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Of course it had been a trap. All roads to try and find Bucky had led to HYDRA, even though all their intel had been pretty clear that what was left of HYDRA was hunting for him almost as single-mindedly as the Avengers were.
So of course this one, this obvious one, had been a trap, and of course they’d fallen for it.
+++++
Nat and Clint had gotten in touch with old SHIELD contacts – those they could trust not to have been HYDRA in the first place, and a few they weren’t entirely sure about – while Tony had commandeered Stark Industries’ satellites and hijacked a few others.
“Piggybacking,” he’d corrected, patting Steve’s shoulder when Steve had brought up the relative legal issues that might be attached to hacking into government and private satellites to go through classified records and global images. “I’m piggybacking. That’s all, they won’t even notice. If they didn’t want me in there, they should have had better security engineers.”
And Steve had let it go, because it was important that they find Bucky. After Washington, when Tony had come barging into Steve’s hospital room, startling Sam and the nurse who’d been checking his stitches, the Avengers had assembled to help Steve find his long lost friend.
He knows Bucky is still in there somewhere. He has to be – or Steve would be dead instead of listening to the military doctors chattering excitedly in the hallway about his spleen regrowing itself.
When Tony had finished yelling at him about putting himself at risk without calling them, without calling Tony – because “long distance doesn’t mean you don’t call me when SHIELD labels you Public Enemy Number One and your ex shows up brainwashed to kill you.”
“He’s not my ex,” Steve had said, his voice still a little scratchy from the medications the doctors had been pumping into him. It seemed important to make sure Tony knew that. “I couldn’t call you, Tony. I didn’t want them to try to get to you.”
Tony had rolled his eyes, his mouth pursed with annoyance to cover his fragile insecurity at the conversation. “Next time, you call. You think JARVIS can’t keep the line secure? You think HYDRA has tech better than mine? No, Steve. Next time, you call .”
And Steve could do nothing but nod, and then breathe in deeply at the familiar, desperate feeling of Tony’s lips against his.
Sam had coughed delicately from across Steve’s hospital room, and Tony hadn’t even flinched. He took his time finishing the kiss with Steve, then pulled back a little, just enough to give Sam a sidelong glance.
“Hey,” Sam had said, greeting him with a nonplussed nod of his head. “You’re Tony Stark.”
Tony had grinned. “The one and only.”
“I’m Sam.”
“Sergeant Samuel Thomas Wilson, US Air Force, pararescue airman and test pilot in the EXO-7 FALCON program,” Tony nodded. “I did my homework. Also, I have unfettered access to facial recognition software and military records.” He swung his head back around to Steve. “Which is why I’m going to say this to you once, and only once. I had JARVIS parse down what Romanov released in that data dump. Nice stunt, but it put a lot of people in the crossfire.”
“We didn’t have a choice,” Steve said.
“Not the point, and stop talking until I’m finished. It put a lot of people in the crossfire, including your boy Barnes. A lot of shady organizations are going to be after him – after what he knows and what he can do. I am going to use all of my considerable resources to make sure we’re the ones that find him first. And you’re going to work with me, instead of against me. Got it?”
And Steve could only nod gratefully, because of course Tony would be all in, would put everything he had into being there for Steve, even though they’d only been an item for a few months.
Which was why the next part would be so hard.
“Sam,” Steve had said, glancing over at his friend. “Can you give us a sec?”
“Sure thing,” Sam had nodded, standing up with a stretch. “Time for fresh coffee anyway.”
He was gone a moment later, and Steve had looked up at Tony, at his tired eyes and his tight mouth, and told him about his parents.
+++++
Tony had yelled, he had cried, he had raged. And Steve had held him, and told him how sorry he was. Tony had clung to Steve, so tight, even when Steve had said it was Bucky, that he was sure it was Bucky, but he wouldn’t have done it if he’d been in control of himself.
And Tony had believed him, and let Steve kiss him, and hold him until they both fell asleep, curled together on the too-small cot.
