Chapter 15: Crazy For You

Steve slept through the take-out and the Law & Order reruns that followed: Chris Noth had given way to Benjamin Bratt several days ago. Tony nursed a single glass of scotch until Pepper went to bed, though he poured another as soon as she was gone. According to Steve's watch, it was ten o'clock. He wasn't drunk, not yet, but flirting heavily with the notion. Will they ('they' being Tony and a 16-year single-malt) or won't they? It was an open question, one he figured he'd decide sometime during the current two fingers.

One finger down, and he was still on the fence, though the scotch was making a persuasive argument. He could wake Steve up, give him a last dose of painkillers, then get politely plastered and sleep it off on the couch. No one would ever know. Decision made, Tony needed a suitable solo drinking activity, and he had one in mind. If he was going to make a mess of himself, he might as well do it properly. He started to fill his glass again, then decided, fuck it, and took the bottle. Scotch in hand, he marched back to the studio. He saluted the portrait as he blew in, but the portrait wasn't what he'd come to see. Where had Steve stashed that fucking bag? And he had stashed it, crammed it out of sight in the guestroom closet behind an air purifier and a white noise machine. Didn't matter, Steve could have hidden it on the far side of the moon, and Tony would still have tracked it down. He was a sniffer dog in search of emotional hazards, and the duffel bag smelled like a landmine. Really, it was amazing he'd resisted it for this long.

He tossed it to the center of the room, then plopped down cross legged beside it, tugging open the zipper. The papers inside were more crumpled than ever, and he unrepentantly dumped the mess onto the floor in a tumble of half-glimpsed images of himself. And himself. And himself. It reminded him of those back to back mirrors in dressing rooms, the ones where his reflection repeated ad infinitum.

One after another, he flattened the drawings. Most went into what he quickly deemed the innocuous study pile: rehearsal drawings of his eyes, his mouth, his chin, his ear. The majority were feminine, but there were plenty of masculine studies, too. Then there was the second pile, the less innocuous stuff (Did that make it 'nocuous'? Was that a word?). These drawings still qualified in the study category, but featured his naked breasts framing the arc reactor, his thighs, his curvaceous rear end. Steve certainly had been paying close attention, hadn't he? Attention bordering on obsession, in Tony's estimation, and Tony was flattered and unmanned by it all at once.

Last, but certainly not least, was the pile of total weirdness, the drawings that did not in any way, shape, or form relate to Tony's portrait or to reality. There was a drawing of Tony as the Roman hermaphrodite from the Louvre. Another sketch, drawn as an illustration from a medieval manuscript, styled Tony as both Adam and Eve, with a serpent twisted around an apple tree. Still another featured Tony in a blue suit and striped socks, his face obscured, Magritte-style, by a bottle labeled 'DRINK ME.' Another sketch featured the same blue suited Tony chasing a white rabbit. And, of course, there was masculine Tony in his black satin.

There were other Tonys, too, but Femme Fatale Tony was undisputed queen of the weird pile. Featured across at least a dozen sketches, she slunk and prowled and sprawled across the pages, usually beside everyday objects in a state of meltdown, clocks and lamps and water glasses and, most intriguing, beside another woman in lingerie, though the second woman's face was too runny to identify.

Tony stood up in the middle of the papers, turning a slow 360 to survey the full spectrum of himself as he was in Steve's how Steve currently saw him. The portrait was a polite fiction, just a sanitized version of Steve's psyche, the version for tourists. Only Tony had now abandoned the tour bus. He'd wandered into the part of town occupied by the full time residents, the grittier borough with the wig shops and the insane asylum, and was realizing too late he should have stayed with the group, viewed the approved local color through the glass because this—he eyed a femme Tony kissing some molten pillar of man he strongly suspected was gooey Steve—this was fucking him up.

Tony Stark wearing a woman's face as a mask, even if the image was seven feet long and four feet high, was one thing. It suggested there was a One, True Tony under there somewhere beneath the feminine facade. But the rest of these characters? All fully realized in their own private worlds? They hinted at a multiplicity of equally authentic Tonys parading around somewhere.

He didn't need these images in his head; he didn't want to consider the possibilities they represented. He had picked an identity already, damn it, and it was Anthony Edward Stark. Iron Man. CEO of Stark Industries. Howard's boy. Wearer of Three Piece Suits. Owner of Yacht. End of Sentence.

Right?

Trouble was, as soon as he'd had the opportunity, he had also picked a different identity altogether. On Halloween night, he'd elected to trade his dick for a pussy, and he had fucking liked it. Of course, he'd also been drunk on alien hooch and horny at the time, so it was probably just a stupid one-off that meant absolutely nothing.

Probably.

