Archive of Our Own

Standing outside the building, Tony’s not entirely sure he’s in the right place. Pepper had set it up for him, and Happy had driven him here without any commentary on where they were going, so Tony has no real way of knowing before he goes inside. There’s no sign on the door, and it doesn’t look like a – well, like a brothel.

Not that he’d expected a government-run facility to look like any ordinary brothel.

The process to get an appointment had been arduous. He’d been through three rounds of health screenings, two psych evals, and countless intake forms. He’d answered surveys and questionnaires about his preferences, proclivities, past sexual history and hard limits.

It had taken months.

Of course, after the passage of so much time his skin is vibrating with need, with the tension of discomfort and imbalance. He hasn’t gone down into subspace for nearly a year – it’s difficult to find a dom who’s able to adhere to an NDA and dominate him the way he wants. The way he needs.

Still, his hand hesitates on the door. It’s made of dark wood, stained even darker, with a large black handle and hinges. The big windows at the front are mirrored, so he can’t see inside.

Originally, he hadn’t wanted to go to one of the government facilities. For starters, they’re mostly designed for doms to come and do a scene with a willing sub, not for subs to go and be dominated. Beyond that, though, Tony is also fully aware that most of the workers here aren’t free to do as they please.

It still makes the back of his neck twitch, knowing he’s going to walk into this building and pay for a dom who, for all intents and purposes, is a slave.

‘Indentured servant’, technically, is the term they prefer to use. And the people who work here, who are kept here – they’d sold themselves into that arrangement. Tony knows that, that they had technically made a choice.

But had they, really? The thought niggles at the back of his mind. What if they’d been manipulated into making the choice? What if the choice had been this, or die on the streets? Was that even any choice at all?

But he can’t wait much longer to sort out the morality of it. He’s past the point of need by now, and he can’t bring himself to try another matching app, to risk what private or desperate doms need to do to him to bring him down, to get what they need.

This one, being government run, is in a nice part of the city, but there are other parts of the city that aren’t so good. The world is a terrifying place, and beyond the walls there are nightmares Tony can’t even fathom – poverty and death and despair. He’s one of the lucky ones, with his tower and his wealth and his relative safety. But the people down here on the ground, struggling to survive day to day… for them, everything is harsh and cruel and difficult. For most of them, signing up to work in a brothel is the only way to get off the streets, to get regular meals and be safe in the dark, to pay their medical costs and insurmountable debts.

There are also private brothels in the city, but they don’t have the standards and regulations that the government-run ones do. The government brothels may not pay their workers, but they keep them housed and clothed and clean, keep them protected from dangerous clients and disease, match them up with customers based on the many, many surveys Tony had had to fill out.

The private ones… well, you took what you could get. The people that went to work there were desperate, too, but they didn’t have the protections that were available in a government facility. Most of them are owned by criminal organizations, and Tony’s heard some of the horror stories of what happens to some of the subs that work there. Subs with nowhere else to go, and no one to miss them.

Tony knows he’s taking advantage of someone, here. He’s using some dom’s poor luck and station in life for his own gains – an indentured servant is more likely to keep their mouth shut, first of all. They can’t risk losing their contract and being shunted back out onto the streets.

They’re also going to be a lot more likely to be what Tony needs, even if it is pretend. To give him what he’s seeking in this little encounter.

Tony’s never been able to find a partner that’s right for him. Other subs have it easier – they want to be tied down and beaten and told what to do, they want to give up control and slide down into subspace, be teased and hurt and used.

Tony hates it. Hates giving up that control, hates putting his body in someone’s hands. He needs the subspace, needs the quiet in his head to take over the chaos, but almost every dom has used the same methods to bring him down, and every time, Tony fights and struggles and needs to be sedated so he can come back up from the inevitable drop.

The doms need something out of it, too, he knows. They need to take that control, to push a sub down and own them, to feel that wicked power. Even Pepper had struggled at times, had warred with trying to appease her own dominant nature and give Tony what he needed at the same time. It hadn’t been why they’d broken up, but it had been why Tony hadn’t felt comfortable asking her to continue to dom him when he’d needed someone – making her be something she didn’t want to be had never sat right with him.

So he’d done the research, asked Pepper to find him a referral service to start the process, and now he’s standing in front of a large wooden door, unsure how to decide whether he’s staying or going.

His appointment is supposed to last three hours. Happy is still in the car, half a block down the street. Tony is tempted to walk back, get in the back seat and leave. Happy won’t ask questions.

But then what? How else can he quiet the chaos in his head, the anxiety and pain in his chest, clawing to get out and begging to be brought down to the serene safety of subspace?

Tony takes a deep breath and pulls the heavy door open, slipping inside into a dark, rich hallway.

There are sconces on the walls, bouncing warm, orange light off the ceiling. The carpet is plush and clean, and there’s a secondary entrance at the end of the hall.

Tony makes his way through that one, finding himself face to face with a woman seated at a desk. She has bouncy blonde hair, styled in waves, and she’s smiling kindly up at him.

“Do you have an appointment?” Her tone is friendly enough, but doesn’t invite small talk.

“Yeah,” Tony says, glancing around guiltily. The small waiting room is empty, but he’s still paranoid. “Tony Stark.”

The blonde smiles again. “Excellent. Your dominant is ready for you. Please place your palm on the testing unit, and I’ll call someone to escort you up.”

Tony blinks and looks around, locating the small testing unit to the side of the desk. He places his palm in it, feeling the whir of the apparatus scanning his ID, and the sharp poke of the needle in his index finger. It’s followed almost immediately by an icy cold antiseptic spray, taking the sting away and healing the puncture instantly.

He takes his hand back as the screen reads the results. He is, in fact, still Tony Stark, and his blood test is still clean. No STIs, no bloodborne diseases. He finds that comforting, actually – he’d known his results would still be clean, but it’s nice to know the brothel’s policy ensures everyone else that comes in here is safe and healthy as well.

He glances up, and the blonde is standing up and coming around the desk, hand held out to shake. “I’m Sharon,” she tells him, even as a door behind her opens and an unimposing man in a grey suit comes out. His hairline is receding, just a little, and he has a small smile on his face. He looks like the kind of man who knows everything. Sharon speaks again and catches Tony’s attention. “This is Coulson. Your appointment has been set based on your answers to the questionnaires, but if you have any questions about what to expect, you can ask him on the way up.”

“Mr. Stark,” Coulson says with a dip of his chin. “If you’ll follow me?”

Tony does as he’s told, walking through the door as Coulson reaches back to hold it open, then following Coulson up a set of stairs. As they make their way up, the sounds from the second floor start to make their way down.

“We’ll be taking the long way around so I can give you the tour,” Coulson says, turning his head to speak over his shoulder. “It’s quiet today, but it will give you the opportunity to see what other services we have on offer, should you decide to visit us again.”

Tony can’t think of anything to say, but it doesn’t matter because Coulson keeps up both ends of the conversation on his own.

“It’s early in the day, actually, so you’re our only private client right now.”

“Private client?”

Coulson lifts one shoulder in a mild shrug. “We have — I guess you would call them floor shows, and group sessions available.”

Tony thinks about that for a moment.

“Floor shows?”

“We often get inexperienced clients,” Coulson explains. “Doms and subs who know they need something, but they don’t know what, or how to ask for it. We’ve found that if they’re able to see some of the services on offer, some of the scenes in action, it can help them decide what they want, or what they’d like to try.”

