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“So, how’s your first week been?” Barton asked, hopping up beside Tony. The engineer rubbed at his eyes, the distraction allowing him to realize they were aching.
“Pretty good, how about you? How’s your week been?” He stared pointedly at the brace the sniper was wearing on his wrist, courtesy of having to quickly abandon his lookout the previous night when members of a special crack team had left to ‘avenge this horrid wrong done to us by those cowards of the octo-skull’, as Thor had put it. Honestly, the guy was Tony’s favourite. The poor bastard that had pulled that illegal immigrant stunt on him had gotten more than he bargained for. And after justice had come to his erstwhile employer in a rather violent form? Well, Cap didn’t care if Thor had a work visa, now did he?
Barton gave him a shark’s grin, looking pointedly at his brace. “Oh, I’m pretty good. Sucks that I got injured, though, I was tied with Tasha for first place in the who-can-kill-more-Hydra-goons competition before that. Thank you for that, by the way.”
Tony waved his comment off, still looking at the injury. “No big deal. Once I figured out the consultant Zola was Shmidt’s contact with Stane, it was child’s play to find out what properties he owns. You and Romanov did most of the real work, figuring out which ones were in use for what.”
Barton preened. “Well, what can I say? I’m just that awesome, you know.”
Tony laughed. “Sure, you think that, Barton. Romanov and Thor might actually let you go on thinking that until you heal up. Then you’ll probably become intimately acquainted with the gym mats.”
Barton turned him nose up, obviously ignoring Tony’s comment about the mats. “Yes I will. And you may as well call me Clint. You kinda nixed last names when we first met you, and if wearing my clothes for a week doesn’t make us close enough for first names, we’d probably need to swear a blood oath or something.”
Tony grimaced. “Nuh uh. That’s not how this works. You go out and bleed, and I stay here and keep all my insides on the inside. Capiche?” Then he grinned. “Thanks for that, by the way. Hopefully, since I’m likely a ‘victim of the recent increase in gang related violence’, I’ll only have the police sorta looking for me, not mercenaries.” They’d decided against gathering any of Tony’s stuff besides his keys and wallet, aiming to make it look like he disappeared off the streets, instead of either running off or disappearing from within his apartment.
“I still don’t understand who you’ve ticked off so bad that it would kill you not to wear my Batman shirt.” Clint commented idly, giving Tony an appraising stare.
“I…” He started, not sure where he was planning on going with it, but a new voice cut him off.
“I’d like to hear that answer too, Tony. Spill.”
“Cap!”
“Captain.” Both heads swivelled to look at the blonde, looking immaculate once again in a suit. It was his usual wear, when he wasn’t either exercising or on a mission, but that still didn’t dampen the hint of authority it gave him, especially when both the other people in the conversation were wearing superhero t-shirts and jeans.
“You heard me, Tony. If you’re keeping secrets that could damage my operatives, I need to know them. You’ve had a week to settle in, and I won’t send my people after Stane without knowing what we’re getting into.” He crossed him arms and kept his eyes firmly trained on the dark-haired man, who slid quickly into an expression so agreeable Steve knew it had to be fake. Still, he’d see what Tony had to say, and how it matched up with what his agents had uncovered, before he decided what to do next.
Tony hummed thoughtfully for a moment. “Probably best to start from the beginning, then, hunh? You may wish to sit down, Cap, this’ll be a long one.”
“I’m fine.” He replied, crossing his arms over his chest. The height thing might give him an edge, and he got the feeling that he’d need one with Tony.
“If you’re sure. Anyone remember what noteworthy thing happened in my life ten years ago?”
Barton spoke up about the first thing they found when they googled him. It was a valid first impression thing, and gave everyone a place to start. “Your parents died in a car crash.”
“Right.” Tony agreed easily, as if he wasn’t talking about his family. “’Famed Industrialist and Wife Killed in Tragic Crash.’” He quoted easily. “And that left me, fifteen and brilliant and already enrolled in MIT. Also six years from being able to lead the company, and even then only in name. It also left Obadiah Stane, my godfather.” He was silent for a moment, contemplating. “It was odd, you know? They blamed it on bad breaks, they were worn or some shit, but everyone knew behind closed doors that it was a drunk driving incident.
