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From "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" by Walt Whitman.
What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not -distance avails not, and place avails not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walked the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
I too had received identity by my body,
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body.
Steve remembered the first time Iron Man picked him up and lifted him. The serum had made Steve into a person who could fight on the top of an airplane, on the edge of a building, while falling off a bridge. He could think, he could plan, he could strike, even flying through the air.
He could have emotions and stay calm and able. Still calm, still able, he felt that rising in his gut, in his heart, when he flew with Iron Man.
It was something like he felt now, shoulder to shoulder with Tony Stark, on the deck of the East River Ferry from Brooklyn to Manhattan. He wanted to shout, to grab Tony by the shoulders and dance around. That kiss! He couldn't believe it.
He wanted to kiss some more, to laugh, to hold Tony's body against his and… he didn't even know what came next, exactly, but whatever the next was, the more was, he wanted that, more bodies, more sex, love, lust, whatever it was. He stood there, his erection slowly abating, his excitement vibrating through him. Waiting, filled up with the sight of beautiful Manhattan looming on the other side, standing next to this wonderful person. It all needed a soundtrack like in the movies, jazzy horns or violins or something to show how it was all more alive and sparkling to him.
In the twilight, the Brooklyn Bridge was strung with lights like a dame in a long string of bluish pearls, and at the top of it, a flag. Thank God Steve could keep his mouth shut so that Tony wouldn't know he was so sentimental.
Tony, who reached for his hand and squeezed it; Tony, whose eyes shone.
Steve was inclined to tease him a little, just to be friendly, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye—something too high up and moving too fast to be quite right.
"It's a Molotov cocktail," he said, and ran forward to intercept the thing before it hit the deck. It was amazing what his body could do—he grabbed a long pole with a net at one end and tried to hit the thing like a baseball, but accidentally caught it. He did something like lacrosse—cradled it and then threw it, fast and accurate, into a part of the river with no boats or buoys, where it sank.
He turned back toward Tony and saw a flash from under the water—something metallic coming up onto the deck right where Tony was standing—and then suddenly there was a man leaping down from the upper deck toward him, one foot extended, about to come down on Steve's chest.
Steve moved fast and dodged the hiking boot, trying to get back to Tony. The guy was in some kind of purple and yellow get-up. It was worse than the Captain America uniform—tighter and more eye-catching, with the same kind of cowl-visor thing over the eyes, but a space for the nose and mustache. Mouth, if there was a mouth in all that beard.
"Ah, you move well, Steve Rozhairs!" Christ, what an accent. Purple-and-yellow guy executed a showy series of handsprings, this time nearly connecting before he sprang to his feet.
"What is that, capoeira?"
"Mais non, mon capitan! I am French, not Brazilian!"
It sounded so silly that Steve actually laughed, which slowed him down enough that the other landed a roundhouse kick to his right shoulder. Steve grabbed for the guy's ankle, but he was too fast. "Zis is savate, the French style kickboxing! I am Batroc, ze wereld champion!"
"Did you make it up yourself?" Steve dodged again, turning back toward Tony, trying to see him, but Batroc got in his way.
"I am ze mastair," Batroc told him, doing some kind of jump sideways in order to use the railing to shove his body weight behind both feet into Steve's stomach. The wind rushed out of Steve's body fast, and he thought he might puke.
You didn't live through as many beatings as Steve had to give up with the first heavy sock in the gut. "You are indeed," Steve said, straightening.
"Eet is no shame to lose to Batroc ze Lepair, Steve Rozhairs!"
"I can see that," Steve said, and dealt him a stunning left uppercut to the jaw. "I'll keep it in mind should I ever have the experience."
He jumped over Batroc's prone form. Something tentacle-like had grabbed Tony by the ankles. Tony's fingers, white-knuckled with a panicked grip, were slipping from the railing, as whatever-it-was pulled him from the deck.
Steve shouted something, probably "No!" but perhaps an inarticulate roar, and dove after him.