“Like sex ed for BDSM,” Tony smirks.

“You’re not too far off. The educational system does what it can, but that’s not the same as experiencing it,” Coulson says. They get to a door at the top of the stairs, and Coulson looks back at him. “It’s also useful for our dominant clients with a voyeuristic streak. Everyone behind these doors who isn’t staff is a client. Our clients’ privacy is sacred.”

Coulson pulls a silver domino mask off a peg on the wall. It’s delicate, adorned with lace and ribbons.

“You’ll wear that any time you’re in any of the viewing rooms, or walking in any of the common areas. You can take it off during your private session if you like, but it’s not expected. No one will ask you to remove your mask until you leave.”

Tony glances down at it, then back at the pegs on the wall. There are other masks – black and red and gold.

“Why silver?” He asks the question even as he pulls it over his face, obscuring his features. He can see fine, and his mouth and nose are clear. He wonders if the mask has any hope of keeping his identity a secret, what with his fairly recognizable facial hair.

“Silver identifies you as a submissive. Black is for dominants, red is for switches, and gold is for spectators. Any other questions before we go in?”

Tony shakes his head, nerves getting the better of him. He rocks a little on his heels as Coulson opens the door, and the previously-muffled sounds filter through loudly, jarring in their suddenness.

There’s rock music, the rhythmic sound of slapping flesh, and moaning. Tony almost turns around and bolts down the stairs, but he doesn’t know what he’ll do if this doesn’t work, so he stays put. He needs to be dominated, but he can’t find some random dom on the street to give him that, to soothe the turmoil in his head.

“This is Cage,” Coulson says, gesturing to the huge, imposing black man standing against the wall at the entrance. His arms are crossed over his chest, and his T-shirt is a glaringly bright yellow. “He’s security today. If you do anything to make any of our staff feel uncomfortable or unsafe, he will remove you from the premises.”

Tony nods, not at all doubting Cage’s ability to remove him, or anyone else, from the premises. The guy is huge. The thought gives him a brief respite from hysterically wondering how uncomfortable the strange dom he’s about to see is going to feel trying to fulfill his requests. He tries to shake it off – he’d filled out the questionnaire, filled in the special request form. Whoever he’s booked in with already knows the deal.

Coulson leads Tony down the hallway, through to a huge loft. It’s separated by partitions, and Tony almost laughs, his brain helpfully supplying the thought that the little partitions are like cubicles.

There are viewing areas outside each section of the room, setting them up like little amphitheatres. He can’t see past the first one, but once his eyes focus on what he’s seeing, his brain short circuits and he can’t think past the first wall anyway.

There’s a naked man tied down to a bench, his head and wrists locked in a pillory. He’s on his belly against the leather bench, legs spread wide and shackled to the floor. There’s a mirror in front of the pillory so Tony can see the man’s face even though he and Coulson are situated behind him. His hair is dark with a peppering of grey, curly and clinging to his forehead with sweat, and he is, inexplicably, wearing glasses. As if there’s anything in front of him he needs to be able to see clearly right now. No, the interesting part of the show is all in the back.

There’s another man standing beside him – the man is huge, towering and bulging with muscles. He’s naked as well, with a long, thick cock jutting out, hard and clearly interested in the proceedings. He’s blonde, with one blue eye and one brown – and Tony would bet dollars to doughnuts one of those eyes is an augment – with his blond hair shorn short in the back and a little longer on top.

The most interesting part of the tableau is that the large blond man’s hand is completely buried in the bespectacled man’s ass, well past the wrist and halfway to the elbow.

“Bruce, there, is a sub,” Coulson says mildly from beside Tony. He keeps his voice quiet, almost an undertone, so as not to disturb the interested spectators. “The other one is Thor. He’s mostly a switch.”

Tony stares for a long moment. Neither of the men are wearing one of the face masks, but everyone watching them is. That, and the fact that Coulson had told Tony their names, means the two men are staff. Indentured. Tony studies them. The blond man – Thor – is smirking, hard cock making it obvious how much he’s enjoying himself as he thrusts his hand in and out of Bruce. Bruce, for his part, is moaning continuously, legs shaking and trembling. Tony can see a flash of silver around his dick and his balls; a cock cage keeping him from getting hard.

Thick lube dribbles down his thigh, and his hole is stretched and red, looking wildly abused.

“So, when you said floor show…” Tony croaks, swallowing roughly.

The side of Coulson’s mouth kicks up in a small smile. “We offer many different kinds of demonstrations,” he says.

“Wow. Okay.”

“Would you like to watch for another moment?”

Tony blinks, even as Bruce cries out, and he can see Thor’s forearm bunching with muscle.

“We, uh, we can move on,” he says. He ignores a surge of arousal as Bruce cries out again, as a little dribble of come forces its way out of his cock to drip on the floor between his spread legs, despite the cock cage. It’s not the fisting that is making Tony hot under the collar so much as Bruce’s obvious enjoyment of it. It’s more in line with what Tony likes in submitting, and it reinforces his decision to have come to this place.

He hopes.

Coulson leads him further along, and there’s a group scene happening in the next partition. Tony slows again, watching.

The sub is on his back, legs pushed up to his chest. There’s a masked dom fucking roughly into him, and another fucking his throat, hand knotted in the sub’s long, dark hair. Several more masked doms — male and female — are watching, hands stroking or fingering themselves, sometimes reaching out to slap at the sub’s chest and belly and thighs. They’re obviously all waiting their own turns.

The most interesting thing about the scene to Tony, though, is that the sub has a full cybernetic arm. Might even be a Stark model, based on the finger articulation as the man jerks off a long, hard cock to his left. There’s a decal on it, a big red star, and yet the man hadn’t bothered to get a vanity sleeve or any other kind of camouflage. It’s expensive – Tony knows intimately how costly augments and cybernetic enhancements can run, and he has a pretty good idea why this man, this sub, is here at the facility. What he’d traded his freedom for.

“As I mentioned, we offer group scenarios, as well,” Coulson says quietly. “They can be hard to schedule when clients are intended to make up the group, but we do what we can.”

The man with the arm augment is gagging, choking on the cock in his throat, but he’s not struggling to get away. If anything, his own cock gets harder, twitches a little against his belly.

“Who’s the sub?” Tony asks. “One of your people?”

“He’s ours. That’s Bucky,” Coulson says.

Tony gives him a look.

“Well, that’s the name he goes by,” Coulson smirks. “Shall we?”

The next partition has two more people in it, a man and a woman, neither of whom are wearing a mask.

The man has big, broad shoulders and biceps, and he’s kneeling on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back. He’s completely naked, and his skin is striped with red welts.

The woman in front of him has a cane in her hand, which explains the welts. She’s dressed all in black, wearing a leather corset-style bodysuit, her breasts full and round and overflowing at the top. She’s got on thigh-high boots with impossibly high heels, and the strips of her milky white thighs seem to reflect light through the room. Her beautiful red curls fall prettily over her face, and the colour somehow matches exactly the long, thick strap-on she’s got fastened to her pelvis.

She’s standing directly in front of the man, letting him suck and nuzzle at the fake cock while she coos at him, sometimes reaching down to flick the cane over the purple, bruised flesh of his ass.