And Tony still said he’d help find Bucky.
+++++
They had gone down a few different avenues, but this one had seemed the most promising. Enough details to be completely believable without being an obvious trap. Which, Steve supposes, is why he’d fallen so entirely for it.
Clint figures it out first, from his vantage point at the top of a mountain. The HYDRA base had seemed deserted, and JARVIS hadn’t detected any heat signatures that would indicate life signs. Thor and Tony are providing air support, and Bruce is waiting at the quinjet, hoping they don’t need to call a Code Green. Nat had gone in the front door, beautiful and deadly, while Steve had snuck in the back way. They’ve been alternating missions between looking for Loki’s sceptre and looking for the Winter Soldier, and somehow a defunct base in Estonia had come up flagged for both. They’d rallied the troops and flown across the world and it had all seemed just hard enough to be real.
So when the floor falls out from under him and he drops into a vat of something blue and viscous, he’s more surprised than he should be. It burns his skin and his eyes, smells sickly sweet and acidic. He splutters, then kicks his way over to the edge of the huge vat, swinging himself up onto the floor. He wipes the thick fluid off his face, his earpiece crackling in his ear.
“Cap… come… if you don’t… come in… Cap…” It’s broken and staticky, but undeniably Tony’s voice, tight in the way that means he’s trying to hide his concern.
“I’m okay, Iron Man,” Steve says, shaking some of the fluid off his hand. His skin is still burning, his limbs feel heavy, his lungs are tight. Whatever chemical he’d fallen into, he needs to get it off his skin. He looks around the facility, and is gratified to see an emergency first aid station sign. He sprints for the first aid room, going straight for the decontamination showers. He slams his palm against the red emergency button hard enough that the room shakes, and steps under the neutralizing spray.
It stings his eyes, but not as much as the burn of the chemical he’d been dropped into. He looks down at himself to see if the blue gel has started to slide off him, and notices his uniform is a little baggy.
It might be just because it’s soaked through, but he’s been soaked through in his uniform before. It’s supposed to stay melded close to his skin for maneuverability and protection.
+++++
“The good news,” Bruce says the next day, “is that it appears to be temporary. Already, it seems like the serum is regenerating itself, multiplying in your bloodstream and countering the effects.”
Steve stares at the floor, ignoring the skinny wrists and bony elbows and knobbly knees in his vision.
They’d finished searching the facility and found nothing. No sceptre, no Bucky, no HYDRA. Tony had flown him back to the quinjet with a worried look on his face, and Steve had shrivelled.
He’s not quite the same as he’d been before the serum. The serum had made him more than a foot taller, and he’s still 6’3” even after his dip in the blue gel. Tony and Bruce had talked about it at length, but Steve had only half-listened. The gist of it is that HYDRA had come up with some kind of chemical that could counteract the serum, but it didn’t appear permanent. Bruce had said he was already starting to heal from the effects, and that it would last no more than a week before he was back to full strength.
But Steve looks in the mirror, and all he can see is that beanpole-skinny kid he’d been before he’d joined the war effort. Bony and hollow-ribbed and pale, struggling to breathe. Sickly.
He goes down to his own quarters that night, even though he hasn’t slept there since well before he’d gone to Washington for SHIELD. When he’s in New York, he sleeps in Tony’s penthouse in the Tower.
Well. He had. When he’d been strong and beautiful. But Tony wouldn’t want him now.
+++++
Steve had grown up his whole life knowing what it was to not be wanted. He’d been the third wheel on Bucky’s dates, the disappointing set-up, the guy who couldn’t get a girl or a fella to look his way no matter how hard he’d tried.
After the serum, it had been different. The USO girls had mostly treated him like an overgrown, overeager puppy, but there’d been flirtatious looks. There’d been Peggy, and that woman who’d cornered him and tried to show him her ‘gratitude’ after the mission to save the 107th, but it hadn’t been until the 21st century – until waking up after the ice – that he’d really had a chance to see what life was like on the other side. Now, he’d learned (mostly from Clint) about the way the modern world objectified him, about thirst tweets and People’s Sexiest Man Alive and Buzzfeed’s “Nineteen Times Captain America Gave Us Lady Boners”.
