Chapter 26: Body Shop
Steve kissed Tony's neck, his lips numbering the marks one by one. His mouth was just a whisper on Tony's skin, so soft, it was barely there; to Tony, it felt like being kissed by a ghost. There were ghosts enough around: Bucky Barnes was in the room somewhere, and so was the young Steve Rogers. Tony's own uneasy shade was there, too, rattling chains, making the lights flicker. It was seeking resurrection, and Tony wanted to help it out, only the ritual involved more than an ouija board. The idea of sex was still entirely unappealing; he wanted to skip over that part, just fade to black, and then pick up the story when he had a dick again. Maybe then he'd want the sex scene in technicolor…
"Hey," Steve said gently, "where'd you go?" He'd pulled back from Tony's throat, sensing that he'd lost Tony's attention.
"I still don't want to have sex, Steve," Tony confided.
"That's alright," Steve assured him. "We aren't in a hurry. We've got all night and half the day tomorrow. What's the problem? You still hate me?"
Tony snorted, "Oh, come on. How could I? Now all I can think about is the postpubertal Steve Rogers, beaten bloody and tragically horny, moping around his boyfriend's sad apartment."
"You did say you wanted to feel sorry for me."
"Mission accomplished. That was the most pitiful story I've ever heard."
"So what's wrong?"
"What's wrong is that I want my dick back, but I want it without the work. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I swear to god, right now? I never want to have sex ever again."
"I wish I knew a different way, Tony." Steve reached for Tony's hand, twining their fingers. "I'll try to make it good for you. As good as I can."
Ha, Tony thought, good. It was a nice idea, but Tony didn't give a shit about good sex. Good sex required time and energy, two things Tony was not prepared to dedicate to the cause. As far as he wanted sex at all, Tony wanted the ultra-lazy variety, the kind they had on weekends sometimes, so leisurely and low effort it was practically indistinguishable from the nap that followed, with style points awarded if one or more parties was sorta kinda watching a ballgame on television while it happened.
"Yeah," Tony confessed, "I don't actually care about 'good' right now, Steve. I just care about easy."
Steve lifted their clasped hands, bringing Tony's knuckles to his mouth, kissing them. "I can make it easy."
"Can you, though?" Tony wondered. 'Easy' seemed like an impossibility; 'easy' was a memory so remote it seemed more like a dream.
"I think I can. Hold on." Steve got up from the bed and started pawing through his bag, finally unearthing a blue and white bubble mailer. He came back to bed and handed it over as he sat back down. It had already been ripped open, and Tony dumped the contents onto the mattress.
"Holy shit, Steve."
It was vibrator, a cordless wand, but much smaller than the commercial grade monster they had in the hospital wing. He picked it up, examining its construction: three discreet buttons, expensively finished with ultra soft silicone in a tasteful shade of petal pink.
"First you gave me used panties," Tony observed, "and then it was a bag of coke. Now it's sex toys. Who are you and what have you done with Steve Rogers?"
"I ran into the delivery guy on my way out of the building," Steve explained. "I stuck it in my bag, figured I'd save him a trip on the elevator."
"You ordered this?" Tony was shocked. Steve Rogers had barely seen internet porn; it was inconceivable he was ordering women's sex toys.
"Well, no," Steve said, looking sheepish. "Pepper did."
"Pepper?" The hits just kept on coming.
"I felt like I needed some professional advice," Steve explained.
"And you asked Pepper? This was her suggestion?"
"Hers. And, y'know, Nat's—"
"Christ, Steve! Is there anyone left who doesn't know I can't come?"
"Probably. Just no one we know. Anyway," he gestured vaguely in the direction of the vibrator, "the girls told me this would make it a sure thing."
"Right," Tony said, struggling to picture it: Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts, and Natasha Romanoff, discussing vibrators and Tony's inability to orgasm, like some bizarro version of Sex and the City. Steve was definitely a Charlotte. Pepper was a Miranda. Nat was…an eldritch horror…
Tony cycled through the buttons on the vibrator, still slightly reeling. The wand was whisper quiet, with vibrations ranging from barely there hum to industrial strength rumble. He wasn't sure how he felt about potentially using it, not after his recent experience, but he was willing to bet it was the same model currently residing in Pepper's bedside table. That was a serious endorsement.
