Chapter Text
To be clear, it wasn’t that Tony didn’t want to put on the lingerie.
It wasn’t so long ago that strutting around in stockings and heels was as skin-deep of a performance as knotting a tie and wearing lifts. Needs must—right? And sometimes Tony needed to wear a chemise and be fucked with a seven-inch strap-on. It wasn’t something he’d ever cared about examining under any sincere, psychological appraisal. It simply was, and when it came to sexuality, Tony’s general outlook had always been: do what you want, do it well, and have a fuckin' good time.
It bore repeating here: it wasn’t so long ago. It wasn’t so long ago and yet. . .
Tony’s life had been a dogged endeavour, the past decade and change, and it felt that maybe in the ways it mattered, it had been long enough. For things to change. For him to change.
Afghanistan had been the iceberg for a lot that he’d since accounted for, followed the spiralling bloom of bruising down to a path that had brought him Iron Man. Brought him honest and true purpose.
But in the shipwreck, he’d cut off a lot of himself. All that he’d been, in the most crude simulacrums of people’s imaginations, he’d revolted against. The partying, the drinking, the fucking. . . In the aftermath of the cave, of Yinsen's omen, of Stane’s death, it had been so hard to figure out which parts of his persona could be held responsible and which were harmless. So, drunk on the vision of Iron Man, the salivating possibility of retribution—he’d put a lid on it all.
Pepper had been—easy, in a way. She knew the worst of the old him; when Tony had said, “this isn’t the worst thing you’ve caught me doing”, he wasn’t being facetious. He’d need more than just his fingers to count the number of occasions wherein she’d found him in a, well, in a state: left blindfolded by a pair of very flexible models, fucked so sore he couldn’t get outta bed to even login and chat to R&D, whipped the night before and whinging about it in the backseat of a car to a shareholder’s meeting, buckling over from knees made raw from shuffling around for an old girlfriend who’d called him “puppy” and “slut” and little else. . . So, she knew, going into their relationship; that Tony needed.
Even then, Tony hadn’t expressed that part of himself much in their relationship, folding his lips tight over ever-hungry teeth. There was just so much going on, and so much of it felt like a slideshow of all the ways that being himself had fucked everything up that some habits he just couldn’t comfortably settle back into.
Pepper had noticed it, he was sure, recognised it in the way she’d occasionally grip his hair just a tad harder when he was eating her out. How she’d wear those tall heels and loom over him when his brain was already close to scrambled eggs, thumbs pressing into the back of his neck and forcing it down and low and yielding. When, after everything with New York, that first, wretchedly exhilarating battle, she’d given him a considering look and asked, “would you be into pegging?”
And that had been good. Tony hadn’t wanted to ask, and Pepper wasn’t really answering either. There was just sometimes more edge to how they fucked, but it was with Pepper, and she felt about as safe and unlike the old Tony Stark as you could get. She'd never have fucked him before Afghanistan, was the point. And it got safer and safer—engagement to marriage to a precocious kid who ran so many circles around Tony that at times, he felt he had little love to give anything else.
Then, divorce. And maybe it said something about the two of them that breaking apart had been as easy as peeling off each other after sex. As safe as anything.
So, Tony had resolved himself to be a father foremost, dedicate his life to Morgan’s in an act of devotion simpler than any he’d undertaken before. It had worked too. Six days out of seven, he’d trawl through dirt and grass and sunshine and laughter and tantrums and thought and genesis and childhood. Then on the occasional Sunday, when Morgan was dead asleep and Pepper was on a video call with the investment banker she was “talking-not-flirting” with, he’d go down to the workshop, fasten a dildo onto the Mark XIII, and get fucked into a blubbering stupor.
But then, but then, but then.
Steve.
.
“Fucking hell, Tony,” Steve leaned in, one hand leaving the mattress to tilt Tony’s jaw into Steve’s mouth, kissing a line down his goatee. “You feel so good.”
“Jeez.” Tony panted, toes flexing to wade off the cramp building up in his left leg. Steve’s thrusts were teeth-rattling. The man had an intuition with his body that was enviable in any circumstance but was now some wicked fulcrum directed at carving out its own space in Tony’s. There was no inch of his skin that felt like it hadn’t had Steve’s fingertips against it.
