The weeks slip by, and autumn turns into winter. They celebrate Halloween with a scary movie marathon on Netflix, and Thanksgiving has a traditional dinner (Sam cooks the turkey before he leaves to celebrate with his family; Wanda handles the rest and enlists everyone else's help in the kitchen). Despite Steve casually mentioning the celebrations to him, Tony doesn't appear for either. It makes Steve a little sad to think of him alone; he wants him there with them. He's sure the others do, too.
Tony doesn't shirk his duties to the Avengers, though; when he does visit the compound, he's all business, and in between working in his lab, he instructs Steve in finance, even teaches him how to track expenditures using spreadsheets. It's boring and impersonal, and he knows there's a reason for it, that it's a deliberate choice on Tony's part. So he lets him keep his emotional distance, and doesn't try to press him.
Steve assumes Tony won't come to the Christmas party, either, but he's proven pleasantly wrong. He turns up wearing a garish tie that blinks with colored lights and plays a tinkly song when you press a button, and he flits around the room like a butterfly. Steve can't quite pin him down for a chat because he's always talking to someone else, but Tony makes sure to meet his gaze on occasion, giving him a small smile before he turns his attention back to his conversational partner.
And then, at one point, he disappears entirely. Since Tony's spent the most time talking to Rhodey (which doesn't come as a surprise to Steve), Steve asks him where he went. "Upstairs," he offers with a shrug. Steve makes his way up onto the roof garden, where thick, fluffy snowflakes drift down around them, joining a thin covering that's already on the ground.
"Aren't you cold out here?" he asks, stopping next to him.
The roof garden overlooks the Hudson from the upper area of the Avengers's personal building, nestled inside the U-shape. The ends of the building stretch to either side, all sleek white walls and glass windows. The garden houses only grass, a single tree (now barren of leaves), and a bench. Tony sits there, huddled in a black duffel coat, facing the view of the Hudson. His tie he's entwined through the branches of the tree as makeshift Christmas tree lights, and beside him on the bench, which he swept the snow off of, is a half-empty cocktail glass.
When Steve speaks, Tony quietly huffs. His breath condenses in the air. "Worried I'll vanish into the cold of the night like a spirit from Dickens?" he deflects, head tilted toward Steve.
Steve's wearing his own trusty leather jacket, hands shoved in his pockets; he takes one hand out to move the cocktail glass so he can sit down next to Tony. His gaze flits up to the tie in the branches, the lights twinkling merrily in the dark, and he smiles a little.
"Just checking up on you, that's all." He nudges Tony with his shoulder. "It's good to see you socializing with everyone. You oughta come around more often. For non-business reasons, I mean."
"Yeah. Well." Tony shrugs. Slouched back, he crosses his arms on his chest, gloved hands stuck beneath his upper arms. Snowflakes settle between the short spikes of his hair. "You can blame Rhodey for that particular Christmas miracle. He convinced me to come." As impudent as the words may seem, he says them warmly.
"Convinced or coerced?" Steve jokes. He's sure Rhodey has more than enough blackmail material to get Tony to do whatever he wants - although he's not sure he would ever use it, even for something as trivial as a Christmas party. Steve's glad someone was around to act as a good influence in Tony's younger years; from what he's heard, Tony needed it. (He should really see what sort of entertaining stories he can get the man to spill, he reflects.)
"Was dressing for the occasion his idea or yours?" Steve gestures to the tie nearby.
With a spared glance up, Tony smirks. "His, but that festive regurgitation is actually from Pepper's weird uncle a couple years back. I plan to conveniently lose it to the wind."
"Real windy out here," Steve deadpans. Even though it's snowing, there isn't much in the way of wind - certainly not enough to carry off the tie. "Maybe you should've regifted it to Vision. He seems to be getting into the whole ugly sweater thing, although I'm not sure he understands it." Steve's not sure he understands that particular fad, but he doesn't understand ironically ugly ties, either. Blame it on wearing whatever secondhand clothes he could get growing up, especially in winter.
"Positively blustery," Tony interjects with an exaggerated shiver. "But nah. He got his own stash of goodies. Which reminds me, you haven't gotten your special gift from me yet, have you?" The fancy toys and suits Tony has already doled out to Steve and the team, like upgrades and new gadgets (including a bird-like drone for Wilson), things he doles out regularly even apart from the holidays. Whatever this is, it's something different.
"I can hardly wait to see what flag-related paraphernalia you've uncovered this time." Steve rolls his eyes dramatically. The truth is, Tony's an astoundingly good gift-giver when he puts his mind to it, possibly because he has more unlimited resources than Santa Claus at his disposal. Steve, on the other hand, never knows what to give Tony, although he's sure everyone else has the exact same problem. It just feels like he deserves better.
