Chapter Text
Steve hasn’t been paying attention to the TV for the past fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. It’s one of those quiz shows that Clint likes to watch, and a decent one on top of that, so normally Steve would be tapped in enough to at least vaguely know why Clint is currently yelling at the screen while Bruce laughs at him.
But Steve doesn’t. His attention wandered away before the host even finished explaining the episode’s gimmick, though said attention snaps back to the present when Tony drops into the space on the couch next to him, his face turned towards Steve.
Steve knows, before Tony even opens his mouth, that Tony is about to needle him about something. Said needling would even probably be warranted, if Steve’s mental dissociation has been apparent on his face.
“What are you thinking about?” Tony says. Not loud enough to get the others’ attention, but not whispering either.
Steve feels his brow, which was already tight to begin with, tighten even further. “Why are you asking?”
“You look so mad.” Tony sounds gleeful. “I have to know why.”
Oh, Tony does, does he? Steve considers eliding the truth, then realizes that Tony would probably be able to tell if he’s eliding the truth, which would make Tony’s needling continue, which would force Steve into a corner of his own making and likely get him annoyed enough to snap at Tony to mind his own beeswax, which Tony would take as a win.
That will not do.
“I’m thinking about sex,” Steve says.
Tony grins, pleased to have squeezed an answer out of Steve, but then he blinks, as though his ears have only belatedly caught what was said. “Did you just say ‘sex’?”
“Yes, I was thinking about sex.” Steve turns towards Tony and holds his gaze blithely, because few things give him as much pleasure as calmly dismantling the assumptions people have about him. To be fair, Tony’s far more knowledgeable than the man on the street, but that just means that Steve has to, on occasion, up his game and deliver a truth so sterling that it crashes Tony’s high-speed brain.
Tony stares back. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” Steve says.
“Um.” Tony looks away at nothing, then back at him.
Steve knows he might pay for this later, but the immediate reward of confusion and indecision warring on Tony’s face is, is his opinion, entirely worth it. Tony’s eyes even flick sideways briefly, as though he’s considering sharing with the rest of the team, but then he’s frowning again, maybe out of suspicion that no one will believe him, or that the others will accuse Tony of trying to embarrass Steve.
“That’s… interesting,” Tony says slowly. “I mean. Of course you also – that you’d…” He stands up. “I’m going to get a drink. You want a top up?”
“That’d be nice, thank you,” Steve says, and he watches Tony trot off, one head tilted almost confusedly to one side.
Steve told the truth. He had been thinking about sex. In fact, he’d been thinking about sex with Tony, because the bandshirt that Tony’s wearing tonight has a little hole at the seam near his left shoulder, and Steve’s brain decided to wonder what would happen if he slipped a thumb into that tear, which escalated to contemplation of how Tony might react to Steve just fitting his hands there – both palms at the backs of both of Tony’s shoulders, and then dragging down the fine, strong curve of Tony’s back.
In the fantasy, Steve’s touch is welcome. Tony would look at him over his shoulder, eyes dark and pleased, and Steve could keep touching, hands around Tony’s waist now, squeezing the muscle there before pulling the shirt up and away entirely, revealing a canvas of skin that Steve would press his face against and breath in. Maybe he’d use his teeth, and draw a line across the hem of Tony’s jeans, and feel the way that Tony’s stomach might jump as he moves.
And so on, so forth.
These thoughts are not new. Steve’s been having them for a while, and maybe there’s something to be said about Steve’s lack of experience with men fueling his overthinking of what sex with Tony might be like.
Steve’s conclusions are not set in stone, but he does have a few that he’s quite confident about. Tony is, of course, very good in bed. There’d been a brief moment, when Steve first recognized his burgeoning attraction to Tony, when he’d petulantly decided that Tony must be one of those men who think themselves god’s gift to humanity and make their partners do all the work.
But that was an unkind thought, and immediately subsumed by what Steve actually knows about Tony’s generosity – sometimes awkward, sometimes understated, sometimes sincerely thoughtful. Tony’s partners have been many and varied, and Steve’s even met some of them who still have fondness for Tony, though nowadays Tony seems mostly embarrassed by his old reputation.
So, Tony would be good at sex. Not all the time, as Steve suspects various aspects of Tony’s personality would sabotage him in bed as they do everywhere else. But Tony’s occasional lack of focus or disinterest doesn’t preclude a lack of skill. Which Tony must have, and has brought to bear on partners that he cares about and/or is strongly attracted to, whatever their gender might be.
Unfortunately Steve knows way less about Tony’s taste in men. He’s pretty sure he could get some hard facts if he tried, but he thinks that he’d rather not.
“Look out,” Tony says as he drops back onto the seat next to Steve, a mug in each hand. “Watch that, it’s going to tip over.”
“Thank you,” Steve says as he accepts the drink.
“None for me?” Bruce asks from one seat over.
“You can have mine,” Steve says.
“No, he may not.” Tony ignores Bruce’s exaggerated downward pout, which disappears anyway when Thor says something charming and funny that Steve doesn’t hear at all because Tony’s shuffling closer towards Steve’s side.
