Anthony Edward Stark | Iron Man (616) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
definingfuture) wrote2012-10-10 12:49 am
definingfuture) wrote2012-10-10 12:49 am
Some things better left unsaid.
Fanfiction below.
Warning for sexual content.
Also bad decisions.
heresy
It started out the way most of his bad ideas started out: with a three o'clock view of the ceiling. Lately it seemed like he was waking up more often, noticing more acutely that he was alone in bed. It had been a long time since he'd thought about regular company. Yet, somehow, the nagging feeling had woken him up the past four nights, leaving his mind racing until he had to do something, anything else. It wasn't that unnatural. One of the multiple side effects of the affliction of being Tony Stark was insomnia, and unlike some other vices, at least this was one he could usually put to good use. Usually. There are always exceptions to any rule, and that night, when Tony woke up Steve Rogers from a dead sleep (that the man denied), it wasn't to talk about the Avengers. That night it was purely selfish. He had thought better of going, but he just couldn't get the thought out of his head. It was a nagging question that kept his mind racing, guessing and second guessing the potential answers. And he knew that it wouldn't end until he'd at least tried. That was another side effect of being Tony Stark. If he didn't say something, if he didn't get a definitive answers, then he wasn't going to get a decent night's sleep ever again.
Steve surprised him by being receptive to the idea. For him. He wasn't enthusiastic about being called on to answer one of Tony's ridiculous questions, but he was still more receptive than Tony had expected.
“That's what you woke me up for?”
“I tried to come up with an excuse on the way,” Tony offered. “I couldn't settle on one you'd like.”
The blond man shot him a disgruntled look for that, but it was Steve Rogers and not Captain America frowning at him, so Tony lingered in the doorway. He hadn't bothered to turn on the light, guessing that the "old man" would want to go back to sleep after their exchange. The back-lighting from the lit hallway hid Tony's expression when no answer came, which he was grateful for. The problem with well-trained soldiers was that they were too damn unreadable. It made Tony uneasy, waiting in the doorway trying to guess at what Steve was thinking. Sometimes he thought the man did it on purpose just to make him wait. Maybe to see just how invincible the Iron Man really was--but that was a petty thought. He knew it had to come from himself. A full minute and fourteen seconds later, Tony was still waiting. Steve's eyes were closed, and the idea that he had really gone back to sleep sitting up crossed Tony's mind just as Steve looked up again. He straightened up at the movement. A lot of people liked to think they were immune to having other people judge them. They liked to think that under all the hype, Captain America was still just a man, so having him criticize them wasn't as intimidating as the reporters liked to make it sound. Tony had been slandered and publicly torn apart by at least ninety percent of the nation, and his thought at that moment, holding position under the gaze of stern blue eyes, was that those people were full of shit.
“Well?” Steve broke the silence. When Tony didn't respond, he tried again. “Coming or going?”
“Sometimes you have terrible word choice.”
Tony flipped the switch on the wall near the entrance and closed the door behind him.
He told Steve it was “experimental exercise” because he liked the way it sounded. Steve called it the lamest excuse he'd ever heard, which at least cut some of the tension. There wasn't anything left to say after that. For a while there was only quiet breathing and a few awkward, syncopated looks, until Tony lifted his friend's hands up to the headboard and moved the caress of his palms up from their position around Steve's navel. He had barely started the next stage of the plan when he was interrupted.
“Cut it out.”
The command was sharp, which got a surprised laugh out of Tony, but he didn't take his hands off of Steve's sides, and the soldier didn't lower his arms.
“This is part of the experiment. Now we know where you're ticklish.”
The answer earned Tony a disapproving grunt, which he expected, and he soothed it with the flat of his palms pressed against the rows of clenched stomach muscles. He glanced up from his place bent over Steve's legs and watched as the agitation faded from the other man's expression, melting away as he increased the pressure of his touch. Firm and steady. Tony knew that was what Steve wanted, and his hands made lazy circles over the same spots until he felt the frame beneath them relax. Then his hands changed direction, running tracks up and down between Steve's neck and his hips, keeping a precise pace as they followed shapely contours. Tony felt the muscles relax and contract at his touch, and he continued to follow the same path over Steve's body until he could hear the soldier's breathing match the rhythm, of his strokes.
