Oh, God...

[shieldborne]

Infinity War Open Post






THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Drop me a prompt, or ask me to drop you a prompt. Open to doomy pre-IW foreshadowing, fix-it AUs, post-IW angst, character interactions that should have happened but didn't on-screen, crossovers, and whatever else anyone can come up with.

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[starkingenuity]

The hands in his hair feels so nice. The touch of their bodies together is both soothing and invigorating in a way that is surely part of Steve’s plethora of super powers. Tony will have to look up his dossier when they get to SHIELD tomorrow or the next day to double check. He isn’t a man who is easily swayed. A pretty face might get his eyes to move or his head to turn to see if that pretty face comes with a nice ass too, but this is different. Steve had both a pretty face and a nice ass, but he’s not just a generic person with a good body and a good soul.

Can you be attracted to depression? Can you be attracted to the cracks in the old vase, the signs of weakness and of age and of morality? Tony is pretty sure that’s a shitty thing to admit but he can’t stop himself from feeling that way. Or from wanting to find finger holds in those cracks and climb to the top, to peer inside, to know the truth.

How long as it been like this? He felt shadows of this emotion cross him when he flipped through sketchbooks or played chicken with the speed dial on the flip phone. He could have gone on forever with just that shadow but Steve’s gone and done to him what very few have ever done before. It’s not the sadness. It’s not the loss of a surrogate child and a fiancée that’s caused all of this. It hadn’t been grief sex.

Soap in his hair, Tony turns slightly to catch a glimpse of this foolish idiot’s jawline. ‘Let me be good to you’ translates word for word into ‘let me love you.’ It’s poisonous and irresistible. Tony turns again, this time to put his arms around Steve’s waist.

“So be good to be me.”

[shieldborne]

Maybe there's a little of that on both their parts. Maybe that's some of what Steve's feeling now, the pull toward the wounded parts of Tony, to the signs of vulnerability, the holes in his armor. He's less interested in seeing and analyzing than soothing and healing, though. Which is like him: he has a deep-seated drive to help and to give.

It's not altruism, though. At least, Steve doesn't feel like it is. Maybe it's an outlet for emotions he's repressed for too long. Maybe 'let me be good to you' is as much a plea for forgiveness as an offer of affection. Tony's interpretation isn't wrong, either, though. Let me love you. I want to love you.

He already does, obviously, with or without permission or common sense. He's just not ready to admit it, and it's probably safer for them both that way, for now.

Something in his eyes flickers when Tony turns, bright blue piercing and hungry as his gaze sweeps his face. Then, lashes half-lowering, he goes back to massaging his scalp, sweeping down to the back of his neck, and leans in. He kisses his temple, nuzzles against his cheek, working his way down to his throat. They're soft kisses, featherlight touches against his skin meant to give pleasure, though not necessarily to arouse.

"You've been on my mind," he murmurs. "I don't know how to explain. But I missed you. I wanted you to be happy. Wanted to tell you I didn't mean to hurt you..."

There are things he can't take back, things he can't apologize for, things he wouldn't do differently if he had them to do over again. That doesn't mean he's not sorry they happened, though. And it doesn't mean he doesn't bitterly regret some of his actions.

"Even before all that I just...really wanted to see you happy," he adds quietly, as if remembering.

That probably explains why he seemed so excited about the idea of Pepper potentially being pregnant when they talked about the Accords that last time. "I guess I should've told you that."

[starkingenuity]

He’s never been thrown so off balance before. Tony’s fingers press more firmly against Steve’s spine, as if he could see the same person making him feel this way for support against feeling this way. Tony’s blown himself up, had someone sacrifice their life for him, been backstabbed by an old family friend, and literally breathed in the dusty remains of a teenager over the last decade or so, all of which might have ruined his stability, but it took Steve God Damned Rogers to say a few words and lightly drop a few kisses along his hairline to completely undo him.

Steve says things youd expect the good guys in Noir movies to come up with, the ones that have the dame before she decides to fall for the gritty, demon-laden leading man. You’ve been on my mind. I just really wanted to see you happy.

