jukeboxhound | fic: dreaming electric (avengers, steve/tony)

It takes six weeks for them to get where they are now, with Steve leaning against a solid table and Tony pressed against his front, long fingers pulling on the collar of Steve's already-rumpled shirt and lips pressed unexpectedly gentle against his.

"In a hurry?" Steve asks into the kiss, and feels a rumbling laugh against his chest.

"Don't want you to change your mind."

Tony says it jokingly, underlining it with a bite against the line of Steve's jaw, but Steve pulls back to the tune of Tony's no, no, wait, what are you doing so he can cradle Tony's face with his hands, thumbs resting on cheekbones. He likes doing this, likes the soft skin under his fingertips and coarse facial hair under his palms. Tony twitches but Steve doesn't let him look away.

"I'm not going to change my mind," he says firmly. "Tthis won't be easy, but I'm not going to change my mind. I care about you and I want to make this work. You should know by now that I always do my damndest to finish what I start."

"You are a pretty stubborn asshole," Tony snarks, but his mouth quirks with a smile, the little lopsided one so different from his film-star flash. "So, does this mean we can finally have our life-affirming sex? No story is complete without life-affirming sex, Steve, it's a rule, the genre doesn't even matter. I admit, I've been wondering for like a decade if I died and someone forgot to tell my dick. You should remedy this. Immediately."

"If six weeks is a decade to you, I wonder what seventy years would be like."

Tony's surprised into a laugh. Steve's hands slide down to palm the long stretch of Tony's throat, oddly vulnerable when juxtaposed with the armor that Steve can see standing against the wall from the corner of his eye. Tony had been half-buried in its guts when Steve wandered down, fresh from a short mission with Natasha and Clint tracking down gunrunners in Wyoming. Steve had frozen in the doorway, suddenly struck dumb by Tony's grumbling and the absent shifting of his hips in time to his deafening rock music, the armor of his tailored business suits stripped away for the jeans and a tank top of a man in his home. The projected screens of light all around him flickered from one subject to another rapidly, probably just because Tony could now that he had the Extremis.

And it'd occurred to Steve that Tony's…not happy, not quite that, but content. More certain than usual about his place in the world, especially now that he and Pepper have fallen back into the habit of going out for lunch together at least once a week. And so it is that six weeks after Tony took himself apart and put it all back together Steve finally, finally steps forward, puts his hands on Tony's hips and tugs him upright, eventually ending up pressed against a table with Tony's lips against his own and a neatly-trimmed beard doing its best to leave a burn on his skin.

"Please, please, please tell me this is okay," Tony says, words jumbled up because he hasn't bothered to stop kissing Steve or keep his hands from wandering down Steve's shoulders to fist the front of his plain cotton shirt.

"And here I thought the great playboy Tony Stark would aim for something a little higher than 'okay.'" He punctuates with a bite to Tony's lower lip and a long sweep of tongue, earning a deep groan.

"From here on out you are Captain Sass," Tony slurs against him, "I'll hire whatever band is most popular right now to make you a new jingle and it's going to be embarrassing, so embarrassing, but you deserve it, Captain Sass of the Kingdom of Sassiness – "

"Jesus, Tony, shut up."

"Already starting with the control freakiness, told you I'm not one of your soldiers, Captain Sass – "

Steve tangles his fingers in belt loops, ignoring the greasy rag tucked haphazardly into the waistband, and hauls Tony in as close as he can while they're both still dressed. It's startling to feel the edge of the arc reactor bump into his own chest, bizarre to feel the hard line of Tony's dick against his own. Not that Steve ever spent enough time with a man or woman to get used to the feel of either angles or curves, but it's Tony who goes momentarily tense and still.

"Tony?"

A wry chuckle gets breathed into the curve of Steve's neck. "Just me being weird, haven't fucked another guy since I was a teenage rebel without a cause."

These days, when Steve thinks about Howard, he imagines punching him in the face.

"But you deserve more classiness than me talking about exes, so kiss me, you fool."