“There’s two problems with that. One: my father never let anything in his cars get worn. The breaks had developed a slight squeak the week before, but he pulled them out and fixed them the day before the party, running a check on the full system while he was down there. I remember helping. However, everyone already knew that was a cover story.
“The second problem is the drinking. He did have a high BAC when he crashed, I read the autopsy. However, the party we were at was hosted by the Hammers, and they’re snobs. There was no hard alcohol there. They only serve wine and champagne at those things, and my dad hated the taste of them. Said it was a waste of time when they could grow grain and make whiskey. He’d been whining as well about having to wear a tux, since the fit is too good to hold a sizeable flask. That meant he had a total of maybe three drinks during the four hours we were there. Even if he’d shown up totally sloshed, he’d have started sobering up by that point.”
Tony took a deep breath before continuing. “I was supposed to be in the car with them. Only I ran into an old chum, and went to Ty’s house instead to catch up and hang out. I suspect someone was trying to take out the whole family. And they did it by spiking the coffee he had before leaving with pure spirits, and possibly more.”
He grinned up at them. “The next part’s even odder. You’ve both been to my apartment. Does that look like the trust fund baby’s leisure nest?” They shook their heads, and he continued, face contorting in anger. “At the reading of the will it was determined that everything came to me, but with a big ‘if’ attached. The trust fund really only pays out just above the poverty line. I actually had to attend university on scholarships. As for the company, the houses, the cars… All of that I would get upon turning twenty one unless I proved myself unsuitable to run the company. If that happened, everything reverted to the hands of my guardian, until such time as I could prove I wouldn’t wreck everything. Incentive, I guess. He got everything permanently if I didn’t shape up by thirty.”
Tony drummed him fingers on the table, mouth tight, and Steve placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked up with a grin, but his eyes were dark. “My father bought me a brand new mustang when I turned thirteen so I wouldn’t steal one of his good cars to go on a joyride with. He might have put that bit about the company in there, but I doubt it. It’s not something he’d have thought of, and he certainly wouldn’t have left my trust fund that low. He simply didn’t understand the concept of being that frugal. He’d have cut me off at something like $200, 000, not a tenth of that. Plus some of the other wordings were… odd. So I highly suspect someone messed with the will. Guess who was close enough to him and both rich and underhanded enough to pay off a lawyer?”
“Stane. Of course. So he wanted the company?” Steve asked, and Tony snorted.
“That and a pet genius on a chain. The will put me almost entirely at his mercy. Add the financial stranglehold and the fact that I was just a kid and did some stupid shit and I never even had a chance to get out from under his thumb.” Tony’s face was consumed with bitterness now, a hate that was familiar to all of them.
Nobody with better chances ended up in a life like this.
Barton nodded at Steve, reading the command in his eyes, and got up to leave. “Interesting. We’ll have to look into that. I’ve got to go, though. I have plans with Banner to get my wrist taped up again.”
Steve didn’t wait till he’d left, just moved his hand from Tony’s shoulder to his hair and pulled his head back for a rough kiss. Tony made a noise of surprise, then kissed him back. They had wildly different schedules, so this was a little more sporadic than he’d like, but Tony always responded so willingly that Steve was fighting off the urge to haul him to the bedroom every time he saw the man.
This, kissing him in the middle of the main office in the middle of the day, was very out of character, but Tony didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t hesitate at all when Steve pulled him up and drug him down to the basement.
Romanov lifted an eyebrow and Danvers shot him an unreadable look, but no one commented on his sudden break in professionalism.
They knew him better than that.
And he knew better than to believe Tony was telling him everything.
He shoved Tony into his room and shut the door behind him. Tony’s hands went to his shirt, but Steve grabbed them and spun him against the wall instead. A heartfelt moan was his only feedback as he attacked Tony’s neck, darkening the faded hickeys he could see as if daring them to come off.