Even in 2012, the East River was pretty damn cold. Steve had always been a competent swimmer—it was something they did with asthmatics when he was a kid—but since the serum, he could take deep breaths and swim underwater for five minutes or longer, looking down into the murk, trying to see Tony.
His emotions didn't make him gasp or cough or feel like his heart might stop. The cold water didn't make him weep with the pain of the bad association. It was, after all, salt water, and cold—it did remind him, a little, of crashing into the ocean, but this didn't stop him. The water didn't even sting his eyes. That was the serum for you. It protected him even when he couldn't protect other people. He could think and act when he was sinking down as well as he did when he was flying.
It paid off, finally—he saw a little machine, like a tiny green submarine with a glass bubble on top, and Tony inside it, pounding against the glass. His voice and the thuds of his fists did not disturb the water enough for the sound to penetrate, but Steve miraculously heard him. He lifted his head for a breath and then kicked down.
The machine was fast, but Steve got to it and grabbed the top of the bubble and tried to break the glass with his fists. It was reinforced with something, or perhaps the water pressure was too great. He thought maybe he could kick hard enough to defeat the force of whatever engine it had, and swim with it in his arms to the surface. It was slick and there were no holds to drag it. It had—a stem? A long metal stem, maybe the tentacle Steve had seen? Steve tried to swim underneath, maybe detach the thing, but the tentacle—a long metal tube? Ugh, if only Tony were there to tell him—of course, he was there.
And then the tube pulled hard, dragging the pod with Tony in it. Steve was wrestling the machine for the man inside, but he could feel the need to breathe weakening him, and the machine had no such need. He stayed under water, kicking against nothing, hanging on, and then the thing slid out of his grasp. He tried to swim after. Tony's eyes were soft and he mouthed, "Sorry," and the machine that enclosed him slid away, deeper and further downriver.
Finally Steve had to quit and swim for the surface. He damned his lungs as they forced him to take a long, easy, almost silent breath, and then another, and another.
He had only been treading water for half a minute when he heard the sound of a tiny motorboat as it dopplered toward him. It was Natasha.
"Get on," she said. She didn't smile. It was like fighting alongside a man, the way she never smiled. It made him trust her, even though he knew her job was to trick people into trusting her.
He got on. "You're an idiot," she said. He put his arms around her for balance.
"You knew where we were. Someone took our picture at the lecture," Steve said.
"One-hundred thirty-seven photographs, on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr. Six viral videos of you leaving the building with Stark and kissing on the dock and flirting on the boat."
"Um," Steve said.
"I know, I know. You didn't expect to kiss him. Idiot."
"Which part makes me the idiot? That I let them take Tony?"
Without taking her eyes off the water, she let her head thunk back against his collarbone, briefly. "That wasn't your fault, Steve."
"Strictly speaking," Steve said. "I could have realized that anyone with a grudge or—"
"Tony Stark went out to discuss arc reactor technology to a lay audience of smartphone owners in Brooklyn. He must have had a good hair day and wanted to share it with the world."
"Who took him?"
"Advanced Idea Mechanics."
"How do you know?"
"They tweeted it. You're an idiot because—" she sighed. "He's Tony Stark. You kissed Tony Stark."
"I couldn't stop them," Steve said. "He wasn't wearing the suit."
"He's not defenseless," Natasha said.
"I know that."
"He's actually a dangerous person, even without the suit."
"If you know who has him, do you know where they have him?"
"SHIELD knows. AIM has a base out in the Atlantic." She kept piloting the tiny boat around the tip of Lower Manhattan. They were out on the waters of the Hudson. It reminded Steve of the way Natasha had taken control of an alien spacecraft.
"But we're headed back to New York."
"We're not going to rescue him alone. We're going to take help and equipment."
"Did Tony invent this boat?"
Natasha pulled them into a pier at 59th Street. "It's a jet ski. I know you think Tony Stark invented everything you see, but the Japanese started manufacturing it in the 1970s. Not really designed for two people. Fortunately you have a good sense of balance." He climbed off and scrambled up onto the pier, but when he turned to offer Natasha a hand, he realized she was ahead of him.