Except that if you got in the Delorean and turned back the dial on the flux-capacitor just a couple of years, you'd find Tony exploding another giant hole in his identity: Tony Stark, inveterate pussy hound, had outed himself as bisexual in no less a forum than the motherfucking New York Times Saturday Profile. But that wasn't the half of it. He had then proceeded to publicly court and marry another man, and not just any man, but Steve Rogers, aka Captain America. It was a blow for marriage equality on the grandest scale, a rainbow atom bomb. The gay community had gone ape-shit. The conservative community had gone ape-shittier. Tony Stark was hailed and denigrated as the queer Oppenheimer.

The think pieces arrived in an ink tsunami. Like Steve's pile of drawings, the articles presented Tony with a million fun house mirrors in which to view his distorted reflection, if he were dumb enough to look. He was dumb enough alright, and it was actually worse than he'd expected. For once, opinion on both sides of the aisle was unanimous: Tony Stark is Not the Hero You Think.

On the right, he was predictably pilloried as an immoral pervert who's louche and liberal Hollywood lifestyle had corrupted Captain America. And if Steve Rogers' red, white, and blue blood could be turned pink, what hope was there for any of us? Might as well replace Old Glory with the pride flag and establish the At-Least-I-Think-I'm-a-Boy Scouts.

On the left, Tony's very public private history was held up as the worst kind of hypocrisy: here was an unrepentant misogynist and war monger, now trying to take up the mantle of LGBTQ icon. No more a Super Queer-o (briefly a popular t-shirt slogan) than Peter Thiel or Lady Lindsey Graham, Tony was just another self-loathing pillar of the conservative corporatist establishment and the military-industrial complex, and he couldn't be allowed to rainbow wash his personal history or business interests.

On and on it went. All of it was stingingly true; all of it was infuriatingly false. He pretended he didn't care, but was far too vain to actually shrug it off. After reading a particularly scathing feature in The New Yorker, he'd vowed not to die for at least fifteen years so his obit wouldn't be a straight hit piece. How many children's hospitals would he have to build in the interim for 'philanthropist' to be his top line epitaph instead of, say, 'raging asshole'?

Steve had been as pissed during the onslaught as Tony had ever seen him. There was an unanimous opinion about him, too: Victim of the Modern Age. Sweet and unsophisticated, 1940s Cro-Magnon Steve Rogers had been taken for a ride, hopelessly beguiled by the predatory Tony. ("But I'm the one who asked you out, Tony! I'm the one that bought the ring!" Steve protested endlessly. "No one cares, Steve. Doesn't fit the narrative," Tony endlessly replied.) What else could possibly explain their relationship? Steve was nice (another thing everyone agreed on), and Tony was not.

Steve, bless him, wanted to Do Something. He wanted to go full media blitz: blab on the talk shows, issue the press releases, maybe have a heart-to-heart with Terry Gross or Maron. Every new piece either outright lied about him ("This one calls me a 'farm boy'! Where do they think I'm from? The rural part of Brooklyn?") or grossly mischaracterized some facet of his life ("The Atlantic's cover story this month is 'Steve Rogers: Metaphorical Child Bride.' What does that even mean, Tony? Who are these people?"), and he wanted to defend their collective honor. But Tony talked him down from the media ledge. Taking a stand would feed the trolls, and besides, Tony wasn't confident he himself had enough honor to defend.

And then it was over. The ravening beast of societal outrage moved on to fresher meat. Except for the few dedicatedly bitter on Twitter who still spit ones and zeros whenever Tony's name was mentioned, no one bothered about it anymore.

But then no one of consequence had ever been bothered about it. Tony Stark wasn't an elected official; the groupthink opinion of the terminally online didn't matter. At the end of the day, he was still a billionaire and a valuable government contractor. His suits were still gray, his money was still green, and, though he spent a few months on tiptoe, he continued to walk the halls of power with the rest of the straight enough white men.

But having Captain America's dick in your ass was one thing. Having Captain America's dick in your pussy was something else entirely. And if anyone found out about that second part, Tony would definitely,definitelybe out of the club. He might wear the greyest grey suit in all of Christendom, but if Congressman Hayseed ever caught a whiff of the transgender or the non-binary or the genderfluid or the what-the-fuck-ever on Tony, life as Tony knew it would come to an end. He wouldn't get a tee time with General Rust Belt. Senator Flyover on Ways and Means wouldn't invite him for lunch…Tony let himself play it all out for the first time and felt like he might actually throw up. The goddamn second wave feminists were right: our bodies, ourselves, at least publicly. His bedroom was a sociopolitical battleground. He'd thought of this as personally embarrassing, but no, this was personally catastrophic. Barton was right, but forget about the black sites. He needed to disappear yesterday just to keep his world intact…

"Tony?"

Tony's chin snapped up; Steve was in the doorway, looking bleary and . The 'd forgotten to give Steve the pills before he started rolling tape on this shit show, and now everything was about to get even shittier.