When Tony raised his hands up on his fingers, Steve followed the warmth. His kept his hands resting above his head—a testament to the man's awareness even then—but they were relaxed, fingers curled down contentedly. He had his head cocked slightly to the left, tilted downward as he watched his own stomach contract and relax in time with the brush of fingertips on his skin. Steve watched as if it were someone else's body being caressed instead of his own. And Tony watched Steve. It seemed like the Avenger could always look impassive when he wanted to, even when he was nearly naked and lying on a bed. Even when he wasn't being Captain America, Steve Rogers still felt a little untouchable. Impulsively, Tony brought his hand down below the elastic band resting across his path and one of Steve's lowered to catch his wrist.
“Is this part of your experiment, Tony?”
The question hung between them while Tony tried to decide whether there was irritation in his friend's voice. Steve didn't give him any further cues, and once again Tony thought that sometimes the man must just liked to keep him guessing. At least if he protested, the whole trial would be over. But Steve didn't protest, and Tony didn't pull away. It was frustrating for Tony not to know how to answer a question, but maybe that was what had brought him there in the first place. If he had any preconceived notions about what it would be like to proposition Steve Rogers on a whim at three thirty in the morning, it being easy had never been one of them. But that still didn't give him a good enough answer. Ultimately, he just responded to Steve with a question.
“Can it be?”
An answer came back to him before Steve said anything. It wasn't for the question he'd asked, but it did answer one Tony had been wondering about since he'd found himself counting the paint lines on the ceiling in his own room. Steve's forehead creased and the edges of his mouth turned down in thought. It was a look he seemed to get when he was searching for a compromise between two problems without sacrificing either of them. The worry formed deep lines on the blond's face, making him look even more severe. Multi-tasking was not and would never be his strong point. Tony didn't wait for the captain to find his answer. His hand resumed its motions, cupping around the arch in the white cloth beneath it and languidly tracing the shape beneath it with his thumb. Steve didn't remove his hand, but he also didn't stop him. Tony would have been happy to just keep going, but that's when Steve decided to speak up. Rogers, damn him, Tony wished that for once the man could just let something go without meeting it head on. Their eyes met as Steve forced Tony's hand to pause, his voice finally finding three words that Tony had already committed to.
“Just this once.”
He didn't bother giving Steve a response. After plenty of experience, Tony had learned that the two of them had a way of derailing each other, and with a one-time-only opportunity, he wasn't going to let it turn into one of their late night talks. He repositioned his fingers, using them to spread the crease in the flesh beneath them, and he was grateful when Steve decided to accept his touch with a short note of approval. He let his grip tighten around him, giving him a few cursory strokes, and this time Steve lifted his hips into it. The hand massaging him grew more persistent, tracing the length of his growing erection and teasing the top as it was coaxed into reacting. Even then, Tony had to admire the man's presence. His breaths were heavier, each one now audible as if he had been jogging, but otherwise he still looked composed. His eyes were half-lidded, which almost made him look content. He might have been, until he caught Tony grinning.
The shift was sudden, and Tony hit the ground gracelessly as Steve stood up. The engineer lay sprawled out on the floor, staring up dumbly as he watched Steve Rogers pull his underwear over himself and then jerk them down all the way to the floor. There really was no beating a practiced gymnast at keeping form in any situation. Lesson learned.