And, of course, there had been Tony. They’d fallen into each other’s arms in the middle of an argument, going from fighting to fucking in the space of a blink. It hadn’t been Steve’s first time, but it had been a first all the same. Tony had held him and made him feel loved and lusted after, had brought him to the brink of pleasure over and over again before finally tumbling them both over the edge.
And it kept happening. Over and over, they’d crashed into one another until colleagues became friends, became lovers, became partners. When Fury had asked Steve to go to Washington for SHIELD work, he’d balked, had hated the idea of leaving Tony behind.
“I have a state-of-the-art flying metal suit that can get me anywhere I want to be faster than any publicly available mode of travel.”
“It’s still New York to Washington.”
“It’s temporary.”
All of Tony’s arguments had seemed sound, and they’d made love, kissed one another goodbye and promised to see each other as often as possible.
And then there had been Bucky and HYDRA and SHIELD and the Potomac.
And now there’s this, an accident or a trap or both that’s left him weak and changed and useless.
And Tony wouldn’t – couldn’t – want him like this. Barely a shadow of the strong, capable man Tony had been attracted to, now fragile and delicate and wrong. Tony is beautiful and brilliant and confident, and Steve is none of those things, not really.
So he goes down to his own quarters and falls into a fitful sleep in his cold bed.
And wakes up at one in the morning when there’s a loud rap on his bedroom door frame.
“So this is where you are,” Tony says, leaning against the frame. He’s fully dressed, looking tired and annoyed.
“Hey,” Steve greets him, not sure what to say. He doesn’t want to spill all his insecurities out on the floor between them, that will only make it all worse.
“Bruce and I were running some more tests on your blood samples, then I thought I’d go to bed and lo and behold, our bed was empty.”
Steve doesn’t think about ‘ our .’
“I just thought you’d want –”
“Want my boyfriend to be an idiot? Nope, you’re off the mark on that one.”
“Tony…”
“No, I’m talking right now, you can have your turn in a minute.” And Tony really does sound mad. “Are you pissed that I can’t fix it? Is that it? I didn’t think you’d be one for the silent treatment, Rogers, that’s more a ‘me’ thing than a ‘you’ thing. You’re supposed to be the mature one.”
“I’m not pissed, why would you think I was pissed?”
“This is a step or two past sleeping on the couch, don’t you think? I thought we’d agreed to talk to each other about feelings. I distinctly remember agreeing to that.”
“We did. We do. I’m not mad at you, Tony, there’s nothing you can do about it, and Bruce said it’s temporary. I just thought I’d stay here until I was… you know. Me again.”
Tony blinks at him. “What do you mean ‘you’ again? Is there a symptom you haven’t told us about? Do you feel –”
“No, I just mean, you know, looking like this. That’s not what you signed up for.”
Tony doesn’t say anything for a long moment. The silence stretches on, and Steve has to break eye contact, feeling Tony’s eyes on him.
“Oh,” Tony says eventually, almost to himself, like he’s solved an equation he didn’t know he’d been faced with. He pushes himself away from the doorway and comes over to the bed. Steve shifts a little to the side to make room for Tony to sit down, then realizes he hadn’t needed to because he doesn’t take up as much room in the bed as he’s used to.
“You’re beautiful,” Tony says gently, reaching out to cup the side of Steve’s face in his hand. His palm is rough and calloused. “So beautiful that sometimes I think you forget it. I didn’t take you for falling into the whole toxic masculinity trap.”
“That’s not –”
“You’re still beautiful, Steve. Your muscles, while deliciously attractive, aren’t what make you beautiful.”
“You don’t have to humour me,” Steve says.
“When have I ever humoured you, Steven?”
“Point taken,” Steve sighs.
