Chapter 23: Push
Steve was fastening his uniform jacket when Tony streaked past the door, running full tilt.
"Tony!" he cried, as Tony disappeared past the edge of the doorframe. He started to run, ready to join some dash down the hallway, when Tony careened into the room. Steve barely had time to register his appearance before Tony crashed into him, flinging his arms around Steve's waist. The impact shot a jolt of pain through Steve's shoulder, making Steve grunt even as he wrapped his arms, good and bad together, around Tony's back.
Tony was shaking all over and taking great heaving breaths, his face crushed to Steve's chest. Steve couldn't tell whether the gasping was crying or just exertion, and there was no time to find out before a ragged herd of men, some in uniform, some in scrubs, came pouring into the room, all of them breathing hard. They all looked towards Tony, but none of them made a definitive move, as if each of them were waiting for somebody else to do something.
"Can I help you, gentlemen?" Steve asked in his firmest Captain America tone, drawing himself up to full height. He did not, however, move his arms from the little quivering figure currently sheltering there.
No one answered, though there was a fair bit of gawking, both at Steve in uniform and at Tony in—Steve glanced at Tony's back—in whatever Tony was wearing.
"No one?" Steve asked again, a hint of disapproval sneaking into his voice. "Okay, then. Why were you chasing him? Better not be 'just because he was running.'"
Again, no one answered, though a few people closest to the door snuck out of it, which was answer enough.
"Alright," Steve said into silence, "let's try this one: anyone here currently operating under orders?" And with that, the crowd dispersed en masse, muttering to itself.
"Hey, Bruce," Steve said quietly, watching them file out, "bring me a blanket."
Mutely, Bruce pulled a blanket off the hospital bed, and Steve parted his arms just long enough for Bruce to drape the blanket over Tony's nearly naked shoulders before he folded them around Tony once again. Tony was definitely crying; it was quiet, but Steve could feel that unmistakable, irregular shake in his body. Steve wished he knew why, but it wasn't time to ask, not yet, and maybe not for a long time.
"What are you doing here?" Tony asked, his voice muffled against Steve's jacket. "How did you even get here?"
Steve was interrupted before he began to answer.
"Well, well, well." A new voice entered the room, making Tony go instantly rigid. "Captain Rogers. May I say, this is certainly a surprise." Justin Hammer, in a rumpled three piece suit, came striding into the room. He carried a glossy black folder with an embossed CIA seal that Steve had last seen in the possession of GQ. He also sported a very distinctive five-fingered mark across his right cheek, still red, but beginning to bruise at the edges. Good for you, Steve thought, glancing down at Tony, still hiding against his chest, at least you got one in.
"We met at that STEM education fundraiser," Hammer continued, and then, to Steve's astonishment, actually put out a hand, as if Steve might shake it. In the end, the hand only extended a couple of inches before aborting the mission, curling back towards Hammer like a snail pulling back slimily into its shell. "You probably don't remember—" he began.
"Actually, I do," Steve said, cutting him off. "After you left our table, Tony said you had 'all the charm of an oozing sore.'" Bruce choked somewhere to Steve's left. "The phrase was… pretty colorful. Stuck with me." It wasn't diplomatic, but Steve wanted to get in one, too, and physical violence was off the table. At least for now.
"Right," Hammer said, his fake smile curdling. "Right. Tony. He does have a way with words."
"He sure does," Steve said, tightening his arms protectively. Speaking of Tony, Steve needed to get him out of this room, away from this jackass and his stupid little pinky ring, almost certainly the same ring that had cut Tony's cheek. Steve needed to get away from Hammer, too. He could feel a creeping anger in his limbs, an old, familiar itch to clean this guy's clock—
"Listen," Steve said firmly, "I've had a long, uncomfortable trip. Let's skip the pleasantries, not that they've been that pleasant. I'd like a shower and something hot to eat. You can send lunch to our room. Dinner, too, when it rolls around. Tomorrow, you can get me up to speed. Let's have a briefing at, say, ten? That give you enough time to put it together?"
Hammer appraised Steve over the top of his tortoise shell glasses.
