#(Yes this is SteveTony coded and it will always be SteveTony coded)

[sol-dial]

: D

literally nothing more tender than a superhero telling another superhero "be safe" "come back to us in one piece"

[stevetonyweekly]

SteveTony Weekly - May 7th

 HELLO MY LOVELY FRIENDS I MISSED YOU!!! Last week was a mess BUT I closed on my house Monday (OMG) and now we’re in the home stretch before we move (!!!!!). Quick note: 

I’m going to be moving May 21, so the rec list might be kinda off that weekend, but I’ll pre-plan something! Enjoy and be sure to drop a kudos/comment for your author! 

~*~ 

Mark Zero by enkiduu

Tony wears his lack of soulmark with pride.

lover, we always fall by enkiduu

Dying in a world with reincarnation is easy. Living in one is hard, because history inevitably follows you, and you can't always decide what your legacy is.

You try to change history, but your Icarus only ever chooses the same thing he's always chosen.

(In which Tony is Icarus and Steve is the ocean.)

ignorance is (not) bliss by earliebirb

One of Tony’s hands shoots up to grab his wrist, gripping it tightly. Slowly, Tony opens his eyes.

Steve’s blood freezes in his veins. His heart sinks with dread. 

“Tony?” Steve hopes that this is just some weird bout of sleepwalking, but Tony doesn’t sleepwalk, and from the thoughtful way Tony regards him, Steve knows that Tony is somehow very much awake, which means—

Tony swallows, his eyes wide and alert in a way Steve didn’t think they were capable of being twenty minutes ago. 

“Steve,” he says, the single word carrying too much weight.

the stark-tangled man with a crappy plan by Serinah for AvengersNewB

*At first, it seemed to be an easy job: find the O, secure the O, and hand him over to his guardian and the fiance. Simple. Unfortunately, the omega wasn't onboard. At all.*

OR:

Steve has to return a runaway omega to his guardian Mr. Stane.

Where Lies A Home by XtaticPearl

They're in the middle of the most complicated and risky fight of their lives, placing their bets on a distant memory right now, and basically in deep trouble if the plan doesn't work out. Steve knows he should be stressed and somewhere in the corner of his mind, he is a little. Mostly though, he's having fun and strangely, so is Tony.

Yes, Just Like This by gottalovev

Tony wakes up in a hospital on another planet missing his memories of the last eleven years. It's now 2023, and he learns the Avengers saved half the universe. Unfortunately, not everything he forgot is good news.

(An Endgame Alternate Universe AND Civil-War fix-it and get together story, weaved through a space road trip with Steve, Carol and Nebula. Complete but cut in 5 chapters for ease of reading.)

messages from the stars by Thahire

Steve's not expecting to find anything remotely of interest when he steps into Macy’s, of all places, in a last-ditch effort to find a present for Tony.

Somehow, he ends up leaving with an engagement ring.

Still Got It by KandiSheek 

Ever since Tony's close call in their battle against Thanos Steve treats him like he's going to break at the slightest pressure. He won't so much as look at the bionic arm either. So Tony takes matters into his own hands to prove that he can still handle himself just fine.

Soul Searching (The Hop, Skip, Jump Remix) by navaan

Tony lives a peaceful life in Irondale and then Steve Rogers drifts into town. It's the beginning of a romance — and not all is what it seems.

Code Icarus by FestiveFerret

Steve Rogers hates falling, but he hates being caught even more.

Truths, Lies and the Tipping Point by BlackEyedGirl

The news report seems more interested in the argument between the team during the fight than the way they eventually won. And then it gets worse.

Me in You by Captain_Panda

What if J.A.R.V.I.S. was Tony?

That is, what if a lonely genius Velveteen Rabbited his computer program into a real being instead of just his own thoughts talking back at him?

A deep dive into a broken psyche, contemplating Tony's loneliness, J.A.R.V.I.S.'s protectiveness, and the mother of all broken genius families. Mostly because Howard Stark never hugged his son.

Depthless by Captain_Panda

"Depthless: (1) unfathomably deep; (2) shallow and superficial."