“Now, are you going to stop playing around?” How Steve could manage to look offended while standing up half-hard and completely naked was beyond Tony, but if anyone could do it, it would have to be him. That alone was enough to make Tony feel warmer, and he stifled his thoughts from trying to answer the man, afraid that he'd end up getting kicked out of the room before he got a chance to do anything else. Instead, he put his effort toward movement, and that decision was rewarded. It only took a moment to get to his knees, and Steve received his mouth with genuine enthusiasm that made Tony think it could all be worth it, that they could make this all worth it in the end, if only-
Steve moaned deep in his throat as he gripped a fistful of Tony's hair and thrust his hips forward, letting Tony's lips close around the head of his cock as one hand wrapped around it, making each rock into it made bright sparks of pleasure go off behind his eyes. Tony didn't have to see his face to know it was happening. The labored breaths were coming quicker, and for all his previous composure, Steve was doing his best to get Tony to lean forward, guiding him forward with his hand and uttering a breathless grumble when the billionaire didn't comply. Then, with one last carefully placed swipe of his tongue, Tony leaned forward and let Steve fill him. The change stopped Steve short. The sudden reward, granted without warning, tore away any thoughts Steve might have been having and left him weak with pleasure. For a few seconds the man was reduced to gripping Tony by the shoulder with his free hand for balance, nerves burning nothing but pleasure as he let out a strangled noise of surprise. That was the best noise Tony had ever heard. They remained still as both of them got adjusted to the new feeling, and it was Tony who began moving again first. For once, Steve let him set the place.
Tony decided that the entire night was worth seeing his friend's face after he was done. He still wasn't that far gone (another trait to make every other man in the universe jealous of him), but the blue irises of his eyes had become thin rings, and there was a lethargic slump in his shoulders as he sat on the edge of the bed. It was as close to content as he could have expected Steve to be after being woken up and given a half hour of unsolicited, admittedly teasing attention. One hand was still resting on Tony's shoulder, the other having released the rough grip it had held on his head, and Tony reflected that he was probably lucky Steve wasn't more violent by nature. Even so, the man obviously still had energy in him and given a little more time to recover, Tony imagined that he could find out just how rough he could be with the right encouragement.
Steve looked surprised when Tony stood up and moved toward the door, and that rather than anything else made something in Tony's chest pinch. He reminded himself that it wasn't because Steve wanted something more—he just knew enough about Tony's habits to expect it.
“Sorry for waking you up earlier, Cap,” he said. “I'll try to cut back.”
He was reaching for the door handle when Steve interrupted him.
“Tony.” There was a slight edge in Steve's voice. A hint of command that made Tony stop. “This wasn't... Just once.”
Maybe it wasn't a command he heard. Glancing back, Tony saw the troubled expression on Steve's face again, his eyes searching Tony for some kind of answer. Maybe it was dissatisfaction. Not only had he come asking favors of his friend—sexual favors nonetheless—but now he was leaving before they'd really finished the thing. And Steve Rogers wasn't the type of man to leave anything half done. Tony noticed Steve was still watching him, searching for the right thing to say.
“We can't-”
"Steve, just enjoy the-"
"I can't."
He didn't have a quick answer to that. He could see the debate being fought behind Steve's eyes, and realized bitterly that what he was leaving his friend with was only going to torment him if he let it go on. Originally, he had expected at most to be humored. He liked being humored, it kept them both safely behind the line with no risk of doubt about where they stood. But he'd also expected a different answer. "There's someone else." "I'm not like that." "I don't think of you that way." And, originally, Tony thought that those were all probably what Steve had meant to say. But breaking his expectations had thrown him off his footing, and he his raw, gut answer was something different altogether. The answer they both had at the end of the day.
The Avengers came first.
Even that was good enough for Tony. But when Tony looked back, he could see a shadow creeping into his friend's expression. Despite both of their better judgments, Tony thought he could catch a hint of his previous thoughts reflected back at him. He could come up with something. Some way to answer all the questions. Steve had a strange sort of faith in him to do that. To provide answers when change got to be too much, too fast. Sometimes he wondered what the blond saw when he looked at him. That had always been one question Tony couldn't seem to answer. It always seemed to be more than he saw, and it would be lying if he were to deny that he liked having that kind of trust. Especially from Captain America. At that moment, Tony committed a personal Cardinal sin and toyed with answers he never should have considered.