"I overdid it this afternoon," Steve said unhappily. "I can't sleep. I might need a rescue dose if—" He cut himself off mid-sentence, his brain finally catching up to the scene: Tony, still in Howard's dressing gown, the scotch bottle on the floor, the drift of papers. "Oh,no," he groaned, scrubbing at his face, "I can't do this right now. Pepper warned me. I'm too tired for this—"

"Steve—" Tony began, stepping out of the ring of pages. Containing Steve Rogers was goal one. If he could contain Steve, then he could start sorting out his new identity crisis.

"Damn it, Tony, are you drunk?" Steve sounded frustrated and tired, someone dealing with the same old problem for the umpteenth time. And the problem, in this case, was Tony, which hurt. But maybe the situation wasn't irredeemable.

"Not really," Tony said truthfully, "I'd planned to be, but I got sidetracked. You caught me in time." That would probably mollify him, and then Tony could ease him back to bed…

"Sidetracked? You planned to be, but you got sidetracked?" Steve said, not mollified in the slightest. "That doesn't make me feel any better." He snatched up a handful of papers, holding them under Tony's nose. "You just couldn't leave it alone, could you?"

"Of course I couldn't leave it alone, Steve. Obviously," Tony agreed, the heat starting to creep into his own voice. It was true, too; he couldn't. He didn't even think it was fair for Steve to be angry about it, not really. It was like being angry at a cat for chowing down on songbirds: undesirable, but in character.

"Do you have no concept of personal privacy, Tony?" Steve asked hotly. "These were for me; they weren't for you. You knew that. I didn't offer to show them to you."

"You never said—"

"Because it wouldn't have done any good; you said it yourself!" Steve snapped, tossing his handful drawings back at Tony's feet. "And I knew, I knew, I'd be setting myself up to be angry that you ignored me on top of everything else!" Steve gathered himself after the outburst, then said more quietly, "I tried to let you in, you know. I let you sit for the portrait, but I knew this would happen. I knew because you always push right past any reasonable boundary. Why, Tony? Why'd you do it?"

"Why didn't you just show them to me?" Tony shot back.

"Really?" Steve barked. He waved a hand meant to encompass the whole sloppy scene: the robed Tony, the drawings, the booze, "Is any of this making you happy? Is any of this good for you? I was trying to protect you, you—" Steve snapped his teeth shut on the insult with a grimace.

Tony smelled blood in the water. "You, you—" he mocked, "You what? Go ahead, Steve. We both know how much you like to insult my intelligence."

"You jackass! You complete and total jackass!" Steve concluded bitterly. "Congratulations! You made me stoop to name calling! Hope it was worth it. And now I have to go to bed. I can't—"

As Steve started to leave, Tony snatched up his own handful of papers, a wad of femme fatales. "Oh no, you don't! Tell me about these," he insisted. They'd started now, might as well finish.

"What about them?" Steve said, exhausted. "We've been through this. They're you. It's all you."

"This isn't me."

"Of course she is, Tony! She's…"

Tony's eyebrows shot up, "She?"

"Dammit," Steve cursed, mad at both of them about the mistake. "I told you. I'm too tired for this," Steve groaned.

"Tell. me. about. her." Tony brandished the papers like a smoking gun.

"I dream about her, alright?" Steve bit back, "She is literally my dream girl! That what you want to hear? And she is you, whatever you want to say about it. She's funny, and sexy, and smart. And that's you," Steve jabbed a finger at Tony for emphasis. "The only difference is that she lets me want her. She wants me to want her."

"I want you to want me," Tony insisted.

"No," Steve shook his head, "you say you do, but you don't. Not really. You make it impossible, Tony. You have too many conditions. It isn't enough that I say the right things, that I try to protect your feelings, because you go digging in locked boxes for blades, and then blame me for the cuts. I don't know what to do with you anymore. You're too full of self-loathing to let me love you at all."

"That isn't true," Tony said fervently.

"Then why is it that, before this afternoon, all I've seen of you since I've been back is your damn ankles? Meanwhile, I'm undressed half the time with my dick in your mouth."

"I'm sorry," Tony said, voice dripping with sarcasm, "I seem to have misunderstood. So, this morning, when said dick was in said mouth, and you were writhing and moaning my name—You remember that, right?—that was bad."

"It wasn't bad, Tony, but would it kill you to show a little skin? Would it kill you for me to touch you? I understand it's complicated, but I feel like…I don't know. Like a call girl or something."

"In my experience, the call girls are usually the ones giving the blow jobs, Steve."

"You know what I mean. It makes me feel lonely. It makes me feel like you don't trust me enough to let anything slip. There's no real intimacy—"

"Christ! I feel like I'm losing my mind!" When had Tony escalated to yelling? He felt increasingly out of control, but he couldn't stop. "Weren't you the one who said that it was simpler for me to keep my clothes on? Have I had a stroke or something?"

