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cap_ironman2013-01-09 09:20 am
muccamukk) wrote in cap_ironman2013-01-09 09:20 am
Entry tags:
A Gift of Fic for grand_duc!
Title: Naked Capture
Recipient: grand_duc
Author/Artist: mrhd
Universe: MCU
Rating: PG-13+
Warnings: nakedness, sex talk
A/N: Beta'd by el_gilliath
Summary: Steve’s not really sure how the enemies managed to capture him and Tony, strip them of all their weapons and their clothing, and confine them to a cold cement cell lit by a single light bulb, but he’s forced to admit that it’s happened.
Steve’s not really sure how the enemies managed to capture him and Tony, strip them of all their weapons and their clothing, and confine them to a cold cement cell lit by a single light bulb, but he’s forced to admit that it’s happened.
Once he’s awake, the serum gets his awareness online almost instantly. Once he’s sure that he’s not missing any limbs, isn’t bleeding, and can move fine his next priority is Tony. Tony who’s so fragile without his suit, much more vulnerable to the cold and the hard cement than Steve. Tony who’s still in a heap on the concrete a few feet away from Steve. Steve walks over to him and then kneels beside him.
“Tony,” he says, not loudly, but firmly.
Tony mumbles something and tries to move but then he groans and stops, mumbling grumpily.
“Tony, it’s Steve. Are you okay?”
“Wha’ happened?” Tony asks groggily, eyes still closed but he’s moved his arms enough to pillow his head on them. Steve’s not sure if Tony’s just struggling to wake from whatever knocked them out without the benefit of the serum, or if he’s suffering from a concussion. He really hopes it’s the former.
“I’m not sure,” Steve admits. “How’s your head feel?”
Tony doesn’t answer at first, but just as Steve is ready to yell his name again he says, “Like I partied with Thor and lost to Mjolnir.”
Steve gives a little sigh that’s actually a form of a laugh. He feels gently at the back of Tony’s skull. There’s no blood or bumps so he figures that Tony’s probably not suffering from a concussion. “Can you sit up?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Toy says, pushing himself up. He doesn’t wobble and his eyes are clear and Steve relaxes. “Oh, wow, you’re naked.”
Steve feels like smacking his face with his palm, but refrains. “Tony,” he says. “That’s not what’s really important right now.”
Tony leers at him. “Aw, come on, you’re great to look at, you have to know that.”
“Don’t,” Steve asks. “I’m not exactly naked by choice.”
“Neither am I, but I’m fine with it,” Tony says, standing up. He stretches and then starts pacing the room, feeling the walls and floor. “Think you can punch through these walls, Cap?”
“I can punch through concrete but the walls are thick, I doubt I’d be able to punch through so much.”
Tony sighs. “Well, give me a second I’ll come up with a Plan B.”
“Plan B?” Steve repeats.
Tony raises an eyebrow at him. “Yes, yes, you could break me in half with your pinky, but I have been making things that go boom or otherwise incapacitate, maim or kill since I was six. Try me. Have you seen MacGyver yet?”
“What?”
“Hmm, we’ll add that to your to-watch list when we get home then, Capsicle.”
Steve just sighs and keeps quiet, letting Tony talk. It didn’t take long to figure out that Tony rambles when he’s trying to figure out. He also drums his fingers against things, a table, his leg, his cheek, a piece of whatever he’s working on. Right now he’s drumming them against the arc reactor. Steve wonders briefly why their captors left the arc reactor in when they took everything else. Maybe they don’t want dead hostages, just helpless ones. Then again, maybe they simply couldn’t get it out.
“I thought you were the one who put the moratorium on sharing,” Tony says, and Steve startles slightly, although he controls it carefully, training taking over, hiding the fact that he was off-guard for a bit.
“Sorry,” he says. “I was just staring into space.”
“No you weren’t. You were staring at the arc reactor,” Tony says bluntly.
“I was wondering why they didn’t take it,” Steve explains, just as bluntly.
“You need a fingerprint pass to unlatch it,” Tony tells him, rubbing at the edge. “An enemy once took it out of my chest; wasn’t going to let that happen again. There’s a whole process to take it out and replace it without sending me into cardiac arrest, I’m not gonna let just anyone near it.”
Steve frowns slightly, but doesn’t say anything.
“Don’t give me that look,” Tony says harshly.
“What look?” Steve asks, because he really hadn’t been trying to broadcast anything.
Tony waves a hand irritably. “You know, that look. The one’s that’s pity mixed with guilt.”
“I don’t pity you, Tony. And is there something I should be guilty about?”
Tony sighs. “You’re difficult, you know that?”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Hey, at least I don’t pretend otherwise.”
“What is that supposed to mean? If you hadn’t noticed, Tony, you’re the only one I don’t get along with.”
Tony clicks his tongue in frustration. “Because I can see through your bullshit, Steve.”
“I’m not bullshitting anyone.”
“Yeah, with your whole, ‘Oh-I’m-so-kind-and-perfect-and-wonderful-and-I-help-little-old-ladies-cross-the-street-and-feed-the-poor act’. Not bullshit, right?”
Steve growls and stands. “That’s not fair. I don’t think those things of myself and I would never pretend like I do.”
Tony raises and eyebrow. “Your appearance is literally perfection. I mean, the serum actually turned you into the perfect man, physically. You don’t think people see you and fall for it? You don’t think that people see Captain fucking America and don’t think that you’re the whole package?”
Steve actually feels a little hurt. “That was really mean, Tony. And extraordinarily unfair. I’m much more than my physical self. Why do you think I’m not running around with a red skull trying to take over the world?”
“‘And I would never pretend like I do’ think I’m perfect and wonderful, damn, Steve, you really are full of bullshit.”
Steve lets out a frustrated cry. “I didn’t mean it like that! I meant that I try to be a good person, not that I’m perfect and wonderful and I know I fuck up sometimes but I have no idea what I’ve done to make you hate me so much!”
Tony blinks, and looks surprised. “I don’t hate you.”
Steve feels himself calming down; it’s hard to shout at Tony when he isn’t shouting any more. “Then why do you act like you do?”
Tony looks away from Steve’s eyes and shrugs. “What can I say, I’m a cynical old bastard. Can’t help trying to break your pretty little heart.”
That makes no sense to Steve, and he says so.
Tony huffs. “Aren’t we supposed to be making an escape plan?”
“If I drop it now, you’ll never let this conversation get started again,” Steve points out.
“Exactly,” Tony says, turning his attention to the walls around them.
“I don’t know what I did to upset you, but I’m sorry I did it,” Steve says, determined now.