"You'll drive this time," she ordered, as she ambled up to a waiting motorcycle and took a helmet out of one of the saddlebags. She threw it at him. "Wear it. I'd prefer not to get stopped by the police."
They had their gear on and were on the bike fast. "We're going to 59th and Madison," she said into his ear. "I know you could run it, but I'd like to be less obtrusive."
He didn't ask where they were going because she'd already called him an idiot several times. He also didn't comment on how unobtrusive it was to speed down 59th street on a motorcycle. He knew he'd turn his head if he saw that hair, like a bright flag, waving from under a motorcycle helmet on the back of a Harley in Manhattan traffic. Flamboyant, a distraction—probably on purpose, to distract people from the photos all over the internet.
He pulled up on the corner. "Park the bike here," Natasha said. He followed her into a barbershop.
"Seriously?" one of the barbers said. "You came here on a motorcycle?" Natasha motioned with her head. She sat in one of the chairs and it disappeared into the floor.
Steve shrugged and sat down in another chair, and his went down like an elevator into the basement. Natasha motioned him to follow her into a large room off the corridor.
Nick Fury was standing in his black leather coat, staring at a computer screen that showed a map with a blinking light on it.
"This is a global positioning system, or GPS, Rogers," Fury said without turning around.
"I know; I have one on my phone."
"Of course," Fury said, turning to him. "I forget you've been in this time for months now." He shook Steve's hand.
"Have you located Tony?"
"Yes," Fury said.
"They didn't take his phone?"
"Stark has a transmitter that looks like an earring," Fury said. "You might have seen it."
It was a square stud of diamond. Steve thought it made him look like a pirate. "Widow said Advanced Idea Mechanics had him on an underwater base.
"We verified their boast in social media," Fury agreed. He pressed something on the console and there was the faintest amplified hiss of a recording. Or—perhaps it was the shushing of the ocean, since recordings didn't make that noise anymore.
"Shit," Tony's voice muttered into the speaker. "AIM steals Starktech. Second verse, same as the first." There were sounds of puttering, and then a sigh. "All right, I've temporarily disabled their bug, I think. If you're on this frequency, I mean for you to hear this. If you're AIM, I don't give a fuck. My tech can trace me. My allies can find me. I know, because this isn't my first rodeo."
"I've contacted Colonel Rhodes," Fury said, "He was already aware of the situation."
"I gotta give a shout out to my old pal, Brooklyn. Listen. Not your fault. Stay put, eh, buddy?"
"That's you," Fury said.
"I know," Steve said.
"What's that about?" Fury asked.
"Nothing. I think it means he wants me to be on the team to come get him."
"Really," Fury said. "It sounds like he does not want you to be on the team to come get him."
"Well, it's a sort of a—" Steve began. Fury smiled. "It's an inside joke—" He wasn't buying it. "I'm going."
"I know." Fury's smile reverted to his usual grim line. "I know. He thinks there's a possibility that he's bait to get you there."
"They could have just taken me, if that were true."
Fury looked at him. "Perhaps, but distracting you and taking Stark while he didn't have access to the suit was easier. Here's the rest of the team."
Clint and Bruce stepped into the room. "Dr. Banner," Steve said. "I don't want to ask you to—"
"For Tony," Bruce said. "I'd do it for Tony," and his voice descended an octave. His eyes shone green. He cleared his throat and his irises returned to an ordinary brown. "But only if you need the Other Guy," he said. "Otherwise, I can help you with tracking Tony's energy signature."
"Thanks." Steve clapped him on the shoulder. Bruce flinched, and Steve patted him again, very gently, and Bruce flinched again, and smiled queasily.
"Stark is here," Natasha said impatiently, pointing to the screen. "They have a base underwater."
"We have a vehicle ready for you, Captain," Fury said.
They walked into an underground garage.