"I said it was simpler. I didn't say it was better. I didn't say I liked it!" Now they were both yelling. "And, at the time, I was trying to understand why a man I haven't seen in something as skimpy as boxer shorts was volunteering to sit for a nude portrait. You do see why I might be confused by that, right? Hell, I still don't get it!"

"I did it for you! I figured you'd like it! You wanted to look at me naked, so I gave you a golden opportunity! And you know what? It sucked. You want to talk about a lack of intimacy? I felt like a fruit bowl. It was like I wasn't even there."

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, "You are beyond belief. You don't hit on the model, Tony! It's the cardinal rule of life drawing. You don't make the model uncomfortable. If you wanted me to wolf whistle, you should have taken your clothes off in the bedroom. But I don't think that is what you wanted because I don't think you know what you want. Do you know what you want?"

"I—" Tony's mouth snapped shut. The question drew him up god. It was true. He didn't. He didn't know what he wanted, not really. That was it, wasn't it? That was the fundamental problem. Sure, there were some things he knew: he knew he wanted his goddamn life back, and he knew who he had to be in order to get it. He needed to be The One, True Tony Stark. That was fine by him. Tony Stark ruled. Everybody wanted to be Tony Stark; even he wanted to be Tony Stark.

But damn it, just like Pepper's wardrobe (Damn you, Pepper, you red-pill dispensing bitch), that persona carried serious weight. He felt it now, could see it clearly as he never had before. In a lot of ways, Tony Stark was just another Iron Man suit: powerful, flashy, fun as all get-out, but ultimately claustrophobic. And so, on Halloween night, he'd tried to take him off.

The question was, who did he want to be when he took off Tony Stark? He didn't know. Who did he want to be right this second, when being the real Tony Stark wasn't even an option?

"Tony," Steve said, all the heat drained from his voice, "sweetheart, come over here. You're crying."

Steve was right. Tears were rolling down Tony's cheeks, dripping onto the stack of drawings in his hand. Her. Tony thought sadly, watching a teardrop run smearily across Femme Tony's face. He wanted to be her, someone free of the rules bounding his existence. Or at least, he had wanted to be her, right up until Steve's initial rejection.

He raised his eyes from the drawing to Steve's handsome, haggard face where the lines between his brows were punched in deep. Steve's husband was another thing he wanted to be. He even had physical proof of that desire: one winter morning, a few months after the wedding, Tony had gone to the Manhattan Social Security office and legally changed his last name to 'Rogers.' He was still Tony Stark professionally, but not within the privacy of his wallet or his heart.

Abruptly, Tony let his handful of drawings fall to the floor, then reached for the tie of his robe. Steve held out a hand to stop him, but Tony stepped out of reach, right into the pile of papers. He let the dressing gown drop off his shoulders, collapsing in a silken heap around his feet. Steve waded into the papers after him, reaching for him, but Tony retreated, dancing just past the edge of Steve's fingertips.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked, alarmed. He swept the robe up off the floor with his good hand, holding it out to Tony like a life preserver. Tony snatched it and threw it across the room.

"Look at me, god damn it!" Tony wailed; the crying was edging into hysteria. "You asked me what I want, Steve. I want you to want me. It's literally all I want. It's all I've wanted the whole fucking time, But is this me? Is it? I don't know anymore."

"Okay," Steve said, like he was trying to calm a spooked horse, "take a deep breath. Calm down—"

"Don't tell me to calm down!" Tony couldn't believe the vehemence with which he delivered that old chestnut, like a good actress in a bad play. Still, the utter ridiculousness of the line was enough to make him take a breath.

"Alright," Steve said evenly, staking his claim to the floor in the pause, "alright. Now listen. I want you to think about it a different way: is this me?" He gestured at the shoulder immobilizer, "One arm and a limp dick? Is this me?" He paused, but Tony couldn't answer, so Steve answered himself. "You're getting too in your head about it, Tony. Of course it's me. This is flesh and blood. It's physical reality. And you know what? It's not how I picture myself. It isn't how I like to be seen, particularly by you. Did you know that? I hate being physically vulnerable. Still, I haven't shut you out because I'm not my own ideal. Why would I punish myself like that? I love you, Tony. I love being with you. And as long as you're offering to take me as I am, I'm going to let you."

Steve inched towards Tony again, and Tony remained still through sheer force of will, letting Steve make the catch even as the adrenaline coursing through his veins screamed at him to keep running.

"And this, Tony?" Steve said, slipping his arm around Tony's naked back, pulling Tony's head against his good shoulder. "This is you. Flesh and blood. Physical reality. And maybe you don't like yourself much right now. That's alright. That's life sometimes. But you have to stop punishing yourself for it, for God's sake. And please, please, stop punishing me. Let me love you a little. I promise you deserve it. I deserve it, too."