The whole time he talks, Tony holds his gaze low to the ground, both distracted by thought and hiding his eyes. "Oh, I'm saving that for your birthday. I promise you it'll be a doozy," he says, and after a pause, instead of continuing, he drinks generously from his red cocktail, which is garnished with a small piece of clipped mistletoe.
"I suppose it makes sense to save the patriotic gifts till then." He snorts, and the breath puffs in the cold air before him. "Do you have it out here with you, or are you just asking for the sake of drawing out the anticipation?" Steve, being Steve, hasn't examined the pile of presents under the tree too closely; he's content to wait until Christmas instead of spoiling the surprise of his gifts from the others.
One finger held aloft, telling Steve to wait, Tony soaks his tongue in the mouthful of cocktail for a while, leeching from it the courage, trying to silence all the reasons why the path he's following right now is destined to end in more pain, before he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing thickly, and breathes. "It's here," he says. "It's me, actually... I know it's kinda presumptuous to consider myself a present, but this -- this played out a lot more profound and heartfelt in my head. Can I start over?" He turns his head to Steve, tilted just so that his eyes land on a snowy patch past Steve's knees.
Steve's heart is somewhere in his throat by the time Tony stops talking, and he's silent for a long moment, listening to his pulse pound in his ears. Everything else is muffled by the snowfall, even the din of the party inside, and it seems like they're alone outside, like they're the only two people in the world.
"If you feel like you need to," he says finally, turning to face Tony with a crooked smile on his face. He reaches up and cups Tony's cheek - thankfully, with the hand that's been tucked in his coat pocket since he came outside. "You didn't write it out first? That's what I would've done. And it probably still would've sounded stupid - not that you sounded stupid just then." Oh god, now he's doing the exact same thing.
The moment Steve cups his face, Tony stutters to a stop. The points of discussion about found family, about taking it slow (maybe a date, see how things play out), about probably always loving Pepper but finally feeling the distance to reach out to someone else, about how this won't fix anything wrong but it can be a good start -- they all get left by the wayside. The juxtaposition of the chilly air against his face and the sudden warmth of Steve's palm lures Tony in. With that same considering look of before, studying Steve's every move and word, Tony finally allows himself to feel the desire. He suddenly very much wants more of Steve's hands on him, but with just his own hand and painful memories to accompany him the past months, still torn on whether or not this is the right choice, he feels stunted. So, solution: make Steve be the one to reach out.
Tony plucks the mistletoe from the glass and drops it into his own bangs. A dramatized frown and look up at it later, he says, "That's weird. How'd that get there?"
"Mm. It's a mystery, all right." Tony looks ridiculous with mistletoe in his bangs, but it serves to get the point across. Steve leans in, close enough to smell Tony's aftershave, and plants a soft kiss on his closed lips. It's brief and chaste, but he doesn't pull back. He hasn't kissed Tony since that time in his office, and he hesitates before he tries again. This time, the kiss is longer, more heated, with a deep underlying need to it. Whatever Tony might think about taking things slow, Steve is apparently the opposite; too much time spent repressing his libido, or something like that.
His eyes are already dilated by the time he catches his breath, wide and dark and shining in what little light there is. Steve's never been known for his self-control.
Tony grunts, body reacting to the heated kiss and look. He gazes back at Steve, softened, hands held on his lap, unknowingly obedient (a learned habit). Seeing Steve like that, he loosely smiles. Heady feeling, knowing the effect he can have on Steve with a bat of his eyelashes. He cranes his neck closer to tease more, his skin rosy from the cold and their breaths visibly mingling, and whispers, "Warm me up?"
He can easily stay afloat if Steve needs a guiding hand (or mouth, or tongue), but he secretly hopes their previous encounters will hold sway over Steve's preferences.
God, the thought of finally (finally) being able to touch Tony the way he wants is a heady promise, but Steve is all too aware of the weather surrounding them. He might not be susceptible to the cold, but that doesn't mean he wants to go exposing either of them to the chill - especially certain sensitive parts of their anatomy. (And, okay, Steve has enough of an ego to want to steer clear of unsightly shrinkage.)
"Inside," he murmurs against Tony's lips, though it's harder for him to pull away than he'd like to admit. They need to be somewhere where they can stay for a while while Tony's under - because he can tell by the softened edges that he's on his way there - and he doesn't want to explain to anyone how Tony ended up with hypothermia. He takes Tony's hands in his and rises, tugging him up with him.
When Steve tugs him up, Tony follows through and takes it farther, a smirk the only preceding indication: he crowds close into Steve's space, as close as their winter wear will allow, head tilted up and angled. Snowflakes, some melted into droplets, balance on the ends of Tony's lowered eyelashes. "Please tell me you have a multitude of dirty scenarios dreamed up," he says. The mistletoe is still stuck between his bangs. He doesn't seem to care.