"That's a fucking duck boat," Clint said. "It even has the tour operator's logo on the side."
"We have to drive it out of Manhattan," Bruce said. "Does this one submerge?"
"Will that be a problem, Dr. Banner?" Steve asked.
"If you don't bring along an enchanted alien artifact, no, it won't." Bruce said.
"It doesn't submerge," Fury said. "There's a smaller mini-sub on board, and of course, GPS, radar, slide-scan sonar, bio-accoustics."
"Of course," Bruce echoed quietly.
"It's on the lower deck. Those windows look like they haven't been washed, but they're actually one-way glass," Fury explained.
"I'm driving," Clint said. "I'm great at boats."
Natasha did not roll her eyes but somehow conveyed the impression that she was rolling them anyway. "Fine," she said curtly. "Let's go. Here--" She handed Steve a baseball cap, a denim jacket and a pair of mirrored sunglasses. "Slouch," she said. "You're going to ride on the upper deck. We need your eyes up there."
They piled into the bus…thing, Natasha and Bruce and Clint all on the lower deck, Steve on the top. The bus pulled out into the street.
"Remember to slouch," Natasha said in his ear. "There's a com link on your sunglasses."
"Figured," Steve said quietly.
"There's food up there," she said. "Eat it. You haven't eaten for hours and you'll need it."
"I can't right now," Steve said. It wasn't true, of course. He could always eat and he could always function even when he hadn't eaten. That was the serum. He didn't want to enjoy food while someone might be hurting Tony.
"Take a couple of packets of goo, and a bottle of water. You can eat one now and have more after the fight. Tony might need one."
There were several coolers of food, one entirely energy bars and gels.
Steve ate a few tubes of goo and a couple of energy bars, as slowly as he could, and filled his pockets with several more, and drank water. He did feel better. He could hear his teammates' chatter on the com, talking about how suped up the Duck was.
"I'll go with Cap," Hawkeye said. "I have the skill set for getting the explosives to the right spot on the enemy base. There are four seats in the sub and we need one for Stark."
That left Natasha alone on the ship with Bruce. Not a great plan. "I think it would be better, if there are missiles on this old Duck, for you to stay on the ship and for Natasha to come with me," Steve said. "We're going in to get him out, so we'll have to find a way to cut into the side of the vessel."
"All right," Clint said after a moment. Maybe he'd realized about Natasha and the Hulk? "We have some pretty amazing Starktech for the cutting part."
"You wanted to shoot them into place with an arrow?" Steve had to smile.
"Nah," Clint said. "Anyway Bruce and I will be your backup."
Beautiful New York—it had only been minutes since he'd looked into her face while holding Tony's hand. The glitter of a place that was still alive with people at night, full of the vitality and drive that made him feel less lonely when he was worried.
They drove to the pier and into the water. "I'm coming down," Steve said. He sprinted down the stairs. "How close are we?"
Bruce turned. "We have about 20 minutes, according to Clint."
"Yeah, I heard through the com link," Steve said. "Natasha, can you pilot this thing?"
"That's the plan," she said. "Suit up, you need to be Captain America for this one."
Bruce turned from his pinging, bleeping, flashing equipment. "He could wear a SHIELD uniform or something more non-descript. Tony was worried this was a trap for him."
"Yeah," Clint said. "I'm sure wearing a SHIELD uniform will totally disguise the height and muscles, and all the other…stuff."
Natasha opened a narrow door and pulled a rack of gear out of the wall. "Here," she said. "Take your uniform."
It was still in a dry-cleaning bag. Steve ducked behind a desk and stepped out of his clothing and into the uniform.
"Nice boots," Clint said. Steve clenched his molars. "Seriously—steel toe. Coulson picked them out," he said, looking at the dashboard. "He wanted you to have something more functional in combat and less…I dunno, elfin. Before he got his hands on my uniform, I had these hideous purple…"His voice trailed off. "He's the reason Fury decided to help us get Tony back."
"I would have gone anyway, if I had to swim."