At first, Tony was stiff in the embrace, but he was also out of fight, and Steve felt good, solid and familiar, so he wrapped his arms around Steve's waist and shut his eyes, tears leaking hot from under his lashes.

He'd been so stupid. For weeks, he'd convinced himself that with the right clothes and hair and email account, he could waltz back into normalcy. Clothes maketh the man, and The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Plain, and all that bullshit. But there were no real shortcuts to identity.

He now understood he'd kept things artificially simple since Steve had come home. Body? What body? Until that afternoon, he'd been half-pretending he didn't have one. Dressing and undressing and perfunctory showering were as much contact as he'd had with his physical self in recent weeks. His sexual energies had found a convenient off-ramp in the safely non-reciperical Steve. But seeing his fleshy self writ large on that canvas had blown his carefully constructed shell to bits. He could dress like Tony Stark, sound like him on the phone, but unless he could make his body somehow feel like his own, he wasn't whole.

Just the concept of reestablishing some psychological connection with his body was exhausting. His evening peek in that wing of his psyche had revealed all the same problems he'd had before: the roof still leaked; the foundation was still riddled with cracks. To top it off, he didn't know any contractors, and so far, he'd been shit at DIY.

"I thought I'd figured it all out, Steve," Tony whispered. "I felt better. Like myself." He pressed closer to Steve's reassuring heat, feeling cold in the air conditioning. "And now I'm worse than ever. I'm such an idiot."

"Don't say that. You got shook up some today, but that was always coming. You'll feel better tomorrow. But, uh—" Steve said, his voice very soft, "I think…that is…" And Tony realized that he was very carefully trying to disentangle himself from Tony's embrace. Tony started to withdraw his arms, afraid that he'd hurt Steve's shoulder somehow, when the erection grazed his hip. They both looked down at the contact.

"Oh my god," Tony snorted, struck by the absurdity of it. "Steve, you're truly a master of comedic timing." It was the first full hard-on Steve had since he'd come back. Naturally it had to be now, with everyone upset and exhausted.

"I'm sorry, Tony," Steve said, still trying to pull away, "You're just—maybe put the robe back on, huh?"

"It's fine, Steve," he sighed, mopping away tears with the back of his hand. "It's fine."

And, strangely, it was. Maybe it was that Tony was still a little drunk. Maybe it was Steve's inspirational speech about accepting physical reality. Or maybe Tony was just so emotionally wrung out he couldn't be upset anymore, but it was fine. Honestly, Tony thought, it was such a nice erection, it seemed a shame to waste it. In a few minutes, they'd flood Steve's system with morphine again, making another one unlikely in the short term. And hadn't Tony just claimed to want Steve's desire? Wasn't that about the only thing he knew he wanted? He didn't know how he'd feel about it afterwards, but maybe they should just go ahead and have sex, just as he was, existential crisis and all. He couldn't feel worse than he did now, and possibly he'd feel better. It might be a relief to let that particular shoe drop. At least he'd know.

"How's your pain?" Tony asked, subsiding back against Steve's chest, replacing his arms around Steve's waist. The erection remained warm and insistent between them.

"It's—it hurts," Steve said carefully, sensing the shifting currents.

"But it hurts so bad you need morphine right now, or five minutes ago, or...?" Tony's hand drifted away from Steve's waist towards Steve's groin, going slowly enough to telegraph his intention.

"Whatever you're thinking, I have a hard time imagining it's a good idea," Steve said softly.

"Why? We've just had a dogfight in the spare bedroom. You've actually got a hard-on." His hand, having reached its destination, stroked Steve firmly through the fabric of his lounge pants, making Steve hiss. "Seems like we've got the necessary ingredients for makeup sex. How's the pain, Steve?" Tony reiterated, still stroking. "You never said."

"I suspect," Steve said, wavering, "that I'll live for ten minutes or so, but—"

Tony eased his hand under Steve's waistband. Underwear never had made a reappearance in Steve's wardrobe, so Tony's palm met immediately with the firm heat. It was delicious to touch. All the soft or half-hard oral sex they'd been having had been nice, but Tony had still missed Steve's erection. Something about the juxtaposition of the hard and the soft was craveable. He craved it now, wanted it with an intense flush of lust. It was an incredible and bizarre relief: for the time being, maybe only for the next few minutes, his desire was so strong it banished his identity crisis to the corner. He'd made up his mind: he wanted Steve Rogers, and by god, he was going to have him.

"Hey," Steve said, quiet but insistent, "I need to know exactly what's about to happen here."

"I'm going to let you love me," Tony whispered, lips to Steve's ear. "That's what you asked for, right? And it's the one thing I know I want." Tony huffed an ironic little laugh out his nose, "That's right, Steve. Don't try to adjust your set. For once in our miserable lives, we're both going to get what we want."