Tony groans. “Our personalities just grate, okay? It’s nothing personal.”
“I think it is.”
Tony fingers twitch. “I promise, it’s not your fault, okay? I just have issues. I’m trying to work through them, I am.”
Steve pauses for a few moments, mulling that over before asking, “Can I help?”
“Nah, Cap, can’t save me from myself. Here can you lift me up?”
Steve is thrown by the sudden change in subject. “Why?” he asks, suddenly suspicious.
Tony points at the light bulb hanging from the ceiling. “If I can get the circuitry I’ll probably be able to rig something up that will let me use the arc reactor like a repulsor, like I can in the suit.”
“I thought that was dangerous for you.”
Tony shrugs. “It is, but no more dangerous than waiting here for our enemies to decide what to do with us.”
Steve nods. He takes Tony’s hand in his and pulls them directly underneath the light. This close, with the light suddenly directly on them, he can see cuts and bruises dotting Tony’s body. He can see the thick scars around the arc reactor. “Here,” he says. There will be time to discuss Tony’s injuries and body and history later. He cups his hands and Tony puts his foot on it support, pulling himself up so he’s more or less straddling Steve’s left shoulder, at the perfect height for him to tinker with the light bulb. Steve wraps a hand around Tony’s ankle in case he loses his balance, but otherwise stands still. Having Tony’s weight on him is no real burden. He’s aware of it, and adjusts his stance as Tony shifts and move, but it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t even strain his muscles to have a fully grown man sitting on top of him.
“Hey, Steve,” Tony says.
Steve tilts his head up and finds Tony holding the still lit bulb by the cord that he’s tugging out of the hole in the ceiling made for the light. He gestures at the whole. “Think you could punch that a bit bigger for me?”
Steve reaches up with his right hand, testing, and finds out that he’s not quite tall enough to be able to punch through the ceiling without jumping. “Yeah, but you’ll have to get down. I have to jump to do it.”
Tony makes a noise of agreement and shifts again, obviously trying to figure out how to get down the way he got up.
Steve laughs and just crouches down and lets Tony slide off his back.
“That was much easier,” Tony remarks.
Steve grins at him. “Stand back,” he advises. “I don’t want you getting hit by anything I knock loose.” He feels a bit silly as he jumps, fist up above his head to smash into the concrete. It’s like a Superman pose. A shower of concrete falls on him, leaving him with a mark here or there and covered in dust. He coughs automatically.
Tony’s grinning at him.
Steve flicks a small bit of the ceiling at him.
Tony dodges it easily and laughs, coming closer. Absentmindedly he starts to brush the dust off of Steve’s shoulders and upper chest and then realizes what he’s doing and stops. He doesn’t blush, but Steve thinks he probably wants to. Steve’s been blushing since Tony had straddled his shoulder naked.
“Want a hand back up?” he offers, to break to awkward moment.
Tony seizes the opportunity and nods, climbing Steve with only a small amount of awkwardness. He sits up fully straight this time and plunges his hands into the hole, pulling at wires and knocking small bits of concrete loose.
It doesn’t hurt him in the slightest but Steve still says, “Ow,” when the light bulb, now swinging freely far lower than it had been, knocks him on the side of his head.
“Shut up, it didn’t hurt you,” Tony says.
Steve tilts his head back and grins up at Tony.
Tony smiles back at him and suddenly it’s as if that moment was trapped in a bubble. Because despite being naked and cold and weaponless in enemy territory Steve feels a warm sense of contentment, a happiness.
Then Tony whispers, “Oh, shit,” and pops the bubble.
“What’s wrong?” Steve asks anxiously.
Tony’s eyes look panicked until they hurriedly flit away from Steve’s and back to the hole in the ceiling. “Think you could help me move so I can stand on your shoulders?” Tony asks, abruptly changing the subject. “I need a little more height.”
His voice is rushed, almost a little frantic, so Steve doesn’t press him, just holds his weight forward as Tony swings around to sit across Steve’s shoulders, and then grabs his ankles as he slowly starts to stand up. “Be careful.”
“I’m not gonna fall,” Tony assures him. “You won’t let me.”
He says the second part distractedly, his mind already back on task, and Steve’s not sure he actually meant to say it aloud. Tony’s complete confidence and trust, despite their arguments, brings Steve a little shadow of the warm feeling he’d had before.
Tony gives a particularly hard yank and more concrete falls on and around Steve. “You okay?” he calls up, tilting his head back again.
“Yep, got what I need,” Tony says, holding up a bunch of wire and a small rectangle up. The light bulb, still swinging free at the end of the wires in his hand hits Steve’s nose. Tony laughs.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” Steve accuses.
“Am not,” Tony protests and Steve feels that warmth again.
Then Tony moves, carefully shifting so he’s sitting on Steve’s shoulders. Once he’s steady Steve crouches down again and Tony swings one of his legs around and uses Steve’s back like a slide. Steve desperately wants to say something, but he’s not sure what. He ends up sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor beside Tony, not close enough to be in his personal space, but still close enough to be accessible. “Can I help with anything?” he asks.
Tony looks up at him, tilting his head even as he presses his thumb along certain points of the arc reactor, the latches hissing as they’re released.
“I mean, I don’t really understand all of your engineering, but I’m not an idiot. If you tell me what you need me to do I can do it.”
Tony’s posture relaxes and he smiles. “Here,” he says, pulling the arc reactor out of its casing on his chest and gently putting it in Steve’s hands. “Just…hold it. Move it with me. If the wires pull on it too much and it comes unhooked all is fucked.”
“I can do that,” Steve assures him.
Tony puts the mess of circuitry he’d torn from the ceiling in his lap and studies it. He’s silent and still for a long time before Steve tries at conversation again.
“So…it works even when it’s not in your body?”
Tony looks up at him, almost surprised. “Yeah, the arc reactor doesn’t actually power my heart. That’s just the easy explanation.”
“Then give me the complicated one,” Steve says.
Tony’s started working now, winding wires together as he talks. “I was got in a bomb blast when I went to Afghanistan. The shrapnel got through my vest and my skin and muscle and bone and got lodged near my heart. They had another scientist captive with me, his name was Yinsen. He took as much of it out as he could, but he couldn’t get all of it. Eventually my circulatory system would have just pumped the shrapnel into my heart and stopped it. So he put an electro magnet in my chest and powered it with a car battery. I developed the arc reactor to power the magnet after I woke up fully. I remember some of it…but mostly Yinsen told me.”