Steve's spent months trying to avoid imagining dirty scenarios, and as a result, he finds himself woefully lacking - especially when it comes to domming Tony, because he's specifically tried to think up as many nonsexual scenes as possible. (There's some terrifying Googling in his near future.)
His kiss, naturally, is somewhat distracted, as he's trying hard to think of something appropriately filthy and failing miserably. "Uh," he says eloquently, and the blush on his cheeks communicates more than words ever could. He plucks the mistletoe from Tony's bangs and tucks it gently into his pocket.
With an exasperated (really? no dirty ideas at all?) but fond (Steve will keep the mistletoe as a memento, he knows) sigh, Tony pins him with a dry look. "You're an artist. Get creative," he deadpans and pulls away, headed for the sliding glass door. Despite his words, as his boots crunch in the snow, he's already considering beginner-friendly scenes: maybe Tony on top, taking orders from Steve on where and how to touch; or Steve tying him up and exploring Tony's body to his little boy-scout heart's content. "Hurry up or I'm startin' without ya!" he warns over his shoulder.
Steve just smirks back at him and ambles slowly through the snow, taking his own sweet time. Tony's threat is toothless: Steve would absolutely welcome walking in on Tony touching himself. In fact, he takes a few minutes to swing back around through the party and steal a small plateful of appetizers before making his way back to his room. He's half-afraid Tony will have changed his mind and left (or never come here in the first place), but Steve steels himself and pushes the door open.
They agree on meeting in Steve's bedroom while Tony is still rubbing together and breathing into his cold hands. Inside, alone, as Tony tosses his duffel coat and gloves and boots aside, all the doubts intertwine with the possible scenes: Steve is just smitten by their proximity and shared history, confusing lust and friendly affection for more; or Tony is just going to jack it all up somehow like he jacked it up with Pepper; or he's still taking advantage of an inexperienced man with a heart too good just to cure his own loneliness. He tries stomping the uncertainty all out (he wants this, wants to try with Steve), but it's kindling in a fireplace: a single spark and it flares anew.
By the time Steve enters, Tony kneels by the bedside, forehead resting on the edge of the mattress. His dress shirt is opened at the collar and wrists, and the vest piece is laid with the duffel coat. He jerks at the door opening, gasping, "M'here," blinking overmuch. "Sorry, I was just--" He massages his temples, hard. He only wanted to clear his head a bit, not assume Steve would dominate him. Steve is still learning what he likes, and Tony should support that, he tells himself. Those nasty clingy thoughts have already jumbled him up. "We don't have to take this angle of approach. Whatever you fancy, if you fancy anything," he drawls.
The scene that greets Steve isn't what he expects (to be fair, his brain helpfully supplied the image of Tony sprawled out naked on his bed, leisurely jerking off), but he realizes he isn't surprised by it. "I thought you were going to get started without me," he offers with a shy smile and a cast aside gaze that implies that this is a kink that could be explored at some point in the future.
Once his own jacket and shoes are off, he crouches down next to Tony. "I'd like you to stay with me sometimes," he admits. Partly because he's still new to all this, and partly for the emotional aspect. (And, okay, because Steve's a hopeless romantic.) "But that doesn't mean I'm not willing to have scenes. I told you, I like them, and I think that incorporating sex, once I figure out what the hell I'm doing, will be-" Is fun the right word to use? "Interesting," he settles on.
Tony's mouth and eyebrow both quirk up, ease draping back across his body. "Interesting," he echoes. Humor fading but ease remaining, eyelashes fanned low in contemplation, he starts slowly with, "Something you might've gotten a lil' mixed up there, though. My fault, partially. Probably. Kept trying to hide bits, physical and otherwise, away from you. But not anymore." He locks his eyes onto Steve's to stress the gravity of this, a little quiver of fear in them: "Steve, from here on out, when I go on my little mental vacations, I couldn't be more with you. You'll be all there is for me." Tony needs that to sink in. The submission won't be just an escape; it will be an act of complete devotion -- mind, body, and soul. He thought on that a lot, on the trust required for something so deep and pervasive. Even after he resolved to try being with Steve, deciding to submit to him was an extra step, one he settled on after the weeks of Steve's patience. Not once did Steve press him for a choice, or even an update on it. Steve said he would wait, so he waited, cut clean and simple. If anything, Tony can trust him to be honest. "You understand?" he finishes.
"Sorry, bad choice of words," Steve apologizes with a grimace. It's something he's aware of already, even if he hasn't known of the complexity involved till now. There's never been any other way to interpret that laser focus, though, or the way Tony relies on him for every little thing, the way he trusts him to do what's right for him. "I do understand, I promise. I just meant- y'know, not being in subspace. And if I want you mentally there, I'll make it clear before it's too late." Hopefully, anyway, but he thinks he's getting better at reading Tony's body language before he slips under. It's there now, a little bit, what Steve thinks of as softening around the edges, relaxing into his trust and care.