Weeks after defrosting Captain America, S.H.I.E.L.D. finds Steve Rogers lying at the bottom of a pool. Assumptions are made. They have no idea what they are dealing with.

Meanwhile, Tony Stark, the man-in-the-spotlight, has demons lurking off-radar that are literally filling his lungs with water.

Ignoring either problem was never an option. This is the story of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark's collision course.

For What It's Worth by Captain_Panda

S.H.I.E.L.D. thaws out Captain America, expecting a combat-ready soldier to greet them.

They get Steve Rogers instead, a broken artist who turns to the violin for salvation.

hold your fire by JenTheSweetie

He watched Tony eat an entire steak and listened to him talk about the work he was doing on the Milano while he downed glass after glass of expensive scotch. Just as Steve was about to suggest they head back to the jet, Tony finished his last glass, put it down firmly, and said, "I want to blow you."

Steve stared at him.

"Let's get a hotel room," Tony said, like that was that, and somehow - and Steve never could explain how, not then and not now and not later - it was.

Say It Now by ishipallthings 

“I’m glad you’re here, Tony,” Steve tells him. It’s not everything he wants to say, but it’s enough.

Steve thinks it might be one of the most important things he’s ever said.

(Steve and Tony have a conversation the night before the time heist. Maybe second chances aren’t impossible after all.)

a hop, skip, and a jump by IronSwordStarShield (SweetFanfics)

“Before I go, I was wondering if I could ask you some questions.”

“About?” they ask they return the stone to its place.

“Timelines. Alternate realities.”

--

Steve returns the stones to their rightful places in time, gets his dance with Peggy, and then embarks on a whole new search.

Give Me Just A Little More Time by Robin_tCJ 

Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame. A full summary will live in the author’s notes, so you have to click to read it, but the premise is that this is technically canon divergent in the sense that I’m treating it as… a few deleted scenes in the middle, there. It’ll only make sense if you’ve seen the movie, and if you haven’t seen the movie it will definitely spoil you for it. Written in kind of a sketchy, lots-of-really-short-scenes style.

falling like the stars by complicationstoo

When Tony starts at MIT, he's excited to finally be in the same city as his older brother, Bucky, again. Then he meets Bucky's roommate and best friend Steve Rogers and falls faster than he would have ever thought possible.

[sineala]

I thought a lot about how often Tony calls Steve "cap" and how it complicates things. After all, to be frank, few of us can entrust our feelings to a person who does not even call us by name!...So it turns out that Steve and Tony are so closed emotionally, at the same time Steve easily trusts other people, such as Sam. This is such a bitter situation that stevetony got into in canon. I don't think Tony sees this as a problem, but it is. I would like to read fic with discovered that)

I'm a little torn about how to respond to this, anon. I think it would certainly be interesting to have a darker/angstier fic that put forth a premise that Steve doesn't trust Tony -- I mean, I wrote Sucker Punch, and "Steve doesn't trust Tony" was essentially the premise of that one -- but I would regard it as an extreme AU of canon, because I feel like in 616 canon, Steve trusts Tony very much, and it's mutual, and that furthermore Steve likes what Tony calls him.

I don't think Tony's use of "Cap" is in any way distancing -- it's a nickname, and nicknames are signs of affection, and (in this case, since it's a rank) probably respect as well. Tony is what you might call an inveterate nicknamer. If you think about the core crew of friends he's had in his solo book over the years -- Happy, Pepper, Rhodey -- those are literally all nicknames. And "Rhodey" is even a nickname of a last name. Are you going to say that that is distancing? That Tony and Rhodey don't care about each other? That they haven't literally told each other that they loved each other, on panel? Of course they care about each other.

Even outside of the main Iron Man cast, Tony still nicknames his friends. Back when Carol went by Warbird, Tony liked to call her "bird." (I can't find the panels now, but I know they're at the end of Busiek's IM run.) Lately he likes to call her spaceface. This is what Tony does with people he likes. He gives them nicknames.