How do normal people react to that? Tony’s first instinct is to push Steve away, but he battles that like he’d been battling his body to keep from flinching. No one has time for him to be physically afraid of his only ally, no matter what circuit his fight or flight mentality is currently wired to. This feeling has nothing to do with physical fear, though. Steve Rogers is intense with a big black hole in the center of his chest, threatening to suck everything in even as it provides stability for other bodies to orbit peacefully.

He should not be thinking of the blond in terms of astromical physics but he can’t help himself, caught in a gravity well. “You’re telling me now,” he manages, though he feels so stiff, his body tense and his voice frozen in his throat. He sounds icy. He doesn’t mean to. This is just a bit much for him. “I’ll be happy when we fix this.”

[shieldborne]

"Yeah," Steve's kisses stop their downward progress as he feels Tony tensing up. He's not sure whether the withdrawal is emotional, physical, both. It's a lot, he realizes. A lot, fast, for both of them. And he's not trying to make a confession of love, either. Just trying to make things as right as they can be, reaching for some kind of assurance between them and letting his own honesty carry him away.

Too far, he thinks, hearing the tone in Tony's voice. It's strangely fascinating, though, how he doesn't physically pull away, doesn't verbally push back. Freezes. It makes Steve feel a little too powerful. He draws in a deep breath and rests his forehead against Tony's shoulder a moment, then straightens up and curls his hand across the other man's brow to keep suds out of his eyes as he rinses his hair.

"Sorry," he murmurs. "I'm...a lot. Too much."

He doesn't bother asking if Tony's okay. Ultimately, neither of them are. He has to hope he'll at least try to push him away if he needs physical space, though. "You, uh, want the conditioner now?"

[starkingenuity]

Steve is a lot. He’s heavier than Tony would have expected, filled with more substance than he had given him credit for. More than that, however, Steve feels too much. The stoic soldier out of time on the battle field and the guy who was always quick to smile over pizza but rarely talk about himself has more emotion in him than Tony thought possible for a human being to have. It’s oppressive, to have that force directed at you.

Tony’s never shied away from a challenge though. While he might have agreed that Steve is a lot, ‘too much’ are words that don’t compute. Nothing is ever too much for him. He can handle everything.

Tony shakes his head, water flinging itself against the shower walls. “I can take you,” he says, hinting at the double entandre. “Already did and I can do it again this time too.”

They’ve lost so much that this feels like a rush patch job. Nothing’s been sanded, nothing’s been left to dry. It’s not solid, but it’s their only game plan to push forward with. They needed this. Tony needs it.

They’re still playing a game of chicken, he realizes, but the stakes are insane and the odds are dismal. It’s his sort of challenge. “Don’t hold things back from me.”

[shieldborne]

Steve needs this just as badly, emotional intimacy and reassurance and--he knows he's off-kilter, functional but far from at his best, and he should not be doing this now. Should not be reaching for Tony Stark from a place of desperate emotion, even if there's a spark of something real underlying it.

Or should he? Has he been too quiet all this time, too stoic? Sam and Natasha seemed to think so, always trying to get him to open up. Trouble with opening up is you have to let stuff out and let stuff in.

So which is right? Lean on Tony the way he's being invited to, or pull back and try to recover the equilibrium he thought he had before?

'Don't hold things back from me' Tony says, as if he's reading Steve's mind, and the soldier's expression flickers from mild uncertainty to genuine distress. Not holding things back is light years out of his comfort zone. They have to trust each other, though. They have to trust each other now, because there's no one else, and they have to work together, save the world and save one another.

He's going to have to trust Tony with everything, and at last he swallows hard and gives a little nod, acknowledging that. "Promise me the same," he says. Not a question, but a demand.

[starkingenuity]

If there’s nothing else to lose and nothing really to give up, why not? Who is this really hurting? They’re already both torn up and raw, bleeding where no one else can see. The argument of this eventually going to happen, or that they need this for relief is null and void at this point. As there’s a lack of good reasons not to carry on, there’s no reason to fight the carrying on.