With one hand still around Steve's erection, he slid the other around Steve's neck, pulling him into a deep, soft kiss. When Tony ultimately drew away, Steve tried to follow, but Tony put a hand against his chest. "Not you. You stay."

"Stay? Stay where?"

"I want you to stand there and watch me walk away."

Deliberately, Tony turned on one small heel and began a slow strut across the room towards the bed. He felt Steve's eyes on him every single step. Channeling himself from the night of Halloween, he added a sway to his walk, and just like before, he could sense a dropped jaw somewhere behind him. He was too anxious for it to feel fun, but hell, he was just pleased he'd managed to make his body move in a fluidly sexual way. He'd halfway expected to move like a mannequin, his nerves were strung so tight. When he reached the bed, he looked back over his soft, round shoulder at Steve. Again, Steve made to follow, but Tony shook his head.

"Just look, Steve. I want to watch you look."

Steve swallowed, desire naked on his face. Tony tried to take in the sensation; he definitely didn't feel like a geometry problem anymore. There was nothing academic in Steve's eyes now, only raw wanting, and it was startling, but only because the look was so familiar while Tony himself felt so foreign.

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked Steve in the eyes as he spread his legs wide and then pulled up his knees, heels resting on the top of the mattress in a frankly pornographic display of his soft inner thighs and everything in between.

"Tony?" Steve asked huskily, and Tony understood it was Steve's plea to come closer. His name on Steve's lips did something to Tony, turned something on, lit something up; Steve wanted to touch him, and suddenly Tony wanted to be touched. In a move so brazen it shocked even Tony, he licked his fingers and used their wet tips to spread his labia under Steve's disbelieving gaze. Tony knew what he could see: soft curls of dark pubic hair and dusky pink lips framing Tony's slick opening.

"Come on," Tony said, inviting him over with a little lift of the chin.

At Tony's direction, Steve drifted towards the bed like a man under a spell. When he was standing before Tony's spread legs and close enough to touch, Tony dropped the pose and sat up to help him take off his pants.

"Are we about to have sex? I mean, sex sex?" Steve asked, stepping from the puddle of fabric.

"With a Capital 'S,'" Tony confirmed, running his adoring hands over Steve's ass and thighs.

"And this is a good idea?"

"We'll have to be careful, but we can be. I'm going to sit on the edge of the mattress, and you're going to stay standing up. There won't be any weight on you, and nothing should touch your shoulder."

"I'm not worried about me, Tony. I'm worried about you."

"That makes two of us," Tony admitted. But if Steve needed convincing, Tony would convince him. He got onto his knees on top of the mattress so his face was even with Steve's and kissed him, trying to convey with lips and tongue and teeth just how much he wanted him. Reaching between them, Tony took Steve's cock, already leaking precum, and rubbed it slowly against his clit. Steve broke away with a moan, looking down between their bodies at the junction.

"Listen, we'll go slow," Tony promised breathlessly, continuing the languorous rubbing of Steve's cock against his own body, "And I reserve the right to blue ball you at any time, but Steve, right now, I want you on the cellular level."

Steve didn't argue this time, only nodded, wrenching his eyes back up to Tony's face, "Okay. But you've got to help me take this off," he said, nodding towards the shoulder immobilizer. "I want to take off my shirt."

"That's a terrible idea," Tony said, "and you know it."

"Yeah," Steve agreed with a dry smile, "but I want to do it anyway. We only get to do this once, and I feel like a jerk with just a shirt and no pants."

"You'll really feel like a jerk if you get hurt, though," Tony said, but he was already reaching towards the sling's buckles.

"I'll take my chances," Steve grunted as Tony freed his arm.

"If anything happens, you get to explain it to Bruce." Tony's hands moved to the hem of the t-shirt. Working together, they peeled it off as carefully as they could.

"Won't that be fun," Steve said with a wince as the bad arm came out of the sleeve.

And then, for the first time in weeks, they found themselves both naked in the same geographic location. Steve's bandage was a hulking white bulk across his shoulder, and he held the arm beneath it gingerly against his torso. His blond beard, if you could even call it that, was a scraggly mess of overgrown stubble, and his slept-in hair stuck up like a haystack. He was, in Tony's estimation, total perfection, God's gift to anyone with a pulse.

"Listen," Tony said, smiling up at him. He raked his fingernails lightly up and down Steve's flanks. "Pepper says it's still going to hurt, and there's going to be some blood."

Seve smiled back, shivering a little under the feathery touch. "Oh, I hurt already," Steve said wryly. "Will the blood be yours, mine, or ours?"

"Just mine. Let's try to keep the casualties to a minimum. You pop another staple, and Bruce is going to blow a gasket."

