Work Text:
The machine of the world––if you
don’t grab on, you begin to tremble. And if you do
grab on, then everything trembles.
Steve is a decision-making man, a leader. He is the first to stand when problems come knocking. He is a man of action. His first instincts are always right.
Steve sits up in bed, head in his hands, and waits for his instincts to kick in, tell him what to do, because he is reeling with betrayal, his body buried under five tons of paralyzing anger.
He remembers. Steve has never wondered what the difference between a dream and a memory is, but now he knows in every cell of his being. He’s woken up on the edge of a scream more times than he can count– woke up fighting, woke up choking in tears; this is not the same. He remembers reading a book about suppressed childhood memories that come back in dreams, and this isn’t even that. It isn’t accidental and fractured. It’s solid like muscle memory, like walking into a room he hasn’t been in for years and moving his hand to turn on the light without thinking.
A part of him wants to cry; to cover himself back up with the sheets that smell like sex, sleep, and Tony, and mourn the months of happiness that have been murdered by the memory. A part of him wants to cringe away from the scents, the bed, the entire tower, and take a shower that lasts for years to cleanse his skin from this.
He feels filthy. A part of him wants to start screaming and never stop because he has earned his bliss and fuck the universe for refusing to give it to him, fuck the incursions, the Illuminati, the aliens, and the builders. He wants to scream for oblivion to come and take him back. He wants it all to not be true, though he knows it is.
The biggest part of him, the one that’s ripping him apart the most, is the anger. It’s hot, liquid rage running through his veins. It is a murderous intent on the tips of his fingers. It’s the part that can’t stop thinking about exactly how many movements it would take for him to get up and grab his shield. It’s the part that has counted the steps from the door of his room to Tony’s workshop. It’s the part that repeats the sounds of the shield ramming against the metal of the armor in his ears, and makes him smell Tony’s blood like the fight was yesterday. Every other line of thought feels like the civilians pulling him away from the carnage, but this time, in his head, he doesn’t go down easily. He screams, punches, and kicks his way back to the rubble.
Steve isn’t aware that he’s moved until he’s by the door, shield in hand, steps wide and strong on the floor, feet knowing exactly where to take him. The stillness before battle wears him like a well-loved coat, and his rage is tamed with the promise of a resolution.
He pauses in the hallway just before Tony’s workshop door and asks himself, Steve, do you know what you have to do? A resounding battle cry answers through him with a shudder and a tightening of his forearm against the grip of the shield.
The metal door slams against the wall with the thud of a hundred spears on the ground, and Steve walks into the scene with a shout of “Tony!”
Silence answers back.
He looks around the workshop, searching for a particular shade of blue, but he finds nothing except the rows of Iron Man armors and half-gutted projects strewn about. No Tony. Steve walks into the middle of the room and stops, though his body doesn’t still. His fists are clenching and unclenching around punches that have no targets to aim at; his knees are thrumming to the tune of a fight. His energy is restless inside his skin. He starts pacing the length of the cavernous room, footsteps echoing steadily against the walls.
He’s inside Tony’s holy church, filled with his idols of machinery, an ode to his own grand design. Steve thinks he used to be in awe of Tony once, used to look at him and think he was the brightest, most beautiful thing the world has ever made. He feels nothing but foul walking through the vessel of Tony’s soul now.
The workshop is clean. Organized in a way that Steve is used to seeing from spaces occupied by Tony; chaotic only at first glance-- the same way Tony organizes his products in the bathroom, his food on the table. Goddammit, Tony.
Steve rubs a hand over his suddenly tired eyes and sits down heavily in Tony’s chair. It spins with his weight, the wheels squeaking loudly in the silence. He sets the shield against the desk and stares aimlessly at nothing.
His anger settles into his gut as he breathes, and he starts to feel the hurt like a wound over his heart. He thinks if he were capable of it, he would be feeling asthmatic-short breaths ripping out of his chest, but as it is, he can only remember the helplessness of it and hate Tony for making him relive it. This feels like the worst slow-acting poison, the perfect spousal murder-weapon. He chuckles without mirth and hunches with his elbows on the desk.
There are various schematics spread across the metal surface. Most are recognizable as Iron Man; some -- oh, Tony -- some look suspiciously like bomb parts. Steve swallows. How naive did Tony think he was that he didn’t bother hiding this? How far did he trust in Steve’s oblivion? Jesus fuck, Tony.
There is a monster inside him that wants to rip this man, that keeps wounding him, limb to limb. Steve has lost count of the scars of betrayal on his skin. He feels like the worst kind of idiot, repeating the same cycle and hoping for a different result each time. Banging his head along the sides of Tony Stark’s walls to be let in while Tony was already up and moving on to bigger things, leaving him in the dust of his brilliance.