Tony can let Steve love him, even if it’s artificial. Maybe he can love Steve too, even if it’s just a facsimile of what he’d had with Pepper. They can be like the Spartans at Thermopile, a set of lovers facing the unknown in hopes to save everything. Good enough for Tony. It’s about time that he reinvent himself.

Steve’s demand is still a little shocking. He blinks up through the water, willing whatever lacks a connection to find it in the blond, sooner rather than later. Now. They’re about to shape history so he can damned well shape himself.

“I can do that,” he says without any need for goading. This is the path to their survival. “It’s going to get messy. Glad we’re in the shower. You want to start with the conditioner? We’ve got time to let it sit.” He doesn’t break eye contact. “I really am going to need you to love me. And tell me that you love me. Often. I need something to fight for and you’re it, Rogers. Something more than the future we’re messing up for ourselves. I’m guessing you’re going to need more than that future too. It’s not conventional, I get that. I think that suits us.”

[shieldborne]

Steve gives a little nod, slowly at first, then more emphatically, running his fingers carefully through Tony's hair to help get the last of the soap out. He's trembling a little, feeling like he just opened Pandora's Box to see if Hope was still stuck in the back corner somewhere.

They can get through the mission one way or another--and Steve has thoughts about what work could come after that, but whether they can carry on that long seems to be up in the air. He wants to, though. He wants things to stop, wants a break to try and find something inside himself that's not broken, that's normal, that's some kind of recognizable remnant of the youth he was before Rebirth. He doesn't really want his life to end like this, spilled out in hopelessness as the world burn around them.

And he wants to see Tony Stark happy, just for once.

"I do, though," he says, voice harsh and quiet and raw. "I do love you." Before you even asked for it, Tony.

"I'm scared," he adds, almost a whisper. When has Captain America ever admitted to being afraid? Not often, that's for damn sure.

[starkingenuity]

Tony doesn’t care if it’s true. He doesn’t care if Steve does or will really love him, or what capacity they love is about. Friendship? Romance? He just needs to hear it. He can believe everything else on his own, mind supplying everything he needs. His eyes close as Steve finishes rinsing out his hair and leans in for a kiss as if that alone can sooth Steve’s fears. That’s not how this works, but if they’re in a fantasy of their own making, the main characters that will usher in the rest of the world towards a brighter future, then Tony is willing to play the part.

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” he says, which is more parental than he wants to be as he lowers himself back down on his heels. “If we screw something up, we’ll just try again. It’s going to work.”

Tony Stark doesn’t fail. And from what he’s seen from Steve, nothing the blond can actively controls fails either.

“We’ve got a magical hammer and a time machine suit and we have each other and all of that is completely crazy.” For some reason, that makes him grin. “That’s how I know we’ve got this.”

[shieldborne]

He takes the kiss willingly, curling around Tony and petting the back of his wet hair. It's soft, not ravenous but delicate and still somehow too-full of emotion.

Steve doesn't do well with doubts, doesn't do well with moral ambiguity, doesn't do well when he can't see the high road ahead of him. And he can't, right now. He's lost. Strategically speaking, he can think of six or seven different considerations they ought to be talking about right now: Should they go after more than one stone? How much should they tell their alternates? What about Hydra's presence in SHIELD and the government? Shouldn't the endgame be to kill Thanos, not just make this one tiny change to stymie his plans for the Gauntlet?

But strategy isn't what he's worried about. Saving the universe, or avenging it, isn't what scares him.

"It's not that," he says, and nudges his forehead against Tony's gently. The bridges of their noses almost brush. "That's not what scares me. I don't want to break. I don't want to hurt you any more."

It says something about Steve that the personal, the emotional, feels like a more insurmountable obstacle than a giant purple alien with a handful of magical gems.

His hands are cradling Tony's face now, which mean he can feel the grin appear in the flex and pressure of his jaw and cheeks, and he opens his eyes and tilts his head back enough to get a glance at it. Hope or mania? He can't quite tell, but either way it's kind of a good look for Tony Stark. He gives a little laugh and kisses him again and murmurs, "You're crazy," against his lips. "Do you think you can save me, Tony? I think...you got the best chance of anyone I know."