"Did the girls have any other practical advice?" Tony asked, switching it off.
"Nat gave me some pointers."
"And by 'pointers,' you mean a strategic battle plan with step-by-step tactical detail?"
"More or less," Steve admitted. "You want the highlights?"
"If this is the plan we're following, I want the low lights, too."
"We can follow any plan you want, Tony. You're in charge."
"But I don't want to be in charge," Tony blurted with so much force it shocked them both. "Sorry," he said, pulling back on the volume. "I just…I'm tired, Steve. I'm tired, and I haven't made a single good decision for myself in months. Not about anything. Not about what I want. Not about what I need—"
"You want me in charge?" Steve said seriously. "Because I can be in charge."
Tony desperately wanted to agree; he could feel some psychic lifting of his load just considering it. Yes, he thought in his heart, please be in charge, but he couldn't quite make himself give over the controls. He was afraid to entrust his weird, fragile body and his weird, fragile mind to anyone, even Steve. Somewhere just up ahead was the edge of a massive psychological cliff; one wrong move and he would fall. Or maybe it was worse than that, maybe he'd already passed the limit of solid ground and was running on air like Wile E. Coyote, doomed if he even looked down…
"Hey," Steve pressed, "you want me in charge, you've got to give me the commission. I need to know it's what you want."
"It's yours," Tony said. "I know bossing me around makes you hot and bothered, Cap."
"Just bothered. You're the worst soldier I've ever seen, and I'm pretty hopeless myself. Here," Steve retrieved the bottle of morphine from the bedside table and held it over. "Let's split one. Part one of the Nat Protocol is to make you relaxed. She suggested a hot bath, but under the circumstances, I'm calling in chemical reinforcement."
"Hell yes," Tony agreed readily, popping the top. "Now you're talking." He bit one in half and swallowed it with a gulp of pinot-flavored water from his glass of melted ice. Drugs were one way to tamp down his crippling neuroses. If he had to have sex, high was preferable. Morphine might make his orgasm a little harder to find, but it would make everything more manageable in the meantime.
"If you take this," he asked, offering Steve the glass and the other half a tablet, "are you still going to be able to get it up?"
"A half just about takes the edge off without, you know, taking the edge off," Steve said, swallowing his own share and chasing it with the remainder of the ice water. He set the empty glass back on the bedside table.
In spite of his anxiety, Tony was intrigued. "It sounds like you tested this."
"I did," Steve admitted. "There was a snowstorm this morning that we had to wait out. I had some time to kill."
"And you killed it popping pills and trying to get a boner? I think I might be rubbing off on you."
"Help me undress," Steve said casually, "and you can rub off on me all you want."
"Steve!" Tony reached for the immobilizer and began unfastening the straps. He could see what was happening, of course: Steve was trying to loosen him up with drugs and innuendo. In a second, there'd be nudity, too, a trifecta of things Tony generally enjoyed. Despite its transparency, Tony admired the strategy.
"So tell me," Tony said, disposing of the immobilizer on the bedside table, "what's the official status of your shoulder? Are we actually supposed to take this off or are we going rogue again?"
"Bruce said I should keep sleeping in it, but I can take it off some if I'm careful. I'm just supposed to keep too much weight and pressure off the joint."
Tony felt a new stab of guilt. "I'm still sorry about this afternoon, Steve. I shouldn't have–"
"Let that go, Tony," Steve said, gently but firmly. "Now help me with the shirt."
Tony was weirdly aware of the backs of his fingers against Steve's skin as he helped peel off Steve's t-shirt. For a second time that day, the new scar was exposed and just as gnarly as Tony remembered it. Even in the soft light of the bedside lamp, it was ugly: red and wrinkled, big enough that it would always draw the eyes of strangers.
"It is big, isn't it?" Steve asked. Tony could feel Steve's eyes on his face, watching his expression.
"They put the whole staple aisle of OfficeMax in there," Tony said with a shrug. "It was always going to be pretty big."
"Definitely felt like Bruce pulled that many back out," Steve agreed, his hand coming up to touch the mark.