"You know, Cap, we-" The pitch of his own voice, higher and softer in order to be more appealing, cut him off. It was an act of betrayal of the worst kind, and Tony, God damn him, he would never learn. It made him sick. Steve, apparently concerned by the way he broke off, sat up straighter in the bed, clear eyes searching for a sign that something might be wrong. "We could make this a monthly event. Maybe every two weeks. It'd be great stress relief."
The joke got an impatient expression out of the captain. He wasn't given to rolling his eyes, but this time he got close. It was endearing how he could sit there and return to being him so easily, taking it all in stride as if nothing had occurred. That was part of what made him so great. Steve Rogers was a man, but he was a man that had the heart to persevere like no one else did. That was the real secret that few seemed to get. The legend was great, of course, but the man was the real deal.
"I mean it, Tony," he said firmly. "Just this once."
His expression had become stern again, more what Tony was used to seeing, but he could still make out the hint of doubt at the edges. Confusion. And the words that he wouldn't say, but that he was too good not to think as he caught Tony's blue eyes with his: This is your last chance.
“I know.” Tony smiled, his answer overly forceful and just a bit too loud, which earned him a sour look. Good. They were back to business. His shift back to the familiar snapped everything back to the familiar and Steve broke eye contact. “Exercise over. Take a shower and go back to sleep. I'll personally make sure the world doesn't try to implode on us until at least noon."
He stood in front of the door. Looked back again.
"Night, Steve.”
Tony waved as he walked out and closed the door behind him, giving Steve Rogers some much needed privacy. He prayed that by morning the man would forget what had happened and told himself that he hadn't seen his friend watching him unhappily when he'd looked back. Nothing had changed. How much could one night's slip cost him? It wasn't like he was creating any expectations. Steve would go back to sleep. He'd forget everything within a few weeks. Tony told himself that this hadn't changed anything and that Steve was still the same as he was before he'd showed up at his bedroom door. Things would come up, the world would need saved, and Captain America would save them. At least he'd gotten his answer. Maybe if he tried really hard, Tony could even be forgiven for crossing the line he had told himself he would never cross. After all, with enough time, nearly anything was possible.
Warning for sexual content.
Also bad decisions.
heresy
It started out the way most of his bad ideas started out: with a three o'clock view of the ceiling. Lately it seemed like he was waking up more often, noticing more acutely that he was alone in bed. It had been a long time since he'd thought about regular company. Yet, somehow, the nagging feeling had woken him up the past four nights, leaving his mind racing until he had to do something, anything else. It wasn't that unnatural. One of the multiple side effects of the affliction of being Tony Stark was insomnia, and unlike some other vices, at least this was one he could usually put to good use. Usually. There are always exceptions to any rule, and that night, when Tony woke up Steve Rogers from a dead sleep (that the man denied), it wasn't to talk about the Avengers. That night it was purely selfish. He had thought better of going, but he just couldn't get the thought out of his head. It was a nagging question that kept his mind racing, guessing and second guessing the potential answers. And he knew that it wouldn't end until he'd at least tried. That was another side effect of being Tony Stark. If he didn't say something, if he didn't get a definitive answers, then he wasn't going to get a decent night's sleep ever again.
Steve surprised him by being receptive to the idea. For him. He wasn't enthusiastic about being called on to answer one of Tony's ridiculous questions, but he was still more receptive than Tony had expected.
“That's what you woke me up for?”
“I tried to come up with an excuse on the way,” Tony offered. “I couldn't settle on one you'd like.”