"Will that be a problem?" Steve's tone suggested it had better not be, but Justin Hammer was braver (or maybe just dumber) than he looked.
"You know, yeah. It is," Hammer said assertively. "It is a problem, Rogers. You come here, you start issuing orders like you think you have some kind of authority, and, respectfully, you don't." Funny, he didn't sound that respectful.
"No," Steve said evenly. "Of course not. This is your facility, Mr. Hammer. I'm just here to help out; 'voluntary physical assistance' is, I believe, the euphemism in the directive. Frankly, I just need a chance to get over the jetlag before I can begin my…," he searched for an appropriate word, "...duties." Tony's face snapped up from Steve's chest, giving Steve a sharp, questioning look. Steve ignored it; Tony was going to have to wait on that one.
"Yeah," Hammer snorted humorlessly. "Yeah. The directive is…interesting. Look, you want a briefing? Let's do it now. You can be my guest for lunch. We can discuss the nature and extent of your 'voluntary assistance.'"
"Okay," Steve said, smiling tightly, "let's do that. Bruce, why don't you walk Tony back to—?"
"What? I'm not invited to lunch?" Tony said, suddenly and hostilely verbal. Steve had half suspected he was in some kind of shock, and maybe he had been, but he was certainly coming out of it now. He broke out of Steve's arms, leveling a teary but murderous stare at Hammer. Hammer gave it right back with equal malice.
"Tony," Steve tried again, though he already knew it would be futile, "don't you want to go get dressed?"
"What are you talking about?" Tony asked, waving a corner of blanket. "I am dressed." And he gave Steve a taste of the murder stare, too, daring him to say something to the contrary.
"Right," Steve said, resigned. "How about you, Bruce?"
Bruce, standing with his arms crossed, was also glaring, his eyes darting back and forth between Tony's banged up face and the man that had almost certainly made it that way. "I'm coming," he said quietly.
"Great," Hammer said, smiling poisonously at Tony. "I'll tell Chef we're four."
Lunch was an elegant handmade pasta with pesto, and Steve, far as he could tell, was the only one who ate any of it. Bruce picked up his fork a few times, but kept putting it back down, food untasted. The only thing Tony touched that was even peripherally food related was his napkin. He dipped it in a water goblet, and then proceeded to scrub something off of his toes. The used napkin, which he dropped conspicuously back onto the table, was covered in waxy red stains. Afterwards, he and Hammer consumed a liquid lunch, a vile cocktail of white wine and animus, the hatred hanging in the air between them like a fog.
Along with the cutlery, each place had all been set with a briefing folder. Unlike the pasta, Bruce and Tony devoured the contents of the folders, marking pages furiously with the accompanying pens. Steve flipped through it, but he was thankful for his conversation with Bruce during the staple removal. The scientific data didn't mean much to him, but Bruce or Tony would ask the pertinent questions and then explain the answers to him later if necessary. Steve's role, as far as he was concerned, was to emerge victorious from the dick measuring contest he was necessarily about to have with Justin Hammer.
There was no conversation, not even a 'pass the salt.'
"So," Hammer said finally when the dishes were cleared, "now that we've all had a look at the data, let's discuss."
"I'm not convinced about the prolactin thing," Bruce said immediately. "Your own lab trials show extragen dissolution can occur within a wide range of prolactin concentrations, including at the concentration present in Tony's blood after the…after his…"
"'Assault,' Bruce," Tony supplied coldly. "The word you want is 'assault.'" His face, beginning to bruise in a mirror image of Hammer's, was glowing with a quiet inner rage.
Hammer folded his hands on the tabletop and pointedly did not look in Tony's direction. "That's true. After Tony's participation in our experiment, his prolactin level was equivalent to the low concentration we used in some successful lab trials, but those reactions weren't taking place in a human system. The current hypothesis goes that extragen in the body requires a period of sustained prolactin elevation in order to dissolve. Tony's prolactin elevation wasn't sustained; there wasn't enough in his bloodstream to maintain a spike for more than a few minutes. With orgasms accompanying vaginal sex, prolactin remains high for more than an hour afterward."