"I mean, it's a little Frankenstein's monster, Steve, but who cares? If it bothers you, see a plastic surgeon. They won't make it disappear completely, but they can do something."
"It doesn't bother me," Steve said reflexively..
"No," Tony corrected, "you wish it didn't bother you because letting it bother you would be vanity, and you think vanity is a sin or something."
"Vanity is a sin," Steve pointed out, frowning.
"Yeah, but not one of the bad ones."
"Vanity caused Satan's fall, Tony."
"Well in that case, when I get to Hell, I'll save you a seat." Tony said, sliding over until he was practically in Steve's lap. He reached for Steve's self-conscious fingers, pulling them away from the scar. "Hey," he said, his tone dangerously close to sincere, "Captain America should have at least one like that. Let's 'em know you're not just decorative when you're hanging around poolside."
"I'm not sure how much time I plan to spend at the pool."
"Well, that's a shame. 'Cause you're the hottest thing I've ever seen in boardshorts." And, leaning forward, Tony put his mouth over the mark, kissing it wetly with a soft stroke of tongue. He knew what it was to be scarred, how it felt to take your shirt off that first time for somebody, wondering if they minded. He wasn't about to let Steve wonder, not for a minute. Did Tony want sex? Maybe not. Did he want Steve? Always. Even the banged up parts.
"You don't have to do that," Steve protested, shifting uncomfortably.
"But I wanna do that," Tony said and proceeded to do it again, then trailed the kiss from the shoulder up the side of Steve's neck. He reached the spot just behind Steve's ear. Steve's earlobe suddenly seemed weirdly edible, and he began to chew the lobe languidly. With his mostly empty stomach, the morphine was hitting fast, making him feel softer, looser. Steve's body was starting to take on a certain appeal; it was warm in all the right places. If he had his druthers, Tony would still elect a nap over sex, but maybe anything with Steve's arms wrapped around him wouldn't be too bad. This was certainly alright; Steve's skin under his tongue was doing something for him.
"Now wait a minute," Steve said with a laugh, trying to disentangle himself from Tony's attentions, "I thought I was in charge here."
"Oh, you are," Tony assured him, still gnawing his ear. "You're the Scar-Mangled Man with a Plan."
"Gee, thanks. You know, for a second there, I thought you were trying to make me feel better."
"Naw. If I really wanted to make you feel better, I'd show you my scar. I've got a headlight in the middle of my chest, remember? You wanna see it?"
"You know what? Yeah. That might make me feel better. Let's see it," Steve said, calling his bluff.
"Yeah?" Tony's heart started to beat harder.
"Yeah," Steve confirmed. "Let's see some skin, if you're really asking."
Was he? Did he want to undress for Steve? He might. Mouth suddenly dry, Tony reached for the hem of his shirt. It's nothing, he told himself, taking a deep breath, trying to hold onto the soft, loose, morphine feeling. This is nothing. We've done this. He's seen this. In one quick pull, the shirt was off. All of a sudden, Tony was exquisitely aware of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest, the feeling of the air against his bare skin.
"What do you think?" Tony gestured at the reactor, trying to keep his voice level. "I got it wrestling a radioactive bear. It was very manly. Make you feel any better about yours?"
"Oh, much better," Steve agreed, then reached for the lamp, switching it off. In the blue reactor light, he pulled Tony close, wrapping his arms around Tony's back, leisurely kissing Tony's neck again, his naked shoulders. This isn't bad, Tony told himself, and it wasn't. It felt familiar, like something he knew how to do. He still wasn't sure it was something he actively wanted, but he wasn't repelled by it, either. It was fine, edging towards nice.
"How about your chest?" Steve murmured. "Should I touch you there or leave it alone?"
Good question. The tits were tricky; Tony wasn't feeling kindly towards them after Hammer's comments about them. Nice rack, Anthony. God, Tony hoped he'd never made a woman feel that bad, like she wanted to lop off a part of her body just so some asshole wouldn't look at it and feel free to comment. Still, if he told Steve 'no,' that meant Hammer had effectively shamed him, and that plague rat was only winning over Tony's dead body.
"Tony?"