The man is staring up at her adoringly, moaning with each impact.

“That’s Clint and Natasha.” Coulson’s voice has taken an almost wistful tone, and Tony tears his eyes away from the scene to look at him. Coulson is watching the two raptly.

Tony can understand why. Typically, pain play does nothing for him – it’s more of a turn off than anything else. It’s one of the many reasons he has so much trouble finding a dom. But there’s something about Clint’s posture, the way he’s looking at Natasha as though she holds all the mysteries of the universe, that he finds compelling. He has never in his entire life seen someone so deeply into subspace, and so perfectly content to be there.

“She’s very good,” Tony says, wondering if she’s the one he’s supposed to have an appointment with. He’d put on his intake form that he didn’t like pain play, and that he wasn’t particular about gender, but maybe Natasha had other talents. Tony imagines she could put nearly any sub deeply into subspace, no matter their preferences.

“She is,” Coulson agrees with a nearly imperceptible sigh. Tony imagines Coulson would like to be in that particular scene, though he can’t figure out whether Coulson wants to take Natasha’s place or Clint’s. Or both. “So is he,” Coulson continues. “He’s one of our most sought-after subs.”

He steps back and continues down the walkway, trusting Tony to follow him. So, his scene won’t be with the redheaded dom, then.

Coulson leads him past several unmarked closed doors. They all look identical, so Tony doesn’t really know how Coulson decides which one to open. It opens into an empty, richly furnished room. Inside the room are several benches and bondage stands, a large bed, and an assortment of whips and floggers and paddles. Tony turns to look at Coulson, then back into the room.

“We understand your preferences, Mr. Stark,” Coulson says, obviously catching onto Tony’s discomfort at the vicious looking toys. He gestures for Tony to go in. “Nothing will happen in that room without your express consent. Please go inside.”

Tony takes a deep breath, steeling himself, then walks past the threshold. The door closes behind him, and then Tony is alone.

Except, he’s not alone. He hadn’t noticed before, but there’s a man sitting in a chair against the wall on the far side of the room. He’s wearing black leather pants and a leather chest harness, and he stands when the door closes so Tony can see his full height.

He’s very tall. His chest is broad, shoulders huge, and his waist tapers into a neat little V. His feet are bare, and Tony finds himself staring at the pale, slightly crooked toes for a moment before his gaze travels back up the man’s body. His lips are plush and pink, his jaw strong, and his hair a dirty blonde.

Tony meets his eyes, and has to catch his breath.

The man’s eyes are beautiful. Blue and clear and bright, framed by dark, impossibly long eyelashes. He either doesn’t have any visible augmentations, or he was hand-crafted piece by piece and all of him is augmented.

“You’re Tony,” the man says, stepping forward to hold out his hand. It takes Tony a moment to realize he’s meant to shake it. “I’m Steve.”

“Steve,” Tony says intelligently.

“Yes.”

They stare at one another for a moment, then the gorgeously sculpted man, Steve, clears his throat.

“Do you want me to go over your file with you, or would you prefer the scene to be a surprise?” Steve asks after a moment, taking his hand back. He gestures to a small table by the St. Andrew’s cross, where there’s a touch tablet.

“Um,” Tony says, blinking himself back to full awareness. File. Right. The thought of tech right now is comforting, but the idea of being lulled into a false sense of security scares him. “Surprise, I guess?”

“Alright,” Steve says, taking a step back. “Can you please state your safeword?”

“I like the traffic light system,” Tony says with a shrug. “It’s antiquated, but it gets the point across.”

“Red for stop, yellow for pause, green for go?” Steve clarifies. Traffic lights haven’t been used in the cities for a long time, and there’s no need for them in any of the surviving towns. Tony nods, so Steve nods as well. “Okay, and can you snap your fingers if your mouth is otherwise occupied?”

In answer, Tony lifts one hand and snaps his fingers twice. “Good,” Steve says. “Do you have any questions for me before we begin?”

Tony honestly has so many questions. Is Steve his real name? Why is he here? Is his dick as big as the rest of him? What is Steve going to do to him? Does he want to hurt Tony?

Tony doesn’t ask any of them. He shakes his head, then fidgets nervously, waiting.

Steve pauses for another moment, as though giving Tony time to voice any objections. “I’ve read your intake paperwork, I know your limits,” Steve says. His voice seems to drop an octave. “I know how hard it must be for you. To be here. But I’ll take care of you, Tony.”

Tony shivers, staring at the floor.

“Take your clothes off,” Steve says, voice suddenly full of steel, and Tony twitches before hurriedly complying. When he’s standing naked in front of Steve, hands awkwardly covering his crotch, Steve steps around to examine him. He walks around Tony in a slow circle, then gestures to a padded table on the other side of the room. It’s at about waist height, and fairly wide, but narrower than a single bed. “Go lie on that table. Face down.”

There’s a ring of padding at the head of it, and Tony knows that’s where his face is supposed to go. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen. The forms had been thorough, so there are a lot of possibilities. He moves over to the table, cheeks flushed, and lies down on it, resting his face in the opening. The table is very long, and Tony’s feet don’t come anywhere near the end – there’s probably room for a whole other person there.

“Good boy,” Steve says, and Tony feels a shiver go down his spine, feels a twinge low in his belly, and the riot of noise and anxiety in his head starts to muddle. There’s a rustling noise, and a clinking, but Tony doesn’t look up. He suspects Steve is stripping off his own clothing, and he’s proven right when Steve comes over to the table, and Tony can see his bare legs from the opening where his head is resting.

There’s the snick of a plastic cap opening, and then cool oil dribbles over Tony’s back. He gasps at the suddenness of it, cheeks flushing when Steve lets out a low chuckle. Then Steve’s big, strong hands are spreading the oil over his back, his shoulders, skimming over his ass and down his legs, spreading the oil all over him.

Steve moves down the table, picks up Tony’s right foot and begins massaging it, thumbs pressing into the muscles at the sole. Tony lets out a choked noise, but Steve doesn’t stop, working his way to the ankle, up Tony’s calf, then his hamstring. His fingers are sure, warm, digging into muscles until they start to relax under his hands.

“Don’t hold your breath,” Steve orders, and Tony lets out the air he’d been holding without noticing. The order itself causes that same feeling of centering that the praise had only a few moments ago, another step down into quieting the noise in his head.

Steve walks around the end of the table and moves over to his left foot, and repeats the process, working at knots in Tony’s leg.

“Don’t move,” Steve commands him, and Tony whimpers. He hadn’t been, at all, but the order still has the same effect on him, and he lets out a deep breath as Steve’s hands trail up to his shoulders and start working his neck and shoulders and upper back.

“Your intake forms say you have a difficult time going into subspace,” Steve says, somehow keeping his voice soothing and level as he works, digging fingers into the knots in Tony’s back, sliding along his skin and leaving heat in their wake.

Tony moans, but doesn’t answer. It hadn’t exactly been a question.

“That’s okay,” Steve says. “We’re going to work together on this. You don’t like pain, do you?”

Tony’s lungs seize for a moment, then he remembers the order not to hold his breath, and he deliberately takes a gentle breath in and shakes his head once.

“I don’t like pain, either,” Steve says. “That’s probably why they paired you with me.”