[starkingenuity]

“If I can save myself, I can save anyone,” Tony outright boasts before Steve kisses him again and they can lose another moment or two locked in this cosmic absurdity. “Even Steve Rogers.” They’ve got to be above their monikers. Captain America and Iron Man exist here already and have been, are, and will be icons into the future. There’s no room for two of each. Tony can’t save Captain America, a badge who needs no saving, even if the world doesn’t know he still exists in the flesh and not simply the mind, but he can save this man.

What better way to test run saving half of the universe?

They’re going to hurt each other from time to time. That’s just life. They might even hurt each other badly. Tony can’t stop it. But he can fill in the cracks he can almost feel in Steve and repaint the fallen soldier to make him almost as good as new. Easy, really, for a guy that transformed a subatomic, cross dimensional particles into a time machine just a short day ago.

Conditioning his hair, Tony decides, is just going to have to wait. He’s given Steve every reassurance he can think of and dwelling in that head space will only undo it all. He hadn’t been lying when he told the blond that he needed him to be the focus of his energy, that he needed to be told he was loved so that he had something to fight for. He’s come to know himself. And without one person to always return to, there’s a good chance that Tony will lose himself too.

Discussion of the plan takes place in boxers to avoid sticking too much to the sheets with cold food and lots of pen-scratched paper between them. Tony has his game face on, plate resting on a bare knee with his fork stuck inside of a meatball he’s utterly forgotten about.

“Yeah, Thanos is still the end game. But we need to reverse the chain reaction where it started. It’s going to be fun, infiltrating SHIELD again. For the first time,” Tony grins. He’s never shied away from word play.

[shieldborne]

He means it, too. As much as Steve loved Bucky, not to mention Peggy and many others, Tony is the absolute best possibility to stabilize him. Because Tony's a fixer. Because he's as stubbornly determined as Steve. Because they can and have lashed out at one another without pulling their blows, because they each see the darkness and the light in the other.

Because they aren't in perfect synch, and they both need the challenge of butting heads to really keep them interested.

Steve has to rinse out his own hair, and for the sake of lightening the mood, he starts humming 'Umbrella' partway through, just to get a reaction. The end result of the shower is as it should be: both clean, no one injured, most of the hot water allotment for their room used up.

"That's weirdly poetic," Steve tells him, nibbling some kind of apple dumpling from the meal cart's bounty (honestly, Tony, how much did you order??). "Nipping it in the bud. Sort of. There are a lot of buds."

"I was thinking," he says slowly, after another bite. "And tell me if I'm crazy here, but when Loki showed up before, he already had the Mind Stone in the scepter. Do we really want to keep that even from happening? What if we...use the Tesseract to lure him in? Destroy both Stones, and when Thor comes to get him--"

Because he will, no question there, and possibly do some really stupid stuff to get to him. "We might have a chance to give Asgard a heads-up on what's coming."

The only problem with this idea is that Loki has proved extremely difficult to contain. And they'd have to break the Mind Stone fast, or risk having it used against them.

[starkingenuity]

Steve’s idea is a good one, but a risky one too. Tony can’t help but see the danger in that scenario, of having to battle on two fronts. It will require playing everything cool and not interfering in anything until Loki makes his play in Germany. Tony finds himself lightly stroking his beard with his thumb from the edge of his jaw to his chin. “We need to be on the hellicarrier before everyone shows up,” he determines, just nodding his head very slowly for a moment as he finds the timeline they’ve already ferreted out of their memories in the pile of papers between them.

People are going to get hurt. SHIELD agents will die and Barton’s going to have to be brainwashed again. At least they know how to knock their controlled agents back to themselves this time around before anything happens.

“Barton ever tell you where their launch site was after Loki was brought on board? If we can get to them before they mount the attack that leads to Loki killing Coulson and unleashing the Hulk, we have a leg up.” Loki will still be in captivity. No one needs to die onboard the carrier. Both stones will be ripe for destruction.

Win-win-win.

[shieldborne]

Steve's inclination in a fight is to play for high stakes. It's served him well in a number of ways, not the least of which is how it leads his opponents to think he's more arrogant than he is. It's bound to catch up with him sooner or later (one might say it already did, with Thanos, but Steve is inclined to believe they were simply hopelessly outgunned in that instance), but if it doesn't catch up with him today, they'll be all right.