"Yeah," Tony said, "you can touch it if you want. Here," he took up Steve's weak left hand, pressing it over a breast. "Let's give Lefty an incentive to improve that grip strength." Steve's look of incredulous wonder as he massaged the soft tissue made it worthwhile; it was the expression Tony had imagined on Steve's face when after he'd drunk from the flask. Men and boobs, a love story for the ages. "What's about to happen here, Steve?" he asked as Steve's fingers shifted from one breast to the other, then drifted down his flank, coming to rest at the elastic band of his boxers. Steve had started to kiss him again along the clavicles and the gentle slope of his chest.
"Well," Steve said, between kisses, "I'm about to take off your shorts."
"Uh-huh."
"And then you're going to sit on the edge of the bed."
"Uh-huh."
"And then, I'm going to execute stage two of the Nat Protocol."
"Which is?"
"You want to hear the way she put it to me?" Steve pulled away. With his good hand on the mattress, Steve eased himself down to the floor, kneeling at the bedside. "Come here."
"I don't know," Tony said, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, lifting up so Steve could take off his boxers. "Do I want to hear it? Nat scares me, Steve."
"You'll like it: she said, and I quote," he paused and took a deep breath, working up to it: "'You should eat Tony out until there is an actual risk of drowning.'"
Tony's bark of shocked laughter made Steve break into a pleased grin; Tony suspected Steve was blushing, too, but it was hard to tell in the blue gloom. "Wow," Tony grinned back. "That's great. What'd you say?" Steve's fingers were stroking softly up and down the tops of Tony's thighs in a way that made Tony think of Steve's paint brushes.
"I told her I'm a strong swimmer."
"My god," Tony said, delighted. "I can't believe I missed this conversation. I'm bereft."
Steve's fingers eased between his legs, pushing them gently apart, and Tony could feel the strength differential in Steve's hands, the relative weakness and clumsiness of the left versus the right.
"It's been awhile since you've done any laps," Tony observed, breath hitching. He was trying to stay relaxed, but now that Steve was kissing his inner thighs, he was starting to shiver, not the hard, bone-rattling, chills of the past two days, but hard enough that Steve must feel the tremble under his mouth.
"Yeah, but I still know some strokes," Steve said nonchalantly, pulling back during a particularly strong shudder. "Tony?"
"It's just–I don't know." Tony tried to keep the shaking out of his voice at least. "It's something that's happening to me these days. I can't make it stop. Just…ignore it."
"You sure?" Steve sounded skeptical. "Why don't you lay back on the bed at least?"
Swallowing, Tony admitted, "Because then I won't be able to watch, and I've been waiting to do this since October."
The slow crawl of Steve's mouth up Tony's leg resumed, his breath hot against Tony's skin. Tony could feel himself tense as Steve's mouth ran out of runway, moving from his thigh to the soft, wet space in between, and he waited without breathing for the first touch of Steve's mouth against his clit. In the back of his mind, he could still feel the hospital vibrator, the terrible intensity of it against his body. But this, as it turned out, was exactly nothing like that. At first, it didn't feel like much of anything. It wasn't like a blowjob: there was no hard suction, no in and out friction, no contrast between hard cock and soft lips. Steve's mouth was warm and wet, but everything down there was warm and wet anyway. It was a little hard to tell where Tony's body stopped and Steve's mouth started. The pleasure was so subtle, Tony could barely identify it at first; there was a heat spreading through him, but gently, like a gradual, full-body blush. His shivering eased and then stopped altogether, and he threaded his fingers into Steve's hair.
Steve's tongue became a little firmer, the strokes a little harder–and then something happened, some secret switch flipped, sending a wave of pleasure through Tony's body that made his ears buzz and his toes tingle. He fell back against the bed, suddenly unable to keep himself upright. "Fuck. Oh my god," he said, closing his eyes, then wasn't sure if he'd said the words aloud or just in his own head. Time lost its coherence as the sensations built up; the tingling spread up from his toes to electrify his entire lower half. Steve's fingers–the smart ones–began rubbing up and down the opening to his body, slowly teasing. Like Steve's mouth, they were warm and wet, too, covered with fluid, and when they started to press in, Tony thought he might die from the pleasure.
"Holy shit," he panted, as the fingers moved in and out, stroking some particular spot that compounded his sensations three-fold. "Oh my god. Steve." And this time, he'd definitely been audible, because Steve's head came up.