This wasn’t the point, though, so Steve scooped Tony up and tossed him onto the bed, following him down after leaving his jacket over a nearby chair. He kissed Tony deeply again, hungrily, before pulling back and tugging that silly Batman shirt over his head. Tony’s hands scrabbled for his tie, and he let them tug until it’s just about falling off before pulling his hands away and trapping them above the dark head. Tony panted, staring up and him and squirming, and Steve let a slow smile slide across his face. He kept Tony’s hands trapped in one of his and finished pulling the tie off.
Tony’s pupils blew so wide only a thin ring of blue was visible as Steve used the tie to bind his hands around one of the slats in the headboard. Tony tugged, squirming harder as he realized they were secure. There was nothing fearful or hesitant in his actions, so Steve didn’t release him. Instead, he got off the bed and just looked at Tony for a moment. He was gorgeous, splayed out and wanting, and Steve wished for a moment that he had a chance to sketch this. It wasn’t something he had a lot of time for, but occasionally even sparring wouldn’t get him out of a mood.
He had plans today, though, and work to get done once they had finished. So instead he just rolled up his sleeves, slowly and precisely, and listened to Tony whine.
“Cap…? Cap, what are you…” He trailed off as Steve clambered back onto the bed, pressing a soft kiss to his mouth before burying his head in the smaller man’s neck.
“Oh, Tony, how could you think I’d believe that was all of it.” Steve murmured in Tony’s ear, ignoring the way Tony’s body stiffened up beneath him. “Now, I’m not saying you lied, you’re smarter than that, but you didn’t tell me everything, either. What did I say about keeping secrets, Tony?”
“That you need to know.” Tony said with a sigh, whole body deflating. He turned his head to the side, pressing his cheek to Steve’s. “Sorry. It’s just… It’s speculation, it’s embarrassing, and it’s not something I’ve ever talked about before. It’s… well… not really relevant. To anything.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Steve replied, pulling back to loom over his subordinate once more. For the first time, there was fear in Tony’s eyes, and it tore at Steve. Still, Tony wasn’t scared of him, so there was nothing he could do about it.
He leaned down over Tony’s chest and planted a kiss square in the middle, centering it over one of the many small scars that decorated his front. He hadn’t asked about them before, but today was a day for revelations. They were almost invisible most of the time, but Steve had noticed Tony looking away when he’d first seen them in the shower a week ago. He then moved on to others, skimming his lips over Tony’s skin so he never quite left it. His hands rubbed soothingly up his sides before he brought one in to flick and tug at a dusky nipple.
“Ah, ah!” Tony gasped, muscles rippling as he shifted. “It… it’s…”
Steve stilled, knowing Tony was smart enough to figure out the plan. “It’s what, Tony?”
“College.” He grunted, trying to move himself beneath Steve’s hand. “Obie… Obie introduced me to some kids, other society brats, at Harvard.” Steve started stroking again, and Tony arched up off the bed. “They… assholes, the lot, just a kid… they got me into a lot of stuff. Bad stuff. Booze was probably the healthiest substance there.”
“And?” Steve prompted, sucking hard on the previously ignored nipple, then nipping at it.
“Kept calling me ‘baby’ and such, wanted to prove I wasn’t a kid. Did stuff… people, drugs, pranks… Got myself in shit with the law, fucked up my credit, bad publicity, the works.” Steve hummed, and Tony continued. “That’s what he used to keep my stuff from me. I wasn’t… I couldn’t even drive when I got my first DUI. Just some dumb kid that still thought his godfather had his interests at heart.”
Steve dropped a kiss on Tony’s cheek. “I was scrawny at sixteen, kept getting beaten up in alleys all the time. What else?” He ran his hands down to dip delicately into Tony’s jeans, carefully running over the smooth skin of his hips.
“Shit got stupid dangerous. Just good luck or cops showing up at bad times saved my life a few times. Any time I was sober enough to think maybe I didn’t want to be around them, Obie’d have me in New York for a function and send me off to play with them.”
“And then?” Steve asked, undoing the button and fly but leaving Tony’s jeans on for now.