"We would, too," Clint said.
Natasha nodded, once. Steve clapped them each on the shoulder.
The doors of the small submarine opened, and Natasha got into the seat in front of the controls. There were three other seats in the craft. Steve got in and they shut the doors overhead. Doors in the floor opened beneath them and the tiny craft dropped into the ocean.
Natasha reached over her head and flicked a switch. "We're going to blow a hole in the hull of their underwater base, in the room above where they are keeping Tony. We don't want to flood the room where he is, in case he's not mobile. You will get in there and get him out."
Steve nodded.
"Don't do anything extra and don't let Tony do anything stupid."
Steve picked up his shield and saw his reflection in the inside of it. He didn't like to look at his face in these moments because he recognized his mother's brave expression. Her jaw set like that, too, and things back then were so hopeless.
"The explosives," she said, handing him a tiny box like a cell phone. He looked at the screen and swore under his breath. "Problem?" Natasha asked.
"No, it's—this is brilliant," Steve said. "Tony invented this?"
Natasha rolled her eyes. "All right already." She stopped the craft. "Yes. Tony invented it, and Bruce programmed it for us. Bruce will talk you through it; we've got a com link. We're shielded temporarily from various types of sonar, but not for long. The device will tell you when you're in the right place. It's idiot-proof."
AIM's underwater base squatted malevolently on the ocean floor. It was yellow, which was a terrible color for a secret base, and shaped a little like a cigar.
They opened the door on his side and Steve swam out, his shield on his back providing some annoying resistance. The device glowed as it got closer to the spot on the side of the building. When Steve had affixed it using a suction cup on the back, the screen image resolved to spots for his five fingers.
"Put your hand on the screen, Steve," Bruce said in his ear. He positioned his right hand on the screen, and it beeped. "Now move your fingers apart, like an explosion, to set it," Bruce explained. The dots moved to the edge of the screen, and a digital clock appeared.
Steve kicked back about the length of a swimming pool, and there was a small explosion. Air bubbles and debris filled the water.
There was a hole in the side of the AIM ship big enough for Steve, and he swam into it.
The room was a lab. It had filled with water to Steve's waist from the hole in the ceiling. Steve took a breath, and then another. He was going to have to figure out a way down to Tony. He ran into the gangway and shut the door to the lab to keep more water from flowing into the rest of the base.
He had to find the source of the alarm. Aha—that was it overhead and to the left. A quick whack from his shield and he'd disabled it.
Stairs—he could get down to the lower level. He grabbed the railing and then decided just to jump down. Even in these heavier boots, he could land almost soundlessly. He moved fast.
"You're close," Bruce's voice said in his ear. "Practically on top of him."
A guard in what looked like a yellow beekeeper's suit leveled a machine-gun at him, but he took him out with a kick, smashing the weapon against the arm of a second guard. A third and a fourth and two more—Steve got two with his shield and one behind him with his right elbow, and what happened to the last guy? Still coming. Steve punched him in the face, or the, what, helmet, and he went down.
He had to get into the locked room—best way was to bash the doorknob with his shield and break the lock. Or, if that didn't work, he'd have to bash the hinges—yeah, that worked better. Finally he couldn't stand it and he ran at the damned thing with his shoulder, not considering that it might be metal. Nothing broke, but it finally fell off the hinges, and he brought it crashing into the room.
Tony was strapped down to what looked like a dentist's chair and completely nude. His hair was sticking up all over his head, and his eyes looked enormous. Wires stuck out of the arc reactor, but it was still seated in his chest. His color was good—a little pale, but not heart-attack pale.
"Steve!" he whispered. "Dude!"
"Have you been drugged?"
"I told you not to come!"
"Tony," Steve said. "What is attached to the reactor?"
"Oh yeah," he said. "They set it up to power the—the thing. They were using a thing on me. But then they drugged me after that to get me to talk, so, I don't know why they used the thing."
"I want to detach the wires. Please?" Steve got the straps off—some unbuckled, but some he just broke. "Can you help me, even though you're drugged?"