Steve is quiet, mulling all that information over as Tony continues working. Some of it he had known from reading Tony’s file, some of it he’d suspected from vague details, and some of it he had never suspected or even thought of. Judging by the placement of the arc reactor, right in the center of Tony’s chest, Steve knows that muscle and bone had to have been cut and moved and removed. All while Tony was awake. Steve’s gut lurches. He’d overlooked the implications of the arc reactor and he knows that it makes him a bad leader, as well as a bad friend. But Tony doesn’t want Steve to feel sorry for him, just like Steve wouldn’t-didn’t when he was small and weak.
“If it matters,” he says instead, “I’m convinced you can get us out of here.”
Tony looks at him, startled and then he grins. “Yeah, I am too.”
Steve snorts and scoots a little closer to Tony. He sits quietly and watches Tony work until Tony asks him to turn the arc reactor around; he hooks wires into ports and then takes the device out of Steve’s hands. The small rectangle Steve had noticed him pull out earlier hangs below it, swaying on wires. He’s not going to pretend to understand what it is that Tony’s made.
“Stand back, Cap,” Tony advises as he rises and points the arc reactor at the door, where the concrete will be weakest.
Steve stands just a bit behind Tony’s left shoulder and watches and he presses on the wires in certain places and then there’s a bright white light and crashing and once Steve blinks his eyes he can see that Tony has indeed blown a whole in the once solid wall. “Nice.”
“Thanks,” Tony says, grinning smugly over his shoulder.
Steve just has time to grin back before alarms start blaring.
“Oops,” they say together, sharing a look.
The alarm was blaring and farther off he can hear shouting. “People are coming,” he tells Tony, even as they step through the hole and into a dark hall. It’s not completely black; Steve can still see a little, but he doubts Tony can. Gently, slowly, he places his palm over the arc reactor to block its light. He feels Tony’s stiffen and flinch and can hear his breathing and heart speed as he presses closer. “It’ll give our position away. I can still see a bit, just…follow me.”
Tony nods his acceptance and lets Steve pull him around, navigating down the hallway and then turning into another one. The shouts are dimmer here, so he presses them against a wall to rest and think.
“How good are your senses anyways?” Tony asks, voice a soft whisper.
“Better than yours. Not quite as good as Wolverine’s.”
“How do you know Wolverine? Did Xavier talk to you too?”
“No, he was in the war.”
“Wow, sometimes I forget that you’re really an old man inside.”
“Physically, you’re older than I am,” Steve retorts. He means it like a joke, but then he feels Tony change posture slightly in his arms and somehow Steve can just tell that he’s thinking.
“I’m older than my dad was when you left,” he says quietly. “Howard Stark’s son is older than you ever saw him. That must be weird for you.”
“A lot of my life is weird right now,” Steve says. “I don’t think it will ever stop being weird. And I don’t mean the tech, that’s all amazing too but we thought there would be jetpacks and moving sidewalks by now, but, the people. Everyone talks different, they dress different, the act different. Everyone just looks…wrong. Like I’m in Wonderland, or some sort of parallel universe. Ah, I don’t know how to explain it.” Steve shakes his head. “I can even put my finger on it sometimes, but it’s just…wrong.”
Tony’s still quiet and thoughtful.
“And I normally don’t talk so much, I’m sorry, Tony. But, while I’m talking, you should know that I haven’t thought of you as Howard’s son since like, ten minutes after I met you.”
“No?” Tony whispers, relaxing back into Steve’s side, Steve’s arm still wrapped around his torso.
“No. You’re very unique, Tony.”
“Never heard that before.”
“I mean it. You’re just…you. Just like I’m me and Clint is Clint and Natasha’s Natasha.”
“You left out Bruce.”
“Well sometimes Bruce isn’t Bruce.”
“Hey, I thought we were being chased, anyways.”
“I know, I don’t hear anyone else anymore. They must be looking for us between the exit and our cell, I think I pulled us into a side path. But you’re right, we should move.”
Moving is awkward, what with Steve leading the way while having a hand against Tony’s chest. Steve thinks though that their slow going is ultimately to their advantage; they make less noise this way. Steve’s sense of time is normally extremely accurate but being knocked unconscious always messes it up a little, but he still judges that they walk the hallway for about ten minutes before Tony stops walking and says, “Uh oh.”
“What’s wrong?” Steve says, stepping back a little so he can use the light from Tony’s arc reactor to check him over. Tony sways and he does and stumbles forward, like he had been dependent on Steve’s support. “Tony?” Steve sinks to the ground, pulling Tony’s gently down with a soft grip on his shoulders.
“Sorry,” Tony murmurs, looking determinedly away from Steve’s face.
“What’s wrong, Tony?” Steve insists.
“Just…gonna pass out, no big deal.”
“Tony, if you think that you’re going to pass out then it is a big-”
“It’s better now that I’m sitting,” Tony interrupts.
Steve doesn’t bother to stop an annoyed sound. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing. It’s over, I’m fine now.” Tony stands up and manages it for a few seconds while Steve waits, still kneeling on the ground in case he falls again.
“Tony, let’s just take a break, okay?” Steve says, slumping against the wall of the corridor. “We’re both frustrated and I think we’re going in circles and pushing ourselves isn’t going to help at this point.”
Tony agrees without a word, sitting next to Steve.
Steve finds himself shifting so his arm is brushing against Tony’s. He’s not sure why. He can feel the warmth from Tony’s body seeping into his arm, but he’s not cold.
He knows that Tony noticed his move, and he thinks that maybe Tony has insight he doesn’t because Tony groans, “Oh, fuck,” and leans sideways into Steve’s arm, putting his head on Steve’s shoulder.
“Okay?” Steve asks.
“Yeah,” Tony sighs.
They sit like that for a long time, Tony’s head heavy and warm on Steve’s shoulder. Eventually Steve catches himself moving, slowly so he doesn’t jostle Tony, to wrap an arm around Tony’s waist putting his left hand on Tony’s hip. Tony scoots closer to Steve on instinct and Steve absentmindedly starts running his thumb up and done Tony’s hipbone. It’s when his brain catches up and fully realizes that he’s rubbing Tony’s naked hip that he realizes what Tony must have figured out hours ago, when they started at each other under the light. “Oh,” he says, and drops a kiss on Tony’s head.
Tony picks his head off of Steve’s shoulder to stare at him, but he doesn’t move away. He doesn’t move at all, coiled and poised for a long moment before he leans forward slightly and Steve meets him halfway, cupping Tony’s cheek in his other hand and pressing their lips together.