Then with a deep breath, Tony lay back on the bed. He scooted his ass all the way up to the extreme edge of the mattress. Another deep breath, and he spread his thighs so Steve could step between them. Frighteningly exposed, he shut his eyes, but that was actually scarier, so he opened them again and propped himself half up on his elbows.

Steve's erection was just inches away from Tony's pussy. The sight of their bodies so close made Tony's stomach flip. He felt completely overwhelmed, sick with desire and dread. This was definitely going to hurt, but he couldn't tell how, whether just physically or also psychologically, and he didn't know how much. It didn't matter, he still wanted it.

Hooking a leg very around Steve's waist, he used a heel in the small of Steve's back to nudge him forward the last little distance until Steve's cock pressed gently against his slick opening. Reaching between them, Tony wrapped his fingers around Steve's shaft and rubbed the blunt head up and down, teasing at the wet slit, until Steve's cock was slippery with fluid, and they were both desperate.

Tony ached everywhere: his breasts, his thighs, his pussy. The pain was luscious; it made him writhe his hips against the bed in delectable agony, but he wanted more. On some primal level, he wanted the pain to fill him up and then consume him. He couldn't wait anymore, but he was still terrified. Total dysphoric freak out during penetration seemed entirely possible.

"Steve," Tony said, "just go slow, huh?" It was as much an admission of his fear as he was allowed under his coolness quotient. Still, Steve seemed to hear Tony's unspoken doubts.

"You tell me," Steve said, trying to get hold of his breathing, "if we should stop. We'll stop whenever you want. We can stop right now."

"No," Tony said, wrapping both legs around Steve's waist, "we can't." He dug his heels into Steve's back, urging him forward. With a hand on Steve's shaft, Tony directed the tip of Steve's cock to his opening. He was mesmerized by the point of contact. When he looked up at Steve's face, he saw Steve was staring at it, too. They watched together as Steve slowly pushed in. Other than orgasm, it was the most satisfying physical experience of Tony's life. It was everything Tony wanted, an exquisite joining of hard heat and soft heat that flooded his pleasure pathways with endorphins. Tony glanced at Steve's expression of open-mouthed delight, and Tony could almost feel the penetration from the other side, too, how the sensitive head of Tony's own cock would feel as it slid into that slick, tight space.

Then the fantasy-doubled pleasure fragmented, and the pain hit him. There was a terrible burning sensation as tissues stretched to their breaking point and then past it. His thighs jerked and he collapsed all the way onto his back; he didn't want to watch, not anymore. He screwed his eyes tight shut against the pain and sucked air between his gritted teeth; something inside him was tearing raggedly.

"Tony?" Steve asked urgently. He'd gone completely still. "Tony, tell me what to do."

"Don't stop," Tony said, grimacing. Stopping, it seemed, didn't help. The burning, tearing sensation continued unabated. "Just keep going until you're all the way in."

"But—"

"Just goddamn do it, Steve!" Tony snarled. He heard Steve's mouth literally snap shut, the teeth clicking closed over some sweet, totally useless protest. Steve resumed pushing at the pace of a geriatric snail; it still felt like Tony's insides were being scoured with an acid-soaked Brillo pad. He clambered awkwardly up to sitting and grabbed Steve by the ass. "Nope," he said tightly, "nope! This isn't working for me. We're going fast and all at once. Ready? One, two—"

Steve's eyes went wide.

"—Three." Tony rammed their hips together, impaling himself on Steve's cock. "Fuck!" he , his nerve endings mistake. The pain was searing; his vagina felt hot and raw, like a knee with all the skin scraped off, only somehow, internal. "Fuuuuuck. Oh my god," he muttered in muted agony, and closed his eyes again. He moved his hands from Steve's ass to Steve's waist, and let his forehead drop against Steve's chest as the pain swamped him.

"Oh, Tony," Steve said, distressed, rubbing a hand over Tony's back. He was breathing heavily and obviously trying to stay very, very still. "That…that wasn't smart."

"No, it wasn't," Tony gasped. For a terrible minute, all he could do was sit and burn as his eyes watered, but then the pain did begin to ebb. It still hurt, but not as much: the feeling of active tearing was gone at least, probably because there was nothing left to tear, and while there was still a steady burn, it declined from third degree to second.

Forehead still pressed to Steve's chest, he cracked open his eyes. He blinked away the film of tears and could see…Holy shit. Steve's cock was stuffed all the way in his wet pussy. It was unbelievable. It was ridiculous. Impossible. Fucking fantastic. All at once, a new wave of lust hit his system, pulsing in his groin, filling his ears with a white electric buzz. And while he technically hurt exactly as much as he had a minute ago, he suddenly didn't care. The uncomfortable stretching, burning sensation inside his body took on a new dimension: it wasn't just pain anymore; it was also fulfillment. He sighed with deep satisfaction, his body slumping as a second round of endorphins flooded his brain, making him weirdly tired and horny all at once. He eased himself back down to the mattress and gazed up at Steve.