Tony giggled. "I love you so much."
Steve put a hand on his shoulder. "Please, Tony. Tell me what I have to do."
"It's fine, just wire cutters, fine," Tony muttered. "They have the tools, in the tool, in the thing." He gestured. "I am useless without my suit, man. I can hack their mainframe stoned, but I can't fight or—" he started to laugh, a little bitterly. He pulled at the thing in his chest and unwound the wires. Steve looked around for clothing. He took off his jacket; it was still damp, but better than nothing.
"Does this mean we're going steady?" Tony asked, wiggling his eyebrows. He tried to put his feet on the floor. Steve's quick reflexes kept him from going down in a heap. "Shit," he said, breathing heavily. "I think I broke—something. Well, I mean, they broke something on me. Probably when they smashed my leg with the, whatever that was. Big iron thing, blackjack. Christ. I can't believe anything is getting through this haze." His eyes were tearing and he'd broken into a sweat.
"I can carry you," Steve said.
"Jesus, I'm naked," Tony said. "I'm naked and I'm fucking high. Steve. I'm really sorry."
"Iron Man, I'm going to execute an emergency carry on this mission," Steve said. He sat Tony on the edge of the torture table and picked him up piggyback style. Tony wrapped his arms around Steve's chest, and Steve held on to his thighs. He wasn't on very securely.
"You're doing the Captain America command voice," Tony said. "I think I'm only Iron Man if I'm in the suit." He breathed for a moment as Steve made his way out of the lab onto the gangway. "Or if I get a huge, embarrassing boner while I'm riding on your back. Which I, huh, yeah, anyway, apparently this drug doesn't have any properties to inhibit that sort of thing. Great."
"It's certainly making you chatty," Steve said. There were footsteps overhead. He might have to fight their way out. How could he keep Tony safe if he had to hit people?
"Okay, yeah, I'm probably telling you all the—well. Yes." He rested his forehead against Steve's shoulder. "I don't drink anymore. Did you know that? I go to AA. I mean, I've been. I'm not—I don't get high anymore."
"Shh," Steve said. He had to find a way out. Tony sniffled. He looked up the staircase where he'd come down. "OK, here they come."
"You're going to have to put me down," Tony said. "Don't worry, I'll be OK."
"Let's try it my way, first," Steve said. "Hang on." A new crowd of beekeepers ran toward them with machine guns. Steve took his shield from where he'd hung it on his belt, and threw it, counting on Tony to keep hold and not slide off.
The shield hit two of the oncoming guards, one in the chest, the next in the shoulder, hard enough still to knock him into a third. Still, another soldier got behind them and grabbed at Tony. Steve elbowed him down and slung Tony's down, gently, placing his hands on the railing. Then he set his mind to the work of disabling the guards, counting them as he got them down or out, either disarming them or knocking them down, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Tony, still propped against the railing, still stoned out of his gourd, managed to take a machine gun from one Steve tripped, and actually shot at someone.
"Don't," Steve said. "We're good."
"Good," Tony gasped.
Natasha burst through the door. "Let's go," she said. "Come on." She took the gun from Tony's hands. Steve picked him up again, this time carrying him in front, since Natasha was with them. She opened a door and they entered another room that was filling with water from a hole made by a Stark explosive.
"Tony isn't going to be able to swim," Steve said.
"Not everyone can hold her breath like you can," Natasha said, and gave them each a tiny tube of oxygen with a mask attached. "Hold on to that," she said to Tony.
"OK," he said. He didn't tell her that he loved her. He looked very tired. Natasha climbed out of the breach in the ship's hull and hung in the water, waiting for Steve to help Tony through. In the end, Steve held on to the collar of his uniform jacket to keep hold of Tony as they swam back to the small craft. He had to propel Tony, barely conscious, into the sub, Natasha taking his legs.
"I can see that broken bone," Natasha said. "Bruce," she said. "We have him, but he's in bad shape. They broke his left tibia and he seems to be drugged."