The blond man shot him a disgruntled look for that, but it was Steve Rogers and not Captain America frowning at him, so Tony lingered in the doorway. He hadn't bothered to turn on the light, guessing that the "old man" would want to go back to sleep after their exchange. The back-lighting from the lit hallway hid Tony's expression when no answer came, which he was grateful for. The problem with well-trained soldiers was that they were too damn unreadable. It made Tony uneasy, waiting in the doorway trying to guess at what Steve was thinking. Sometimes he thought the man did it on purpose just to make him wait. Maybe to see just how invincible the Iron Man really was--but that was a petty thought. He knew it had to come from himself. A full minute and fourteen seconds later, Tony was still waiting. Steve's eyes were closed, and the idea that he had really gone back to sleep sitting up crossed Tony's mind just as Steve looked up again. He straightened up at the movement. A lot of people liked to think they were immune to having other people judge them. They liked to think that under all the hype, Captain America was still just a man, so having him criticize them wasn't as intimidating as the reporters liked to make it sound. Tony had been slandered and publicly torn apart by at least ninety percent of the nation, and his thought at that moment, holding position under the gaze of stern blue eyes, was that those people were full of shit.
“Well?” Steve broke the silence. When Tony didn't respond, he tried again. “Coming or going?”
“Sometimes you have terrible word choice.”
Tony flipped the switch on the wall near the entrance and closed the door behind him.
He told Steve it was “experimental exercise” because he liked the way it sounded. Steve called it the lamest excuse he'd ever heard, which at least cut some of the tension. There wasn't anything left to say after that. For a while there was only quiet breathing and a few awkward, syncopated looks, until Tony lifted his friend's hands up to the headboard and moved the caress of his palms up from their position around Steve's navel. He had barely started the next stage of the plan when he was interrupted.
“Cut it out.”
The command was sharp, which got a surprised laugh out of Tony, but he didn't take his hands off of Steve's sides, and the soldier didn't lower his arms.
“This is part of the experiment. Now we know where you're ticklish.”
The answer earned Tony a disapproving grunt, which he expected, and he soothed it with the flat of his palms pressed against the rows of clenched stomach muscles. He glanced up from his place bent over Steve's legs and watched as the agitation faded from the other man's expression, melting away as he increased the pressure of his touch. Firm and steady. Tony knew that was what Steve wanted, and his hands made lazy circles over the same spots until he felt the frame beneath them relax. Then his hands changed direction, running tracks up and down between Steve's neck and his hips, keeping a precise pace as they followed shapely contours. Tony felt the muscles relax and contract at his touch, and he continued to follow the same path over Steve's body until he could hear the soldier's breathing match the rhythm, of his strokes.
When Tony raised his hands up on his fingers, Steve followed the warmth. His kept his hands resting above his head—a testament to the man's awareness even then—but they were relaxed, fingers curled down contentedly. He had his head cocked slightly to the left, tilted downward as he watched his own stomach contract and relax in time with the brush of fingertips on his skin. Steve watched as if it were someone else's body being caressed instead of his own. And Tony watched Steve. It seemed like the Avenger could always look impassive when he wanted to, even when he was nearly naked and lying on a bed. Even when he wasn't being Captain America, Steve Rogers still felt a little untouchable. Impulsively, Tony brought his hand down below the elastic band resting across his path and one of Steve's lowered to catch his wrist.
“Is this part of your experiment, Tony?”
The question hung between them while Tony tried to decide whether there was irritation in his friend's voice. Steve didn't give him any further cues, and once again Tony thought that sometimes the man must just liked to keep him guessing. At least if he protested, the whole trial would be over. But Steve didn't protest, and Tony didn't pull away. It was frustrating for Tony not to know how to answer a question, but maybe that was what had brought him there in the first place. If he had any preconceived notions about what it would be like to proposition Steve Rogers on a whim at three thirty in the morning, it being easy had never been one of them. But that still didn't give him a good enough answer. Ultimately, he just responded to Steve with a question.
“Can it be?”
An answer came back to him before Steve said anything. It wasn't for the question he'd asked, but it did answer one Tony had been wondering about since he'd found himself counting the paint lines on the ceiling in his own room. Steve's forehead creased and the edges of his mouth turned down in thought. It was a look he seemed to get when he was searching for a compromise between two problems without sacrificing either of them. The worry formed deep lines on the blond's face, making him look even more severe. Multi-tasking was not and would never be his strong point. Tony didn't wait for the captain to find his answer. His hand resumed its motions, cupping around the arch in the white cloth beneath it and languidly tracing the shape beneath it with his thumb. Steve didn't remove his hand, but he also didn't stop him. Tony would have been happy to just keep going, but that's when Steve decided to speak up. Rogers, damn him, Tony wished that for once the man could just let something go without meeting it head on. Their eyes met as Steve forced Tony's hand to pause, his voice finally finding three words that Tony had already committed to.