When Steve had first started coming over to the cabin, he was oh-so-careful about how he moved around Tony, oh-so-gentle in how he spoke to him, and when Tony had gotten fed up with how obvious the unfed attraction between them was and just laid one on Steve’s lips, right in the doorway of his little cocoon, he’d thought that expression of safety would extend to the bedroom.
“You’re so tight, God, Tony,” Steve moaned. “It’s like you’ve never been fucked.” His hand dragged heavy over Tony’s pecs, finding the gnarled nipple on his scarred side with familiar ease and twisting it sharply. Sensation was finicky there, had been since he’d wielded the infinity gauntlet, but Steve had learned exactly how much pressure to apply to make the damaged nerves there sing out in pain-pleasure.
. . . Yeah, Tony wasn’t too fussed about being wrong. Not when despite his dogged intensity and ceaseless hunger, Steve retained enough wherewithal to—
“Steve, cramp.” Tony managed. “Left calf.”
Steve paused, dick halfway out of Tony, lowering Tony’s legs onto the bed. He pressed a fleshy thumb against Tony’s calf, not seeming to pay any mind to his dick slipping out of Tony despite the man’s own hiss at the loss. “There?” Steve checked, “does that—”
“Mm, little higher,” Tony brought his own hand up, drew a circle with his fingertip around the pinched feeling.
Steve’s mouth lowered onto his thigh, mouth open and laving at the ticklish skin there. His thumb continued to press at the skin on his calf, fingers wrapping around the muscle in a firm clasp.
“You’re—distracting.” Tony tried to catch his breath.
“So’re you.” Steve murmured, nuzzling into the skin, “you smell heavenly.” Then, without so much as a how-do-you-do, dick still a heavy heat near Tony’s ass, Steve licked him, right at the swell of his thigh.
Tony inhaled through his nose, circled a hand ‘round the head of his own dick and said, “okay, okay, fuck me.”
Steve leaned back, offering a grin that was half-sheepish and half-domineering. Like there was a point to be made, he licked a line from Tony’s thigh to knee, dragging his teeth in a gentle scrape over the knob of Tony's knee.
“You’re not cute.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Steve said, moving back a few inches to guide his dick back into Tony. “I feel like.” Steve swallowed thickly. He braced both hands against the back of Tony’s thighs and pulled them up and near flat to Tony’s chest. Then, he leaned down and brushed the line of his nose against Tony’s, eyes unblinking and enraptured. “Damn. I’m gonna shoot off.”
“That’s the point, baby.” Tony said.
A smile stretched across Steve’s face, “I like when you call me that.”
“I know.” Tony said, “y’know what I like?”
Steve thrusted slow and unhurried, bringing the pressure up in a torturous drag.
“When I put you over my knee?” Steve offered.
“Not. Cute.” Tony repeated, “when you fuck me, hard.”
“Aw, that’s neat.” Steve kissed him, swift and messy on his lips. “That’s what I was planning to do.”
.
They were dating, lowercase “d” very purposeful. When they’d started fucking, Tony had thought they’d burn it off after a few months, achieve the satiation and closure that was so long overdue between them and move on. Again. The way Tony had figured it: Steve was in his early thirties. He had the rest of his life, and beyond, to find someone.
But it had only been two months before Tony realised Steve’s feelings towards him ran deeper than he’d led Tony to believe. Tony had nearly broken it off—overwhelmed and infuriated by the idea that Steve could possibly want him, not when he’d spent so much time trying to stamp down all that he’d felt for Steve, once upon a time, not so long ago.
(And huh, maybe that was what it was. Cycle of life or summat, bringing him back to the instincts he’d tried to code out of himself.)
The look Steve had given him, when Tony had confronted him—that painfully familiar combination of vulnerability and resignation—it had him rooted to the ground. Unwilling to turn even as everything in his brain told him it was the smart choice.
It had to be slow-going. Between Tony’s recovery, Pepper’s new apartment, and navigating co-parenting Morgan, their new relationship couldn’t take first or even second priority in Tony’s life. He’d been upfront about it, told Steve in the same breath he’d agreed to a dinner date. And Steve had smiled and agreed, said he was just happy Tony was letting him be in his life.
Like that measured up.
No, that wasn’t fair. Tony did a disservice to Steve whenever he assumed the man’s actions, when he made them out to be shortsighted. He knew not to do that. He just had to remember it more often.
So: they were dating, mostly, and Steve was a horndog, unrepentant about it in a way that mostly delighted Tony and occasionally surprised him.