Brilliance; what a joke. Any man can build a bomb given enough time-- Tony Stark’s intellect isn’t a replacement for empathy. Where is that famous heroism now that the problem is too difficult to think up a solution for?
Tony Stark functions on a list of: save everyone, and mourn everyone, and take every life lost on his conscience till he can’t sleep, until he looks like a ghost surrounded by his failures. A man buying burdens to carry, ignoring everything that doesn’t serve to justify his crusade of self-destruction-- and this time he’s taking the universe with him, billions upon billions of innocent lives.
Steve isn’t the idiot in this equation. He refuses to be reduced to the role of the bumbling fool-- not this time. He’s right in his anger; he’s right in his refusal to budge on this. The Illuminati were wrong then, and they are still wrong now; though the world continues to stand months later.
Steve takes a breath and rubs his eyes once more.
“Steve.” Tony’s voice comes from the doorway. Steve freezes and then turns slowly to look at Tony from over his shoulder. Tony looks exhausted, his white shirt stained with grease and just as rumpled as his hair. When he walks into the room, Steve notices his hand shaking around the cup of coffee he’s carrying; too much caffeine already. He’s still not shaved, probably has not even slept-- the dark circles under his eyes sure suggest it.
“Hey,” Tony greets again with a sigh when he reaches him.
Steve wonders how his expression isn’t broadcasting the danger of this encounter already. He feels a bitter sort of pride at the duplicity.
“Hello, Tony.”
Tony moves closer still, until he’s settling on the table in between Steve’s knees. He sets a hand on Steve’s forearm and takes a gulp from his drink, and it is all so regular. Steve imagines for one part of a second that he doesn’t know anything-- that he woke up today, like any other morning, and came to check on Tony because he was worried about him. He imagines the playful banter and the intimacy, and then blinks the treacherous thought away.
“Can’t sleep?” Tony asks.
Wake up, old man.
Steve doesn’t flinch. He looks up at Tony’s sincere face and searches it for clues, for signs, for anything that breaks through the perfect facade of honesty. He finds nothing at all except for Tony’s fond look, the one with the small smile and the hooding of the eyes, looking back at him, and he is honestly impressed by the level of deceit Tony is capable of. He makes a perfect spy, really, an example to go by. Steve wants to snort, but he doesn’t.
What would Tony Stark do?
Tony would lie through his teeth. He would lie well. He would flaunt himself like a distraction and switch the playing card when you’re not looking.
“You didn’t come to bed,” Steve replies; flaunts. What’s for your next trick, dear betrayer?
Tony lowers his head with a happy huff and puts a hand on Steve’s cheek. “Sorry, I got caught up in work.” With his other hand, he puts the coffee down. Ceramic clicks against metal, and in the exact moment that he reaches to play with Steve’s hair, he hides the pile of schematics behind the monitor, smiling all the way through it, and then leans into Steve to kiss him, close mouthed and sweet.
Who are you? Steve wants to ask. He wants to know the answer almost more than he wants anything else at this moment, because this is not Tony, the Golden Avenger-- this isn’t Tony who is home; this isn’t even Tony who cried at his funeral. This strange, duplicitous, clawed creature is something else, something to be taken down.
Steve grabs the back of Tony’s head and kisses him deeper, more violent than he usually is with him. Tony gasps and climbs into his lap, knees on either side of him. “Oh,” he whispers against Steve’s lips. “So that’s why you’re awake,” he says playfully, and the words feel like an attack, so Steve stomps the urge to retaliate and holds the man against him tightly, then lifts them both and sets Tony back on the table.
He kisses Tony to keep himself from screaming at him. He holds Tony’s hips with bruising fingers to deny them the punches they want to deliver. His rage simmers within him and he lets it steam out into bites on Tony’s lips. Tony gasps at the rough treatment but wraps himself around Steve and pulls him closer, because Tony never says no to him, not since they resumed this thing between them months ago-- Is this pity?
Poor Steve, who knows nothing. Fuck him as a consolation prize, maybe that will relieve your guilt.
Steve’s hand finds its way to Tony’s hair and pulls it roughly to the side; gives himself access to his neck and bites into it. Tony hisses; his fingernails dig into Steve’s forearm.
“Steve, are you--” Another hiss as Steve scraps nails on Tony’s scalp. “Fuck, Steve, are you okay?”
“Fine,” Steve lies.