Tony gasps at the initial contact, even as he presses back and tries to deepen the kiss almost immediately. Steve wants to laugh a little, out of anxiety or relief he’s not sure, but that would mean taking his mouth away from Tony’s which he doesn’t want to do. So he just opens his mouth and lets Tony suck on his tongue.
Steve will admit that he doesn’t exactly have a lot of experience in this sort of arena and this is a completely new experience for him. He can’t help choking on a gasp and a groan because it’s good. And he can’t help fidgeting and he clenches his grip on Tony erratically, unsure of what to do with his hands.
“Okay?” Tony asks, pulling his mouth away from Steve’s.
“Yeah,” Steve gasps, putting his head down on Tony’s shoulder.
Tony runs a hand through Steve’s hair, messing it up. “I’m glad we finally gave into our sexual tension.”
“Is that what it was?”
“Yeah. Guess we were both a little slow to realize it, huh? To think it took me staring into your eyes while naked to realize that I was attracted to you.”
Steve snorts into Tony’s skin.
“Hey, what’s going on in your head, huh? Are you blushing?”
“No,” Steve says, picking his head up to prove it. He frowns slightly before saying, “I don’t know why everyone expects me to be so embarrassed about sex.”
“Because admitting that people had sex in the forties is only a step away from admitting that our parents had sex.”
Steve wrinkles his nose and then looks at Tony, remembering something, and then he blushes.
“What?” Tony asks, tilting his head.
Steve doesn’t answer, but Tony doesn’t need him to.
“Oh, God, my…please tell me you never had sex with my dad.”
“No, I never had sex with Howard,” Steve says, smiling at Tony and laughing. “He would bring us…being so rich gave him certain…luxuries we didn’t have on the battfield.”
Tony claps a hand over Steve’s mouth. “Stop. Talking,” he demands.
Steve smirks and licks Tony’s hand.
Tony doesn’t remove it. “I’m not afraid of your cooties, Steve.”
Just then Steve hears a soft clang, off to his right, and just in his hearing range. He reaches out a hand and puts a finger against Tony’s lips in a hushing gesture. He listens, focuses on faraway sounds and then he can hear another clang and a second sound, not so much a clang but still an impact, and he knows that sound. “I know where our stuff is,” he whispers to Tony.
The mood changes instantly. Tony drops his hand from Steve’s mouth and they both stand up. He shuffles closer and Steve smiles at him before pressing his palm over the arc reactor again. Tony creeps silently behind Steve, one hand wrapped around the wrist pressed against the arc reactor.
Steve gives himself permission to actually feel Tony’s body this time, and their proximity combined with the lack of light makes it so he can actually hear Tony’s breath, even though he’s only breathing normally. He can feel the heat of Tony’s body warming the air between them.
Just a few feet down from where they’d stopped Steve finds that the corridor does indeed turn, and he follows it, listening to clangs and thunks get louder and louder. When he sees a yellow light pouring out of a door ahead, he tugs Tony over to the wall and flattens them against it. He slows their pace even more, although he’s pretty sure that they won’t be heard of the commotion being made with Tony’s armor and Steve’s shield. Once they’re near the edge of the door Steve steps away from the wall, just an inch or so, and motions for Tony to stay put and quiet.
Tony frowns at him but obeys, at least for the moment.
Steve slips into the room and luck is on his side the two others in the room are facing away from him, muttering to themselves as one of the attempts to throw Steve’s shield repeatedly against the wall (he’s not throwing it correctly; it just drops after it hits the wall with a thud and doesn’t return to him and like it does Steve) and the other tries to reassemble Tony’s armor. He looks around for a weapon of some sort, and when he doesn’t find anything that would be of a use he just steps forward, squares his shoulders and firms his stance, and punches out with both hands.
Both of the others are unconscious at his feet before they knew what had happened.
“Tony!” Steve calls softly.
A few seconds later and Tony’s in the room beside him, smirking at the unconscious figures on the ground. “What did you do to them, Cap?”
“I hit them,” Steve says simply, carefully stepping over the bodies to retrieve his shield. He’s glad to have it back. Tony’s drifted over to his armor and is examining it.
“Did they break it?” Steve asks.
Tony shakes his head. “Nah, this thing has got too many safeguards.” He smiles, smug and proud of himself.
Steve rolls his eyes briefly but smiles also. “My costume isn’t here,” he observes, after looking around the tiny room.
Tony leers at him, even as he sits on the ground and snaps a jet boot over one of his legs. “You’ll just have to be naked then. Not like your costume left much to the imagination anyways.”
“Well, if you’ve got it…” Steve says and Tony laughs.
“And to think, you come across as modest.”
“I am modest,” Steve protests. More modest than Tony at least.
Tony snorts. “No one who goes parading around in bright, skintight leather to show off their assets is modest.”
“Assets,” Steve repeats. “Is that what they call it now?”
“You know damn well what I mean,” Tony says, standing up now that he has the legs of his armor completely on, and snapping the groin and hip plates into place. “I will never understand how people fall for you innocent boyscot act. Can you help me with the chest piece; it’s hard to do by myself.”
Steve agrees and crosses over to Tony who hands him the backplate and grins at him. He holds the chest plate and carefully he slots it into place around the arc reactor. He holds it in place and nods at Steve who walks behind Tony and works to get the back to connect in the right spots.
“I was a boyscout,” he tells Tony as he does so.
Tony tips his head back to laugh at him. “Of course you were. I was too, you know. For like a month.”
Steve kisses Tony, just a light peck on the lips because he feels like he can now. It’s amazing how everything about being with Tony got so much easier after kissing him.
Tony’s no longer smirking, but smiling genuinely.
“The boyscouts kicked me out,” Steve admits.
“Why, were you too naughty?”
It’s Steve’s turn to laugh. “No; I was frail and asthmatic. I couldn’t do any of the troop activities.” Tony starts putting on the rest of the armor as Steve keeps talking. “So it was kind of nice, flattering, the way people looked at me after the serum.”
The last things Tony puts on are the gloves and arm armor. He clanks when he bends over to get them but then he just clicks the two sides together and slides his hands down into them. He holds the helmet in his hands and smiles at Steve. “So you’re sexy and you know it.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll play you that song,” Tony promises, stepping close to Steve.
“I’m not sure I want to hear it,” Steve counters, putting on hand on the cool metal of the armor, over the place Tony’s bicep would be.
Then they’re kissing again, one of Tony’s covered hands on Steve’s back, just above his butt and at first it’s cold but then it warms to Steve’s body heat and the pressure is something Steve never thought of feeling, but he likes it.
“Ready to break out?” Tony asks when they part.