Tony groans as Steve’s hand bumps over a knot. He’s having a hard time figuring out just exactly how Steve thinks he’s going to get Tony into subspace without pain, but if it weren’t possible, wouldn’t someone along the line have told him? He’s often thought of going down into subspace like descending a set of stairs, but most doms had shoved him and sent him tumbling down them, hard and fast and brutal. He thinks, even this early on, that Steve might be different.

He hopes so, anyway.

“This is gorgeous,” Steve says, hands smoothing down the oil-slick skin of Tony’s ass. He squeezes the flesh in his hands, using his thumbs to spread Tony’s cheeks slightly. He shivers a little, a reaction to the mixture of cool air on his sensitive hole, the oddly gentle praise, and at the feeling of being on display like this.

Tony moans loudly when Steve’s hands dig into the meat of his cheeks, pushing and massaging at sore muscles there.

“How do you feel? Relaxed?” Steve asks, spreading Tony’s cheeks again.

Tony nods.

“Answer me with your voice,” Steve orders, his voice like warm steel, and Tony swallows hard.

“Yes,” Tony says, but it’s not enough of a submission to bring him any further into subspace.

“Say my name when you answer my questions,” Steve says.

Tony shivers, feels the tension in him loosen slightly, feels himself going another half step down. “Yes, Steve.”

“Good boy,” Steve tells him, petting a hand gently down his back. That praise, that mild condescension, brings Tony down two more steps.

Steve moves down the table some, then climbs up onto it. He kneels straddling Tony’s legs, leaning forward to run his hands up Tony’s spine. The change in position drags Tony back up a step, and he feels his body tighten, the hard-won drift into subspace interrupted.

“Shh,” Steve murmurs, and then shifts, moves, presses himself down until he’s lying down on top of Tony, blanketing his entire back, letting his thighs drape over Tony’s hips and bracket him.

Steve is heavy, a wall of solid muscle atop him, but the pressure is grounding. His entire back is warm from Steve’s hot skin, and he can feel Steve’s partial erection in the crease of his ass, but Steve doesn’t move. He simply lays there on Tony’s body, breathing slowly and deeply.

Subconsciously, Tony finds himself matching Steve’s breath, feels himself relaxing into the table, into the heavy, warm weight of Steve’s body.

He goes down another step.

“If, at any time this evening, you feel like you can come from what I’m doing, you have permission,” Steve murmurs into Tony’s ear, the gentle but unmistakable tone of authority bringing Tony down another small step.

Tony expects the dom to fuck him, then, but Steve doesn’t move. He simply lies on Tony’s back and breathes against his ear. After a few minutes, Tony feels himself slide a little further down.

As though he can tell, and as though he’d been waiting for it, Steve slides down Tony’s body, down the table, spreads Tony’s legs and lays on his stomach between them.

“Don’t move,” Steve says, voice low and commanding. Tony knows what’s coming, but he still startles a little when Steve uses his big hands to spread Tony’s cheeks, then begins gently lapping at Tony’s hole with his tongue.

Tony moans – his body jerks up a step further from subspace, a consequence of the surprise, but he sinks right back down when Steve’s tongue begins to work at him, teasing and slicking the furl of skin between his cheeks.

He’s never felt this before, this slow, incremental slide into subspace. It’s almost exactly like he’d always pictured it in his mind. He’s so used to being shoved, hard and unwilling. It’s difficult to get into it, and even more difficult to come back up. He’s always left shaky and wrong footed. He’s not even sure at this point whether he’ll be able to make it all the way down, but he finds he’s having a hard time being bothered about it.

Because Steve is taking him down so gently, so slowly. It’s not rough or painful or harsh. It’s soothing in a way subspace has never been for him. In a way sex has never been.

He moans as Steve thrusts his tongue inside him, licking and sucking at Tony’s rim. Steve keeps at it, letting his tongue open Tony up gently, relaxing the tight ring of muscle at his pucker. Tony does his best not to move, but he can’t help the little micromovements of his hips, the little shivers of lust and pleasure that go through his body.

Steve licks at him for long minutes, until Tony is wet with saliva, his muscles loose and trembling.

“That’s it,” Steve murmurs against the flesh of Tony’s ass cheek, his breath warm and damp against the skin. “That’s so good, Tony.”

Tony shivers, feels himself sink down a step further into subspace, feels his body sink down against the cool table.

Steve slides down the table, pressing warm kisses against the backs of Tony’s thighs and knees and calves as he goes, until Tony is alone on the padded surface again.

“Are you comfortable?” Steve asks him, even as he pulls some attachments out from under the table, swinging them forward and pulling Tony’s arms up, pressing his wrists down to the new attachments and slipping thick rubber cuffs around them to hold them there.

“I’m okay,” Tony says, and his voice comes out rough and slurring. The sound of it brings him back up a step from his subspace, brings him to slightly more awareness, but Steve pressing his other wrist down and cuffing it to the table’s attachment helps him slip back down.

“Remind me of your safe word,” Steve says, and Tony can tell from his tone that it’s a test, a check-in, that Steve certainly hasn’t forgotten.

“I don’t…” Tony shakes his head a little. Technically, he does have a safe word, he supposes. “Red. My safeword is red.”

“Good. And how are you doing right now?”

Tony takes a moment to consider it, feeling sluggish and drunk but still not nearly all the way down into subspace. “Green,” he says.

“Good,” Steve says, squatting down in front of Tony so that their heads are close together, until Tony can smell Steve’s skin. “That’s very good.”

Tony lifts his head from the table, arches his neck and looks up, meets Steve’s eyes. They stare at each other for a long moment. It feels charged, Tony feels… something. A connection, but that could just be because this is the closest he’s felt to subspace, the closest he’s felt to quieting the storm in his mind, in so long. He feels like he should say something, but he can’t think of the words.

Steve meets his eye, stares back, but doesn’t say a word. After a long moment, a hesitation that makes Tony wonder if Steve is feeling this too, Steve stands, taking a step back toward the table along the wall.

He comes back with a bottle of lubricant, a smallish glass dildo, and a cloth bag Tony can’t see into.

“We’ll start slow,” Steve tells him, holding up the dildo. “Lay your head down, so you don’t hurt your neck.”

Tony does, resting his face in the opening. Steve moves over beside him, and Tony hears the lube bottle opening with a dull sound, then cool liquid is being poured into the crease of his ass, still wet and slick from Steve’s mouth.

Then the glass dildo is at his entrance, pushing in slowly but steadily. It stretches him, past the rim and into his body, deeper and deeper until Tony can feel Steve’s fingers brush against his skin.

It’s not large, but with only the rimming, he doesn’t feel prepared past his rim, and he feels a fullness that brings him down a few more steps into subspace.

“Look at you,” Steve sighs, and this time Tony can tell he’s talking to himself, that the comment isn’t really meant for Tony at all. Steve angles the dildo down and pulls it out, thrusting it back in slowly, repeating the motion over and over as the cool, smooth surface of it drags over Tony’s prostate.

He whines with pleasure, legs falling open and toes curling under as he gasps for breath.

Steve pushes the dildo in again, but doesn’t pull it out this time, leaving it inside Tony’s body.

“I know I just locked you into those cuffs, but I want to see your face. I wanna watch what I’m doing to you, see you go down for me.”