He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. He’s never used sex like this before, like a tool. It’s immoral, but Tony did this first, didn’t he? He ruined them first. Spat hateful, poisonous treason into their bed, and now Steve is ruined too. The betrayal is in his bloodstream, and its symptoms are on his biting teeth and in his growls.
He grabs the small of Tony’s back and thrusts him forward, closer. Steve doesn’t know what to do with the violence under his skin, but it’s Tony’s fault. He chose to sneak his betrayal into Steve, time and time again. Wouldn’t it be fair to plant his rage on Tony’s flesh instead? Let him feel what he seems to love so much, let Steve’s fingers leave welts and bruises, let his teeth bite the betrayer’s skin until he tears it off. He’d deserve it.
“Steve,” Tony pants and pets Steve’s hair. Steve can feel another question coming in the stuttered gasp of Tony’s breath, so he kisses his mouth again to silence it. No more words. The English language has lost its meaning on his lying tongue, every letter a deception. Language as a device for communication is too dated a concept for Tony Stark.
Let it be the curtain behind which we hide the greatest trick yet! The crowds roar in anticipation. How absolutely groundbreaking. Steve steals Tony’s voice with his tongue. No more.
Tony moans and grinds back against him. Steve can feel him half-hard in his sweatpants already, and that prompts him to realize he is too. A wave of guilt takes over him for getting off on this hateful display, but he laughs at himself and burns it down. Guilt has no place in this room, not now.
Steve climbs onto the stage and performs. He aligns their groins together and moves against Tony as he kisses him. It’s too fast, too hard, on the edge of being painful, and Tony’s hisses and gasps are just short of grunts of hurt. Steve grabs Tony’s ass and moves them against each other more deliberately. Tony relaxes some of his weight into him, wraps his arms around Steve’s neck and pants against his mouth. Then it’s a few too-short minutes of Steve’s head being completely empty of anything else other than the sensation on his cock, and how incredible kissing Tony always is.
Tony kisses like he’s experiencing everything for the first time: deliberate, all-encompassing, and so wonderfully reactive to every stroke of Steve’s tongue. It takes Steve’s breath away. Being with Tony like this is the easiest thing in the world, sometimes Steve thinks that’s why everything else is so rotten: balance.
Tony slows the kiss down and mouths his way to Steve’s cheek, his cheekbone, his jawline, and then whispers next to his ear, “What’s wrong?” He kisses Steve again for a moment, like he’s apologizing for his question, and then leans back to look into his eyes.
Steve’s anger is a wicked thing, made of invisible triggers. Tony’s pretense at kindness pokes it out of its momentary hibernation. Steve wraps a hand around Tony’s neck and kisses him instead of giving him an answer. When Tony attempts to speak, Steve bites into his lip and silences him. How dare Tony manufacture concern? How dare he stand atop the ruins of Steve and weep at the destruction, when the bomb was branded Stark?
Steve pushes Tony to his back on the desk, and climbs over him. His hand stays on Tony’s neck, though he doesn’t tighten his hold. He just keeps Tony’s mouth on his, kissing and breathing the same air as he works a hand down to strip him of his sweatpants. Tony’s noises get louder, and he pushes lightly at Steve’s chest. Steve doesn’t stop. Instead, he grabs Tony’s cock and starts stroking it. Tony’s protests die down into a moan-- of course they do; Tony will always be a glutton for pleasure. It’s why he made such a perfect storm of an addict.
Steve feels triumphant when Tony bucks up into him; a sick sort of joy in overwhelming his genius brain with base desires. Steve tugs at Tony’s cock and bites into his lip at the same time and Tony heaves a sob at the sudden attack. Caught you by surprise, betrayer? Steve can taste Tony’s blood on his tongue. It tastes like vindication.
Tony is trying to speak again, but his lips move futily against Steve. Steve remembers lying, mute, on the cold ground of the Necropolis and looking up at the blank faces of coming oblivion and smiles against Tony’s blood-stained lips. This is justice.
Tony’s hand is pushing at his chest again, but goddammit this encounter is not dictated by Tony fucking Stark, not this time. Steve is taking back his agency. Steve is healing from what Tony did to him. Steve is carving the anger out of himself and onto the person who shoved it inside him to fester. Steve grabs Tony’s hands in one of his and tears his mouth away from Tony’s. He looks at the desk again, at the piles of papers and the gutted machines. His eyes land on a crowbar sat next to a piece of broken Iron Man armor, and he grabs it.
“Steve, what the fuck?” Tony hisses. Steve does not look at him; he bends the crowbar around Tony’s wrists and binds it to the back of the desk, tightens the metal until it holds Tony in place.
“Steve,” Tony starts struggling under him. “Let me up.”