Steve nods and then Tony’s arm is around his waist and they’re flying down the hallway. Steve laughs and whoops. They may not have broken out completely yet but he feels pretty free.
Recipient: grand_duc
Author/Artist: mrhd
Universe: MCU
Rating: PG-13+
Warnings: nakedness, sex talk
A/N: Beta'd by el_gilliath
Summary: Steve’s not really sure how the enemies managed to capture him and Tony, strip them of all their weapons and their clothing, and confine them to a cold cement cell lit by a single light bulb, but he’s forced to admit that it’s happened.
Steve’s not really sure how the enemies managed to capture him and Tony, strip them of all their weapons and their clothing, and confine them to a cold cement cell lit by a single light bulb, but he’s forced to admit that it’s happened.
Once he’s awake, the serum gets his awareness online almost instantly. Once he’s sure that he’s not missing any limbs, isn’t bleeding, and can move fine his next priority is Tony. Tony who’s so fragile without his suit, much more vulnerable to the cold and the hard cement than Steve. Tony who’s still in a heap on the concrete a few feet away from Steve. Steve walks over to him and then kneels beside him.
“Tony,” he says, not loudly, but firmly.
Tony mumbles something and tries to move but then he groans and stops, mumbling grumpily.
“Tony, it’s Steve. Are you okay?”
“Wha’ happened?” Tony asks groggily, eyes still closed but he’s moved his arms enough to pillow his head on them. Steve’s not sure if Tony’s just struggling to wake from whatever knocked them out without the benefit of the serum, or if he’s suffering from a concussion. He really hopes it’s the former.
“I’m not sure,” Steve admits. “How’s your head feel?”
Tony doesn’t answer at first, but just as Steve is ready to yell his name again he says, “Like I partied with Thor and lost to Mjolnir.”
Steve gives a little sigh that’s actually a form of a laugh. He feels gently at the back of Tony’s skull. There’s no blood or bumps so he figures that Tony’s probably not suffering from a concussion. “Can you sit up?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Toy says, pushing himself up. He doesn’t wobble and his eyes are clear and Steve relaxes. “Oh, wow, you’re naked.”
Steve feels like smacking his face with his palm, but refrains. “Tony,” he says. “That’s not what’s really important right now.”
Tony leers at him. “Aw, come on, you’re great to look at, you have to know that.”
“Don’t,” Steve asks. “I’m not exactly naked by choice.”
“Neither am I, but I’m fine with it,” Tony says, standing up. He stretches and then starts pacing the room, feeling the walls and floor. “Think you can punch through these walls, Cap?”
“I can punch through concrete but the walls are thick, I doubt I’d be able to punch through so much.”
Tony sighs. “Well, give me a second I’ll come up with a Plan B.”
“Plan B?” Steve repeats.
Tony raises an eyebrow at him. “Yes, yes, you could break me in half with your pinky, but I have been making things that go boom or otherwise incapacitate, maim or kill since I was six. Try me. Have you seen MacGyver yet?”
“What?”
“Hmm, we’ll add that to your to-watch list when we get home then, Capsicle.”
Steve just sighs and keeps quiet, letting Tony talk. It didn’t take long to figure out that Tony rambles when he’s trying to figure out. He also drums his fingers against things, a table, his leg, his cheek, a piece of whatever he’s working on. Right now he’s drumming them against the arc reactor. Steve wonders briefly why their captors left the arc reactor in when they took everything else. Maybe they don’t want dead hostages, just helpless ones. Then again, maybe they simply couldn’t get it out.
“I thought you were the one who put the moratorium on sharing,” Tony says, and Steve startles slightly, although he controls it carefully, training taking over, hiding the fact that he was off-guard for a bit.
“Sorry,” he says. “I was just staring into space.”
“No you weren’t. You were staring at the arc reactor,” Tony says bluntly.
“I was wondering why they didn’t take it,” Steve explains, just as bluntly.
“You need a fingerprint pass to unlatch it,” Tony tells him, rubbing at the edge. “An enemy once took it out of my chest; wasn’t going to let that happen again. There’s a whole process to take it out and replace it without sending me into cardiac arrest, I’m not gonna let just anyone near it.”
Steve frowns slightly, but doesn’t say anything.
“Don’t give me that look,” Tony says harshly.
“What look?” Steve asks, because he really hadn’t been trying to broadcast anything.
Tony waves a hand irritably. “You know, that look. The one’s that’s pity mixed with guilt.”
“I don’t pity you, Tony. And is there something I should be guilty about?”
Tony sighs. “You’re difficult, you know that?”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Hey, at least I don’t pretend otherwise.”
“What is that supposed to mean? If you hadn’t noticed, Tony, you’re the only one I don’t get along with.”
Tony clicks his tongue in frustration. “Because I can see through your bullshit, Steve.”
“I’m not bullshitting anyone.”
“Yeah, with your whole, ‘Oh-I’m-so-kind-and-perfect-and-wonderful-and-I-help-little-old-ladies-cross-the-street-and-feed-the-poor act’. Not bullshit, right?”
Steve growls and stands. “That’s not fair. I don’t think those things of myself and I would never pretend like I do.”
Tony raises and eyebrow. “Your appearance is literally perfection. I mean, the serum actually turned you into the perfect man, physically. You don’t think people see you and fall for it? You don’t think that people see Captain fucking America and don’t think that you’re the whole package?”
Steve actually feels a little hurt. “That was really mean, Tony. And extraordinarily unfair. I’m much more than my physical self. Why do you think I’m not running around with a red skull trying to take over the world?”
“‘And I would never pretend like I do’ think I’m perfect and wonderful, damn, Steve, you really are full of bullshit.”
Steve lets out a frustrated cry. “I didn’t mean it like that! I meant that I try to be a good person, not that I’m perfect and wonderful and I know I fuck up sometimes but I have no idea what I’ve done to make you hate me so much!”
Tony blinks, and looks surprised. “I don’t hate you.”
Steve feels himself calming down; it’s hard to shout at Tony when he isn’t shouting any more. “Then why do you act like you do?”
Tony looks away from Steve’s eyes and shrugs. “What can I say, I’m a cynical old bastard. Can’t help trying to break your pretty little heart.”
That makes no sense to Steve, and he says so.
Tony huffs. “Aren’t we supposed to be making an escape plan?”
“If I drop it now, you’ll never let this conversation get started again,” Steve points out.
“Exactly,” Tony says, turning his attention to the walls around them.
“I don’t know what I did to upset you, but I’m sorry I did it,” Steve says, determined now.
Tony groans. “Our personalities just grate, okay? It’s nothing personal.”
“I think it is.”