"Is that a 'Steve, stop' or a 'Steve, keep going?'"
For a second, Tony wasn't sure. He couldn't think straight, his mind scrambled by pleasure. Fuck, what had he even wanted? "Stop," he finally decided. "I want stage three. As long as stage three is sex. And if it isn't, fuck me anyway."
"Stage three is sex," Steve confirmed, pushing himself off the floor, fumbling at his fly with his stiff fingers. Tony sat up, knocking his hands away.
"Sex how?" Tony asked, pushing Steve's pants and boxers down his legs. The sight of his erection made Tony ache: he wanted it in his mouth, in his pussy, in his ass, all at the same time.
"On your side, so you can use your fingers or the vibrator when you're ready." Naked, Steve eased down onto the bed, laying carefully on his good shoulder.
"So says the Wise and All-Knowing Nat?" Tony said, moving into position with his back to Steve's warm chest.
"So says Nat," Steve confirmed. "Are you ready? You say when."
"When," Tony breathed, then went still as Steve put a hand between them to guide himself inside. This time, the pleasure wasn't subtle at all: the satisfying full feeling, uncomplicated by pain, was delectable, and each of Steve's thrusts slid over that same delicious spot inside that Steve had been stroking with his fingers. "Hey," Tony panted, twisting to look at Steve over his shoulder, "kiss me, huh?"
The kiss tasted like brine mixed with something else, some ineffable something that made Tony's mouth water. When they broke apart, Tony felt breathless and needy. "Hold me," he sighed, and Steve draped his big, strong arm across Tony's chest, pressing them tight together. Smoothing his hand down the soft curves of his body, Tony found his clit, rubbing circles over the concentrated bundle of nerves. His toes went tingly again instantly. He was really going to do it this time; he could feel the steady ratcheting up of his pleasure. It felt inexorable. He moaned helplessly…
And then he lost it.
Again.
That fucking moan. It was the same sound that had thrown him before, and just like that, it too much, all the noise and the heat and the stimulation and the smells and–
"Stop," Tony said, desperately, "stop. Stop!" Steve's hips stilled behind him, but the arm across his chest remained in place, locking them together. "I lost it, Steve," Tony cried, so furious he could feel his eyes film with tears. "I fucking lost it."
"No, you didn't. Take a deep breath," Steve instructed calmly.
"Let me go." Tony tried to pull away, ready to roll over and die in a frustrated heap, but Steve's embrace was immovable.
"Forget it. We're seeing it through this time," Steve said, resolute. "Now take a deep breath."
Tony was so angry he was ready to bite somebody, but Steve kept him firmly pinned.
"Breathe, Tony."
Feeling mutinous, Tony took a deep breath, and then a second.
"Good," Steve said approvingly. "Now listen to me; you didn't lose it. You're still close; it's still right there. You got overstimulated, but when you're ready, you can pick it back up again. If you use the vibrator, you can be zero to sixty again in thirty seconds, if you want to be."
Tony took one more big breath, his chest heaving against Steve's arm as his lungs expanded; he blew it out noisily. "So sayeth Nat?" Tony asked shakily.
"So sayeth Nat," Steve confirmed, his arm finally slackening. "Do you want me to pull out?" he asked.
"No," Tony shook his head, collecting himself. "Just…be still."
"Okay. Tell me if you want me to do something different."
The vibrator was beside them on the bed, and Tony picked it up, turning it on its lowest setting. It was so quiet he could barely hear it over the blood rushing in his ears, but the noise still sent a shiver through him. This is ridiculous, he chided himself. How absurd to be intimidated by a petal pink sex toy. If he didn't like it, he reasoned with himself, he could just stop using it; he could throw the damn thing across the room if he wanted. He could take it apart and use its pieces to build something semi-sentient. Steve, behind him, had draped a loose arm over his waist and was kissing the back of his neck and the tops of his shoulders. Poor, old, uncomplaining Steve, stuck in sexual purgatory, waiting around getting his cock teased, while Tony tried to man up enough to use the stupid fucking vibrator.