“Yeah,” Tony moans, eyelashes fluttering. He pulls at the bonds around his wrists, and he feels there’s some give there. He probably could free himself if he tried hard enough, and that actually pushes him a little farther into subspace; knowing he could free himself, that he has to choose, every moment, to stay here and let Steve take his fill of Tony’s body.

Steve reaches up with one hand, across Tony’s body and back, to loosen the cuffs so Tony can pull his hands free. He goes to roll over, and Steve stops him with a hand pressed to the dip of his spine.

“Let me,” Steve says, then manhandles Tony’s body over so he’s laying on his back. Tony lets his limbs flop, lets Steve move him and adjust him and place him, and it’s like a warm blanket of pleasure over his subspace.

When Steve has him on his back, he presses Tony’s hands back up and secures his wrists to the table’s attachments again, then pulls out a leather strap.

Tony tenses instantly. Steve had said he wasn’t interested in pain; Tony isn’t prepared for this, isn’t ready, he doesn’t want this, he’d thought he was safe, thought it wouldn’t be like all those other times, thought maybe, just maybe, this time he could get what he needed without having to give up pieces of himself.

“Shh, shh, Tony, I’m sorry, no,” Steve says, brushing a soothing hand over Tony’s cheek, sounding horrified. “It’s not for that, sweetheart, not ever for that.”

Tony is trembling, hands fisted and arms straining slightly against the cuffs over his wrists. “Yellow,” he croaks, because he’s not ready to safeword out but he doesn’t want the strap.

Steve’s hands are freeing his wrists instantly, and he gathers Tony up in his arms, pulls him into a sitting position, makes soothing noises. Tony is dimly aware of the glass dildo slipping out of him, but the comfort of Steve’s arms around him is so nice he doesn’t really care.

“I should have explained it while I was doing it,” Steve says, petting Tony’s hair and holding him close. “I wasn’t going to hit you. I said I wouldn’t, and I meant that. The strap was to hold your legs up, Tony, that’s all.”

Tony shivers, feeling cold and silly and humiliated that he’d panicked and needed to be coddled like a new sub. He’s had worse, he’d tried to get into subspace like everyone else, with brutality and pain, and when it hadn’t worked he’d tried harder and harder, rougher and more brutal. A little leather strap, to be honest, would hardly have done him any damage. It would have been nothing to take it.

So why had he been so terrified of it? Not because Steve is a stranger – Steve’d had his tongue in Tony’s ass, and that hadn’t bothered Tony one bit. No, it’s not about not knowing Steve.

In the back of his mind, he wonders if it’s because, somehow, despite everything, he’d trusted Steve. Already, after so little time, he’d already trusted Steve to give him what he needs without taking anything Tony doesn’t want to give.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, sounding sad. “I’m sorry I scared you. Come on, let’s go sit down.” He pulls Tony off the table and half-carries him over to the bed, sitting down and pulling Tony into his lap, cuddling him close. He pets his hands over Tony’s back and shoulders, nuzzles his face into Tony’s hair.

They sit that way for a long time, until Tony feels his body stop trembling.

He’s come up so far, and he hadn’t made it all the way down so it’s like there’s a buzzing in the back of his mind, fulfillment snatched away at the last minute.

“We can stop,” Steve says, his voice mild. “I’ll understand if you’d rather have someone else. Natasha can be brutal, but she can be very gentle, as well. If you’d rather have her – or Thor, he could be very good for you.”

“I don’t want them,” Tony croaks, surprising himself with the admission.

“Tony…”

“No, I don’t – this is good. With you, this has been good. I want… can we try again?”

“Of course, Tony,” Steve says, and he squeezes Tony in a hug, and it’s somehow the most intimate thing they’ve done this evening. “Of course we can try again. I can schedule you any –”

“No, right now,” Tony says. “I don’t – I don’t want to stop, I want to try again, right now.”

Steve pulls back, tucks a finger under Tony’s chin to bring his face up so he can meet Tony’s eyes. He studies him for a long moment, then leans forward and presses a gentle, chaste kiss to Tony’s lips. He hadn’t known there would be kissing; had assumed there wouldn’t.

Steve’s lips are warm and dry and soft, and the kiss is barely a brush of skin before it’s over, and Tony wants it to go on and on and on.

The thought scares him.

Steve pulls away, then leans in and brushes a gentle kiss across the edge of Tony’s jaw, brushing against his goatee. “I won’t tie you down again, then,” Steve says, keeping his voice low. “Not tonight. If this is going to work, if we’re going to bring you all the way down, you need to be able to trust me.”

Tony nods, can’t help swaying toward Steve, wishing Steve would kiss him again.

Steve notices, of course, and offers Tony a gentle smile. “Do you like when I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Tony admits.

“We don’t normally – normally my clients don’t want that. But you’re not like most of my clients, so I guess it makes sense.”

Tony doesn’t want to think about Steve’s other clients. He’s not jealous, he barely knows this Dom, but Tony knows he’s a strange Sub, that most Subs need the violence and the pain to reach subspace, and he doesn’t want to think about Steve providing that. Doesn’t want to think about Steve wishing he could be doing it now, even though Steve had said he didn’t like pain, either. He’s probably trained to say whatever the Sub he’s servicing wants to hear.

Steve leans forward and kisses him, and this time he lingers, sliding his mouth over Tony’s and licking softly at the seam of Tony’s lips. It sends a shiver of pleasure and want through Tony, and he sighs, leaning into the kiss and feeling his muscles relax, sinking into it.

Steve keeps tight control of the kiss, guiding Tony through it, so all Tony can do is accept the kiss, let his mouth be claimed, and that feeling of being possessed by Steve has Tony tumbling down further into subspace, the descent this time rapid and dizzying, so fast Tony almost doesn’t realize how far under he’s gone.

“That’s beautiful,” Steve murmurs. “That’s so beautiful, the way you go down for me, Tony.”

Tony moans, and Steve pushes him down, dipping Tony until his back is on the bed, his hips still raised in Steve’s lap. Steve reaches and guides Tony’s arms above his head, until his hand bumps against wrought iron. “Hold onto that,” Steve tells him, orders him. Tony slips down a little further and wraps both hands around the cool, rough metal. “Don’t let go.”

Steve produces the lube and the cloth bag he’d had earlier, though Tony doesn’t remember him bringing it over to the bed when they’d made their way from the table. Steve takes Tony’s leg, the one closest to him, and pushes it up, up, up and drapes Tony’s knee over his shoulder, leaving Tony completely exposed and open to the room’s warm air. Steve takes the bottle of lube, squirts a generous amount on his fingers and adds to the slickness of the lube on his hole from earlier, then slides two fingers into Tony, fast but not rough.

Tony moans, the sound punched out of him like a bullet, as Steve twists his fingers and starts rubbing the pads of them over Tony’s prostate.

Steve’s other hand is holding Tony’s legs wide, keeping him exposed and on display while his fingers fuck into him. Tony moans, his cock getting impossibly hard even as he sinks down further into subspace, breath catching in his throat every time Steve slides his fingers in.

Steve pulls away after a moment, and as Tony’s hole is left empty, he whines a little, out of control.

“Shh,” Steve soothes, reaching for the cloth bags. “I think you’re going to like this.”

He opens it, and Tony’s eyes widen slightly, his awareness raising a little, as he stares. Inside the bag had been a black dildo – nothing special looking, except for the tube protruding from the flat end of it, attached to a rubber bulb.