Tony fingers twitch. “I promise, it’s not your fault, okay? I just have issues. I’m trying to work through them, I am.”
Steve pauses for a few moments, mulling that over before asking, “Can I help?”
“Nah, Cap, can’t save me from myself. Here can you lift me up?”
Steve is thrown by the sudden change in subject. “Why?” he asks, suddenly suspicious.
Tony points at the light bulb hanging from the ceiling. “If I can get the circuitry I’ll probably be able to rig something up that will let me use the arc reactor like a repulsor, like I can in the suit.”
“I thought that was dangerous for you.”
Tony shrugs. “It is, but no more dangerous than waiting here for our enemies to decide what to do with us.”
Steve nods. He takes Tony’s hand in his and pulls them directly underneath the light. This close, with the light suddenly directly on them, he can see cuts and bruises dotting Tony’s body. He can see the thick scars around the arc reactor. “Here,” he says. There will be time to discuss Tony’s injuries and body and history later. He cups his hands and Tony puts his foot on it support, pulling himself up so he’s more or less straddling Steve’s left shoulder, at the perfect height for him to tinker with the light bulb. Steve wraps a hand around Tony’s ankle in case he loses his balance, but otherwise stands still. Having Tony’s weight on him is no real burden. He’s aware of it, and adjusts his stance as Tony shifts and move, but it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t even strain his muscles to have a fully grown man sitting on top of him.
“Hey, Steve,” Tony says.
Steve tilts his head up and finds Tony holding the still lit bulb by the cord that he’s tugging out of the hole in the ceiling made for the light. He gestures at the whole. “Think you could punch that a bit bigger for me?”
Steve reaches up with his right hand, testing, and finds out that he’s not quite tall enough to be able to punch through the ceiling without jumping. “Yeah, but you’ll have to get down. I have to jump to do it.”
Tony makes a noise of agreement and shifts again, obviously trying to figure out how to get down the way he got up.
Steve laughs and just crouches down and lets Tony slide off his back.
“That was much easier,” Tony remarks.
Steve grins at him. “Stand back,” he advises. “I don’t want you getting hit by anything I knock loose.” He feels a bit silly as he jumps, fist up above his head to smash into the concrete. It’s like a Superman pose. A shower of concrete falls on him, leaving him with a mark here or there and covered in dust. He coughs automatically.
Tony’s grinning at him.
Steve flicks a small bit of the ceiling at him.
Tony dodges it easily and laughs, coming closer. Absentmindedly he starts to brush the dust off of Steve’s shoulders and upper chest and then realizes what he’s doing and stops. He doesn’t blush, but Steve thinks he probably wants to. Steve’s been blushing since Tony had straddled his shoulder naked.
“Want a hand back up?” he offers, to break to awkward moment.
Tony seizes the opportunity and nods, climbing Steve with only a small amount of awkwardness. He sits up fully straight this time and plunges his hands into the hole, pulling at wires and knocking small bits of concrete loose.
It doesn’t hurt him in the slightest but Steve still says, “Ow,” when the light bulb, now swinging freely far lower than it had been, knocks him on the side of his head.
“Shut up, it didn’t hurt you,” Tony says.
Steve tilts his head back and grins up at Tony.
Tony smiles back at him and suddenly it’s as if that moment was trapped in a bubble. Because despite being naked and cold and weaponless in enemy territory Steve feels a warm sense of contentment, a happiness.
Then Tony whispers, “Oh, shit,” and pops the bubble.
“What’s wrong?” Steve asks anxiously.
Tony’s eyes look panicked until they hurriedly flit away from Steve’s and back to the hole in the ceiling. “Think you could help me move so I can stand on your shoulders?” Tony asks, abruptly changing the subject. “I need a little more height.”
His voice is rushed, almost a little frantic, so Steve doesn’t press him, just holds his weight forward as Tony swings around to sit across Steve’s shoulders, and then grabs his ankles as he slowly starts to stand up. “Be careful.”
“I’m not gonna fall,” Tony assures him. “You won’t let me.”
He says the second part distractedly, his mind already back on task, and Steve’s not sure he actually meant to say it aloud. Tony’s complete confidence and trust, despite their arguments, brings Steve a little shadow of the warm feeling he’d had before.
Tony gives a particularly hard yank and more concrete falls on and around Steve. “You okay?” he calls up, tilting his head back again.
“Yep, got what I need,” Tony says, holding up a bunch of wire and a small rectangle up. The light bulb, still swinging free at the end of the wires in his hand hits Steve’s nose. Tony laughs.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” Steve accuses.
“Am not,” Tony protests and Steve feels that warmth again.
Then Tony moves, carefully shifting so he’s sitting on Steve’s shoulders. Once he’s steady Steve crouches down again and Tony swings one of his legs around and uses Steve’s back like a slide. Steve desperately wants to say something, but he’s not sure what. He ends up sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor beside Tony, not close enough to be in his personal space, but still close enough to be accessible. “Can I help with anything?” he asks.
Tony looks up at him, tilting his head even as he presses his thumb along certain points of the arc reactor, the latches hissing as they’re released.
“I mean, I don’t really understand all of your engineering, but I’m not an idiot. If you tell me what you need me to do I can do it.”
Tony’s posture relaxes and he smiles. “Here,” he says, pulling the arc reactor out of its casing on his chest and gently putting it in Steve’s hands. “Just…hold it. Move it with me. If the wires pull on it too much and it comes unhooked all is fucked.”
“I can do that,” Steve assures him.
Tony puts the mess of circuitry he’d torn from the ceiling in his lap and studies it. He’s silent and still for a long time before Steve tries at conversation again.
“So…it works even when it’s not in your body?”
Tony looks up at him, almost surprised. “Yeah, the arc reactor doesn’t actually power my heart. That’s just the easy explanation.”
“Then give me the complicated one,” Steve says.
Tony’s started working now, winding wires together as he talks. “I was got in a bomb blast when I went to Afghanistan. The shrapnel got through my vest and my skin and muscle and bone and got lodged near my heart. They had another scientist captive with me, his name was Yinsen. He took as much of it out as he could, but he couldn’t get all of it. Eventually my circulatory system would have just pumped the shrapnel into my heart and stopped it. So he put an electro magnet in my chest and powered it with a car battery. I developed the arc reactor to power the magnet after I woke up fully. I remember some of it…but mostly Yinsen told me.”