"OK, I can make a splint or a cast until we get to shore," Bruce said. Steve breathed. Tony was asleep.
Returning to the Tower was kind of anti-climactic. Yes, everyone had seen the photos of Steve kissing Tony on the ferry landing, but no one said anything. It took 24 hours for the drugs to leave Tony's system, and after that he was still tired and recuperating from having his leg broken. He supposed that before the kiss, he would have sat with Tony in his room, but now he wasn't sure whether he could do that. It might look like he had expectations. He passed by in the hallway, to see whether Tony's door was open, to listen for his breathing, see whether he was awake.
His body was stupidly needy. He had to work out every day and eat like he was training for a marathon. He kept showering, getting dressed, passing by the door to check and then going back to the gym.
It was probably his fifth pass through the hallway on the third day when Tony finally called out to him. "You wanna come in here?"
"Yeah, sure," Steve said.
Tony was sitting up in bed, reading on a tablet, wearing his usual t-shirt and pajamas. "AIM are real assholes," Tony said. "Thanks for bailing me out. I was a little worried, you know, that if you came to get me, they'd capture you."
"I got that," Steve said. He sat on the edge of the bed, so that Tony didn't have to look up at him.
"Also," Tony said, looking down at his tablet. "I've been in more dignified situations. I know I fell out of the sky on our first mission and basically died in front of you, but at least then I wasn't naked and…"
"It's okay," Steve said. "I still—"
Tony looked up, his eyes younger and softer than the rest of his face. Sometimes Steve could say just the right thing to inspire a comrade to do his best, or feel more like himself. This was not going to be one of those times, was it?
"I still think you're a great guy, Tony." Oh, Rogers. So lame. "I really—" Tony's fingers tipped Steve's chin toward him.
Oh. He leaned forward and this time felt the bristles of Tony's mustache against his upper lip when their mouths touched. Tony's hand was on his neck and his mouth opened and holy hell, it was dizzying. The feeling of touching tongues was endless, like his whole self was in his mouth. He stopped, panting, his mouth all wet and his cock hard and his heart just hammering away like anything.
"I really like you," he said, and Tony swallowed. Then, without even looking, he grabbed Steve's hard-on through his sweatpants, and when Steve closed his eyes, moved in to kiss him again.
"Come here," Tony said, a little strangled, and threw off the covers so that Steve could lie next to him. His lower left leg was in the Iron Man armor, which was a little surprising. "It's better than a cast. You can fuck me in any position you want because the armor will support my weight and protect the leg."
Steve cleared his throat. "Um," he said. He stretched out next to Tony and put his arms around him, and sighed, because it was so good. It was really weird to hear someone say, "fuck me" and not mean it as a curse. Tony pulled the string on his sweatpants and started to push them down, running his hands over Steve's ass, and smoothly pulled Steve on top of him.
He couldn't rest his whole weight on Tony's body that way. He pushed himself up and took his time to look.
He pushed up the hem of Tony's shirt. Tony had a beautiful chest, muscular, with this weird humming electromagnet in the center. He had a lot of dark body hair in a pattern disrupted by the scar tissue around the arc reactor.
Steve had always wanted a muscular, hairy chest. That was how a man's body ought to look. Even after the serum had given him huge pectorals, he still didn't have hair like this. He placed a line of dry, open-mouthed kisses from Tony's nipple to his navel, and then did it again on the other side. The muscles in Tony's abdomen bunched under his lips; it was ticklish. Tony's cock was twitching in his pajama bottoms.
He could kiss it. He wanted to kiss it. That was probably a weird thing to want. He put his mouth around it through the cloth, and breathed around the outline of it, and Tony panted, "Steve!"
"Is that too weird?" Steve asked.
"Weird? No! It's too—I'm going to come. It's too sexy." He pulled Steve up and they kissed some more.
"I've kissed girls," Steve said. "But they never let me. Do this. I mean, I didn't want to be that kind of guy, a pushy guy. But this is different, right?"