It’s inflatable.

“You’ve been doing so well,” Steve says, turning his head to the side so he can kiss the inside of Tony’s shin. “I’d like to try this, if you think it won’t hurt too much.”

Tony stares at it. It’s not terribly wide on its own, but once it inflates…

But if Steve goes slow... If Tony can allow himself to trust this Dom, if Steve goes slow and lets Tony’s body adjust, it will be on just the right side of painful. The intensity, the stretch, the fullness will have Tony sinking deep into subspace. It doesn’t have to hurt. Steve doesn’t want to hurt him.

“Yeah,” Tony croaks, letting his other knee, the one not draped over Steve’s huge bicep, fall open slightly more. “Yeah, I want…”

“You’ll count to 10 for me,” Steve tells him. Instructs him. “When you count, I’ll pump it once. We’ll go at your speed, but we’re going to go all the way to 10.”

Tony swallows, and stares at the dildo with a mixture of hunger and concern, even as he feels his mind quiet, settling a little further down into subspace.

Steve slicks the dildo up before gently, slowly pushing it inside Tony’s body. It’s longer than the glass one had been, longer than Steve’s fingers, and Steve pushes it all the way until the slightly narrower bell-shaped end is caught on Tony’s rim. The dildo won’t slide out easily, and Steve now has his hands free while the toy stays in Tony’s body.

Steve holds the rubber bulb in one hand, and reaches his other one up to Tony’s face. He gently brushes the sweaty curls from Tony’s forehead, looking partly proud and partly stern, as Tony watches him. Steve’s hand slides down his jaw, down his throat, flicks at a nipple and slides down Tony’s trembling belly until he can wrap his hand around Tony’s cock, still hard and leaking slightly.

“Count,” Steve tells him.

Tony swallows, breathes in, then speaks on a slow exhale: “One.”

Steve squeezes the pump, just once, and the toy grows larger in Tony’s body.

It doesn’t get much bigger, not really. Tony knows it can’t be much more than a couple of millimeters bigger around, but it feels bigger, and he knows there are still nine more to go.

He sighs as Steve’s hand strokes him, using Tony’s own pre-come to slick the way, slow and steady. “Two,” Tony says.

Steve squeezes the bulb, and the toy gets bigger again.

“That’s good, Tony,” Steve praises him, and Tony sinks deeper into the bed, into subspace. “Just like that.”

Tony takes a few deep breaths, feeling his body relax around the growing toy, and then braces himself. “Three, four.”

Steve’s hand squeezes the bulb at the same time his other hand squeezes the head of Tony’s cock, twice in quick succession, and Tony groans loudly at the stretch inside him.

Steve’s steady stroking on his cock has Tony’s toes curling, even as he sinks another step into subspace. Steve lets go of the bulb and takes hold of the dildo in Tony’s body, pushing it forward and pulling it out a little, stretching Tony’s rim further around the wider part of the toy before pushing it back in, deep, pressing it against Tony’s prostate.

Tony cries out, gasps, “Five,” and grips the wrought iron bed frame tightly, listening to it creak as Steve lets go and squeezes the bulb, the rubber cock inside him inflates further and Tony feels his head swim, feels the drop take him lower still, and whispers, “Six.”

Another squeeze, and Tony feels his cock twitch, feels himself get harder and fuller and stretched wider.

“That’s it,” Steve praises him, letting go of his cock to pet Tony’s belly soothingly. Tony knows his whole body is trembling with effort – effort to hold still, effort to relax, effort to hold on desperately to the last vestiges of awareness and control no matter how badly he wants to let it all go.

“Please, please,” he murmurs, eyes squeezed shut. His hands wring around the iron, the pebbled texture of it digging into his palms.

“I’ll give you anything you want,” Steve says, and for the first time, Tony feels the hardness of his cock against Tony’s own thigh. He’s large, larger than Tony had expected, and rock hard, leaking wetness onto Tony’s thigh. Steve’s voice is strained, the first time he’s sounded anything other than in complete control, and that knowledge, knowing he’s the one who’s making Steve lose that professional coolness, sinks him a step further down.

“Seven,” Tony whispers, and the stretch is almost too much, it burns with intensity, and Tony’s lungs are tight, his head dizzy. But he sinks further down, moaning as Steve goes back to stroking his cock.

“Eight?” Steve prompts him, his voice soothing and encouraging.

“Eight,” Tony agrees, voice strained, and he cries out when Steve squeezes the bulb and the toy inside him stretches, and Tony knows his ass is probably obscenely wide. He’s so full, so open, his body nothing but Steve’s to play with. He has no responsibilities, nothing he must do, nothing but existing here, in this moment, being Steve’s.

“God, Tony, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Steve rumbles, pressing the heel of his palm against the base of the dildo and rocking it in a few times, the pressure against Tony’s prostate making him let out a staccato moan. Steve seems content to tease him with the dildo for long moments, his other hand stroking idly up and down Tony’s cock.

Tony’s chest and belly are heaving with the effort of sucking air into his lungs as the wide dildo opens him, presses into his body and stretches him to a fullness he’s never felt before.

He can’t focus, his eyes rolling back in his head with pleasure, and he sinks further and further down into subspace, and he hasn’t been this far down in years.

But there’s still room to go.

“Nine,” Tony gasps, straining to relax, and Steve moves slowly, squeezing the bulb gently, and his other hand is stroking Tony’s cock, warm and calloused and gentle, and Tony feels that thick, profanely wide toy press against his prostate, feels Steve’s hard cock twitch against the back of his leg, and thinks about how he must look; spread wide, open and clawing at the bedframe, legs spread wantonly, whole body flushed and glistening with effort and sweat, and he thinks about Steve, Steve with his beautiful blue eyes and his thick, impressive muscles and his sweet, gentle hands, and Tony comes, arching off the bed and wailing with it, his belly twitching and shuddering under each splatter of his own come as it hits him, covering his chest with it.

Steve strokes him through the orgasm, and Tony is dimly aware, after a few moments, of his whispered praise. “That’s beautiful, Tony, just beautiful. You’re stunning, spread out for me like this. I want to watch you come forever, sweetheart, just like this, under my hands, unable to stop yourself.”

Tony moans, his whole body jerking with violent aftershocks. He’s come up a couple of steps out of subspace with the intensity of the orgasm that had ripped through him, but after another moment his body relaxes, and he sinks back down again, even further than before.

“That’s so good, Tony, just one more to go,” Steve says.

It takes Tony a moment to understand. Another? Still? But he’d come, he’s finished, that’s all for him, what could Steve mean?

“You might have come, Tony, but you’re going all the way down for me tonight,” Steve murmurs against the inside of Tony’s damp calf. “Now, when you’re ready, one more to go.”

Tony pants for breath, his whole body floating even as his mind sinks further down. “Ten,” he whispers, and Tony moans as Steve squeezes the bulb again, as he feels the stretch of the toy inside him. It’s depraved, it’s too much, it’s perfect, and Steve pushes the heel of his hand against the dildo again, fucking it into Tony. Tony’s body shivers with each press, oversensitive and groaning, mindless with pleasure. He sinks down, down, down.