Tony studies him for a minute, then pulls the covers away from him, revealing Steve in his flannel pajamas. “Come here, come with me,” he says, standing from the bed and offering his hand out to Steve.
And Steve trusts Tony with his life, so he gives Tony his hand and lets him pull Steve out of the bed and across the room.
There’s a mirror on the wall – Steve hadn’t put it there, but Tony’s decorators had and Steve had never gotten around to changing anything. Tony guides him in front of the mirror, then moves around behind him. Tony places his hands on Steve’s waist, looking past Steve’s shoulder to meet his eye in the mirror.
“Look at you,” Tony says. It’s not quite irreverent, but more matter of fact.
“Tony,” Steve protests. “Come on.”
“I’m serious, Steve. Look at yourself.” He reaches up and unbuttons Steve’s shirt, letting it fall away and off his shoulders. He’d been swimming in it. Tony presses a soft, wet kiss to Steve’s bare shoulder. “Your skin is like marble. Smooth, pale, flawless.”
Steve squirms a little, feeling his cheeks go pink.
“And that blush, God, Steve, even after all this time, you still blush like that and I want to do incredibly dirty things to you.”
“Tony,” Steve says, and this time it’s less of a protest, full of longing and want and desire. Steve wants Tony to want him, even like this. He always has.
“And when I touch your skin,” Tony tells him, demonstrating. “See the way your skin pebbles, the gooseflesh that raises in my wake? That’s something else.”
Steve’s heart beats a touch faster, a flicker of desire low in his belly.
“You’re good with your hands,” Steve says, one side of his mouth ticking up in a half-smile.
“That filthy smirk,” Tony says, eyes dark in the mirror. “That little cheeky grin that makes me hard, because I know what you can do with that gorgeous, perfect mouth.”
The flicker flares, and Steve bites his bottom lip to keep from moaning as Tony’s fingers find his nipple, the pads of his fingers circling it slowly. He moves to turn around, wanting to drop to his knees and put his mouth to good use, but Tony holds him there. “No, honey,” Tony says. “This is about what I want to do to you right now.”
Steve shudders a little, feeling his cock harden in his pajama pants. Tony notices, slides his hand down the sensitive flesh of Steve’s belly and into his pants.
Steve firms up fully when Tony wraps his hand around him, and can’t help the little sigh of pleasure when Tony pushes his own hips forward and lets Steve feel his answering hardness pressing against the back of Steve’s thigh.
“God, what you do to me,” Tony says against the skin of Steve’s shoulder. He nips his teeth into the thin flesh, his other hand moving to untie the drawstring of Steve’s pants. Both hands work together to push the loose pants down over Steve’s slim hips, pooling around his ankles. Steve is naked in front of the mirror, and there’s something compelling about the fact that Tony is fully clothed, pressed against his back. Tony’s hand goes back to Steve’s dick, stroking the flesh up and down slowly.
“Do you see it yet?” Tony breathes against Steve’s neck. “Do you see how fucking gorgeous you are?”
“God, Tony,” Steve says, letting out a breathless laugh. “You make me feel…”
“I am always going to want you, Cap,” Tony says fiercely, his free hand sliding back around Steve’s hip to palm his ass. “The sexiest thing about you is the way your body responds to me, the way I can take you apart and put you back together. The way you gasp and moan and cry when you come.”
“Please,” Steve gasps. “Please let me.”
Tony brings his hand to Steve’s mouth, pressing two fingers against Steve’s lips. “Come on, honey,” Tony urges, and Steve takes the digits into his mouth, sucking and tonguing them the way he’d like to do with Tony’s cock. Tony’s grip around Steve’s dick tightens a little, then he pulls his saliva-slick fingers away and reaches back down to Steve’s ass, rubbing them in a wet little circle around the furl of Steve’s hole.
Steve moans, his legs automatically stepping slightly apart to give Tony more room to touch him.
“Look at you ,” Tony says, pressing one slick finger part way in. It’s not wet enough to slide much, but it’s enough for Steve to whine a little in pleasure. “You’re so needy, so lovely like this. How could I not want you?”