Bruce made a face, "But in this data and in my own trials, extragen breakdown occurred almost immediately—"
"But again, those were reactions occurring in test tubes with all the extragen evenly and immediately exposed to the hormone."
"I don't know." Bruce sounded extremely skeptical. "Hormone delivery via the bloodstream is incredibly fast…"
"Seriously, that's some weak shit, Hammer," Tony said hostilely. "Sounds like all you really know is that extragen breakdown has something to do with sex, and you figured vaginal sex was something else easy you could try. Well, guess what? It ain't that easy for me."
"Not that easy for me either," Hammer muttered, just as hostile. "And that 'weak shit' is the opinion of my entire biochemistry department. You got a better idea, Tony? Let's hear it."
Evidently, Tony didn't. Wrapping the blanket more tightly around his shoulders, he slurped moodily at his wineglass.
"I didn't think so," Hammer said. "Dr. Banner?" But Bruce shook his head, looking chagrined. "No? Fine. Then everyone agrees to the current experimental plan by default." For the first time, Hammer's gaze turned towards Steve. "And that, I guess, is where Captain America enters the picture." Hammer held up the black directive file he'd brought with him from the hospital wing. "So, let's talk 'voluntary physical assistance.' You've read this directive, right? And you've signed it?"
"I've read it, and I've signed it," Steve confirmed. He was aware of Tony staring at him, poised on the edge of his chair and listening intently. Even the wine glass had been put aside.
"There's a lot of…polite verbiage in here," Hammer said, flipping through the glossy black file, "but I'd like to be blunt, just to make sure we're all on the same page." There was an undercurrent of malice in Hammer's ostensibly frank tone.
"Please," Steve said evenly.
"Great." Hammer fixed Steve with a direct stare. "So. If I understand this document correctly, you're here to fuck Tony for me. And you're going to fuck him on command. And you're going to fuck him how I tell you to fuck him. Do I have that right?"
For a second, it was like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. From the corner of his eye, Steve could see Bruce put a hand up to his mouth, dumbfounded that anyone would dare say such a thing to Steve Rogers in uniform. But other than Bruce, Hammer had picked entirely the wrong audience for his edgy little monologue. Lifting his eyebrows, Steve turned to Tony.
"Wow," Steve said, delivering the line completely straight, "that was a lot of 'fucks.' Is that what people mean when they say a 'fuck ton?'"
"A U.S. fuck ton is four fucks per paragraph. Five fucks per paragraph if we're talking metric." Tony deadpanned.
"You think he kisses his mother with that mouth?" Steve mused.
"We should wash it out with soap," Tony added.
They couldn't keep it going any longer. Tony broke first, and then Steve, both of them hooting with laughter. It was an incredible relief to laugh; the tension had been crushing. Steve actually had to wipe his eyes with an edge of the tablecloth before he could summon a serious response.
"Sorry," he said, collecting himself. "I apologize. It's funny when people think I've never heard a four letter word. And no, to answer your question. You do not have that right. According to the document, it's Tony's right, if he so chooses, to select me as an intimate partner in any acts deemed scientifically necessary, and I've agreed to participate under those conditions. But that's only at his request. Nobody else's. Definitely not yours. And that's what the directive stipulates; it's very specific. If you've got a problem with that, you take it up with Central." And then it was Steve's turn for a little malice; he eyed Hammer up and down and added, "Of course, Tony is also free to pick someone else. If there were someone else worth picking."
Hammer nodded slowly, his face changing colors: for a second, he went bone white, the handprint on his cheek a livid red, and then he went red all over, flushing with embarrassed rage until the handprint was barely visible at all. "And what if," Hammer said with quiet menace, "you can't deliver? You've had weeks to fix this, Rogers. Why do you think you're man enough to do it now?"
Again, the audience was not receptive to the threat.
"'Cause your mom, Hammer," sneered Tony, the juvenile king of the playground. "She said Cap's dick is good enough to make an atheist believe in God. She says 'hi,' by the way. You want her new number at the cloister? Nothing like the zeal of the convert. And boy, she does fill out that habit—"
"You know Stark keeps a girl in Malibu, right?" Hammer exploded in malicious fury, jumping to his feet and pointing at Tony accusingly. "A girl, Rogers. She can't even rent a car."