I also think that the way Steve trusts Tony is different than the way he trusts Sam, and that he very possibly trusts Tony more than he trusts Sam. I'm not saying this because I'm a Steve/Tony shipper; I’m saying this because I honestly think they have a different dynamic. I mean, sure, Steve and Sam are great partners and they work fabulously together (and, hey, if you want to ship them, I absolutely see why you would) -- I just feel like, when we see a focus on Steve and Sam's relationship, it's a Big Deal when they fight, and Steve is often reluctant to go to Sam with his problems, or tell Sam what he thinks about the state of their relationship. They’re great friends, but that's not the kind of relationship they have.

For example, here in Cap #144 we see Steve lurking outside Sam's window like a creepy creeper, worried about whether Sam is going to leave him for a woman (yes, I know), instead of talking to him about his damn feelings like a normal person:

But when it's Steve and Tony, Steve is not at all hesitant to tell Tony how he feels about him. We already know that he doesn't hesitate to tell Tony when he thinks Tony is wrong, because that is pretty much how all their fights start -- Armor Wars, Galactic Storm, Civil War, the existence of the Illuminati, the incursions. Even in that Empyre Aftermath panel I just posted, we can see Steve very gently shutting Tony down when Tony tries to joke about Registration.

But he tells Tony the good stuff, too. He always makes it clear to Tony that he thinks the world of him, that he's happy to be working with him, and so on. A really good example of this is Avengers #144:

Steve's happy to be with the Avengers! He's missed them! He's missed Tony! And he's especially missed Tony calling him Winghead! This does not strike me as a man who feels at all offended by Tony's nicknames for him. He likes them! He misses them!

And we know that Tony does in fact call Steve by his first name as well. Tony is in fact a participant in that grand superhero tradition of switching from code names to first names in the middle of combat, when he's really worried about Steve, as we see in Avengers X-Sanction #2:

And Steve does it right back, as we can see in Avengers v4 #20:

(We also see here that Steve calls himself Cap. It’s clearly not a name that bothers him.)

Steve in fact still does the switching-to-first-name thing, as recently as this year's "Dark Ages" FCBD issue:

When intimacy is called for, they definitely know how to use each other's names. Avengers #221 is the classic example here, where Steve explicitly makes a point of telling Tony it’s okay to use his first name and Tony instantly goes with that:

So, yeah, I'd have to disagree with you here and say that Tony's nicknames are a sign of affection and that both Tony and Steve do trust each other in canon, although I am happy to entertain fic where this is not the case. I think it would make for a fun AU... but you’d really have to do a lot of work to convince me that that’s how it is in canon.

[isozyme]

🔥top/bottom discourse in STEVETONY

oh good god i have so much salt to spill on top/bottom discourse, anon you’re a monster about to get me cancelled

okay gonna toss that salt over my shoulder and dive in

- general fandom unpopular opinion: this discourse is horrible because people mean two things when they say top/bottom: who’s pitching/catching, and who’s dominating/submitting in bed. these are two different things and conflating them makes everyone stupid forever

- rude general fandom unpopular opinion: is your sexually submissive character always feminine, less mature, emotional, smaller, physically weaker, and younger? is your sexually dominant character always masculine, level-headed, larger, stronger, and older? congrats, it doesn’t matter who you write topping, you’re doing a bad job.

- very rude steve/tony unpopular opinion: why so many people out there writing mcu tony as a baby twink? mcu tony is portrayed as pretty butch; yes, the movies code him as female in certain narrative ways, but that’s not actually the same thing. iron man is a male power fantasy! he’s buff as fuck and flies around inside a giant gun that he built himself. if you want to write tony getting dicked down by steve’s super-dong while he cries because of how many feelings he has, i not only do i support you, i am one of you. however! that doesn’t mean he’s also got to be fragile and feminine and young. that’s lazy characterization and questionable politics. shit like that’s reductive and reeks of recapitulating heterosexuality.