"You can let go tonight," he adds. "As little or as much as you want." He's not even sure Tony has levels of control, not consciously. From what he's seen so far, there's a descent, and then he just bottoms out, no pun intended. And Steve's fine with that; he's made it this far, and as nervous and awkward as he is, he's more than willing to keep going.
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Tony doesn't shirk his duties to the Avengers, though; when he does visit the compound, he's all business, and in between working in his lab, he instructs Steve in finance, even teaches him how to track expenditures using spreadsheets. It's boring and impersonal, and he knows there's a reason for it, that it's a deliberate choice on Tony's part. So he lets him keep his emotional distance, and doesn't try to press him.
Steve assumes Tony won't come to the Christmas party, either, but he's proven pleasantly wrong. He turns up wearing a garish tie that blinks with colored lights and plays a tinkly song when you press a button, and he flits around the room like a butterfly. Steve can't quite pin him down for a chat because he's always talking to someone else, but Tony makes sure to meet his gaze on occasion, giving him a small smile before he turns his attention back to his conversational partner.
And then, at one point, he disappears entirely. Since Tony's spent the most time talking to Rhodey (which doesn't come as a surprise to Steve), Steve asks him where he went. "Upstairs," he offers with a shrug. Steve makes his way up onto the roof garden, where thick, fluffy snowflakes drift down around them, joining a thin covering that's already on the ground.
"Aren't you cold out here?" he asks, stopping next to him.
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When Steve speaks, Tony quietly huffs. His breath condenses in the air. "Worried I'll vanish into the cold of the night like a spirit from Dickens?" he deflects, head tilted toward Steve.
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"Just checking up on you, that's all." He nudges Tony with his shoulder. "It's good to see you socializing with everyone. You oughta come around more often. For non-business reasons, I mean."
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"Was dressing for the occasion his idea or yours?" Steve gestures to the tie nearby.
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"If you feel like you need to," he says finally, turning to face Tony with a crooked smile on his face. He reaches up and cups Tony's cheek - thankfully, with the hand that's been tucked in his coat pocket since he came outside. "You didn't write it out first? That's what I would've done. And it probably still would've sounded stupid - not that you sounded stupid just then." Oh god, now he's doing the exact same thing.
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Tony plucks the mistletoe from the glass and drops it into his own bangs. A dramatized frown and look up at it later, he says, "That's weird. How'd that get there?"
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His eyes are already dilated by the time he catches his breath, wide and dark and shining in what little light there is. Steve's never been known for his self-control.
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He can easily stay afloat if Steve needs a guiding hand (or mouth, or tongue), but he secretly hopes their previous encounters will hold sway over Steve's preferences.
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"Inside," he murmurs against Tony's lips, though it's harder for him to pull away than he'd like to admit. They need to be somewhere where they can stay for a while while Tony's under - because he can tell by the softened edges that he's on his way there - and he doesn't want to explain to anyone how Tony ended up with hypothermia. He takes Tony's hands in his and rises, tugging him up with him.
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His kiss, naturally, is somewhat distracted, as he's trying hard to think of something appropriately filthy and failing miserably. "Uh," he says eloquently, and the blush on his cheeks communicates more than words ever could. He plucks the mistletoe from Tony's bangs and tucks it gently into his pocket.
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By the time Steve enters, Tony kneels by the bedside, forehead resting on the edge of the mattress. His dress shirt is opened at the collar and wrists, and the vest piece is laid with the duffel coat. He jerks at the door opening, gasping, "M'here," blinking overmuch. "Sorry, I was just--" He massages his temples, hard. He only wanted to clear his head a bit, not assume Steve would dominate him. Steve is still learning what he likes, and Tony should support that, he tells himself. Those nasty clingy thoughts have already jumbled him up. "We don't have to take this angle of approach. Whatever you fancy, if you fancy anything," he drawls.
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Once his own jacket and shoes are off, he crouches down next to Tony. "I'd like you to stay with me sometimes," he admits. Partly because he's still new to all this, and partly for the emotional aspect. (And, okay, because Steve's a hopeless romantic.) "But that doesn't mean I'm not willing to have scenes. I told you, I like them, and I think that incorporating sex, once I figure out what the hell I'm doing, will be-" Is fun the right word to use? "Interesting," he settles on.
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"You can let go tonight," he adds. "As little or as much as you want." He's not even sure Tony has levels of control, not consciously. From what he's seen so far, there's a descent, and then he just bottoms out, no pun intended. And Steve's fine with that; he's made it this far, and as nervous and awkward as he is, he's more than willing to keep going.
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