STEVE
It was only a little crush. A harmless Okay, so Tony's not nearly as annoying and obnoxious as I thought he would be crush. But it was still only a crush. A nothing-will-ever-come-of-it crush on Tony Stark.
It took a while before he realized how much he smiled when he'd been around Tony in the last few days. How often Tony made him laugh. How he looked forward to spending time with him in the workshop, or even just quietly sitting next to Tony while he was in a meeting.
And somewhere along the way, he had realized that he didn't just like Tony. He liked him. And these feelings... they were suddenly simply there—in him. Always. Sparking. Growing.
He didn't even mind Tony's antics anymore. Somewhere along the way, they had become endearing instead of annoying. Most of the character defaults he'd memorized were suddenly kind of adorable, and instead of being offended, he found himself laughing at his lewd jokes and blunt one-liners.
He didn't mind it when Tony talked while having a screwdriver in his mouth.
He just wished he could be the screwdriver.
And he knew he couldn't do anything about it without blowing the whole mission to hell.
That night, after the birthday party, he'd been sitting at Tony's side for hours. He had waited for him to fall asleep in his arms and he'd held him, stroking his hair and kissing his forehead, knowing full well that he was overstepping a bunch of social borders while doing so.
The sun was already rising before he could force himself to head out once more. He'd been deeply grateful that Natasha had brought him the syringe with the lithium dioxide dose, he really was. The marks on Tony's neck had faded instantly, yes, but it would just take the edge off, not cure him, she'd made that perfectly clear. And it wasn't enough. Nothing would be enough before Tony was fully healed.
So he walked down to Tony's garage, took one of the company's cars and drove to Los Angeles in less than half an hour. While he drove, he kept recalling over and over what Tony had looked like while sitting in his lap. How Tony's ass had cradled his own erection. How his chest had pressed against him as his mouth had worshipped his throat. His lips had ghosted over Steve's skin while he'd moved on top of him—while he was honest-to-God rutting against him—little moans spilling from his mouth like it wouldn't have taken much more before he'd...
Steve groaned, and gripped the stirring wheel tightly, his knuckles going white. This was ridiculous. He'd been informed of Tony's charm beforehand. It was right there in his file, and he'd been sure he would never succumb to it, that he'd never so much as think about it. He used to have more self-control than that.
He hadn't even thought about a man like that in ages. Back then, before the serum... he'd looked, sometimes, from afar and with a great deal of cautiousness. On rare occasions, he may have even wished he could give it a try, if only once, just to see if he'd really like it the way his body made him believe he would. It hadn't been possible, though. Not without putting a great deal of planning behind it and not without putting himself and others in danger. And it wasn't like he didn't like gals, too, because he did. The moment he'd seen Peggy ramming her tiny fist into Hodge's face, he'd been done for. From then on, he hadn't felt the need to find out if he liked... this... and thought it probably just wasn't worth the effort.
And now Tony. It was simply embarrassing how fast Steve had lost all self-control around the genius. The urge to turn around now and finish what they had started was almost too much to bear.
He parked the car and sprinted down the courtyard to SHIELD's west coast headquarter faster than he probably should.
Most of the higher-ranking officers had moved to New York recently, so he had to make do with a videoconference to Fury. To his surprise, it was Natasha appearing on the screen in front of him, meticulously dressed in her black cat suit.
"I take it the party is over?" she quipped, leaning back in what Steve supposed was Fury's very spacious swivel chair. She must've directly flown to New York after leaving Malibu. She pressed a button on the desk in front of her, tapping something into a console behind it. Five seconds later, a short bald agent he didn't know entered the room with Steve and headed straight towards him. The guy nodded respectfully—and a bit intimidated—before producing a machine, some sort of weird pointer, and instantly began to scan Steve's sides with it.
Steve frowned at him, but didn't move away. Then he got it, and looked up questioningly at Natasha. "I'm not bugged," he told her.
She arched an eyebrow. "This is Stark we're talking about. For all I know, he put some tracker in your internal organs while you slept."
He surprised himself with how angry that actually made him. "If you think that, I'm not sure you know who Tony Stark is."
"It's also protocol." She shrugged.
The agent at his side stepped away, shaking his head. "He's clean, ma'am."
Natasha nodded, waved him away and walked around the desk, sitting down at its front. "So, Hill said your next report isn't due before Friday. What's wrong?"
"Where's Fury?" he asked.
"Busy. What's going on, Steve? Five hours ago, you told me you were doing fine. What happened?"
"I want Tony to have full access to SHIELD's database. I want him to get all the material that even has the slightest chance to help him. I want back up, I want a team of scientists, inventors, mechanics, I don't know. I want–" He had to take a deep breath so he wouldn't choke. "I want SHIELD to help him."
Natasha's eyes focused on him, analyzing him for a moment. "He grew on you," she said, a small smile tucking at her mouth.
"That's irrelevant," Steve barked. "He helped people, he's a hero—and he's wounded. He deserves our respect and protection."
Natasha snorted and cocked her head to the side. "No need to quote the Geneva Convention on me, Steve. We already arranged the transfer."
Steve blinked, then blinked again. "What transfer?"
Natasha stood up, grabbing for some papers behind her. "After Monaco, Fury ordered all SHIELD scientists on research duty. I know it's hard to imagine, but the man actually gives a shit about Stark. So, the science division came across some of Howard Stark's records. Videotapes, notes, sketches, you name it, and they think they found something." She held up the papers. "It's all gibberish to me, but they're sure there's something there, they just can't put their finger on it. So Fury decided to pass everything to Stark. Let the actual genius take a look at it."
"When?" Steve asked, standing up.
On the screen, Natasha pressed a button at her utility belt, looking down on it. "Ten minutes ago."
Steve swallowed. "My cover..."
She gave him a wry smile. "...is still intact. All agents on-site are fully briefed on the status of your mission. Quit worrying."
"I..." he swallowed, "thank you."
Her gaze became assessing. "Why are you taking this as a personal favor?" She studied him like his soul was laid bare to her. God, if she found out, she would never let him live this down. "God, I don't even want to know," she said with another snort. "Look, Steve. I've been meaning to call you. Coulson is your primary SHIELD contact for the next couple of days."
"What, why?"
"Clint and I got assigned to New Mexico," Natasha said and grinned like she knew something he didn't—which again, was kind of the status quo between the two of them. "I'll keep in touch when I can. Say hi to Tony from me," she said, fully aware that he wouldn't. Then the screen turned black.
Steve was out of headquarters and in the car in under a minute.