- further steve/tony unpopular opinion: both top!tony/bottom!steve and top!steve/bottom!tony are hot and choosing one that’s “right” deprives you of a bunch of excellent fic, love yourself and accept that there are so many reasons a person might have for what they like in bed. basically any dynamic/kink/etc can be written in-character with the right analysis and character development. don’t argue that there’s only one correct answer to the top/bottom question and all other interpretations are wrong; it makes you look like a doofus with a simplistic understanding of sex stuff.

i think that’s enough. if anybody’s mad they can come at me, i’ll fight you and win ‘cause i’m tipsy and right about steve/tony.

[bruciewayne]

fall from grace

percy jackson au, stevetony, getting together/ ill-advised one-night-stands, 3k

for ‘percy jackson au’ on @iron-man-bingo

--

Tony winces as the bunker explodes. Not all of it, just a section. Fury wasn’t going to be happy. All he hopes is that he doesn’t have to be on introductions. He likes Camp Half-Blood, okay, loves it, he used to be a year-rounder, now he’s just here when college is out, he’s been here longer than he hasn’t, and it’s fucking fantastic.

But he hates doing introductions. Or worse, finding. 

He’s not even particularly anti-social (when he’s not knee-deep in a project), there’s just something about brand-new demigods, having to explain everything over and over, that he hates. He’s not a person of great patience. Finding demigods is just a pain, especially if it’s one of the stronger ones, who aren’t even meant to exist in the first place, but when have the gods played by their own rules. Finding demigods means fighting monsters, it means weeks, months if they were one of the unlucky ones, in motels, following a trail of destruction to a volatile, hurting, kid.

Now, most would consider Tony to be fairly decent at finding (whenever he’s done introductions they’ve never really gone well, partly because Tony just attempted to make an interactive dictionary to get it over and done with, partly because the kid was a dick. From then on, he very, very rarely gets to do introductions, literally only if he’s the only experienced camper left.), but Tony just dislikes it. Greatly. He likes the chase, he likes solving problems and making things to solve the problems, the only thing he really has a problem with (because motels were like unhygienic sleepovers when with the right person and even the fighting gave him an adrenaline rush that usually could power him through a couple days in the bunker without any other sustenance) is dealing with the actual kid.

All the ones that he’d found were angry, and sad, and Tony never really knew how to deal with that - all he has to do is keep it civil and keep them calm until they reach Camp, but every damn time it was hard.

As he predicted (not literally) Fury storms into the bunker, fuming, mere minutes after the explosion.

“Everything’s controlled, it was meant to happen,” Tony says, the moment he enters.

“Stark.” It was the Tone. The very particular, very specific Tone to his voice that meant ‘you are going to be doing what I tell you with no complaints or I will put you on horse clean up for the rest of your years on this earth’. The Tone usually came with a demigod to go on a wild goose chase after.

“No, Nick, c’ mon,” Tony pleads. 

Fury doesn’t change his expression in the slightest, and Tony’s pleas are met with a stony silence and a couple sheets of paper are shoved in his singed arms. 

“0800, at the border, you’re going with Natasha,” he says, final, as he spins on his heel and leaves.

“Could just say 8 AM like a normal person,” Tony mutters under his breath. He gets a twig thrown at him.

Tony carries on grumbling as he sets about tidying the bunker as best he can while the smoke clears out. Whoever built this really wasn’t thinking with ventilation in mind. Ancient assholes.

Almost, as if someone’s listening to his thoughts (or maybe he’s just talking aloud again) lighting cracks outside. It’s the middle of July. And Thor (the kid, not the god), their resident lightning expert, is over at Camp Jupiter for the week. 

“Ancient assholes!” Tony yells.

This time, the lightning strikes directly on top of the bunker.

By the time he’s done, he’s almost missed dinner.

“Ah!” Clint says, when he sees him walk into the pavillion, “The prodigal son returns!”

“Fuck off, Arrow-Boy,” Tony grumbles, stuffing fries into his mouth. He’s way more hungry than he thought.

“Tin can,” Clint retorts, flicking a pizza crust at him. 

Tony pulls a face at him, grumpily.

“Don’t mind him,” Natasha says, materialising behind them, making Clint jump and spill his orangeade, “he’s cranky because we have to go find a demigod tomorrow.”