He was vocal; both in bed and about what he wanted. After one month, Tony had learned more about what Steve liked in sex than he’d gotten from most partners in a year.
Steve didn’t care for bottoming but loved it when Tony fucked his throat. Preferred fucking Tony from behind but went loopy in the brain whenever Tony rode him. Had an oral fixation and a splendidly absent gag reflex—liked putting his mouth on Tony’s dick and ass and fingers and nipples and feet. The feet thing had thrown Tony for a loop, too, but Steve would get all shivery when he’d slot his dick in between Tony’s feet, and it was admittedly damn hot. He liked to be restrained, liked Tony sneering over him, liked to be used. Especially for his dick. Seeing as the man was usually so indifferent about being most Americans' image of the platonic embodiment of manhood, it was endearingly gratifying how much he got off on Tony getting off on his big dick.
And! He wanted to know what Tony liked. Was like a dog after a bone, the way he’d watch Tony (he really, really liked eye contact), trying to gauge Tony’s micro-reactions to his different touches.
Yeah, Steve was an evil, evil man. Would send Tony texts in the middle of the afternoon that stumped him, texts like:
“Thoughts on me fisting you? Y/N? Tell Morgan I said, “hi”.”
Or
“Saw pictures of this Japanese bondage style. “Shibari”, they call it. Can I tie you up and fuck you? + can I come over tomorrow? Promised Pepper I’d help move some of her furniture out.”
Or
“In the mood to be blindfolded & edged. PLEASE do some stretches before tonight. + Nat says hi.”
Or
“Been thinking about you all week. Can’t wait for this G.D. tour to be over. Could I send you a photo of my dick? And you could tell me what you think. Pretty sure I can come from that. STOP sending ass pics. Too distracting.”
And it was one of those conversations, casually delivered in an evening bleeding with sweetness. Steve had been resting his head on Tony’s stomach, and Tony himself had been halfway to sleep, when Steve made his opening move:
“I found a picture of you on the internet, wearing, uh, a bikini. With garters. An old photo. Do you. . . know what I’m talking about?”
“Hm,” Tony ran a hand through Steve’s hair. Steve still kept his hair short but it was on the longer side for him, a few days overdue for a haircut. Probably to give Tony enough hair to yank up for today's fucking. Tony wondered aloud, “could’ve been any of the number of times my nudes were leaked.”
Steve was quiet for a minute, hand trailing down to grab Tony’s, pressing a kiss to the gnarled skin. It was how he offered comfort when he didn’t know how to voice it, when he was afraid of getting it wrong.
“You don’t wear lingerie nowadays.” Steve observed.
“Mm.” Tony thought about it. He didn’t think he had since. . . well, since Afghanistan. Huh.
“Not for a while.”
“. . . Would you consider it?” Steve asked.
Tony’s hand slowed, not so much stroking Steve’s hair as it was resting there.
“Tony?” He felt Steve’s head turn, trying to catch a look at him.
“New fantasy?” Tony asked.
“Uh,” Steve turned his head, ear resting against Tony’s stomach as he met his gaze. “Not exactly new.”
“Huh.” Tony said, more to himself than in response to Steve, “well, okay.”
“Well, okay?” Steve sat up, shuffling so that his arm came up to frame Tony’s head, leaning over his face. It was a swift move, took no longer than a blink, and Tony had to hold back the surprised exhale. It caught him off-guard sometimes, how fast Steve could be when he wasn’t even trying.
“You don’t have to.” Steve said, voice low with sincerity. “I don’t want you to do something you’re not—”
“Vintage or new?” Tony asked.
“. . .Huh?”
“You want me to pretty myself up like a 1940s gal or a twenty-first century gay guy?” Tony checked.
“Oh! Oh, um.” Steve thought on it for a moment. “Whatever you like. What makes you feel good.”
"You liked the bikini?"
"Mm," Steve's mouth twisted awkwardly. "Yeah, I did. Yeah. You had this. . ."
"This?"
Steve shook his head slightly, "like something I'd have to pay for. Well, not, uh, exactly that, but, like. . . like something you had to earn."
“. . . One to ten?” Tony asked. It was their system—how they indicated how much a kink or activity meant to them. How seriously they wanted the other to take it.
“Eight. Plus or minus one."
“You’ve got some sketches of this, don’t you?” Tony asked. He wasn’t certain but something about how softly Steve was speaking, the low blush on his cheeks. . . it all spoke to a longstanding fixation.