That sounds like another pop culture reference but it's one that Steve is happy to obey, lifting Tony's chin and slowing everything down to something deep and languid. Well, he tries to, at least, because this is the first time he's let anything get beyond kissing between them and he's going to damn well savor it, but judging from the way Tony moans from the back of his throat he doesn't seem to be doing too badly.

"Off, I command it," Tony demands as he finds the bottom of Steve's shirt and slides clever fingers up the cut of hard abs. "My god, it really is like a washboard, I could clean the oil out of my jeans on you."

Steve can't help laughing as he moves his lips to the line of Tony's jaw, his teeth to the long tendon of neck, tongue along the hollow of a collarbone. Tony makes a shivery sound and snugs their hips together, surprising a long moan out of Steve.

"Have I mentioned how much I don't like clothes," Tony mutters as he twitches back so his fingers can scrabble at the zipper of Steve's khakis. He doesn't even pause to make a cursory remark about outdated fashion. "From now on I decree that you're not allowed to wear pants in my tower."

"I'm not – ah – your kept man," Steve gasps, head falling back. Tony's fingers really are clever, trained from long years of patiently soldering tiny wires and flying over keyboards and bedroom escapades. They confidently slide down the length of Steve's dick, pulling back with a firm glide up the underside, and carefully brush over the head, mindful of the lack of wetness to smooth the way.

"You could be," Tony murmurs into his ear, breath washing warm over his skin and teasing out a long shudder. "Between missions I could keep you in my bed on thousand-count sheets, naked and aching for it – "

Steve would punch anyone who tried to hide him away like that, but the heat in Tony's voice curls low in his belly, making his hips jerk. "Maybe I'd prefer it to be you," he interrupts as Tony's fingers let him go in favor of fumbling at his own pants, knuckles brushing teasingly against him.

"Fuck," Tony mutters hoarsely, finally getting his jeans pushed halfway down his thighs and wrapping a hand around them both, "that'd, yes, maybe your birthday – July fourth? Of course it is, fuck, wake you up with my mouth on your dick, bet I could find something red, white, and blue to loosen me up so you could slide right in, fuck me stupid and sloppy and – okay, maybe not just your birthday, that is way too far away on the calendar, how does next Tuesday sound?"

"Jesus," Steve says again, brain short-circuited by the slide of Tony's cock against his own, the dizzying pressure of Tony's fingers, friction eased by the wetness of precome. He's heard filthier things in the army but this is different, the words spoken from someone he cares about and who cares about him, meant only for him. He scrambles for something to say. He tries to breathe back that feeling of being wanted in the hot, close space between them, but he's interrupted by an insistent chirping.

"What?" he manages breathlessly, and Tony groans, head thumping forward onto Steve's shoulder as he growls, "Dummy, no, we do not want to play. Well, maybe with Steve, but that is for me, not for you, go away."

DUM-E's fingers click together, lightly bouncing a digital ball. Keeping one hand firm around them, tightening just enough to make Steve choke, Tony flails with the other as he raggedly barks, "No, bad Dummy, go sit in your charging station. The only way this could get worse is if you had the fire extinguisher, no that was not an order you put that back right now or I swear to god I will cannibalize your arm for one of those vending machines with the crappy toys!"

The robot droops with a sad beep-boop and trundles away.

"I'm being cockblocked by my own goddamn creations," Tony grumbles into Steve's shoulder, which is shaking with laughter.

"He's probably jealous you're paying attention to someone else," Steve murmurs, pressing a kiss into Tony's messy hair and wrapping one of his own hands around Tony's, the other gripping the bony point of Tony's hip. He tangles their fingers, pressing his thumb against the head of Tony's cock while dragging their grip up and then back. He gets teeth in the meat of his shoulder for his efforts and the pain tingles sharply down his nerves, tightens his belly, the familiar heat of orgasm starting to uncoil when Tony suddenly pulls back and pants, "Oh, oh, wait, I, yes. Idea, I have the best ideas."

"Tony, no, come back," Steve gasps, too frustrated to be embarrassed by the desperation in his voice, but Tony's grinning madly, eyes crinkled like he has a secret and wants to share it in the most dramatic way possible.