“I’m not cranky,” Tony says, just about resisting the temptation to cross his arms and scowl.

“Go take a nap, tin can,” Clint says, patting him on the shoulder.

After he finishes his dinner, he does just that, after, setting everything up for tomorrow - he stuffs a backpack (one that he made, the one that’s bigger than it looks) with everything he’ll need for a week and goes over the information - any satyrs who’ve tried looking for him failed and every time someone tries to bring him back he escapes and drops right off the grid.

One of the things that surprised him about this guy (they have a name, age range, known aliases, and a couple sketches) is that a wake of good follows him, not destruction, but insurmountable, impossible, miracle good. Although, there is a tiny trail of anticapitalism following him as well. A series of alarmingly good thefts that followed him across the country alongside great donations and a sudden dip in youth homelessness and a surge of college graduates from the working class over the year.

So. 

Good. Too good. Good enough to drop of Interpol radar and on to theirs. (There’s an arrangement. Tony doesn’t want to know.)

If he doesn’t get him, then he gets passed over to the Romans, if they don’t then the Norse lot have a shot, then it gets handed over to the East, and after all of them, finally, the big lads will step in. 

They’ve only ever gone up to the chain to the Norse (all incredibly strange, but then again, his father is a god, so, strange flew out the window on his fifth birthday, upon the realisation that Elon Musk is his half-brother - about a week after he went to Camp). Who decided the chain, Tony doesn’t know, but it is what it is. Meaning they get all the grunt work. He doesn’t mind it much because it results in the people up top thinking that they’re hot shit. (When they bother to take a look down, of course).

All Tony knows, looking at the information sheet and his ‘greatest hits’, is that this guy, Steven G. Rogers, is going to be an interesting person. Demigod. Robin Hood. Whatever.

-

The sketches never told Tony how hot the guy is. And he’s hot. Like, 10/10 would let him leave him on read, hot. He has this whole ‘vigilante/guy on the run’ look going on, slightly too-long hair that’s somehow the perfect length and a beard. Which is just unfair, because he’s about the same age as Tony, and Tony can’t grow anything properly - he attempted, one time, and all he got was people telling him that he has chocolate milk on his top lip. 

The age thing threw Tony for a loop, because there’s this guy, college age, still not at Camp, who’s made Forbes 400 his personal hit list, and succeeded, alongside with what he does with the money and with how long he’s managed to evade them, there’s something, okay, many things, that, for the first time, make Tony feel out of his depth.

But he’s always up for a challenge.

And by gods, has it been challenging. They’re about a week into this, they’ve followed him all across New York (he seems reluctant to leave) and they’ve only seen him once, in a back alley with some masked guy. Tony checked up later and that masked guy was one of theirs, Murdock, son of Nemesis. He refused to tell them anything about the guy, aside from ‘Leave him alone’.

Right now, they’re in a motel in Brooklyn, talking with Fury.

“Stark, Romanoff, get him,” is all he says, breaking the mist. Helpful. Although, Tony should know by now that a ‘Hey, this guy is like, stupid good, and even Murdock told us to leave him alone’ never worked. He’s starting to miss his smoke-filled bunker. Knowing his luck, and Clint’s dickheadedness, he’s blocked what ventilation there is in the bunker and shut the door.

Tony turns to Natasha to ask her to give him the remote - he’s bored, and Robin Hood’s nowhere to be seen, and it’s late, maybe there’s a good movie on - but he’s interrupted by a knock on the door.

���Room service.”

They’re on their feet in an instant, Tony’s slipped his gauntlet on (something a part of a bigger project - the reason there was a small incident in his bunker) and Natasha’s holding her knife, ready to strike, in front of Tony.

“I don’t remember ordering anything,” Natasha calls deliberately loud, eyes trained on the door. 

“What about a demigod” 

The guy says ‘demigod’ like it’s an insult, in a sneer, almost mocking them.

He could have the guy they want, demand ransom for him, maybe, or lead them to him. 