There are a few ways to get Tony’s attention (the good kind) and one of the best ways that works for Steve, is to catch Tony off-guard. This means agreeing when Tony expects him to disagree; disagreeing where Tony expects an easy ally; finding logic a loophole when Tony’s going on one of his tangents – that kind of thing. He doesn’t do this all the time, because that wouldn’t be sustainable, but he’s had a pretty decent hand of it lately.
But Steve also knows not to make it too obvious how much he’s enjoying it. That would give it all away.
“It’s just funny, I guess,” Tony says, “because you’re the one who keeps going on about downtime and de-stressing, or maybe that’s Natasha using you as a mouthpiece, so we’re theoretically supposed to be using this time to unburden ourselves of the tension we’ve accumulated over the afternoon’s school trip, and you’re not even paying attention. To Clint’s choice of televisiocular entertainment, that is.”
Steve squints at the mug. “This isn’t ginger ale.”
“Was that what you were having? My bad. Anyway,” Tony drops his voice into a safer whisper, “when you said that you were thinking about sex, did you mean you were thinking about sex in a general way, like how weird it is, and that we as a society put so much… baggage that, uh… something. Social issues?”
Steve swallows a mouthful of what seems to be peach tea. “That is barely a coherent sentence.”
“Or were you fantasizing? That’s what I’m asking. For clarification.” Tony looks at him expectantly. No longer flustered, but curious.
“The second one,” Steve says.
Tony blinks slowly. “Cool. You want to tell me what about?”
“I don’t know, Tony, do you feel inclined to share what you fantasize about?”
Tony grins. He is agonizingly attractive, and it’s all the worse because he’s not even trying. Steve’s seen when Tony tries, and this isn’t that. “I would if you asked,” he says.
“I’m not.”
“Just saying, if you need any ideas, I’m your man. As it were.”
“I don’t need tips, thank you.”
“Considering the face you were making, I’d say you do.”
Steve frowns. “Pardon me?”
“You shouldn’t be looking like someone left your favorite oatmeal out on the counter. Your thoughts should be… happy. Pleasant. Joyful, and so on.”
Steve takes another long sip. Tony keeps staring at the side of his face, but Steve can take that as well as any punch these days.
“What I mean is—” Tony starts.
“Maybe I was thinking about it really intensely.” This answer is a lie, but Tony doesn’t need to know that. Steve is capable of lying sometimes. “With particular focus given to detail and choreography.”
Tony’s mouth falls open a little. “Okay.” He sounds almost breathless, which Steve figures is a sign of Tony’s glee at having something new to tease him about in the future. The teasing will be friendly instead of mean, which is the important part. “Yeah, that… okay.”
“That’s your team building,” Steve says.
“What’s that?”
“You were implying that I’m not giving anything useful to this downtime exercise. But I just did. You’ve learned something about me, and I’ve learned something about you.”
Tony startles. “You have?”
“That you’ve been assuming I’m the kind of person who doesn’t have those kinds of thoughts.”
“I never thought that,” Tony says defensively. “Well. Even if I did, I wouldn’t have assumed you’d be thinking naughty thoughts in company. Or that that’s what going on behind that serious face you’ve been having on all evening.” He frowns. “Or is this a double-bluff? Were you lying, and that you were actually thinking about something really boring you’re too embarrassed to tell me about?”
Steve shrugs. “That sounds way too complicated.”
Tony crosses his arms huffily, and Steve is not above subtly admiring the way that moves Tony’s pecs under his shirt. “I wouldn’t put it past you,” Tony gripes.
“If you say so,” Steve says.
+
So, what’s the real reason that Steve was scowling? The answer feels obvious, despite Tony not having all of the relevant information. He may not know that Steve was thinking about the way that his sleeves hug his biceps, but if he did, he could probably figure out the reason Steve seemed mad about it. Namely, that Steve doesn’t want to be thinking these thoughts about Tony.
But there’s layers to that statement, too.
It’s not that Steve thinks he should be above having base desires, or that there’s anything shameful about finding a man like Tony attractive. (Intensely attractive. As in, Steve’s skill of accurately sight-sizing means that he knows the outer proportions of Tony’s body so well that he could recreate it in clay from memory, if he wanted to.)
The only guilt to be had is when Steve gets distracted at inappropriate moments, but he’s gotten a good a handle on that, too. If Tony chews on a pen in a meeting, Steve files the memory away and stays focused on the matter at hand. It’s only later, once he’s lying alone in bed with his eyes closed that he lets himself relive the lazy slant of Tony’s lips, and the way Tony absentmindedly flicked his tongue against the nib. (Wow!)
Steve has reasonably perfected the pressure needed to hold his cock in order to imagine that it’s Tony holding him – the grip of his hand, the callouses on his fingers, the way his thumb would press in the same way as when Tony’s holding a soldering iron.
Steve’s further fantasies are pedestrian, of Tony in various states of undress, amusement and pleasure. He pictures Tony on his back, or on top of Steve, or sandwiched neatly between Steve’s body and Steve’s desk.
These mental images are pleasant and welcome, but at the same time… also a little unpleasant and unwelcome, because of the simple fact that they will forever remain fantasy. Oh, Steve’s an old hat at wanting things he can never have, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys it. It’s really aggravating, actually.
But not aggravating enough for Steve to stop, so he doesn’t.