“No,” Steve says, and starts taking his belt off.
“Steve, this isn’t funny.”
Steve chuckles and then starts laughing hysterically. His chest hurts with the sound. It feels like he’s being torn apart by it. Not funny. Not funny? This is a comedy of errors, a magnificent show, so full of mistakes and problems that the audience can’t help but laugh at the absurdity.
He gets up, taking a step back, and looks at Tony, sprawled on the desk, pants around his ankles, cock still hard and leaking. He’s looking at Steve with just a sliver of fear in his eyes, and that-- that is right. It’s what he deserves to feel.
Steve opens the desk drawer and rummages till he finds his tube of lip balm.
“Oh, fuck, I’m out of lube,” a wry grin and a wink. Steve sighed to hide his smile and took his lip balm out of his pocket. Tony’s grin widened and he sauntered to kiss him and take it out of his hand. He sat on his table and signaled Steve to come closer. They kissed lazily for what felt like hours and-- no. Fuck. Steve rubs the back of his hand over his eyes.
“Steve,” Tony says, and this time his tone is soft, “will you please talk to me?”
Steve opens his mouth to answer and then remembers the futility of language once again. Words have never been his tool. He won’t follow Tony’s script, won’t let him talk his way out of this. This is not a conversation, it’s too goddamn late for that.
He surges back to where Tony’s laid and pushes his legs open to stand in between them, opens the tube of lip balm and squeezes what’s left of it on Tony’s hole unceremoniously. Tony takes a quick inhale at the touch of it, and then starts to speak, but before any words form, Steve clamps a hand on his mouth and holds his jaw shut. He fucks two fingers into him and works the lip balm roughly inside him. He feels the vibrations of Tony’s whine on the palm of his hand. Tony’s eyes are blown wide with-- shock? Arousal? He looks wild already, breathing hot and fast against Steve’s skin, his throat working underneath Steve’s thumb as he swallows. It’s-- good. His head feels clearer with every ragged breath he drags out of Tony.
This is the part of the act where he stands triumphant over an audience that’s still looking at the cards and trying to figure out his trick. This is the part followed by gasps of wonder, and those of surprise. This is the part usually reserved for brilliant men, and here Steve is, finally taking it for himself, ascending the stage as the lead.
Steve stretches Tony around his fingers a few times, perfunctory, and then draws his hand away to take his own cock out of his jeans. He strokes himself with one lubricated hand and then lines up with Tony’s hole. Tony’s mouth moves under his palm, but Steve tightens his hold on it, and then fucks all the way into Tony with one violent thrust. He hears himself groan. Tony is so hot around him, and almost tight enough to be painful. A shiver starts from where they’re connected and then moves all the way through him like a breath of air after oxygen starvation. He feels his shoulders aligning and his back standing straight. He closes his eyes and lets the moment take him. This isn’t revenge, it isn’t punishment; this is a restoration of balance.
He grabs Tony’s thigh with his right hand and starts moving; deep thrusts that drag sounds -- sobs -- out of Tony. He keeps a steady pace, pushes all the way in, a breath, then pulls out all the way till only the tip of his cock is inside Tony and he can feel his muscles clenching around it. He allows himself to take pleasure in this -- the four men stand above him, they look down at him and laugh and laugh and laugh -- it’s repayment in kind, after all.
Something wet touches his hand and he opens his eyes to see Tony is crying. His jaw is still working, forming words that Steve won’t hear, and the only thing Steve thinks is: you did this to me.
He looks right into Tony’s manipulative eyes and thrusts harder into him, a sharp, violent movement that makes Tony flinch, and pulls a moan of pain from deep within his chest. Steve glares at the creature of lies underneath him and decides that he wants to hear nothing at all from him. He moves his hand from his mouth and wraps it around his throat--
“Stop, Steve, please,” Tony begs in the few breaths he is allowed. Steve’s hand starts squeezing, and he does not move his gaze away from Tony’s eyes for a second.
He starts fucking into Tony with abandon, lets go of the tight grip he has on his strength for the first time outside of a fight-- is it? He looks down at the beginning of bruises blooming on Tony’s struggling wrists, at the red palm print on his face, then down at his trembling thigh and his own clawed hand around it. Maybe he’s still fighting. It’s a war he doesn’t know the rules of, one fought on silky sheets and whispered into sleepy ears. A war of men in shadows.
Tony’s abdomen is trembling, his chest is moving through sharp, shallow breaths that shake his entire body. Steve feels a need to touch Tony’s stomach, to feel his muscles struggle to breathe, to feel the uneven, erratic rise and fall of his skin as he takes Steve’s invasion. It’s the same sadistic fascination that open wounds and standing at cliff-edges bring; monstrous epilogues to horrible stories.