Tony taps an ‘O’ in Morse code, and Natasha nods her agreement, never looking away from the door. She goes over, feet light and opens the door an inch, knife first, before swinging it fully open to reveal Steven G. Rogers.

“You’ll need something stronger,” he says, nodding to the knife, “and take longer next time, maybe the Romans’ll get me.” He leans casually against the doorjamb, and Tony’s gay enough to admit that even that action is hot. So is that little teasing smile.

He is not falling for some vigilante guy he doesn’t even know the middle name of. He’s merely appreciating his assets. His very, very attractive assets.

“You need to come back to--” Natasha starts, ignoring the jibe about her knife, yes it’s small, but it’s poisoned with eitr (they had a bet with Quill’s crew, one of the Norse, Gamora bet her knife and lost it to Nat), which will easily put a human, and a demigod to death.

“Camp Half-Blood,” Rogers says, tiredly. So he knows that he’s a demigod and that Camp Half-Blood exists, he’s definitely heard this before and he’s turning out to be even more interesting, so Tony jumps in.

“Good deduction, Rogers, now come to Camp.”

He fakes thinking for a minute, and then decides, “Nah,” and before Natasha or Tony can protest he adds something more, “I’m tired and bored of your lot chasing me, both of us have better things to do. You stop going after me. Understood.” He draws himself up to his full height and drops the smile, towering over them.

Neither of them are scared, they’re both small, and they’ve been trained to use that to their advantage, and they’ve been training at Camp since before most kids would be in the first grade, Tony’s been told that overconfidence is his ‘fatal flaw’ (amongst other things), but it’s two against one, and that one has none of the training, nor teamwork that they have. He has strength, he very, very clearly has strength, but other than that, he’s a blank canvas.

“You’re coming with us,” Natasha says, faux gently, they’ve dealt with people like this before. Angry, ‘the world has wronged me’ types, who put up a fight. Tony glad he remembered to take the tranqs this time. 

“Oh, for fucks’ sake,” Rogers groans, “no means no, asshole.”

“Can’t take no for an answer,” Natasha says, shifting her stance into the offensive.

Rogers has the audacity to roll his eyes, “Then learn basic consent.”

He makes the mistake of turning around - put your back to Nat when you’re not on the same side, be prepared for something become incredibly friendly with your lats and your trapezius (Tony speaks from experience).

She jumps up onto his back, ready to knock him out with the flat of the blade - Tony’s seen this a million times before, so he prepared himself for an unconscious demigod, but it goes in vain.

Before he knows what’s going on Natasha’s lying flat on her back with Rogers’ foot on her stomach, the knife is in Rogers’ hand, pointed at him. He raises the gauntlet on instinct.

“Go home, tell him I got away,” he speaks with an entirely authoritative voice that definitely does not go straight to Tony’s dick. He’s willing to bet that Rogers is a child of Aphrodite.

He tosses the knife on one of the beds and walks out.

Tony chases him out, instinctively, and almost crashes into him outside. Rogers gives him a look and before he knows it, he’s kissing him in a wild clash of lips and tongues. He’s shoved against the wall as Rogers noses down his neck.

“Rogers,” Tony breaths tilting his head back.

“We’re gettin’ friendly. Steve’ll do.”

“Steve, Steve--”

“You want me to stop?” Rogers-- Steve asks, with a teasing roll of his hips against Tony’s hardening cock.

“Fuck no,” Tony groans, “but I gotta know, why?” He’d like to state, for the record, that he is never this easy; usually, it takes much more than a rough kiss and manhandling to get him like this, but Steve knows what he’s doing.

“Why?” Steve murmurs against his neck, “You’re hot, and you’ve been eye-fucking me the moment I walked in.” He pulls away suddenly, “You’ve done this before, right?”

Tony grins, lewd, “Sure, I’d prove it, but on top of everything, I don’t want a public indecency charge as well.”

Steve’s eyes darken and he drags them into his room - the one next to Natasha and Tony’s. 

Tony proves just how non-virginal he is and Steve returns the favour, and Tony really, really wasn’t wrong in his first assessment of ‘knows what he’s doing’.