"Hey, Steve," Tony said to the darkness, coming to his decision, "you know how we have sex sometimes on Sunday afternoon? When I'm horny, and you're humoring me, but mostly you're trying to watch the Mets lose again?"
"Yeah…" Tony could hear the surprised lift of Steve's eyebrow.
"Can you do it like that?"
"Like that?" Steve started a lazy, slow roll with his hips, more grind than thrust.
"Just like that," Tony confirmed, sighing, trying to relax.
"Should I turn on a ballgame?" Steve asked, and Tony could hear the smile in his voice.
"Sure," Tony agreed, his own hips starting to gently rock in counterpoint. "Just try not to forget you're fucking me entirely when things get tight late in the sixth."
"I don't do that."
"You do do that."
They fell quiet, moving together, breathing in the dark. Steve's nose took up residence behind Tony's ear, nuzzling the soft depression just behind Tony's earlobe. Gradually, it all started to feel nice again. Easy, even, which was what Tony had wanted. He was, he figured, as ready as he was ever going to be, wet as he could get, with the morphine peaking. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the quietly vibrating wand tentatively against his body.
Tony Stark's body had experienced a lot of things. Drugs of all stripes. Booze in liver-pickling quantities. Pain of such intensity that death had seemed assured. Sex so hedonistic it would make a succubus blush. Still, the simultaneous firing of 10,000 nerve endings crammed into an area the size of a pencil eraser wasn't something Tony was prepared for. The vibrations against his aroused clit felt ludicrously good. Steve (or Nat, really) had been absolutely right; thirty seconds and his orgasm felt just as close as it had been before. He'd never lost it; it had just stepped out for a cigarette, then strolled back in like it had never been gone. There was no gradual ratcheting up of pleasure; it was just up, instantly at the top of the roller coaster.
"Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod," Tony began murmuring, over and over. He could feel the slow grind of Steve's cock against his g-spot, each thrust sending an electric thrill straight up his spine. His toes had gone from tingly to completely numb, as had the tip of his nose, and his ears were full of static. Breathing was practically impossible; oxygen was no longer getting through to his brain. He pressed the vibrator harder and harder against his clit, trying to push the nerve endings over the top of the lift hill and into the drop. He'd never concentrated so hard on anything in his life; the toughest problems in aerospace engineering required half the attention of his almost-climax.
And then Tony was falling, his mouth open in a silent scream. There was a moment of stopped time, with Tony suspended mid-air, when he knew he'd tipped into free fall, but his body hadn't quite caught up. Then came the crash: everything in his known universe convulsed, every cell, every atom, contracting to a pin point and then exploding outward like the Big Bang. The pleasure went on and on, encompassing galaxies, solar systems, petering out gradually to smaller bodies, drifting comets, isolated stars. And then it was over, leaving Tony exhausted and half-conscious on some distant alien moon. He barely had the strength to unlock his death grip on the vibrator.
"Tony," Steve said, pulling at his shoulder, rolling him onto his back. What was Steve doing out here at the edge of the galaxy? "Tony. How do you feel?" He was grinning ear-to-ear in the blue light of the reactor. Why was he doing that?
"Fine," Tony croaked. "Jesus, Steve, that was–"
Wait a minute. Tony's brain came to a screeching halt. That voice…his legs were still trapped in the covers as he half-fell out of the bed, clumsy in his urgent quest for a mirror. Sprinting into the bathroom, he turned on every light, feet slipping on the tiles. The face in the mirror was one he'd given up ever seeing again, and it broke open in a mad grin, the teeth white, the stubble black. Hello, Gorgeous. He watched his reflection as his hands scrambled over his body, trying to touch everything at once: his face, his chest, his arms, his abs, his balls, his cock.
"Hey," said Steve, appearing in the reflection over his shoulder, smiling like the one kid that had gotten a real live pony on Christmas morning, "I missed you."
Steve watched Tony from the doorway as he grinned at himself in the bathroom mirror. He was perfect, tall and strong and handsome and whole. Or no, almost whole. All his cuts and bruises were gone, but Steve noticed one of the nails on his right hand was torn raggedly in half. The broken nail only added to his perfection, as did the stubble, and the bedhead. He was everything Steve had ever wanted and then some, and he watched, rapt, as Tony began to paw at himself, hands everywhere at once, as if he needed to confirm the realness and solidity of each feature before he could believe it. In the grand finale, Tony ran his palm flat down his lean stomach, watching the mirror as his hand closed around his cock. He began to stroke it, his face alive with pleasure as he regarded his growing erection in the mirror.