Steve looks at Tony’s face again and fucks deliberately into him, hard thrusts that brush his prostate every time and make him flinch. He looms over Tony’s eyes and looks right into them and thinks: you don’t get to cry your way through this. Not when I didn’t, and Tony looks gutted, and then he closes his eyes against the assault of Steve’s gaze.
“No! Look at me, Tony,” Steve growls.“Fucking open your eyes and. Look. At. Me.”
Tony shakes his head and keeps his eyes resolutely shut; tears still streaming steadily out of the corners. An animalistic sound rips its way out of Steve’s throat, and he moves his hand from Tony’s neck to his hair and pulls until Tony screams and opens his eyes again.
“Arlington,” Tony heaves, and then takes large gulping breaths that release in wheezes. “Please, Steve, Arlington.”
Steve stills for a moment; instincts taking over like ice-water down his spine. He looks at Tony’s abused face, his horror-stricken eyes. He thinks about safe-words, about trust, about lines one should not cross.
“Do it, Stephen.”
“No,” Steve says and runs the palm of his hand from Tony’s sweat-soaked hair down his tear-wet face, over his mouth, and then down to his throat again. He looks at Tony and squeezes his fist, just as he says, “I remember,” and thrusts so hard inside him that the metal table scrapes against the floor and moves.
Tony’s eyes widen comically, a picture of shock. Steve doesn’t want to see it. It’s condescending; it makes the anger in his gut boil over into his movements until he’s bending Tony in half and screaming as he fucks him. Anguish takes over from the shock on the liar's face, and Steve doesn’t stop.
Is this your whiskey? Your inventions? Is this what you feel when you betray me? This? What keeps you coming back for more, more, more?
Steve takes his bow at the stage. His trick is done, and he feels like a hack. There is no drunken euphoria to reward him for it, no superiority to lift him up out of his heartbreak. Look at how fucking pointless your addictions are, Monster.
He gets lost in the savagery of sensation. He feels like an animal, rutting for survival. It seems essential that he gets through this and come out on the other side of it, clean, or else he might as well just die in the act, a brave soldier who fought and slit his throat before capture.
He feels his release coming. Tony keeps wincing, and when Steve concentrates on the movement of his eye, he realizes it’s because tears are dripping from his own face onto Tony’s. Steve hadn’t realized that he was crying. He has no reason to. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He starts hearing his own screaming voice, and it sounds more like wounded wailing than the growling of battle.
He’s shaking. The hand around Tony’s throat seems to stand like a pillar to hold Steve up. He’s falling apart. He has to finish this.
He comes with a whimper, and then the world stills around him. His eyes close against the oppressive silence.
“Are we done?” Tony whispers.
Steve debates ignoring him, gathering himself and walking away never to be seen again. Debates leaving the world to burn and dying with it. He opens his eyes.
“Done?”
“Are we even?”
Steve’s chest shakes with silent laughter, his ragged breaths sound insane even to his ears. He feels the corners of his mouth lifting, and he must look deranged. Even. Tit for tat. You hurt me, I hurt you, wash and repeat, again and again for eternity.
He looks at Tony’s wrecked body, sweat, tears, blood, and bruises, all signed: with love, Steve. And he thinks that not even tearing him apart would match what Steve’s soul’s been turned to.
His instincts direct him to pull out of Tony -- pink-tinged come -- his hands move on their own to untie Tony’s hands -- angry red bruises -- and he steps back to mechanically tuck himself back inside his pants.
His hands are shaking with adrenaline. He turns around and buries his face in them.
Tony is shifting behind him. He could kill you now. Steve doesn’t move.
“Steve,” Tony calls with his wrecked, scratchy voice. Steve feels the urge to shut him up again, but it seems irrelevant. He’ll never be able to win in a game of language with Tony. Silencing him would only work if it were permanent--
“You’re going to forgive me,” Tony orders. “We’re going to talk, and you’re going to listen to me, Steve. We’ll work this out on equal footing. You owe me.”
The English language is a slave, Steve thinks. “You ruined me,” he says.
“I-- what?”
Steve looks inside himself where he lays in pieces on stage, a magic trick gone wrong, and then he turns around and looks at his monster, bruised but standing and demanding and using what should be the most horrible act of violence ever done upon him like a bargaining chip to win an argument.
He’s so tired.
“One of us is going to die next time we see each other, Tony,” Steve says.
He thinks that sometimes life outlives humanity, and something darker stays in its stead.
He doesn’t stay to hear Tony’s response.