“And then, hypothermic and near poisoned from overusing and mixing things, some guy picks me up out of the gutter one rainy March night and packs me to his dorm, because I’m ‘just a kid’.” Tony’s voice is soft now, and not even Steve’s hands are drawing any reaction. Tony’s pulling so hard on his bindings that his wrists are red, and Steve loosens them with a quick tug on one knot. He expected Tony to try to leave, but all he did was grab his dog tags with both hands.
Steve stretched out beside him and turned Tony’s face into his shirt, giving what comfort he could. “That would be your friend Rhodes?”
“That would be Rhodey.” Tony confirmed, voice sounding very far away. “I had… dealers, staying at my apartment. They told me to ‘help a friend out’, and I wanted to fit in for once. Rhodey took me home, cleaned me up, let me sleep it off, and then fed me. And when I told him about why I didn’t want to go home, he went over and got my stuff for me, let me sleep on the spare bed in his room for the rest of the semester. It was only a month or so.” He went silent for a moment, and Steve just stroked his hair, waiting for him to continue. “I had punk gang-type mercenaries come after me once, but Rhodey scared them off. He convinced me to go to the cops, got the dealers arrested. Got in huge shit with the other kids, but whatever. I avoided Obie’s events by telling him I had homework, I had to get my grades back up. Luckily math’s pretty intuitive for me, or I’dve been taking a Dean’s vacation. I took summer courses to make up for first semester.”
Tony rolled to his side and curled up with Steve, obviously just looking for human contact. Steve just held him, not having expected things to go this way. “It’s the scars, too.” Tony muttered into his chest, and Steve frowned.
“What?”
“Double major, so I could stay at school longer. CompE and MechE. SI builds weapons. Three years ago I was working in weapons, and there was a lab accident. That’s where the scars are from. Shrapnel.” Steve pressed a kiss to his hair, waiting for the rest of it. “It wasn’t my mistake. I’m the one that fixed it, that got that missile type ready to go on time. A shipment went missing within the first week. It was one of them that shot down Rhodey’s plane.”
Steve hissed in sympathy. He knew what it was like to blame yourself for your best friend’s death. He still had his duties and people after Peggy killed Bucky. Tony didn’t even have that. “So then what happened?” He asked, needing to know the rest of it.
“I told the board that I refused to make weapons anymore, and tried to convince them to shut down the whole division. We make phones. We make computers. We make computer programs. Green energy. Intellicrops. So much we could do that wouldn’t keep killing people…” Tony trailed off and shook his head. “Obie promised to back me up. I believed him. Foolish of me. That’s all that was needed to get me permanently barred from any leadership position in any company ever. After all, I now have a history of psychotic episodes!” He almost spin the last sentence out, and Steve winced. He’d put money on Stane bribing the doctors, too.
He was quiet for a minute, but still needed the last puzzle piece. “That doesn’t explain why you’re so sure Stane will come after you.” He said, and Tony actually laughed. It was a harsh thing, but there was still some humour in it.
“Of course it does! He’s put an awful lot of effort into keeping me caged and contained in the last ten years. The only time he hasn’t is when he’s actively trying to kill me. I think the only reason those are the periods and not the norm is because I fixed those missiles, I wrote that hacking program, I have done all sorts of things like that, and he wants my brain. He also really, really doesn’t want anyone else having it. Clint’s thing about being a pet, that’s basically it. He’s one of those people that would rather destroy something then let someone else have it.”
“And that includes you?” Steve asked, suddenly furious. That anyone would think that of another human appalled him. Yes they killed rivals, people from Hydra and other such gangs, but they were all adults who had made their own choices and now had to live with them. Plus, to treat a person like a possession, entirely unable to make their own choice… But Tony had still managed, and had picked Steve, and Stane was going to be in big trouble for daring to touch him.
“That includes me.” Tony said, sounding almost defeated. Then he raised his head to meet Steve’s eyes. “That’s why I’m going to do everything to take him down. Because I am not a thing, and I don’t belong to him, and he is never going to get any say in my life again!” He was red-faced at the end of his little rant, and Steve wanted to kiss him.
There was just one thing preventing him… “I didn’t give you a choice either.” He pointed out, and Tony snorted before pulling him into a harsh kiss.