Steve is quiet, mulling all that information over as Tony continues working. Some of it he had known from reading Tony’s file, some of it he’d suspected from vague details, and some of it he had never suspected or even thought of. Judging by the placement of the arc reactor, right in the center of Tony’s chest, Steve knows that muscle and bone had to have been cut and moved and removed. All while Tony was awake. Steve’s gut lurches. He’d overlooked the implications of the arc reactor and he knows that it makes him a bad leader, as well as a bad friend. But Tony doesn’t want Steve to feel sorry for him, just like Steve wouldn’t-didn’t when he was small and weak.
“If it matters,” he says instead, “I’m convinced you can get us out of here.”
Tony looks at him, startled and then he grins. “Yeah, I am too.”
Steve snorts and scoots a little closer to Tony. He sits quietly and watches Tony work until Tony asks him to turn the arc reactor around; he hooks wires into ports and then takes the device out of Steve’s hands. The small rectangle Steve had noticed him pull out earlier hangs below it, swaying on wires. He’s not going to pretend to understand what it is that Tony’s made.
“Stand back, Cap,” Tony advises as he rises and points the arc reactor at the door, where the concrete will be weakest.
Steve stands just a bit behind Tony’s left shoulder and watches and he presses on the wires in certain places and then there’s a bright white light and crashing and once Steve blinks his eyes he can see that Tony has indeed blown a whole in the once solid wall. “Nice.”
“Thanks,” Tony says, grinning smugly over his shoulder.
Steve just has time to grin back before alarms start blaring.
“Oops,” they say together, sharing a look.
The alarm was blaring and farther off he can hear shouting. “People are coming,” he tells Tony, even as they step through the hole and into a dark hall. It’s not completely black; Steve can still see a little, but he doubts Tony can. Gently, slowly, he places his palm over the arc reactor to block its light. He feels Tony’s stiffen and flinch and can hear his breathing and heart speed as he presses closer. “It’ll give our position away. I can still see a bit, just…follow me.”
Tony nods his acceptance and lets Steve pull him around, navigating down the hallway and then turning into another one. The shouts are dimmer here, so he presses them against a wall to rest and think.
“How good are your senses anyways?” Tony asks, voice a soft whisper.
“Better than yours. Not quite as good as Wolverine’s.”
“How do you know Wolverine? Did Xavier talk to you too?”
“No, he was in the war.”
“Wow, sometimes I forget that you’re really an old man inside.”
“Physically, you’re older than I am,” Steve retorts. He means it like a joke, but then he feels Tony change posture slightly in his arms and somehow Steve can just tell that he’s thinking.
“I’m older than my dad was when you left,” he says quietly. “Howard Stark’s son is older than you ever saw him. That must be weird for you.”
“A lot of my life is weird right now,” Steve says. “I don’t think it will ever stop being weird. And I don’t mean the tech, that’s all amazing too but we thought there would be jetpacks and moving sidewalks by now, but, the people. Everyone talks different, they dress different, the act different. Everyone just looks…wrong. Like I’m in Wonderland, or some sort of parallel universe. Ah, I don’t know how to explain it.” Steve shakes his head. “I can even put my finger on it sometimes, but it’s just…wrong.”
Tony’s still quiet and thoughtful.
“And I normally don’t talk so much, I’m sorry, Tony. But, while I’m talking, you should know that I haven’t thought of you as Howard’s son since like, ten minutes after I met you.”
“No?” Tony whispers, relaxing back into Steve’s side, Steve’s arm still wrapped around his torso.
“No. You’re very unique, Tony.”
“Never heard that before.”
“I mean it. You’re just…you. Just like I’m me and Clint is Clint and Natasha’s Natasha.”
“You left out Bruce.”
“Well sometimes Bruce isn’t Bruce.”
“Hey, I thought we were being chased, anyways.”
“I know, I don’t hear anyone else anymore. They must be looking for us between the exit and our cell, I think I pulled us into a side path. But you’re right, we should move.”
Moving is awkward, what with Steve leading the way while having a hand against Tony’s chest. Steve thinks though that their slow going is ultimately to their advantage; they make less noise this way. Steve’s sense of time is normally extremely accurate but being knocked unconscious always messes it up a little, but he still judges that they walk the hallway for about ten minutes before Tony stops walking and says, “Uh oh.”
“What’s wrong?” Steve says, stepping back a little so he can use the light from Tony’s arc reactor to check him over. Tony sways and he does and stumbles forward, like he had been dependent on Steve’s support. “Tony?” Steve sinks to the ground, pulling Tony’s gently down with a soft grip on his shoulders.
“Sorry,” Tony murmurs, looking determinedly away from Steve’s face.
“What’s wrong, Tony?” Steve insists.
“Just…gonna pass out, no big deal.”
“Tony, if you think that you’re going to pass out then it is a big-”
“It’s better now that I’m sitting,” Tony interrupts.
Steve doesn’t bother to stop an annoyed sound. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing. It’s over, I’m fine now.” Tony stands up and manages it for a few seconds while Steve waits, still kneeling on the ground in case he falls again.
“Tony, let’s just take a break, okay?” Steve says, slumping against the wall of the corridor. “We’re both frustrated and I think we’re going in circles and pushing ourselves isn’t going to help at this point.”
Tony agrees without a word, sitting next to Steve.
Steve finds himself shifting so his arm is brushing against Tony’s. He’s not sure why. He can feel the warmth from Tony’s body seeping into his arm, but he’s not cold.
He knows that Tony noticed his move, and he thinks that maybe Tony has insight he doesn’t because Tony groans, “Oh, fuck,” and leans sideways into Steve’s arm, putting his head on Steve’s shoulder.
“Okay?” Steve asks.
“Yeah,” Tony sighs.
They sit like that for a long time, Tony’s head heavy and warm on Steve’s shoulder. Eventually Steve catches himself moving, slowly so he doesn’t jostle Tony, to wrap an arm around Tony’s waist putting his left hand on Tony’s hip. Tony scoots closer to Steve on instinct and Steve absentmindedly starts running his thumb up and done Tony’s hipbone. It’s when his brain catches up and fully realizes that he’s rubbing Tony’s naked hip that he realizes what Tony must have figured out hours ago, when they started at each other under the light. “Oh,” he says, and drops a kiss on Tony’s head.
Tony picks his head off of Steve’s shoulder to stare at him, but he doesn’t move away. He doesn’t move at all, coiled and poised for a long moment before he leans forward slightly and Steve meets him halfway, cupping Tony’s cheek in his other hand and pressing their lips together.
Tony gasps at the initial contact, even as he presses back and tries to deepen the kiss almost immediately. Steve wants to laugh a little, out of anxiety or relief he’s not sure, but that would mean taking his mouth away from Tony’s which he doesn’t want to do. So he just opens his mouth and lets Tony suck on his tongue.