“No, I, nothing on paper.” Steve said, “but, sure, in my head, you know? Just something I thought about when I figured I’d never get to have you.”
“Jerked off to it?”
“Well.” Steve said, “yeah.”
“And now you do.” Tony said, “that is. You do get to have me.”
“And that’s why I’m asking.” Steve said, closing the distance between them and pressing such a feather-light kiss on Tony’s mouth that it barely felt like anything at all. “And that’s why you get to say no. Because this is real. Right?”
Tony stroked a thumb under Steve’s eye. There was something about the blue of them that was so honest. Hid nothing, if only Steve let you in close enough. And the fact that he was looming so close over him even after revealing a secret fantasy; it was an obvious show of trust that Tony couldn't help but acknowledge.
“Right.” Tony agreed, the word itself feather-light, more the suggestion of its shape than genuine articulation.
Steve rolled onto the bed, head nuzzling into his neck, accompanying exhale warm and content. He levered his weight off Tony but the line of his arm caressed Tony’s torso, made itself comfortable in the canyon between regular skin and scar tissue.
And while Tony felt a kernel of unrest, something about this feeling all-too-different from any of the other things Steve had wanted to try, it was easy, in the soft ember of that moment, to just let it go.
.
It wasn’t as easy now.
Tony tossed the last of his lingerie back into the suitcase they’d come in. It had been awkward enough to ask Pepper if she knew where his old clothes were kept, and then sourcing these items down had been hell, too. Still, he thought maybe it would be easier, to get his old bikinis and chemises and put those on for Steve.
But. When he’d put them on, he’d been startled into. . . mortification at what he saw. He looked ridiculous. Fish out of water. Guy who had no right wearing what he was. And he knew he shouldn’t say that, shouldn’t think that, but fuck, it was his mind. He could be shitty to himself in his own mind. If he wasn’t even permitted that, then—
Tony put his head in his hands, immediately startling after at the knotted sensation. Fuck. It was a reflex: flinching back from the rough, scarred skin of his right hand. He hadn’t been caught off guard by it in—in months.
. . .When they’d brought him back from the compound’s graveyard, Dr. Cho had healed his face and jaw while he was still unconscious. They’d been worried he’d be paralysed if he wasn’t given treatment immediately.
He’d awoken to the feeling of new skin being grafted on the cleft of his jaw. He remembered protesting, telling them to stop with a weak, reedy voice. Dr. Cho—bless her—had conceded. In the end, he’d used the nanoparticles to compensate for and heal the muscle atrophy. He’d refused to get skin grafting over anything else. Neck down, his right side was—a mess. Cutting off just below his belly button, the skin on his torso and right arm was tough scar tissue.
He hadn’t known how to articulate it, exactly; why he’d needed the scarring to stay. Not until he’d been made to sit for a photoshoot for the world; an artfully nude-y cover that showed him encased by the Iron Man armour everywhere but over the scarring and his head. The point, according to the director, had been to show the loss born by "Earth's best defender". He still don’t know where that title had come from, but it had stuck around, just another nom de plume in a long line of nom de plumes.
Tony Stark: Merchant of Death.
Tony Stark: Iron Man.
Tony Stark: Earth’s Best Defender.
And yet—yet. Not just another nom de plume.
It was the end of his story. There was nothing beyond this. Sure, the galaxy, the universe—the multiverse was all out there. Tony knew the implications, was only maybe beaten by the wizard crew in Greenwich Village for how the beating of the butterfly’s wings, the rings of a rippled pool, haunted him.
It was the end of his story, though. There were younger, brighter, stronger defenders, making their mark known. He could rest now.
The last time he’d had something so permanent on him, it had been the reactor. A blood oath bathed in blue light that with every heartbeat reminded him he had a life to not waste. A legacy to build that would be taken out of his hands. That he'd have to let be taken out of his hands.
Now this, this scarring. It told him: you’ve paid your debt. And every day, when he looked in the mirror and saw the sprawl of damage, it let him swallow the definite fact of his retirement.
He’d never regretted it, not even when it had meant that whenever he tried to do manual work on Peter’s armour or fiddle with Riri's models, he had to wear a gauntlet on his right just to have enough mobility to do the fine metal work. Not even when it had meant that the hangover of any visiting nightmare was worsened with the feel of tight, tired skin over his neck's jumping pulsepoint.