“Don’t be stupid, you never treated me like a thing! Else you wouldn’t have given me an option on the sex, or offered me a job, even if it was a fairly weighted choice, or made sure I ate and slept, or offered to get my stuff for me.” Steve grinned and leaned back into him. That was all he needed to know.
Tony made a questioning noise as Steve tugged his hands back up, tying them to the headboard again. Steve grinned against his lips, not moving far enough away to keep them from rubbing with every word. “Shhh, just relax. You’ve been very good about telling me this. You know what the deal was for doing so. I’m not going to back out of it now. You’re fine, I’ve got you.” He feathered kisses all down Tony’s jaw, then trailed over the neck. He paused again at the hickey over Tony’s pulse point that always made him gasp, giving it another nip.
He knew this probably wasn’t the best way to help Tony pull himself together, but he couldn’t think of anything else to help. Instead he just ran his hands over Tony’s chest, teasing his nipples with tongue and teeth, and tugging at the smaller man’s pants.
Tony moaned and lifted his hips to help with the jeans, and Steve hauled his underwear down with them. Steve had to actually get off the bed when they got all tangled up around his ankles, and Tony laughed. Steve couldn’t help grinning back as he slid back up beside him, trailing one hand up Tony’s leg from ankle to hip and leaving it there as he kissed Tony again.
“You’re not even naked.” Tony complained when Steve pulled back for air, and he grinned down at the cheerful blue eyes.
“Nope.” He replied, nipping at Tony’s nose. “This is about you.”
“If’iz about me, I wanna see!” Tony whined, quickly loosing his coherency as Steve took him in hand.
“That just means I haven’t made you crazy enough yet.” Steve whispered huskily, drawing another groan from the man below him. “I can fix that.” He started nipping his way down Tony again, lingering on all the pressure points he knew from years of martial training. It wasn’t only war those spots were good for.
Tony gasped and arched under Steve’s ministrations, giving up even the attempt to form words in favour of high, breathy sounds and deep, full-bodied moans.
Steve loved how Tony got, how totally he lost his mind during sex. Just the previous night he’d come back from an orgasmic high to hear Tony muttering about password protocols before heading out to mess around on the computer some more. He doodles incomprehensible diagrams on the kitchen table with spilled milk, writes formulas all over the edges of printouts, and tapped his fingers to some incomprehensible inner beat while carrying on conversations, but here Steve always knew that he had Tony’s complete and undivided attention.
Licking Tony’s abs got him a breathless laugh. The man would never admit to being ticklish, but Steve was learning a whole host of interesting about the brunette. A tongue in his bellybutton earned Steve a breathy, “Shit!” Skipping over his erection to kiss at his thighs got him a fevered denial. He grinned, having every intention of dragging this out.
Tony was begging by the time Steve got around to touching his erection again. Even then it was only teasing licks and ghost caresses, spurred of by Tony’s frantic pleas for more. When he finally, finally took it into his mouth, it was the work of only moments for Tony to come, back arching and every muscle almost vibrating with tension.
All of that bled out of him with his release, though, so by the time Steve had swallowed and crawled back up the bed Tony was boneless, blissed out, and falling asleep. He actually nodded off as Steve kissed him, lips going slack against his even before hands got untied. Steve grinned and shook his head fondly before manoeuvering Tony under the blankets and kissing his forehead.
He wanted to ditch his own clothes and crawl in with Tony, but he didn’t have time for that. Besides, he wasn’t sure if Tony would appreciate it. He was always the one to leave, which made sense. It was Steve’s bed, so he wasn’t going anywhere. Besides, it was just sex. It wasn’t like with Peggy. That sort of weakness got people killed, people like Peggy and Bucky. It was dangerous.
Tony’d had enough of dangerous in his life. He wouldn’t deny either of them the release of good sex, but that was all it could be.
He picked up and folded Tony’s clothes, leaving them on his chair where the other man could easily find them. Then he ran his hand through Tony’s hair, kissed his forehead again, and headed back upstairs.
Just sex, and Romanov should be back with the latest intel on Hydra.
Just sex.