He's listening to Tony's reaction, though, just uncertain of himself enough to want the feedback, both spoken and unspoken. It says a lot that Tony didn't even start by giving him a you've-lost-your-mind glare. Of course, Stark plays high stakes, too.

"Might not be able to use our appearance to get there," he says, nodding back.

"Barton didn't tell me about it. He didn't want to talk, and I don't blame him. But he was debriefed, and Romanoff and I had a personal interest. We helped with cleanup. Where's the map, I can show you--"

He rifles through papers, jaw setting slightly as he lets the idea really sink in. It involves allowing a lot of deaths they could prevent. He doesn't much like that aspect, but it was his own suggestion. Playing God, picking and choosing who lives and who doesn't, makes it worse. And yet: "We better try and make sure Coulson lives. They're gonna need him."

Because after this, SHIELD is going to have to ferret Hydra out of itself, preferably without massive casualties. Steve can't help with that this time, although he has no doubt his other self will want to.

[starkingenuity]

This whole mission involves playing God, otherwise they would have just focused on rebuilding the world that they were left after their defeat and moving on. Instead, here they are, moving back. It’s a fine look for a guy whose whole business model is playing God. Tony’s done some crazy things, created some crazy things, and caused a lot of crazy things. He can’t really comment on this. Besides, all they’re doing is saving people that had already died.. Even one person left alive that was supposed to have died will change the course of the future. It could be for the better. It could be so much worse.

All Tony does know is that nothing will be worse than if they let Thanos get his hands on all of the stones. They have a fighting chance if they destroy one and double the odds again if they destroy two.

Tony has a sudden, romantic idea of becoming space pirates with Steve, hunting down the other gems, and visiting strange new worlds when this is over. And why can’t they do that? Tony already had all of the data gathered from the Chitauri and Thanos’ invasion stored in FRIDAY’s databanks. He can whip up a space faring craft in a—

Huh. So they’re going to have to get away from the snap analogy from now on.

Looking over Steve’s map, at the pinpointed location where the trap Loki set is to be sprung from, Tony gives a little shrug. “So this is easy. We monitor the hellicarrier’s channels and the moment the other you and I catch Loki, we destroy this base. Just the equipment. There’s no need to get fancy just yet.”

((I loled at the snap analogy.))

[shieldborne]

See, Steve's romantic idea is more along the lines of finding somewhere quiet in the country where they can build or renovate a big studio space that's half his art and half Tony's engineering. Except realistically it would end up being one-tenth his art and nine-tenth's Tony's space, because watercolors don't require as much workspace and he just has this feeling Tony's inclined to spreading out. That's kind of a long way from Space Piracy, but maybe he could be talked into it. They won't really belong on the planet, anyway.

So much for the off-Broadway musical, though.

"We're probably going to have to face Barton," he observes. "But apparently if we hit him really hard in the head he'll snap out of it."

They'll just need the element of surprise there, because if he gets one of them in his sights...well, he never misses.

"So, we can hit the Cube there, before they use it to open the portal to the Chitauri army." That's good. That'll prevent a lot of damage. "And then what? Get up to the helicarrier and destroy the scepter from there?"

Haha, there's the part that'll get interesting, because it'll be right under Tony and Banner's noses, with various other Avengers and SHIELD personnel in close proximity. Some part of Steve--the part of him that enjoys trolling, perhaps--kind of wants to do that just to see the reactions. His lips press together in a thin line, but it's not sternness or disapproval. He's trying not to laugh.

((Thanos ruins everything))

[starkingenuity]

“Going to have to, but we’ll have to tiptoe around Thor until we do it. That axe used to be his hammer, right? He’s going to be able to do his stringless yo-yo trick and that could get messy.” Tony would pin the blue ribbon for most things on Steve’s chest, but strength and the pseudo-mystical properties that came innately in Thor would steal the prize away from the man sitting across from him, swallowing whatever had just tickled his fancy. Tony’s eyebrows lift in interest, though he doesn’t ask why Steve looks so amused, nor does he really expect an answer.