Steve will admit that he doesn’t exactly have a lot of experience in this sort of arena and this is a completely new experience for him. He can’t help choking on a gasp and a groan because it’s good. And he can’t help fidgeting and he clenches his grip on Tony erratically, unsure of what to do with his hands.
“Okay?” Tony asks, pulling his mouth away from Steve’s.
“Yeah,” Steve gasps, putting his head down on Tony’s shoulder.
Tony runs a hand through Steve’s hair, messing it up. “I’m glad we finally gave into our sexual tension.”
“Is that what it was?”
“Yeah. Guess we were both a little slow to realize it, huh? To think it took me staring into your eyes while naked to realize that I was attracted to you.”
Steve snorts into Tony’s skin.
“Hey, what’s going on in your head, huh? Are you blushing?”
“No,” Steve says, picking his head up to prove it. He frowns slightly before saying, “I don’t know why everyone expects me to be so embarrassed about sex.”
“Because admitting that people had sex in the forties is only a step away from admitting that our parents had sex.”
Steve wrinkles his nose and then looks at Tony, remembering something, and then he blushes.
“What?” Tony asks, tilting his head.
Steve doesn’t answer, but Tony doesn’t need him to.
“Oh, God, my…please tell me you never had sex with my dad.”
“No, I never had sex with Howard,” Steve says, smiling at Tony and laughing. “He would bring us…being so rich gave him certain…luxuries we didn’t have on the battfield.”
Tony claps a hand over Steve’s mouth. “Stop. Talking,” he demands.
Steve smirks and licks Tony’s hand.
Tony doesn’t remove it. “I’m not afraid of your cooties, Steve.”
Just then Steve hears a soft clang, off to his right, and just in his hearing range. He reaches out a hand and puts a finger against Tony’s lips in a hushing gesture. He listens, focuses on faraway sounds and then he can hear another clang and a second sound, not so much a clang but still an impact, and he knows that sound. “I know where our stuff is,” he whispers to Tony.
The mood changes instantly. Tony drops his hand from Steve’s mouth and they both stand up. He shuffles closer and Steve smiles at him before pressing his palm over the arc reactor again. Tony creeps silently behind Steve, one hand wrapped around the wrist pressed against the arc reactor.
Steve gives himself permission to actually feel Tony’s body this time, and their proximity combined with the lack of light makes it so he can actually hear Tony’s breath, even though he’s only breathing normally. He can feel the heat of Tony’s body warming the air between them.
Just a few feet down from where they’d stopped Steve finds that the corridor does indeed turn, and he follows it, listening to clangs and thunks get louder and louder. When he sees a yellow light pouring out of a door ahead, he tugs Tony over to the wall and flattens them against it. He slows their pace even more, although he’s pretty sure that they won’t be heard of the commotion being made with Tony’s armor and Steve’s shield. Once they’re near the edge of the door Steve steps away from the wall, just an inch or so, and motions for Tony to stay put and quiet.
Tony frowns at him but obeys, at least for the moment.
Steve slips into the room and luck is on his side the two others in the room are facing away from him, muttering to themselves as one of the attempts to throw Steve’s shield repeatedly against the wall (he’s not throwing it correctly; it just drops after it hits the wall with a thud and doesn’t return to him and like it does Steve) and the other tries to reassemble Tony’s armor. He looks around for a weapon of some sort, and when he doesn’t find anything that would be of a use he just steps forward, squares his shoulders and firms his stance, and punches out with both hands.
Both of the others are unconscious at his feet before they knew what had happened.
“Tony!” Steve calls softly.
A few seconds later and Tony’s in the room beside him, smirking at the unconscious figures on the ground. “What did you do to them, Cap?”
“I hit them,” Steve says simply, carefully stepping over the bodies to retrieve his shield. He’s glad to have it back. Tony’s drifted over to his armor and is examining it.
“Did they break it?” Steve asks.
Tony shakes his head. “Nah, this thing has got too many safeguards.” He smiles, smug and proud of himself.
Steve rolls his eyes briefly but smiles also. “My costume isn’t here,” he observes, after looking around the tiny room.
Tony leers at him, even as he sits on the ground and snaps a jet boot over one of his legs. “You’ll just have to be naked then. Not like your costume left much to the imagination anyways.”
“Well, if you’ve got it…” Steve says and Tony laughs.
“And to think, you come across as modest.”
“I am modest,” Steve protests. More modest than Tony at least.
Tony snorts. “No one who goes parading around in bright, skintight leather to show off their assets is modest.”
“Assets,” Steve repeats. “Is that what they call it now?”
“You know damn well what I mean,” Tony says, standing up now that he has the legs of his armor completely on, and snapping the groin and hip plates into place. “I will never understand how people fall for you innocent boyscot act. Can you help me with the chest piece; it’s hard to do by myself.”
Steve agrees and crosses over to Tony who hands him the backplate and grins at him. He holds the chest plate and carefully he slots it into place around the arc reactor. He holds it in place and nods at Steve who walks behind Tony and works to get the back to connect in the right spots.
“I was a boyscout,” he tells Tony as he does so.
Tony tips his head back to laugh at him. “Of course you were. I was too, you know. For like a month.”
Steve kisses Tony, just a light peck on the lips because he feels like he can now. It’s amazing how everything about being with Tony got so much easier after kissing him.
Tony’s no longer smirking, but smiling genuinely.
“The boyscouts kicked me out,” Steve admits.
“Why, were you too naughty?”
It’s Steve’s turn to laugh. “No; I was frail and asthmatic. I couldn’t do any of the troop activities.” Tony starts putting on the rest of the armor as Steve keeps talking. “So it was kind of nice, flattering, the way people looked at me after the serum.”
The last things Tony puts on are the gloves and arm armor. He clanks when he bends over to get them but then he just clicks the two sides together and slides his hands down into them. He holds the helmet in his hands and smiles at Steve. “So you’re sexy and you know it.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll play you that song,” Tony promises, stepping close to Steve.
“I’m not sure I want to hear it,” Steve counters, putting on hand on the cool metal of the armor, over the place Tony’s bicep would be.
Then they’re kissing again, one of Tony’s covered hands on Steve’s back, just above his butt and at first it’s cold but then it warms to Steve’s body heat and the pressure is something Steve never thought of feeling, but he likes it.
“Ready to break out?” Tony asks when they part.
Steve nods and then Tony’s arm is around his waist and they’re flying down the hallway. Steve laughs and whoops. They may not have broken out completely yet but he feels pretty free.