"Just watch," and with a single thought the vivid lines of his holograms burn into existence all around them. It's unsettling and extraordinary, something straight out of the stained pulp novels he and Bucky used to scrounge out of bookstore trashcans. He can see the diagram of the latest incarnation of Iron Man in his periphery, what looks like a half-finished game of the most complicated version of chess he's ever seen, and in the middle –

In the middle is a live streaming of the security camera footage in Tony's workshop, accessible only through JARVIS on a private server behind some serious protection, and in the bright lights and chrome of the workshop he can clearly see the elegant curve of Tony's spine and ass, the flush on his own face over Tony's shoulder. He wants to capture it in graphite and texture.

"What on earth," he says faintly before Tony cuts him off with a drag on his cock that's almost too tight, his other hand raking down the thick muscle over Steve's ribs and making his back arch into the roughness with a loud groan. He can see the way his own head tilts and shows off the vulnerable stretch of his throat, the parting of lips bitten strawberry-red, how big his hand looks when curled possessively over Tony's hip.

It would feel horribly narcissistic if Tony hadn't started whispering filth into his ear again about how he doesn't look like the embodiment of the American Dream anymore but someone so wrecked and desperate for something to fuck into, next time Tony will get on his knees and let him fuck his throat until he chokes, let him come on his face and tape it all so Steve can see it over and over again whenever the hell he wants to. He'll program a dildo with all the settings he could want and then use it on Steve from the other side of the bedroom, not touching, just watch Steve go steadily out of his mind as Tony flicks through each setting with just a thought. He'll make handcuffs out of adamantium that'll only open with a safeword and test exactly what the serum's done for Steve's stamina, even if it takes hours, even if it means getting so fucking messy they'll have to wash the fucking mattress. Of course, they'll have to see what the Extremis has done for Tony, how many times Steve could fuck him until he beats the healing factor and Tony can't take it anymore, too used and loose, and then fuck him again until the only name he knows is Steve's.

When Steve comes, it's with fingers clenching too hard on Tony's hip, his other hand squeezing almost too hard around their cocks, and a hoarse shout that gets faintly echoed by the live feed of them moving together. They're pressed so close that the arc reactor under Tony's shirt digs into Steve's sternum and it feels like Tony's trying to crawl into his skin, kissing him with teeth and harsh breaths, the press of his cock against Steve's making him shudder with oversensitivity until warm wetness spills over their hands, groins, thighs. The sound Tony makes against his lips sends an aftershock rolling down Steve's spine and his cock twitches with a valiant effort.

Tony slumps boneless against him, entirely unbothered by the mess already going lukewarm between them, and hums wordlessly. Steve holds his sticky hand out to the side, wraps the other arm around Tony's back, and doesn't bother fighting the stupid grin on his face. The screens have all flickered out again.

"Stop it," Tony grouches.

"Stop what?"

"Stop radiating or whatever it is you're doing, I don't want to have to call Bruce in here with a Geiger counter and embarrass him."

"What am I radiating, Dr. Stark?" Steve says into dark hair, which smells weirdly caustic, come to think of it. He'll have to ask JARVIS to remind Tony to wash his hair before someone ends up poisoned.

"I don't know, it's like the sleep-rays of housecats with an extra helping of nationalism. I'm not the radiation expert in this tower, am I?"

"Maybe not," Steve says, waving his come-covered hand in Tony's face, "but do you have a robot that'll clean up this, uh, mess?"

"Huh." Tony blinks in surprise. "No. No, I don't. That's ingenious. JARVIS, make a note: something that'll clean up spunk without Steve or me having to get out of bed. Once we get there. Or without us having to move at all."

"Noted, sir, and may I say that as much as I appreciate your combined efforts I believe a gift certificate to Best Buy for my birthday would have also sufficed."

At least Tony has the courtesy to carry on his argument with JARVIS in his head silently while Steve kisses him, smiling and amused, towards the start of Round Two.

...

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Epilogue