"Because I'm a pushy guy," Tony said.
"Because," Steve said, "You're my friend, and you'd say no if you didn't want something."
"Because I want everything. I want your cock up my ass. I want you to fuck my face. I want you to use me like a two-dollar whore." Steve's face was hot, and he had to look away for a moment.
Tony got quiet for a second. "Too much, right? That's too much for you, that kind of dirty talk."
"No," Steve said. "That's—but you know I really like you, you don't have to—" he didn't want to say, "show off." It was something like that—Tony didn't think he was enough. He had to do more, lay it on thick. That was what he was like. "You always want to do something extra, but—I, I like you, and… I don't need you to do that." Steve came down and lay on his side and looked into Tony's face.
Tony's eyes brimmed over. "I'm not a girl," he said harshly, looking at the ceiling.
"I know," Steve said, smiling. "I noticed."
"I'm older than you, and kind of messed up, broken."
Steve didn't know what to say. To him, the broken parts of Tony were the best of him, the parts that made Tony human, even though he compensated for them by making himself part machine. He couldn't say that in bed, with his pants pulled partway down. He couldn't say all these goofy things to a guy. To his guy.
"No, Tony," Steve shook his head, pulling Tony close and hugging him. The reactor dug into his chest, but only a little—reassuring, like a St. Christopher's medal or a dog tag. "It's not like that. You're more to me than that. You're—what I thought the future would be like. You're wonderful." Tony exhaled, a little puff of disbelief. He was so stubborn. Steve would have to work on him.
"Didn't mean to embarrass you," Tony muttered.
"I want all those things too," Steve said. "Those sex things. You can see that I want them. You can feel it." He wanted to say more, but his voice was already low in his throat, and he didn't think he could grind out another word to say how much he wanted Tony.
"Yeah," Tony said. "I can't believe I have naked Steve Rogers in my bed and I'm talking my way out of sex." He was reaching for Steve's cock, again.
"I know how to shut you up," Steve said, and pulled Tony on top of him.
Tony took charge, his body stretched out on Steve's the way Steve craved. He kissed with his mouth open, tongue liquid. His cock was hard against Steve's belly; Steve had to taste it. He bent forward to take the head in his mouth, and Tony sat up so that Steve's cock fit into the groove of his ass. Tony clenched his buttocks. Steve licked Tony's cock, and Tony sighed and writhed around him.
Suddenly the light in Tony's chest came toward Steve's face as Tony leaned forward and grabbed something from a drawer in his nightstand. "Lube," he said, and Steve thought about his motorcycle, even though he knew it wasn't that kind of lube. Tony greased him up and then oh, very slowly, worked Steve's cock into his ass. It was very tight, and hot, and slippery with the lubricant. Steve panted as he slid in, all the way in.
Tony was lying where he could kiss Steve's face and neck. Steve was working Tony's ass with his hands, sliding him up and down his cock. Tony's buttocks were round and fit into Steve's palms as though they had no other purpose. He'd thought about how they'd fit him when he saw Tony walking or working out or fighting, the round muscle of them in the armor. Now he was thrusting up between them, so close, Tony grunting and saying, "Harder." And then Tony came, and he was crying out, his ass contracting wonderfully. Jism shot out warm between them, onto Steve's belly. Steve sort of yelled and his hips jerked up hard, and he was coming, too.
He didn't want to move. Tony collapsed on top of him and slept for a minute or two, snoring. He came to suddenly and looked around him. "Wow," he said.
Steve's cock was still not quite soft. He pulled out carefully and went to get washcloths from Tony's bathroom to clean them up. He came back and Tony was lying on his side, his eyes large and watchful. They both wiped up and Steve got into the bed and pulled a cover over them.
"You're quiet," Steve said.
"You wore me out," Tony said. It wasn't true, though. He lay awake looking into Steve's face for a long time, smiling, until Steve himself fell asleep, dreaming that he was still awake and still looking into the warm depths of Tony's eyes.