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No. 82960
>>82959
Tony's fingers are still twisted through the hair on the back of his head, and they clench, so he can faintly feel fingernails scratching at his skin. Tony's other hand withdraws from the bulkhead and wraps around one of Steve's wrists, hard, digging into the tendons, tugging the hand away from where it digs into his hip. The move is demanding, powerful, controlling. Steve allows it to happen. Tony's mouth pulls away from Steve's lips, connects with Steve's jaw line, traces it back with his tongue, then down Steve's neck, and Steve groans.
What the fuck are they doing? This is out of control. Steve knows that. It's irrational. But Tony's tongue sweeps across his skin and his teeth bite down over the vein in his throat, which thrums with his rapidly beating heart. Tony has a vice grip on Steve's wrist, severe enough that he can feel his tendons grinding against bone. Steve's free hand is flat against Tony's side, the muscles hard beneath his hand, and Steve's nails dig into Tony's skin as his fingers clench.
Tony's hand trails down his back, across his shoulder blades and down his spine. The touch is faint through Steve's uniform, and he makes a noise of frustration that clearly denotes his annoyance at the fact. Tony complies by yanking up the bottom of Steve's uniform and sliding his hand beneath it.
Steve shifts at the feeling of Tony's fingers against the skin of his stomach, arching into it ever so slightly. Tony's fingers search him, like Tony is memorizing him, cataloging the contours of his skin, his thumb catching on and tracing the scars that criss-cross his body. He groans in the back of his throat as he wonders if Tony knows where he got most of them. Tony reaches the one on his left side, just above his hip, and in his head Steve thinks, Ardennes. Then the hand is flat against Steve's stomach, pausing over the one on Steve's left ribcage, and he thinks Red Skull, and he thinks that there are ones that Tony knows about, and others he doesn't, and maybe Tony wants to know them all. And it's irrational and fleeting, just like what's happening now, but he thinks that maybe he wants Tony to know them all.
He has a feeling that any control either of them has over the situation is rapidly dwindling. There's an urgency to it, a desperation that should be setting off all Steve's defenses. Tony releases Steve's wrist, which is accompanied by the pins and needles of blood rushing back into his fingers. Tony's free hand tugs at Steve's belt buckle, the other fingering the faint collection of shrapnel scars just above his navel. The buckle comes undone, easily, but it's not fast enough. Not nearly.
Steve can clearly see Tony's reaction to all of this, and he can feel the vibration of a moan through where their lips are connected when he reaches forward and grasps Tony's cock with a firm hand.
Tony pulls back, his hand pausing at Steve's waistline. He moans, "God-" and Steve's hand starts stroking, and he's not gentle about it. Maybe it's the years of subliminal attraction. Maybe this had been building up, from a thousand innocent moments, to this. Maybe it all started somewhere long ago, and neither of them realized, and it's all pouring out, right at this moment.
Or maybe, as he feels Tony shift against him, his panting breath against his cheek, the visceral moan that slips past his lips, maybe"¦ maybe this is a kind of revenge.
It's a horrible thought, but Steve is angry. He's furious, betrayed, and above all he's reckless. Maybe he's doing this because he knows it will destroy them, as surely as anything they've done to each other over the past few months. Maybe he's doing this because he knows how much this is going to hurt Tony. Maybe he wants Tony to hurt, because Steve has been slowly dying inside from this, and yet Tony can still look at him with eyes that say, this isn't touching me. This doesn't matter. I'm somewhere else.
Tony will be here for this. This will matter to him. He will feel this. That's what Steve is thinking when he's jerking Tony off, feeling him react under his touch, Tony's hands a vice grip on the hard planes of Steve's body, the sounds that escape his throat low and desperate. Steve is drawing this reaction from Tony, and when Tony palms Steve through the fabric of his uniform, roughly, like he's looking for some kind of control, Steve hisses, and strokes harder.
He knows when Tony is at the raw edge, can feel it in the way his breath hitches and stills, and he grips Tony's hard cock in his hand and squeezes, snarls, "Not yet," and Tony, Tony just makes a sound low in his throat, and somehow manages to comply. Tony's never had any defenses as far as sex was concerned, and Steve knows this. Knows that whatever he wants to do, Tony will go all the way.
Steve's still fully clothed while Tony isn't, which is faintly ridiculous. It's getting in the way of things Steve wants to happen, and happen now, because he can read the desperation in the way Tony's hand is flat against his stomach, just above his waistline, fingers clenching and unclenching. The unseeing way Tony stares through his face into nothingness, his panting breath. He releases his grip on Tony and impatiently pushes him away to start taking off his uniform, because Tony seems temporarily unable to do anything more than breathe, with Steve's hand wrapped around his cock like that.