“That’s so good, sweetheart,” Steve murmurs, and then he pulls on the toy, gently, gently, and Tony’s body is relaxed, wrung out, so the toy comes free, and Steve holds it up, shows Tony its wicked girth, shows him how wide it is, and he can feel the flutter of air inside him. He knows his ass is gaping open, wonders if Steve will fuck him now, and wants it.

Steve lays the toy down beside them, takes hold of Tony’s leg and gently lays it down on the bed, slides out from under Tony’s hips and reaches up to gently tease Tony’s fingers from around the wrought iron bars at the head of the bed. He pulls Tony’s hands up and brushes kisses across Tony’s knuckles, and Tony is floating dreamily, the deepest he’s been in years, but not all the way down. It’s comfortable, though, soothing, and if this is as far as he gets it could be enough.

Steve shifts onto his knees, manhandles Tony’s body again until he’s rolled onto his side, and then scoots closer to Tony’s head, bringing it into his lap gently.

“Open your mouth, sweetheart,” Steve murmurs, a finger caressing Tony’s jaw as his other hand cards through Tony’s hair to hold his head up carefully. “Open your mouth, but don’t suck. Just let it happen. You’ve been so good for me, you don’t have to do anything more, okay? Just feel me, let me do this.”

Tony moans, but he opens his mouth obediently, too far gone to feel any embarrassment at the way his lips are wet; his mouth waters and a line of drool drips from the side of his mouth.

Then Steve is pushing his cock in between Tony’s wet, slack lips, and the taste and weight on Tony’s tongue is ambrosia. Steve pushes in until his cock teases the back of Tony’s throat, but Tony doesn’t choke, his whole body too relaxed. Being used like this, being told to do nothing but allow Steve to pleasure himself using Tony’s mouth, has his whole body shivering even as his mind floats, sinking further and further down.

Steve thrusts into his mouth again and again, salty bitter and warm with sweat, and Tony doesn’t suck, doesn’t swallow, doesn’t lick. He just lays there, lets Steve move his head, lets Steve use his mouth and fuck him, and if he could come again he would. It’s amazing, and he spirals down into subspace so fast he’s almost breathless with it, and by the time Steve pulls out and comes on Tony’s face, marking him and owning him and taking him, Tony is the furthest into subspace he’s ever been. His mind is quiet, thoughts passing by slowly, and he barely notices when Steve uses his thumb to swipe up the mess of come from Tony’s face and scoop it into Tony’s mouth. He doesn’t suck it off, but Steve presses the thumb against his tongue, and Tony tastes him. Steve is rumbling praise again, soft and gentle, and Tony’s not even listening, but he can hear it in the tone of voice, that Steve is saying things like ‘good boy’ and ‘sweet’ and ‘gorgeous’, and Tony lets it float by because nothing matters.

Steve kisses Tony’s face, wiping up the last traces of his own release with his tongue, and Tony moans, limbs heavy and immovable. So he doesn’t try to move or help– he just lays there and lets Steve move him, lets Steve wipe his chest and face clean with a damp cloth from somewhere, lets Steve pet his hair and press soothing kisses against Tony’s brow.

“Rest, sweetheart,” Steve whispers, and Tony is in no shape to argue so he does, lets himself float at the bottom of his subspace, his mind quiet and empty and perfect.

+++++

It’s a long time before Steve helps Tony sit up a little, and dribbles sweet, tangy orange juice against Tony’s lips. He swallows obediently. The room is quiet, nothing but the sound of their breathing and Tony swallowing the juice.

Tony feels the quiet deep in his bones, the static and noise of the world brought down, shut out, until nothing exists but the two of them in this room. He knows he’s still floating, and he fears the drop, but for right now, he just feels pleasant and warm and soft.

A crinkle, plastic and paper and foil, then Steve is holding something near Tony’s face and he can smell chocolate. Sugar and milk and something unlike anything else, there under his nose. He moans slightly, too far down to even be embarrassed. Where had they gotten chocolate?

A low rumbling chuckle from Steve, sweet and doting. “I was surprised when they gave it to me, too,” he says softly. “You must be – I mean, not all our clients are treated to chocolate.”

“It’s hard to get,” Tony slurs, stating the obvious. Steve breaks off a small square and touches it to Tony’s lips. Without thinking about it, Tony obediently opens his mouth, and Steve places the sweet square on his tongue. Tony closes his lips and lets it rest there for a moment, melting and spreading sweetness across his tastebuds.

That low chuckle from Steve again. “God, you look almost as satisfied as when you came. It must be good.”

Tony feels his cheeks flush, but he’s still too sated and down to worry about anything as trivial as embarrassment. “I miss chocolate,” he admits after he’s – slowly – chewed and swallowed the sweet treat down.

“I’ve heard it’s good,” Steve agrees, breaking off another small square to hold out for Tony.

Tony’s awareness leaps up a few steps, and he opens his eyes, blinking owlishly up at Steve from his lap. “You’ve never had it?”

Steve’s cheeks go pink in a way that Tony finds debilitatingly beautiful. “It’s not something we had money for, when I was growing up.”

“Have some,” Tony says, lifting a heavy hand and waving it somewhere in the vicinity of the chocolate in Steve’s hands. Steve blanches.

“Oh, no,” he says, shaking his head so the soft blonde hair that has come loose from its combed-back style falls into his eyes. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Tony asks, words clearer now. He shifts a little, managing to sit himself up a few more centimeters all on his own.

“We aren’t – they were very clear when they gave me the instructions. I was only to give it to you if I thought I’d gotten you all the way down, and it’s worth at least three months of my contract –”

“I want you to have it,” Tony says, honest and open in a way he can only be in subspace. In a way he hasn’t been in years. “I don’t like being treated differently because I’m – who I am. I shouldn’t have special privileges. You should be able to taste chocolate.”

“I’m all right,” Steve tries again, but the argument is bringing Tony up faster than he’d like. On the other hand, he’d been brought down so wonderfully that the upswing is smooth, and there’s no subdrop looming in sight.

“Please,” Tony says. “They gave it to you to give to me, right?” He puts a hand up to hold Steve’s wrist as Steve tries to press another small square against his lips. “So I can do with it as I like. And what I’d like is to give it to you.”

Steve looks at him again, and Tony meets his eyes. He can tell Steve is looking for another way to decline, but suddenly it seems very important that Steve get to taste chocolate, at least once in his life. Whatever he’d done to land himself here, to indenture himself to the government like this… the ones with augmentations, like the Sub with the cybernetic arm he’d seen, they made sense. The price of an arm like that, hundreds of thousands of credits, was hard to come by for a normal man. That man was here in the facility specifically to pay for the debt incurred by that arm. It made sense.

But Steve doesn’t have any visible enhancements. So his situation is most likely criminal in nature. He’d heard of that – men and women getting in trouble with law enforcement, or with powerful corporations, and the only way to pay their debt to society was to work in the facilities.

Tony wonders idly what Steve could have done, and decides he doesn’t care. The Dom had been kind to him. More than kind. Steve had made him feel special and beautiful, and had brought him down into a subspace so deep he thought he’d be there forever.

But the argument is bringing him up, and with that is coming logic and common sense.

“I insist,” he says. “I’m the client, we’re here on my dime, and I insist.” He grins to take the sting out of the words.

The corner of Steve’s mouth twitches like he’s trying to hold back a smile. “If it’s really all that good, you’d think you’d be insisting on keeping it all to yourself.”