There’s allowed to be mysteries between them yet.

“I remember how stubborn you used to be, so I’m thinking that we’re going to have to talk to you.” He lifts a hand before Steve can protest. “Stubborn,” he repeats before adding, “and more understanding. I won’t listen to reason. I think I spent the entire time with Banner trying to get him to embrace the part of himself that killed a few hundred people in Harlem. I don’t trust me.”

And Tony’s come a long, long way to be able to say that.

[shieldborne]

Steve shakes his head. "No, I don't know what happened to Mjolnir. Stormbreaker is new, from scratch, and that's probably why we were able to talk him into letting it go. Made in the same place, by the same guys, though, from what he told me. But you're not wrong--he still might be able to call it if it occurred to him to try."

Steve doesn't think it would, though. Not right away. Maybe if he got a close look, read the runes on the edges, made a couple educated guesses. The power of the two weapons might blend or conflict in strange ways, though, and neither he nor Tony wants to have to fight Thor. Been there, done that, almost died. Once was enough. "I'm happy to avoid him as much as we can. At least until we can be sure he'll talk to us and not attack us."

He raises an eyebrow at Tony's suggestion that they approach his younger self. "You, uh...okay, there's a lot to unpack there."

He's not sure Tony's approach to Banner was entirely wrong, in retrospect, just incredibly foolhardy. But it doesn't matter right now, that's not the topic at hand. "I remember the state of mind I was in. If we just walk up to me and tell me we're from the future, I don't see that going well."

He was already overloaded with the newness of the world around him. Dumping all the crazy shit they've been through since on him--'the world ended, and also, Bucky's been alive being tortured by Hydra for the last several decades but I went and let him die again'--Steve isn't sure how he would have reacted, how his younger self will respond. He's pretty sure there's going to be a lot of anger, though. Pure, righteous rage. The universe isn't supposed to be like this.

On the other hand, he can imagine how Tony would react at this time in his life. Trouble brewing? No problem, I'll fix it before it gets here. And then another Ultron.

(That's a little bit unfair. He's acknowledge how shaken up Tony was when Ultron came into being. But it's still a valid concern, and they don't want to set either of them up to become the monsters they're trying to defeat.)

But they're going to need to relay certain truths to themselves eventually. Steve is silent a moment, trying to reach for an intermediary, someone his younger self would trust, to soften the blow they're going to have to deal him. Peggy? But she's unwell, and they can't just pick her up and take her to the helicarrier. Natasha? But she wouldn't trust either of them. Same with Coulson.

Tony's right, he concludes uncomfortably, at last. "God, I hate being the best guy for the job by default, but I can't think of a better solution."

[starkingenuity]

“It’s all need to know,” Tony says, not exactly reading Steve’s mind, but he can read that expression of his. If you spend enough time getting around your own issues and try to see someone else’s, it’s strange how apparent they become. “We don’t have to go into details, just that the Tesseract and the staff are going to be used to destroy the world. Everything else-- Stop it. You look like a kicked dog, Rogers, there’s nothing else we have to tell him. Who do you trust more than yourself?”

Tony knows flat out that he probably wouldn’t trust himself at all. Steve’s different. The guy’s a proven liar (for a good cause) and somewhat manipulative in his stubbornness, but no one in their right mind would do anything other than trust Captain America. Especially Steve’s younger self.

It’s going to fine, Tony thinks.

Hopes.

It’s going to be fine.

“Every other wrong that we have to right—” He’s talking about HYDRA, about the Winter Soldier, about Extremis, and about what’s being done to Wanda and her brother – “we do that ourselves. The rest of us are going to have other things to worry about that doesn’t involve government conspiracies. We fix what we can, feed information about what we can and-- I can’t believe I’m saying this, after that we’re hands off. Shaping the world is where it gets messy.”

[shieldborne]

"I'm not a kicked dog; I'm thinkin'," he protests with a little frown. "And there's some things that aren't going to be avoidable. Even if we don't tell the other me, the other you isn't gonna rest until he ferrets out everything he wants to know. You sure we shouldn't tip him off, first? Even anonymously? You were already hacking SHIELD's files on the carrier. A little nudge, a little deeper without interruption and you might've found Hydra's stamp all over Project Insight. And that needs to happen before they do part of Thanos' job for him."