Regardless of the intent behind it, it's enough. It's enough for Tony to come back from whatever half-aware state led to this, enough to break the moment, enough for Tony to gather something of his armor around himself "“ the emotional armor, the mental armor. Tony's hand is still splayed across his stomach, the other gripping the muscle of his thigh, as his glance catches Steve's and their blue eyes lock. Steve has Tony at arm's length, about to let go, but he stills.
They're both breathing heavily, and Steve can see something in Tony's eyes. Fear, maybe. Uncertainty. Desire. But most of all, what he sees is that Tony is here. Fully here, every part of him.
And that's how he finally sees it. Something in his gut clenches so hard it's almost nauseating. For a moment he's breathless, then he swallows thickly and asks,
"How long-?"
His voice is rough, catching on his own breath. He can only ask part of it, can't even finish the question, but the unspoken words hang between them nonetheless.
How long have you loved me?
Tony studies him, and while he's here, completely here, there is no emotion in his face. The only hint that any of this matters to him is the fact that his eyes are bright, and his lips are bruised and red.
"Until now," Tony answers softly.
Steve's mouth opens, but there are no words. He can't think of a single thing to say. And then Tony is pulling away, the ghosting touch of his fingers against Steve's stomach vanishing as he retracts his hand. Tony stands up, the yellow film spreading over his skin. Steve hears the almost silent hum of the microscopic repulsors activating in Tony's armor as the fragments rise up, then the sound of the pieces clicking and sliding together. The faceplate still sits on the deck between them.
It all happens fast. "Tony-" Steve says, something like panic starting to creep over him, and Tony bends down to scoop the helmet up off the floor, and he slides it back on, hiding his face behind the emotionless armor, and he's turning and walking out of the cell, the bars springing to life swiftly behind him.
Steve stares after him numbly, for a moment, then surges to his feet, yelling after him, "Tony!" He wraps his hands around the bars to his cell without thinking, only to yank them back with a snarl as twin shocks of energy snake up his arms like fire.
Tony's retreating back doesn't pause.
"TONY!" Steve roars. When that has no effect, he takes a step back and viciously kicks one of the bars of his cell, with every ounce of strength he has. It makes a tremendous screech of static, flickering, and the responding shock kills all feeling in Steve's leg, but Tony neither stops nor makes any sign that he's heard. And then the door to the cell block is snapping open, reverberating through the corridor with an undeniable sort of finality, and Tony vanishes from sight as the door closes behind him.
Steve stares after him, frozen, mind a whirlwind, trying to piece together the thousand meanings behind what just happened. How it changes things. How it changes everything.
He turns, faces the back of his cell, crosses his arms and wraps his hands around his forearms so tightly his knuckles turn white. He breathes deeply, trying to force down the heavy blot of anger and panic and desire in his chest. Almost absently, and without consciously wanting to, he remembers the feel of the little flecks of gold gliding beneath his hands, and that follows with the memory of Tony's tongue in his mouth, then sliding across the planes of his throat, then Tony's hard fingers buried in his hair, then his softer, callused hands tracing their way across his chest"¦
He exhales, heavily, and tries to slow his racing heart.
-
There's an irony in all of this, considering the course of events that follow.
Steve is left to sit alone in his cell, the hours filled with the memory of Tony's hands on him, and all the feelings it provoked. Feelings tempered with the look he remembers in Tony's eyes, the one that surely must have been mirrored in his own"¦ the look that says, I'll never forgive you for doing this.
Irony, because for all the choices made in that one moment, nothing changed. Despite everything, it didn't matter, because the next time they stand in the presence of one another is when Steve's dead body is brought to the Helicarrier, before eventually being interred in Arlington, and the distant happenings in a jail cell all those days ago might as well have never been.
Tony is left to stand alone in a storage room, the hours filled with nothing but the sound of his own breathing and his heart pounding in his ears. Several times he sucks in a sharp breath, intending to say something aloud, but the thought of his voice marring the heavy silence seems somehow grotesque, and his words choke off into nothing.
Eventually, his fingers will hesitantly reach forward and touch Steve's lips. The armor will be on, because no matter what horrible things they did to each other, Tony thinks touching the lifeless cold of those lips with the warmth of his fingers would be too obscene for him to bear. So Tony touches Steve's cold body with the cool metal of his armored hands, feeling nothing. The connection lasts for a brief moment, before gently withdrawing.
The mask never comes off, and he leaves without saying a word.
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