whatcha thinkin'?"
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, chin in his hand, and looks up at him. "Your arms look good in my shirt."
Tony frowns. "Just my arms?"
Steve smiles, shakes his head. Typical. "You should wear short sleeves more often."
"I roll them up sometimes."
"It's not the same."
It's a ridiculously mundane conversation to be having right now. He knows they both know that.
"Okay," Tony says, rolling his eyes and caressing Steve on the back of the head as he climbs back onto the bed. "So I'll just change my entire aesthetic for you."
Steve lays down next to him, and just… smiles. Couldn't stop smiling if he wanted to. "Thank you."
Tony's looking at him with one eye, the other one mostly obscured by the pillow, this lazy smile on his face.
Steve feels so… comfortable. Safe. Wanted.
He feels so lucky.
He puts his hand on Tony's hip, like they're slow dancing, and Tony places a hand on top of his.
"I missed you," Steve says, the words barely a whispered confession between them.
"Good." Tony flashes him just a second of a cocky little grin. And then he leans toward him until their lips are just touching, but doesn't quite kiss him.
"Don't ever do that to me again," he says, and the words are neutral but they're hot against Steve's mouth and they recoil with a sour sadness through his chest. "Don't cut me off without an explanation. I care too much to lose you like that."
And then Tony kisses him, saves him from needing to respond to that. Doesn't save him from the wave of shame that rips through him, shame and despair even as he knows that it's good, that Tony cares, that Tony wants him.
Tony kisses him so gently, their lips barely touching.
Tony kisses him with small little touches and slowly, gradually, that acid in the pit of his stomach goes away. He made a mistake. It's okay. It's fixed. Tony's here. They're together. That's what matters.
They alternate between kissing, and touching, and just… smiling. Being there. Together.
He likes this, the soft kisses, the light touches, the undivided attention. Like this more than cuddling while watching TV, more than making out, more than sex. There's a softer intimacy here, gentler, and the fact that he doesn't feel anything but comfortable with Tony's eyes on him makes him feel even more that they're meant to be together.
He loves watching Tony smile. At him, because of him.
"Let's go away," Tony says. "Just – you, and me, and some… island resort. Just get away from it all."
Steve smiles, and for a moment he wants that. He brushes a bit of Tony's hair off of his face and imagines that life.
"I've never felt this way about anyone before," Tony says.
He smiles, wide, that's a warm feeling spreading through his chest, that's exactly what he's always wanted to hear and – "That can't be true."
Tony frowns. "What?"
"You've been with a lot of other people. You must have felt this way about… someone." Probably multiple someones.
"I'm taking the fifth."
"What?"
"Amendment. You know, for someone who's all about America I'd expect you to have a little better grasp –"
"I don't care if you have."
"Obviously, you do."
"It doesn't bother me," Steve says, insists. "I know you've been with a lot of people who aren't me."
He waits as Tony mulls it over, a minute, two.
"I probably thought I did," Tony says. "But I know better now."
That's… not what he wanted to hear. "Just because you don't feel that way about them now doesn't mean you never did," he says.
And – love counts. Even if it doesn't last. Even if you don't have them with you anymore. Doesn't it?
Tony cocks his head. "You know, most people like that sort of… white lie."
Steve says, shakes off those thoughts. They don't matter. "So you have said that to other people."
"Okay, now I'm pleading the fifth."
Steve sighs. "Do you really think I'm gonna get jealous? Or are you just trying to get out of this discussion?"
Tony scrunches his face up in confirmation and gives him a condescending kiss on the forehead. "Trust me, it's not going anywhere good. This subject, I mean. Not, you know, my past transgressions, which shall regardless continue to remain nameless –"
"Okay," Steve says. "Some other time."
"Uh, no other time. Suffice to say that I love you a lot and now it's your turn to say something comparable, or cast me from your bed entirely."
Steve can't help smiling, because Tony's so cute when he gets like that, but he's still disappointed. He wants to talk about this, wants to think about this, about what it means to love someone and then have that love fade away, about how that happens, but maybe now's not the right time.
"I've never felt this way about anyone else," Steve says, because it counts, for him. He swallows. That sounds too declaratory, too self assured. And he could have, with Peggy. If they'd gotten the chance. "Or been in the position to –"
Tony presses his hand against Steve's face. "Shhh." He says, and it's clear that his entire palm over Steve's mouth is a stand in for the traditional one finger. "You had it right the first time."
"We're gonna make this work," he says. "Okay? Whatever it takes. And we're going to run away together. To a little island with white sand beaches and palm trees and someone to serve us little fruity drinks with little fruity drink umbrellas. And I can feel you shaking your head because I have my hand on your face, in case you've forgotten, and I'm very insulted. But I'm also a reasonable person and realize that you might just be struggling to breathe, so when I let go you're going to repeat back to me everything I just said in a legally binding agreement."
Steve wasn't exactly dying for air, but he still takes a moment to suck it in, to smile. Time for one kiss. Two. Three.
"We'll make this work," he says, feeling buoyed by the promise of that. "Whatever it takes."
Tony nods, squeezes his hand, and lets him have a whole twenty seconds to savor that before prompting, in a stage whisper, "fruity drink umbrellas."
"We're not running away," Steve whispers.
"No, of course not. Just for a few years."
"Good night, Tony."
"White sand beaches," Tony adds, and then he groans and gets up. "Fine, I'll turn the lights off, it's not like I'm the guest or anything –"
"I love you."
"Yeah, whatever," Tony says affectionately, flashing Steve his favorite smile before plunging them into darkness.