It was too much temptation for Steve. He abandoned his post in the doorway and stepped up behind Tony, wrapping his arms around Tony's waist. Propping his chin on Tony's shoulder, he smiled at the two of them in the mirror. "Hey," he said to Tony's reflection, "I missed you."
"I missed me, too," Tony said, twisting eagerly in Steve's embrace. When they kissed, the rasp of beard and stubble against Steve's face was maybe the biggest turn-on of his life. Steve was still hard from the sex, and the kiss, which began as fond, quickly grew hungry. He was so aroused by the new size and strength of this man; just the grip of Tony's big, square hands on his back excited him. He could feel his erection pressing against the muscles of Tony's stomach, and it made him want to drag Tony back to the bed, bend him over, shove his face into the mattress…
"Sorry," Steve said, breaking away, trying to collect himself, "sorry."
"What? Why?" Tony sounded genuinely perplexed.
"Because–" It was hard to put into words. He'd needed to be gentle with Tony for months, and not just physically gentle, but emotionally gentle, and now he craved something else, something rough and tumble that didn't worry him to death the entire time. But even though Tony's physical marks had magically disappeared, it didn't mean the mental ones had. They'd stick around a long time. The need for care remained. "Because," Steve tried to explain, "you just got yourself back. I'm not trying to…make demands."
"Make demands?" Tony laughed. "Since when have you ever demanded anything? Wait–what's your definition of 'demand,' anyway? Not saying 'please?'"
"I don't want you to feel like you have to…" Steve trailed off, unsure what he wanted to say.
"Have to, Steve? Have to? Are you kidding me?" Tony was positively giddy. "I want to know if all the equipment still works. So far, I only know about the one feature." He nodded down at the space between their bodies, and when Steve followed the nod, he saw that Tony was just as hard as he was. "How about that female refractory period, huh? Looks like I got that first round free. Which reminds me–brace yourself or something." Without additional niceties, Tony dropped to his knees on the tile and stuck Steve's dick in his mouth, swirling his tongue around it. His eyelids fluttered shut, and he moaned, as if savoring the taste. Steve grabbed the edge of the bathroom counter, abruptly weak in the knees.
"Wow," Tony said, popping off with a wet smack, "your dick tastes like pussy."
"Does it?" Steve panted. He'd chalk that one up as a phrase he'd never in his life expected to hear.
"Yes," Tony said, pushing up off the floor, "and it is probably the hottest fucking thing in this whole frozen country." Watching Steve in the mirror, he leaned over the countertop, bracing his arms on the faux marble, spreading his legs. "Hey, you know the Sunday afternoon, sixth-inning sex we were having a minute ago?" he asked Steve's reflection.
"Yes," Steve said, his mouth wet as he gazed at Tony's naked back.
"Now we're having the other kind."
"Oh, Tony, I don't know." Something about sex with Tony bent over a bathroom counter so close on the heels of everything else that had happened in the last twenty-four hours seemed wrong somehow. "That seems–"
"You fucked Barnes bent over the kitchen table, right?"
"I know I never said that."
"But you did."
It was true. Steve absolutely had, and now he was seeing that display, too: Bucky bent over that rickety gateleg table, moaning as he let Steve aggressively shore up his fragile, post-walloping masculinity…
"Suit yourself," Tony said, peeling himself off the countertop. "Lemme know when you change your mind." As theatrically as possible, he spit into his hand and started to jerk off, watching himself in the mirror, watching Steve watch, too. Whatever impulses Steve was wrestling with suddenly had him in a headlock, and the referee was counting. He hadn't lasted even sixty seconds in the ring with Tony's rekindled exhibitionism.
"Alright," Steve said, throwing up a hand, "alright. I give."
"Then welcome to the party," Tony said, sounding not at all surprised. He continued to jerk off with one hand, bracing himself back on the counter with the other. "The VIP entrance is in the rear."