For a second, Hammer savored what he thought was triumph; the room was shocked into silence as Steve absorbed the outburst. It lasted as long as it took Steve and Tony to make eye contact, at which point they fell to pieces again, laughing helplessly.
"Yeah?" Steve said finally, wiping his streaming eyes. "Is that what he told you? If you believe that one, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you out in Brooklyn."
"Alright," Hammer pointed to the door, so angry he was vibrating. "Out. Get out. All of you out. I will let you know tomorrow when we're filming the next trial—"
Tony shoved his chair back with a scrape, "Does that mean we aren't invited back for dinner?"
"Get out!" Hammer shouted.
"C'mon, Tony," Steve murmured, recognizing they had done more than enough. He took him by the elbow and began escorting him towards the door. They were almost successfully out of the room when Tony snatched loose his elbow, and doubled back to the sideboard, grabbing the bottle of white out of the ice bucket.
"Party favor," he announced, and flounced out.
And then Tony tried to eat Steve alive.
As soon as they were alone in Tony's bedroom, the hospital blanket hit the floor, and Steve's back hit a wall, thumping against the solid surface hard enough to knock a little air from his lungs. The impact made him grunt, a jolt of pain lighting up his left shoulder and arm. He might have protested if he'd had an opportunity, but Tony was up on his toes, crushing his mouth over Steve's. Steve kissed back aggressively; it felt like self-defense. Their teeth ground together, tongues wrestling for some type of control, though control over what Steve couldn't quite say. He wanted to put his arms around Tony, to calm or absorb the animating rage, but when he tried it, Tony refused to be contained, wrenching away, ripping at Steve's clothes. All the buckles and straps Steve had painstakingly fastened were snatched open by Tony's frantic hands, and had the uniform been something other than Kevlar, Steve got the distinct impression Tony would have bypassed the closures and ripped it to shreds. Tony was belligerently careless, jerking the open jacket off Steve's arms so hard it hurt, ignoring Steve's small, swallowed sounds of pain. Still, Steve said nothing, mutely lifting his feet to help Tony take off his shoes, his socks, his pants, and when Tony tugged at the hem of Steve's undershirt, Steve bent down for him. Only Tony didn't take it off all the way, but pushed the hem backwards over Steve's head, leaving Steve's arms cuffed behind his back in the sleeves. The backwards pull of the fabric was uncomfortable, but not unbearable. But then, Steve knew he could bear a lot of things.
The sight of Steve's fresh scar, puckered and red, slowed Tony down for a second as his eyes flickered over it, processing it, then the second was over, and Tony was once again hurtling towards some goal Steve could only guess at. He put both hands to Steve's chest, shoving backwards hard, until Steve's legs hit the bed. Even then, Tony kept right on pushing, shoving him all the way over. The pressure of his trapped arms behind his back hurt enough that he began to sweat, but he remained quiet and unmoving as Tony yanked off his boxers. Tony could have whatever he wanted, Steve had decided, and if what he wanted was to hurt somebody, then he could hurt Steve. Justin Hammer was out of reach, so Steve would tie himself to the whipping post because the only other possible target was Tony himself, and Tony had been hurt enough.
He was hard to look at: his face smeared with lipstick and blood, his neck so bitten and bruised it looked like he'd been chewed up and spit back out, and those were just the marks Steve could see. The invisible marks were the really scary ones. Steve didn't know how Tony had ended up in the sheer slip, whether he'd been forced or coerced or simply agreed. Weeks of vivid dreams about Tony in lingerie, and now, presented with his husband in red lace, Steve's blood was icy with rage. He hated the little red scrap with visceral intensity: it was a piece of some other man's fantasy, and it made Steve feel aggressively possessive, probably more jealous than he'd ever felt in his life. He wanted to rip it off with his teeth. And then he wanted to hold Tony down and kiss each and every blackening bruise, as if he could print over them with his own mouth, recast them somehow as his own. The urge was overwhelming, almost gravitational in strength, but it was inactionable. The last thing Tony needed was a new claim on his body, so Steve lay still, arms pinned, sweating and silent as Tony straddled his lap.