He takes a breath, and despite his protest there is a flash of the kicked puppy when his brain turns to Bucky. "If we can get the Winter Soldier while he's in cryo, everyone's job will be easier. But no one's better equipped to control him than me. The other me, I mean. I...can't."

Can't see him again. Can't lose him again. Too much.

He shakes his head and sets his plate aside abruptly, rising to get some coffee. "Guess we just drop him on other-me's doorstep and back off from there. You're gonna have to tell me what you want to do about your stuff."

"I'll tell you what, though. This was a pretty brief window in my life, but starting here and ending after the Winter Soldier affair, I was pretty willing to follow orders without asking too many questions. We can use that, and your tendency to do the exact opposite."

"But he's going to be angry. Me, I mean. You better let me run interference."

[starkingenuity]

Tony shakes his head here and because Steve is starting to get the Cliffs of Dover look on his face again, he reaches across the paper work and the paper plates to cup the blond’s neck. He craves attention no matter the circumstances, so this is all pretty usual for him anyway. When blue eyes meet his, either with pleading or annoyance, Tony will lightly thumb the edge of his ear and then sit back. “We’re jumping too far ahead. I like chess, but we’ll have time to pick up the rest of the end game and plot strategy.”

To be honest, Tony doesn’t really want to deal with Bucky now. And maybe not for a long time. It’ll be a few years before the Winter Soldier is reactivated, right? He’ll sleep, undreaming, while Tony makes sure that Barnes won’t manage to worm his way back into Steve’s life. The blond might be able to share, but Tony has never even tried to fool himself about that aspect of his personality.

He’s selfish. He likes being selfish. He’ll guard being selfish until his last breath.

“We can work on feeding me information on everything. FRIDAY is more advanced that JARVIS ever will be. It’s going to be easy to block myself from what I don’t want me to know.” Tony shakes his head. “This is confusing.” He wants to smile, and he tries, but it’s half hearted.

They both have a lot of baggage here.

“We have to make sure the other me doesn’t know about us meeting with the other you. We’ve got to do it before Loki shows up, before anyone gets to the hellicarrier, so that we can count on him to get us the scepter once it happens. Did you go back to that church before this mess? I’ve read that you’ve got an eidetic memory?” But it’s been years since all of this happened for them. How could Steve remember his own movements when they hadn’t mattered until SHIELD sent him to handle Loki in Germany?

[shieldborne]

Steve's reaction to the touch against his neck is gratifying. He's halfway to his feet, but he stills and his eyelids half-lower, like some kind of instinct is telling him to get as much of that as he can while they have a quiet moment. It's stabilizing--not stabilizing enough, perhaps, but helpful--and he gives Tony a flicker of a smile, straightening when he lets go.

Tony's right, though. Steve has been operating under a driving need to get everything settled and handled right the hell now, like he expects them to have to leave right after they deal with the Tesseract. Like he's trying to get his goddamn affairs in order. Again, that's probably something instinctual, or maybe psychological damage, but Stark's promise that they have time comes as a minor revelation. They have nothing but time.

There's a single-cup coffee pot on the counter, and Steve sets it up while Tony talks, trying to examine his own assumptions. He wants Bucky out of Hydra's clutches yesterday. There are few things that torture him more than remembering how wrecked he was when Steve plucked him off Zola's experimental table the first time, and imagining that times seventy-plus years.

But they have to be utilitarian, here; attend to the mission at hand first, before the window of opportunity closes. And he's not being tortured while he's in cryostasis. Any time they get him before the Lemurian Star hijacking is a net gain. Steve pushes it out of his mind, for now, devotes himself to the problem at hand, and the man at hand, once again.

This time his smile is grim. "Yeah, eidetic memory. I wish I could forget some things. But I could tell you what the other me is having for breakfast today, how long his morning run is, and what time he'll be heading for the local cafe to sketch..."