Steve rolled his eyes, but he was already stepping in close to Tony's back. "Do we have anything at all in the way of lubrication?" he asked.
"Just spit and willpower. But if you put out your hand, I'll make a generous contribution."
Steve held his palm to Tony's mouth. Tony spit it in, and then Steve added his own. He'd barely started loosening Tony up with his fingers before he got the inevitable, impatient comment: "That's good enough, Steve. Get on with it." For once, Steve found he did not have the personal strength to argue. He added as much additional saliva to the situation as possible, then started to push in as Tony pushed back, hissing. Sweat beaded across Tony's back and the nape of his neck.
"It hurts," Steve observed, going still.
"It's fine," Tony protested, voice tight. "You got to be in charge of the last round, and now it's my turn. And I want it hard, Steve. Hard like you've just had your artsy-fartsy, pre-serum ass handed to–"
Muscle memory directed Steve to the right angle immediately, and Tony broke off with a shattering moan, collapsing against the countertop. The interior equipment, it seemed, was also in good working order. Steve started to thrust, not as hard as he could, but hard enough to keep Tony non-verbal and flat on the counter, panting at himself in the mirror. Steve tried not to feel smug: shutting Tony up was deeply satisfying.
He ran his hand over Tony's defined back, his fingers outlining landmarks and overlapping muscles: the trapezius down the neck, the deltoids, the lats, the sacral triangle. Steve put his thumb into one of the dimples at the base of Tony's spine; the fit pleased him. He'd make Tony sit for him again and draw Tony's back, take the time to appreciate the elegance and subtlety of the lines, really think about them and get to know them. Bucky had always complained in school about backs being relatively featureless, but they weren't. The features were there, but they overlapped in complicated ways that left parts hidden and parts revealed. Steve's fingertips grazed the edge of a scapula, outlining the sharp angle of bone emerging from behind its shield of muscle.
For a moment, his gaze flicked to the mirror and his own body, observing the scar across his shoulder. Under the puckered skin hid his own scapula, cracked down the middle, wrapped in tattered muscles and sinews struggling to knit themselves back together. He'd taken bullets before, had a couple of Purple Hearts in his sock drawer to prove it, and he knew that ten years ago, even five, he'd have healed up better and faster than he was now. Even if he didn't count the years on ice (and they did count for something), he wasn't quite young anymore. The lingering pain and weakness from his injury rattled him more than he cared to admit, and it made him wonder how much longer he could realistically continue doing his job.
More than that, it made him wonder how much longer he realistically wanted to, but Steve put the question aside.
Under Steve's hand, Tony's back was rising and falling along with his labored breathing. He'd partially propped himself back up on the counter and had resumed stroking his cock, watching himself in the mirror, his eyes heavy-lidded. It was so erotic, it made Steve's modest existential crisis suddenly seem a lot less pressing. They were both close, their breathing loud and getting louder, and it made Steve want to increase the volume even more. Tony's first climax had been so self-contained that Steve hadn't immediately understood what had happened: he'd been dedicatedly thrusting, kissing the back of Tony's neck, and then, abruptly, he was still thrusting, still kissing Tony's neck, but now the thrusts were into nothing and the neck was a different neck entirely. Though Steve had heard Tony whispering and sighing to himself in the build-up, the actual orgasm had been completely silent, as if someone had hit Tony's mute button. This time, Steve wanted him noisy.
Moving his hands to Tony's hips, he gripped the bony ridges, anchoring Tony in place so he could increase the speed and force of his thrusts. In response, Steve got his wish and then some: Tony started to wail like a banshee, at a volume so high that Steve was suddenly concerned about soundproofing–
And then he wasn't worried about anything at all. Tony was coming, semen spilling over his hand and onto the countertop. Too bad, though: his eyes were screwed shut, so only Steve got to see it in the mirror. Then Steve was coming, too, gripping Tony's hips tight enough to leave prints. He collapsed against Tony's back in the aftermath, crushing him flat against the bathroom counter again. They lay in a panting heap; it took a minute for Steve to collect himself enough to open his eyes, and there was Tony's face again in the mirror, grinning.
"How many kitchen tables did you collapse, Steve?"
"Two," Steve groaned. "After the second one, Buck started holding on to the side of the tub."