“That might have been,” Tony pants, trying to catch his breath, “the best orgasm of my life.”

Steve laughs and presses an absent-minded kiss to his shoulder, then trails his lips up to tease at the hickey he left earlier. “I get that a lot,” he murmurs, grinning up at Tony.

“From everyone, or am I just special?”

Steve seems to realise what he’s really asking, because he chuckles again, “You’re the only one of Fury’s minions I’ve slept with.”

Tony grins. He’s never had this much fun, outside of the sex, with a hookup before. “Well, you’re the only demigod I’ve fucked, period.” Even though godly relations counted for jackshit, he’s never slept with anyone at Camp. He’s not even sure if you’re allowed to have sex there.

“I don’t recall you doing much fucking,” Steve says, smirking.

Tony, ever the pinnacle of maturity, just mimics him, far too tired to think of something clever. He lets his eyes fall shut, comfortable in Steve’s arms.

When he wakes up, he’s alone, with a note and a flip phone left on the pillow where Steve was.

The phone’s demigod-proofed, call, text, if you ever want a real fuck - SR

-

“We lost him, got away right under our noses, but we do have a way to contact him,” Tony says to Fury when they get back. He knows that he should hand over the phone, but that feels like he’s breaking Steve’s trust.

“The phone, Stark.”

“Through me, you talk to him through me,” Tony insists. Steve’s not coming to Camp for a reason, and he trusts him not to drag him back, so Tony feels an urge to protect him, even though he’s proven more than competent at that.

Fury knows what battles to pick, so leaves him, with a reminder to get some rest.

Maybe he doesn’t hate finding that much.

-

They don’t try to chase him after that, but Tony still meets up with him, sometimes it takes him a week to respond, sometimes he’s out of the country, but he always replies. They don’t even have sex immediately the first time Tony texts him, they just hang out in a diner in Queen. Then they fuck for real, on some billionaire’s bed, because Steve’s just like that and it tops last time.

It takes Tony repeating a constant mantra of ‘he’s a thief and fairly shifty and what they have is strictly friends-with-benefits’ to slow down falling in love with him, but it seems sort of inevitable in the end. He’s entirely in love with the way he smiles and laughs and fucks and every single part of him, Tony’s so damn, overwhelmingly in love, he knows that he’s going to tell him, today, about a year into what they have. It’s not unrequited, if the looks Steve gives him is anything to go by. 

They’re sitting in a bandstand in a park near Camp, the closest Steve’ll get to it. He’s still the same, he’s still one bad fashion choice from ‘cryptid’, still Robin-Hoods-ing in his free time, but he’s shaved off the beard - the very first time, he’d tentatively asked Tony to do it. 

Tony’s learnt that he’s also an artist, that he used to be in the army, that he has a weird and shitty relationship with his parents, and even though there’s still a lot that he doesn’t know about him, all that changes a view on someone.

They’ve both long accepted that what they have can barely be classed as ‘friends-with-benefits’ now, in some unspoken agreement one early morning, this time in Steve’s apartment when they were lying in bed, half-awake together.

Tony leans in to kiss Steve, ready to tell him, so damn ready that it feels like it’s going to burst out of his mouth all by itself when a thunderstorm starts.

Steve groans and drops his head on to Tony’s shoulder. It’s adorable, seeing this six-foot man try make himself small enough to fit in Tony. They make it work. 

Steve stretches out an arm and flips off the sky. The sky sends a truly unnatural amount of lighting into the tree next to them.

This time, he yells a ‘fuck you’, loud and clear, before kissing Tony, deeply, swallowing his giggles.

When they pull away, Steve’s grinning, bright and wonderful. He opens his mouth to say something, but he’s interrupted by a well-dressed businessman in a flash of lightning. 

Now, Tony’s only ever met his dad, Hephestus, and Apollo, and they were nowhere near this dramatic. Or well dressed. Or this important.

Steve just rolls his eyes at their untimely interruption, but there’s something under the annoyance, something akin to fear that puts Tony on edge. “Fuck off.”

“Now,” Zeus says, “is that any way to greet your father, Heracles?”

-

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