For the first time since the bedroom door had shut, Tony looked directly at Steve's face, motionless for a whole half a heartbeat, and Steve understood what it meant:Ask me to stop, and I'll stop. But Steve didn't ask. Instead, he caught his bottom lip between his teeth and shut his eyes with a moan.
Tony reached between their bodies for Steve's erection, and his small, soft hand felt like that of a stranger as it guided Steve inside. Tony sank down, hissing, until their hips connected and then he started to move, fast and determined, his hands flat against Steve's chest, adding more downward pressure on Steve's pinioned arms. It hurt; each hard thrust of Tony's hips sent a shock through Steve's shoulder, and Steve clenched his teeth against the pain as he thrust back. It didn't feel like sex so much as some kind of purgation, a violent ritual cleansing of Tony's suffering. It also wasn't meant to last, so Steve didn't try to. After just a few minutes, he came with a soft cry, stifled behind his gritted teeth, his hips bucking.
It stopped as quickly as it had started, Tony up and gone in an instant, leaving Steve alone and panting. He rolled over onto his good shoulder, finally freeing his arms from the shirtsleeves, and then eased again onto his back, lying flat for the first time in weeks. His shoulder burned like a house fire, and he stared at the ceiling, breathing through the brutal heat. He was wrung out. He'd had some white knight notion about how events would play out upon his arrival: he'd sweep in, impressive on his charger, armor gleaming, and while he couldn't actually free the damsel from the tower, he was at least going to keep her company, provide some comfort, fend off the more unsavory monsters.
What had happened instead, he wasn't at all sure about.
The damsel, to all appearances, was regularly dining with the beasts. And then she'd shoved the knight right off his damn horse, stripped him of his armor, and knocked him flat, disabusing him of any traditionally valorous notions. Possibly the damsel wasn't happy the knight was even here. At least, Steve consoled himself, he'd given the she'd taken something? This was shaping up to be one of those postmodern fairy tales, the kind with subtexts and subversions…
He heard the shower kick on in the bathroom and wondered if he should go in, keep Tony company. Then again, maybe that was just his own neediness prodding. He hadn't been invited. But he wouldn't get in with him, he told himself; it would be enough to sit on the floor and lean against the side of the tub. He just didn't want to be by himself. He felt fragile. Jealous. Brittle. Definitely in over his head. He knew he didn't want to be alone with it.
Who knew what Tony wanted.
Sitting up with a groan, Steve dragged himself across the room, stepping over discarded uniform pieces, to the desk where he'd set his bag. The guards had tossed it on his arrival, and he fished through the tumbled contents for a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. The clothes still smelled like home when he pulled them on, but Steve knew from experience they wouldn't smell that way long, not once they got mixed in with the military laundry. It occurred to him that Tony might appreciate a little bit of home, too, and pulled out a second set before he dug out the morphine. He bit a tablet in half and swallowed it, the broken edge sharp as it went down dry. He wanted more, but a half was all he allowed himself. He'd get Tony to help him back into the immobilizer; it might ease the discomfort until he felt sure he could take a bigger dose, if such a time ever came. Whatever conversation he and Tony were about to have was a minefield, and he wanted to be light on his feet, even if the cost was ground glass rattling around in his joint.
He was about to take the extra clothes to the bathroom when he heard a soft knock. Easing the door open a crack, he found Bruce in the hallway with a tray.
"I brought some stuff for Tony's face," Bruce said. "And a cheeseburger. He's losing weight. He's got to start eating or—" he cut himself off, eyes slightly wide. "Is that blood?"
"What? Where?" Steve had a moment of confusion, putting a hand to his shoulder, but his shirt was dry.
"On your face, Steve."
Steve's hand moved from shoulder to cheek, and this time the inspected fingers were red.
"Oh," Steve said, chagrined. "It's…not mine."
Bruce absorbed the implication, then thrust the tray towards Steve. "Find me later. We need to talk about strategy because the prolactin thing is completely bogus. It's something else."
"I know that, Bruce. And I'll come find you after I…" he trailed off, unsure what event or action he needed to fill in the blank. "I'll come find you after," he said instead.
After.
After…what?