“Fuck.” Tony whispered lowly, feeling a little sick and finally knowing why. He was out of practice in dealing with this particular insecurity—vanity—and he reckoned it was a cruel joke on part of the universe to be fucking with him now.
Tony was suddenly brought back to an old memory: Howard watching a reel of two retired boxers, both formidable heavyweights, cutthroat rivals in their time, chatting amicably on a talk show. Feeding each other jokes. Bantering with soft underbellies out on display. Howard had said, baritone deep and unsurprised, “they would have slaughtered each other if it meant winning in the ring, but as soon as they get out, as soon as they retire, all they've got for each other are pretty words and pompous jokes. Telling of what a performance it all is.” Tony remembered the shift of Howard's mouth into a sneer towards the end, and felt himself mimicking it without consciously attempting it.
“I may have retired, dipshit.” Tony muttered, looking to the universe at large, “but I got no jokes for you. And, for the record, yours ain’t too funny.”
The lingerie didn’t look good on him. Garish. Unfitting. Disingenuous. Those were some better words for how they looked. How they made him feel.
He should’ve known, he supposed, looking at the scraps of fabric. Should’ve figured that just like most things about his past self—he wouldn’t be able to stand beholding its reminder.
Maybe he should let it go. Tell Steve it wasn’t gonna happen. Ask him whether the fantasy extended to Steve wearing lingerie. Tony thought of Steve in a corset, a babydoll, and tried to muster up more than aesthetic enjoyment for the image.
He was sitting on the carpeted floor of his bedroom, back against his bed. But he turned around now, got his elbows settled on the mattress, dragging his phone over from the centre of the bed.
Steve picked up on the third ring.
“Hey Tony. You got real good timing.”
“I do?”
“I’ve got the plank of wood. I’m thinking we'll just carve out the hole at your workshop? Hey, by the way, do you know the girth of your dick to the nearest centimetre?”
“. . . What?” Tony asked.
“Didn’t you want to do the, uh, the glory hole role-play today?” Steve asked, a bit of confusion to his voice.
“Right.” The word dragged out long and uncertain as Tony sank his head into the fluffy comforter.
“You don’t sound as excited about this as you were when you were explaining the concept to me.” Steve observed. His voice was deliberately free of judgement—Tony recognised it as deliberate because it was a tone that had been very à la mode for the man since, well, since Tony and Nebula had stumbled down the steps of the Benatar.
“You know I love fucking your throat,” Tony closed his eyes, feeling somewhat caught aback by the fact that (a) that was true, and (b) he could freely admit it to Steve. He cleared his throat, less out of necessity and more to audibly divide what he’d just said with what he was going to say. “But, I don’t know, I’m not really. . . do you wanna just fuck vanilla, today?”
“Oh!” Steve said, “yeah, of course.”
“Yeah?” Tony confirmed.
“Yeah, absolutely.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just not feeling super—”
“Hey, hey. Tony, you don’t have to apologise. Come on, it’s totally—” Tony heard the sound of something rustling in the background as Steve added, wholly earnest and a tad pleading, “It’s absolutely fine. I’m not gonna be—you know, upset.”
“Okay, good.” Tony swallowed, a weird mix of relief and fondness unsettling him.
“Everything okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Tony asked, eyes flitting to the suitcase of rejected lingerie. He’d have to hide them away in his closet before Steve came over.
“Just, I mean, you know, you can talk to me if you’re not into something anymore. It’s not like any of this is fixed, or, or non-negotiable.”
“Yeah. I know that.” Tony said, mostly truthfully, twiddling his fingers in the comforter.
“. . .Yeah, okay. I’ll see you soon, then?” He heard more rustling, “Uh, I’ll be stopping by the bakery near the bodega. Y’know, from that lunch date we had? I can get you some of their donuts if you want.”
Tony rubbed a hand over his eye. Steve was making this difficult without even realising it. So closely bookmarked by the bikini dress rehearsal, it really didn’t feel like a wise choice to further bolster his dad bod.
“Uh, no, thanks.” Tony said.
“. . . Y’sure?” Steve checked, and Tony bit his bottom lip, wanting to say, yes please, wanting to say, why didn’t we fuck when I still cared desperately about what I looked like, wanting to say, what are we going to do when you realise I’m not the fantasy you’ve been imagining this whole time?
"Yeah, I'm sure." Tony said, hoping against hope that saying it would make it so.