Steve’s head lolls back, but he keeps his eyes locked on the mirror, on Tony’s hands on him, on his body responding instinctively to Tony. He’s not thinking about his body the same anymore. Its appearance is circumstantial. What matters to him right now is that his body is a tool for Tony’s pleasure, a playground to give Tony what he wants.
Tony pulls his finger free, unwraps his hand from Steve’s cock, and Steve whines at the loss. Tony chuckles darkly, pulling away slightly to move toward the bedside table. “One minute, Cap, do you still have lube in here?”
Steve nods, reaching down to touch his own cock, because Tony’s hands and Tony’s words and Tony’s desire have him so turned on he doesn’t want to wait.
Tony doesn’t delay, opening the drawer and pulling out the bottle of lube. It’s not the good stuff they keep upstairs, but it’ll do. Tony pours it into his stroking hand, then onto his index and middle finger of the other hand. “I’m gonna make you come,” he says, “and I’m gonna make you watch. Because I love to watch you come, Steve, under my hands or my mouth or on my cock, love to watch you fuck yourself back onto me. Did you know that? Your ass, Steve, a fucking work of art made to take my dick, fuck.”
He’s pushed Steve’s hand out of the way and now his slick, strong hand is wrapped tightly around Steve’s erection, stroking him from base to head. His fingers push inside Steve’s ass, and Steve gasps at the stretch, at the way Tony opens him roughly, fingers going straight to Steve’s prostate.
“Oh, fuck, Tony,” he gasps, locking his knees and staring at the way his body trembles under Tony’s expert touch. Tony fucks him with his fingers, jerks his cock, whispering filthy, dirty things about the way Steve’s body takes him and needs him and wants him, and Steve’s coming in no time, jerking and shuddering and shooting on the mirror in front of them as Tony strokes him through it, fingers milking his prostate until Steve is nearly crying, his legs barely able to hold him up.
“Fuck, that’s so hot, jesus,” Tony gasps, pulling his fingers free and his hand away, helping Steve down to the floor as he sways, before he falls.
Steve is gasping for breath, heart pounding as white noise rushes in his ears. He still trembles with aftershocks, and his body will barely cooperate, but he turns in Tony’s arms, pushing Tony back onto the floor, on his back, and reaches for the button of his jeans. He’s hard, bulging in the denim, and Steve’s shaking fingers fumble for a moment before they finally get Tony’s fly open and free his hardness.
“God, Steve, you’re like a fucking dream,” Tony moans as Steve pushes forward and down, bringing his mouth to Tony’s cock an sucking him down as far as he can go. He chokes a little, gags – and apparently his gag reflex is back, but he can still do this, can still show Tony how much he loves him. How much he wants to give Tony even a fraction of the pleasure Tony has just given him.
“Oh, fuck,” Tony cries, and Steve wraps his hand around the part of Tony’s cock he can’t get in his mouth, sucking and moaning and stroking until Tony grips Steve’s hair roughly, pulling him back and off and shooting his come all over Steve’s face in a territorial display of ownership.
“Fuck, you’re so fucking hot covered in come, flushed and pink and spent,” Tony gasps, swiping his thumb over a little bit of come on Steve’s lower lip. Steve pokes his tongue out to lick at it, and Tony groans. “God.”
Tony lays back on the carpeted floor, breathing hard, pulling Steve down onto him and into his arms. Steve goes willingly, his brain still fuzzy with orgasm.
“Do you get it now?” Tony says after a moment, finger tips trailing random patterns on Steve’s back. “Do you get that I will always want you, every bit of you, no matter what?”
“I’m starting to,” Steve admits, pressing a kiss to Tony’s chest, the cotton T-shirt rough against his lips.
“Give me 20 minutes and I’ll be happy to show you again,” Tony says, reaching down to deliver a light spank to Steve’s ass.
“Looking forward to it,” Steve grins.
END