“Please. Steve. I want you to try it.” Brutal honesty bubbles up out of his throat again. “Please. What you did for me tonight… no one has ever done anything like that. I feel so… it doesn’t matter. The point is, you deserve something for that. You were amazing. And I want to do something nice for you, and this is all I can think of. Please.”

Steve takes a deep breath. “I shouldn’t,” he says, but Tony can tell he’s won.

“Both of us at the same time,” he says, sitting all the way up and taking the chocolate from Steve’s hands, breaking another small square off. He’s rising rapidly out of his subspace but in a way that feels good, like he’s woken up from a long, restorative sleep, or he’s had a massage after an intense workout. His limbs feel loose and heavy and soft, the world slightly unfocused at the edges in a way that is soothing and comfortable.

He takes a small square of chocolate and, sitting crosslegged to face Steve on the bed, holds it up to Steve’s lips. It feels strangely, dangerously intimate.

“You get some, and I get some,” he says. His voice is soft, hoarse. Steve lifts a square of chocolate to Tony’s lips, and together they open their mouths and place the morsel on one another’s tongues.

Steve closes his lips as Tony is pulling his fingers out, the caress like a kiss, and his jaw twitches as he holds the chocolate in his mouth.

His eyes go wide, then his eyelashes flutter closed. A soft sound creaks out of his throat, and Tony can’t help but feel his cock twitch a little at it. He’s spent, couldn’t get it up again if he tried, but the sound Steve makes is pure sex.

“Good, isn’t it?” he says, savouring his own piece.

“Oh my god,” Steve moans, the words a mumble as he holds the chocolate on his tongue. “This is… I’ve never tasted anything like this.”

“I can’t believe they gave you that to give to me,” Tony says. “And never let you try it yourself.”

Steve shrugs one shoulder, as though embarrassed. “I’m just a – you’re the client. And an important one, I guess.”

Tony cocks his head. “You really don’t know who I am?”

Steve shrugs. “They didn’t tell me much. Name of Tony, then the, uh, preferences in your file. And the mask…”

Tony had forgotten about it, honestly. The silver half mask on his face, concealing and obscuring his identity.

Without thinking too hard about it, and shoving down any trepidation he might have, he reaches up and loops his finger around the elastic strap and tugs the mask off his face.

Steve stares at him for a moment. “Oh,” he says, swallowing the smooth chocolate as he stares.

Tony knows his face is recognizable. After all, his company holds the sole government contract for nano-augments, is the leading designer of cybernetic augmentations, and is the main provider of clean energy in a world where nuclear energy has too many ghosts to be used anywhere but the poorest towns.

His face has been on the cover of every mag, every news brief, every advertisement for augments. He is the face of robotic tech.

In his darker, bitter moments, Tony knows he’s the face of progress in a world where most are left behind, left to fend for themselves or turn to crime or substances or indentured servitude, but what he sees on Steve’s face isn’t blame and disgust, it’s just the usual awe of meeting what, in the world they live in, is the closest thing to a celebrity he’s ever shared air with.

“Oh,” Steve says again.

Tony doesn’t know why he’s done it. It’s not common knowledge that he’s a Sub – it would be nearly impossible to thrive in his business if it got out. It’s especially not common knowledge that he’s an… unusual Sub.

Most Subs get what they need through pain play, through rough play, through… things Tony doesn’t get what he needs from. No, what Tony needs, what Tony gets off on, is the true submission of the acts. Most Subs need the pain, need to give in to it to get anywhere near subspace, but Tony can’t get there that way. Well, he can get partway down, but it’s awful, and the drop is intense. But when he has what he’s had with Steve tonight, that soft submission, that ability to give in, to pleasure, to whatever his Dom wants from him… it had brought him to a whole new level of subspace, a level he hadn’t known existed. And now, as he slowly rises out of it, he knows he’ll never be able to go back. Now that he knows what it’s like to sink into subspace like the comfort of a warm blanket, he doesn’t know if he’d ever be able to get there through the more traditional methods ever again.

Steve takes the last piece of chocolate and holds it up to Tony’s lips. Tony reaches up and plucks it from his fingers, snapping it in half roughly and holding one half out to Steve. Steve takes it with a little huff of breath, and then presses the small triangle to Tony’s lips. Tony kisses his fingers and holds his own triangle up to Steve’s mouth, and they each take the morsel at the same time.

Once they’ve swallowed the sweet delicacy, Tony leans back and stretches his arms up, feeling the burn of muscles that had tensed and then intensely relaxed during their scene.

“You’re beautiful,” Steve murmurs, and then his cheeks pink lightly again.

“You don’t have to do that,” Tony says, feeling heat rise to his own cheeks.

“Do what?” Steve asks, brows furrowing.

“That,” Tony says, waving a hand dismissively. “I get that you’re, you know. Not… I’m a client. I get that, is what I’m saying.”

Steve blinks at him. “That’s not what I was doing. Meaningless flattery, or whatever. I really do think that,” he says. “That you’re beautiful. You are. You’re lovely. That I got to do a scene with you is just…”

Tony swallows, searching Steve’s blue eyes for the lie, for the pandering. It’s not there, though. Only simple honesty.

“Why are you here?” Tony asks him, then, blurting the words. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Sorry. That’s not fair. I shouldn’t…. I wouldn’t even be here if I could…. Well. You know. I’m not… the usual Sub.”

“You’re a beautiful Sub,” Steve says, not answering the question. “The way you gave yourself over? The way you let me… God, Tony. It was gorgeous. You were so perfect.”

Tony actually feels himself dip down again, just a little, at the praise. He’d thought he was all the way up, but apparently not. He’s still floating a little. He’s got mental clarity, he’s up far enough for that, but he’s still smooth and sated and satisfied.

After a moment, where they just stare at each other in some namelessly charged way, Steve takes a deep breath and moves off the bed, moving toward Tony’s clothes. He brings them back, then gently starts putting them back on Tony. He doesn’t ask Tony to help, doesn’t tell Tony to dress himself – he moves Tony’s arms, his legs, seems to expect Tony to keep them where they’re placed (and he does) and allow Steve to dress him. And Steve seems to revel in it, in controlling Tony’s body, gently placing his underwear and trousers and shirt over him, covering up the skin that had been bare and sweaty moments ago.

Steve haphazardly pulls his own pants up, fastening them quickly, and brushes a hand through Tony’s hair.

Tony clears his throat. “I suppose you have, you know. Other clients,” he says, waving his hand vaguely at the centre of the room. He gets to his feet, feeling awkward and strangely sad.

“Not tonight,” Steve says. It’s not placating, not trying to feed Tony a line. Just a simple statement. Steve brushes a smudge from Tony’s cheek with his thumb, gives him a small smile and leans down to kiss Tony’s cheek where his thumb had brushed.

“Thank you,” Tony says, finally, after a beat. “This was… I’ve never had this before. Never made it that far into subspace, and never gone down so easily. You’re very… talented.”

Steve’s cheeks turn mesmerizingly pink. “It was a pleasure,” he says. “Thank you for trusting me.”

Tony doesn’t know what else to say, so he says nothing. He simply walks toward the door to the room and leaves, closing it behind himself as he makes his way through the corridors – echoing with sex and cries and slaps of flesh or leather on flesh – and straight out onto the dingy, dark street, toward Happy and the car and home. He’ll definitely be back.