“Just this once.”
He didn't bother giving Steve a response. After plenty of experience, Tony had learned that the two of them had a way of derailing each other, and with a one-time-only opportunity, he wasn't going to let it turn into one of their late night talks. He repositioned his fingers, using them to spread the crease in the flesh beneath them, and he was grateful when Steve decided to accept his touch with a short note of approval. He let his grip tighten around him, giving him a few cursory strokes, and this time Steve lifted his hips into it. The hand massaging him grew more persistent, tracing the length of his growing erection and teasing the top as it was coaxed into reacting. Even then, Tony had to admire the man's presence. His breaths were heavier, each one now audible as if he had been jogging, but otherwise he still looked composed. His eyes were half-lidded, which almost made him look content. He might have been, until he caught Tony grinning.
The shift was sudden, and Tony hit the ground gracelessly as Steve stood up. The engineer lay sprawled out on the floor, staring up dumbly as he watched Steve Rogers pull his underwear over himself and then jerk them down all the way to the floor. There really was no beating a practiced gymnast at keeping form in any situation. Lesson learned.
“Now, are you going to stop playing around?” How Steve could manage to look offended while standing up half-hard and completely naked was beyond Tony, but if anyone could do it, it would have to be him. That alone was enough to make Tony feel warmer, and he stifled his thoughts from trying to answer the man, afraid that he'd end up getting kicked out of the room before he got a chance to do anything else. Instead, he put his effort toward movement, and that decision was rewarded. It only took a moment to get to his knees, and Steve received his mouth with genuine enthusiasm that made Tony think it could all be worth it, that they could make this all worth it in the end, if only-
Steve moaned deep in his throat as he gripped a fistful of Tony's hair and thrust his hips forward, letting Tony's lips close around the head of his cock as one hand wrapped around it, making each rock into it made bright sparks of pleasure go off behind his eyes. Tony didn't have to see his face to know it was happening. The labored breaths were coming quicker, and for all his previous composure, Steve was doing his best to get Tony to lean forward, guiding him forward with his hand and uttering a breathless grumble when the billionaire didn't comply. Then, with one last carefully placed swipe of his tongue, Tony leaned forward and let Steve fill him. The change stopped Steve short. The sudden reward, granted without warning, tore away any thoughts Steve might have been having and left him weak with pleasure. For a few seconds the man was reduced to gripping Tony by the shoulder with his free hand for balance, nerves burning nothing but pleasure as he let out a strangled noise of surprise. That was the best noise Tony had ever heard. They remained still as both of them got adjusted to the new feeling, and it was Tony who began moving again first. For once, Steve let him set the place.
Tony decided that the entire night was worth seeing his friend's face after he was done. He still wasn't that far gone (another trait to make every other man in the universe jealous of him), but the blue irises of his eyes had become thin rings, and there was a lethargic slump in his shoulders as he sat on the edge of the bed. It was as close to content as he could have expected Steve to be after being woken up and given a half hour of unsolicited, admittedly teasing attention. One hand was still resting on Tony's shoulder, the other having released the rough grip it had held on his head, and Tony reflected that he was probably lucky Steve wasn't more violent by nature. Even so, the man obviously still had energy in him and given a little more time to recover, Tony imagined that he could find out just how rough he could be with the right encouragement.
Steve looked surprised when Tony stood up and moved toward the door, and that rather than anything else made something in Tony's chest pinch. He reminded himself that it wasn't because Steve wanted something more—he just knew enough about Tony's habits to expect it.
“Sorry for waking you up earlier, Cap,” he said. “I'll try to cut back.”