He peers at the nearest alarm clock, which displays the date as well as time. "Church is a good idea. He'll be there from about eleven-thirty until two or so before he heads back to the gym to punch things."

[starkingenuity]

It’s still dark out. Dawn hasn’t decided to rise and Tony has no real need to get out of bed. Not even for coffee. He watches Steve’s progress, watches him carefully as if looking for cracks in the foundation. There are a few but nothing structurally dangerous anymore. Patches will work for awhile, until he can actively work on repairs. He had a feeling that he lied to Steve in the shower. He doesn’t need love so much as a project, one that isn’t going to leave him, even after construction is complete. Maybe that’s all love is sometimes, a desire to offer support and guidance—

What a ridiculous thought, Tony doesn’t need to poison himself with those.

He gathers up the papers into a pile fit for a man with latent and recovering OCD, sets them to the bedside table, and crawls back up towards the pillows to finish what’s on his plate.

He could use something else, something sweeter, but the cart is too far away and besides, he likes the show.

“So we have six hours before we have to leave to get back over there.” Six hours isn’t a lot of time when they have four days until an invasion and a complicated plan involving a lot of unknowns. Tony doesn’t care. He can probably build a plane with sand and cactus needles if he has to, do why waste a perfectly good bed while they’re both here?

Tony drops his voice noticeably, the tone a deeper register.

“Come back to bed.”

[shieldborne]

If Steve knew he was being analyzed like the chassis of some sort of exotic vehicle, he might feel weird about it. Tony's engineering-brain, and its processes, are a little beyond his comprehension. Steve gets Tony's heart, maybe even his soul, but his mind is multifaceted and operates on a level most human brains don't. Not even serum-enhanced ones. Steve's never liked feeling dehumanized, but it's not quite the same thing, is it, when it comes from a guy who can almost render himself down into a series of equations?

Regardless, Steve isn't expecting or asking for Tony's love in return for his. It's a relief to be able to give and express, and he's waiting to see if Tony decides he should've been more careful what he wished for. Steve's passion isn't exactly destructive, and the bad things that have happened to the people he loved have been incidental, not a direct result of his affection, but still. It's not like he's done anyone any favors.

Six hours sounds like plenty of time to Steve, but he's used to having to think on the fly, and he doesn't have to work too hard to recollect where he was mentally at this time in his life and settle on an approach. The coffee is probably unnecessary, as well. He's already had the sleep he needs to get by. So if Tony's going to flirt--

That was a flirt, right? That definitely sounded like a flirt.

"You coming onto me, Tony?" He pointedly gives up on his coffee, headed back to the bed without hesitation. His body language is loose and soft, but his eyes are going laser-focused. "We only had the one condom, remember? You got something in mind?"

If so, Steve is clearly on board.

[starkingenuity]

((Booooo this never posted!))

There’s a lot more to do together than just penetration, and Tony knows that Steve knows it. He’s got this feeling that the younger man is just feeling things out, maybe testing the waters on Tony’s reaction to things. He hasn’t quite pegged the blond yet himself either. He’s dominant and submissive at the same time, and while tony isn’t thinking of the guy in those generic sorts of terms, he’s building the formulas in his head to give him some sort of indication of where the other man falls on a sliding scale of possible kinks and sexual tastes.

It’s more than just being a giver on Steve’s end. And the sex is more than just an emotional band-aid or a plug for the missing pieces they’ve lost. It’s in Tony’s nature to figure things out and since he can’t Jack Steve into a computer terminal or open up a control panel in his head, he’s got to access this data a different way.

He likes it. It’s not easy, it’s not cut and dry. The blond is a genuine challenge.

Tony shifts so that he can rest the back of his head on his arm, the stretch in muscle defining his chest better. He’s a lot older than he had been but Tony thinks of himself like scotch or a prime steak. Sometimes it’s just better with age.

Dark eyes watch Steve come towards him and there is no doubt that the inventor is hungry for something more than the food he’s decided to ignore. His free hand rests on his chest where the reactor used to be, fingers slowly moving down towards his navel and the waistband of his boxers.

“I didn’t get much of a preview before we started,” he grins, more sultry than silly.