"Hi," he said, almost dreamily, "I'm back. Glad to see you're still here."

"Hi, yourself," Steve said uncertainly. "Are you alright?"

"Physically or psychologically?" Tony asked, fractionally shifting his hips as he watched Steve's face. Even that tiny movement made Steve swallow hard, but Steve himself still didn't move a muscle. What a good boy.

"Both," Steve said, when he'd sufficiently recovered.

"Well," Tony said speculatively, shifting his hips again, this time in a slow roll, "it burns like the worst case of the clap you've ever had. And psychologically, it is a total mindfuck. Have you seen this, by the way? I mean, really seen it? Please take a moment to appreciate it." He slid a hand down his soft stomach, and Steve's eyes followed it down to the place the two of them were joined.

"Huh," Steve said, the sound catching at the back of his throat. With an obvious effort, he ripped his eyes back up to Tony's face, barely even glancing at Tony's tits along the way. What a very good boy indeed. "That, uh," he said, huskily, "that all sounds bad."

"It does," Tony agreed, "and yet…" he rolled his hips again, luxuriously this time, making Steve moan pitifully; Tony smiled. "And yet, I find I like it. You can move now, by the way."

"Really?" Steve sounded like he'd just received the only gift he'd ever truly wanted, but was afraid it might actually be for someone else.

Tony laughed, "I mean, don't pound me, but…"

"Yeah," Steve snorted, "right." He gave an experimental rock of his pelvis, and his face lit with pleasure. "You'll be lucky," he panted, starting to move gingerly, but in earnest, "if I remain upright for the next five minutes."

"The pain is bad?" Tony asked.

"The pain is not great. But that's," Steve panted, "not the primary problem. The primary problem is that this is just…" he trailed off.

"Face-meltingly good?"

"Right."

They were moving together, gently but purposefully, watching one another closely. It was a study in contradictions: painful, but pleasurable, uncanny, but sweet. After several minutes of careful, concentrated effort, Tony could tell from Steve's breathing that he was close.

"You should go ahead when you get there, Steve," Tony assured him.

"What about you?" Steve asked, frowning.

"Never going to happen," Tony shook his head, "not this time."

"You don't even want to try?"

Tony sighed, "Not really. I mean, I like this, Steve, but it hurts, and I'm tired. I honestly don't think I've got it in me right now."

"Alright," Steve agreed, "but this is it, Tony. This is the last time you get to beg off. From here on out, I get to make an attempt."

"From here on out," Tony agreed, making it a problem for another day.

He wrapped his legs around Steve's waist, pulling him in tighter as they both started to move a little faster and a little harder. Steve's eyes shut a minute later, and he braced himself with a hand on the mattress, his thrusts coming to a near halt as he came with a low moan. Tony kept his legs around Steve through the climax, waiting out the last involuntary twitches of Steve's hips before letting his legs drop so Steve could pull out. They both groaned as he did, the sensation abruptly too much for both of them.

Even without an orgasm, Tony felt more than finished, completely wrung out. As his desire faded in the face of his exhaustion, the burning, throbbing pain was back, making him more tired than ever. He stared up at the green swag of the canopy, wishing he could just roll over and go to sleep.

"Tony?" Steve asked, sitting down heavily beside Tony, compressing the mattress, "you okay?" Steve's fingers, feather light, caressed Tony's collarbone.

"I'm okay," Tony assured him, sitting up with a yawn and a wince. "How's the mess?"

"Not too bad. About like last time. Nothing really, if you're expecting it."

Tony surveyed the damage, and Steve was right. They were both bloody, streaky along the inside of their thighs, but it was hardly a crime scene.

"Show's over, let's go get cleaned up," Tony said, then stood and hauled Steve back to his feet, too. "You wanna dress?" Tony asked, retrieving his robe from the floor and shrugging it on.

"Not really," Steve said, heaving a big sigh. "I'd sure like to have something to take the edge off before I wrestle my arm back in the sling."

"Come on, then, ya nudist," Tony snagged the immobilizer off the bed as they made their way to the door.

Steve hung a heavy arm around Tony's shoulders as they walked stiffly together down the hall. "So," Steve said, "I propose we both have some morphine and sleep for twelve hours."

"Why, Captain Rogers, are you suggesting we share your prescription? Because that would be highly illegal."

"Y'know, legality never worried me too much. It's ethics I get stuck on."

"And sharing your drugs, that's ethical?"

"Sure. I was watching you. There at the end, you started hurting about as bad as me. Only thing that gives me pause is dosage."

"Eh, we can do the math on that. You're getting, what? Twice a normal dose? And you weigh twice as much as me so—"

They turned the corner into the living room and found they weren't the only couple in attendance. They weren't even the only undressed couple in the room.