He was reaching for the door handle when Steve interrupted him.
“Tony.” There was a slight edge in Steve's voice. A hint of command that made Tony stop. “This wasn't... Just once.”
Maybe it wasn't a command he heard. Glancing back, Tony saw the troubled expression on Steve's face again, his eyes searching Tony for some kind of answer. Maybe it was dissatisfaction. Not only had he come asking favors of his friend—sexual favors nonetheless—but now he was leaving before they'd really finished the thing. And Steve Rogers wasn't the type of man to leave anything half done. Tony noticed Steve was still watching him, searching for the right thing to say.
“We can't-”
"Steve, just enjoy the-"
"I can't."
He didn't have a quick answer to that. He could see the debate being fought behind Steve's eyes, and realized bitterly that what he was leaving his friend with was only going to torment him if he let it go on. Originally, he had expected at most to be humored. He liked being humored, it kept them both safely behind the line with no risk of doubt about where they stood. But he'd also expected a different answer. "There's someone else." "I'm not like that." "I don't think of you that way." And, originally, Tony thought that those were all probably what Steve had meant to say. But breaking his expectations had thrown him off his footing, and he his raw, gut answer was something different altogether. The answer they both had at the end of the day.
The Avengers came first.
Even that was good enough for Tony. But when Tony looked back, he could see a shadow creeping into his friend's expression. Despite both of their better judgments, Tony thought he could catch a hint of his previous thoughts reflected back at him. He could come up with something. Some way to answer all the questions. Steve had a strange sort of faith in him to do that. To provide answers when change got to be too much, too fast. Sometimes he wondered what the blond saw when he looked at him. That had always been one question Tony couldn't seem to answer. It always seemed to be more than he saw, and it would be lying if he were to deny that he liked having that kind of trust. Especially from Captain America. At that moment, Tony committed a personal Cardinal sin and toyed with answers he never should have considered.
"You know, Cap, we-" The pitch of his own voice, higher and softer in order to be more appealing, cut him off. It was an act of betrayal of the worst kind, and Tony, God damn him, he would never learn. It made him sick. Steve, apparently concerned by the way he broke off, sat up straighter in the bed, clear eyes searching for a sign that something might be wrong. "We could make this a monthly event. Maybe every two weeks. It'd be great stress relief."
The joke got an impatient expression out of the captain. He wasn't given to rolling his eyes, but this time he got close. It was endearing how he could sit there and return to being him so easily, taking it all in stride as if nothing had occurred. That was part of what made him so great. Steve Rogers was a man, but he was a man that had the heart to persevere like no one else did. That was the real secret that few seemed to get. The legend was great, of course, but the man was the real deal.
"I mean it, Tony," he said firmly. "Just this once."
His expression had become stern again, more what Tony was used to seeing, but he could still make out the hint of doubt at the edges. Confusion. And the words that he wouldn't say, but that he was too good not to think as he caught Tony's blue eyes with his: This is your last chance.
“I know.” Tony smiled, his answer overly forceful and just a bit too loud, which earned him a sour look. Good. They were back to business. His shift back to the familiar snapped everything back to the familiar and Steve broke eye contact. “Exercise over. Take a shower and go back to sleep. I'll personally make sure the world doesn't try to implode on us until at least noon."
He stood in front of the door. Looked back again.
"Night, Steve.”
Tony waved as he walked out and closed the door behind him, giving Steve Rogers some much needed privacy. He prayed that by morning the man would forget what had happened and told himself that he hadn't seen his friend watching him unhappily when he'd looked back. Nothing had changed. How much could one night's slip cost him? It wasn't like he was creating any expectations. Steve would go back to sleep. He'd forget everything within a few weeks. Tony told himself that this hadn't changed anything and that Steve was still the same as he was before he'd showed up at his bedroom door. Things would come up, the world would need saved, and Captain America would save them. At least he'd gotten his answer. Maybe if he tried really hard, Tony could even be forgiven for crossing the line he had told himself he would never cross. After all, with enough time, nearly anything was possible.