Chapter Text
Steve wraps his hand around his cock, fisting himself. His free hand comes to grasp Tony’s hip, fingers finding the groove in Tony’s pelvic bone, squeezing. He leans over him, and Tony shies away from biting down on Steve’s shoulder, the way he might have this morning, just in case he breaks a bone with his teeth.
But then, Steve pushes inside him, his hips snapping forward, and Tony cries out, all thoughts of the difference between this Steve and this morning’s Steve flying straight out of his head – frankly, both Steves fuck exactly the same, and if their characters are the same, if their lovemaking is the same, Tony doesn’t see a problem with either version.
Steve groans, his head hanging forward, and his hips stutter and falter, pausing, like he’s getting used to having his cock in a vice like Tony’s body. And then, he grits his teeth, thrusting forward – Tony feels Steve’s ribs shudder against his stomach, and he almost says something, reassures him, but the last time that Tony made an assumption about Steve’s ability or lack thereof to do something in his current state, well, it didn’t end well for them.
“Fuck, you’re tight,” he wheezes, his hand tightening around Tony’s hip.
Tony rolls his hips back against Steve’s.
“You want me to go faster?” Steve demands and sets a harsh, punishing rhythm.
“Yes, yes, fuck me, fuck me, sir,” Tony pants, curling his fingers in the sheets and pulling. “Don’t stop fucking me.”
“Of course you want it fucking faster,” Steve says, darkly. “Sluts like you don’t like slow, soft lovemaking, do you? You want it fast. You want to be ridden hard and put away wet. Don’t think I don’t know.”
Tony just moans, arching his back, exposing the long, lean line of his throat, as he feels himself rock back against the bed with each thrust of Steve’s hips.
“I do, I want to be put away wet,” Tony insists. “I want you to come all over me. I want you to make me all filthy and messy, sir.”
“Won’t take that much,” Steve grunts, “with you being so fucking desperate for my cock, your tight fucking cunt, all sloppy like this.”
Tony curves forward, and then, his arc reactor pinches against a muscle or a tendon inside him, and he winces, rubbing against the spot, until whatever it is, shifts, and he can no longer feel the sharp pressure there.
Steve stops moving inside him. “What?” he says, sounding breathless himself. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just the, uh, the arc reactor…” Tony licks his lips. “I moved in a way that I shouldn’t have.” He smiles, wryly. “The unfortunate side-effect of fucking an old man like he’s a rent boy in his twenties.”
“Hey,” Steve says, firmly, closing his hand around Tony’s jaw, purposefully. “We have a deal, remember? Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
Tony flashes him the edge of a smile. “Sorry. Force of habit.” He rocks his hips back. “Keep going,” he cajoles. “Keep fucking me.”
Steve’s cock had flagged inside him, and Tony knows the feeling, the feeling when the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He can see the tautness in Steve’s expression, the knowledge of the reason why he’s going slightly soft inside him, and he has no interest to setting them back half an hour.
“Are you sure?” Steve asks, worriedly.
“Yeah, yeah, fuck me,” Tony insists. “Fuck me, Rogers. Don’t stop.”
Steve pulls out, and the squelching sound that his cock makes on its way out of Tony’s bed sends a rush of heat all over Tony. He lifts his head in time to see Steve glaring down at his groin, as he takes his cock in hand, stroking fervently. His hand moves up and down, pale, thin, angular against pale, thin, angular, over and over again, and Tony can see the strain in Steve’s features – he knows, because he’s seen it in the mirror, seen it a thousand times since he came back to Afghanistan, had tried frantically to get himself off only for his lungs to be caught in a vice halfway through his jerk-off session, and the resounding ache and breathlessness to take any and all arousal away.
“Steve,” Tony says, gently, sympathetically.
“It’s fine, Tony,” Steve says, coldly, eyes fixed on his cock in his hand, which is still stubbornly soft.
Tony’s hand comes to cover Steve’s. “Steve,” he says, his voice firmer this time. “Steve, stop, you’re going to hurt yourself.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Steve, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay!” Steve shouts, and then, starts to cough, vigorously, painfully, his spine bowing under the weight of the strain.
“It really is,” Tony says, quietly.
“This, I should be able to do. This, I should be able to be for you. If I can’t, what is the point of me?” Steve demands.
“This is not the point of you. This is not why we’re together,” Tony insists.
Steve laughs, harsh and grating. “Yeah, you say that now, but a week, two weeks, a month, a year later, when I can’t fuck you like the way you deserve to be fucked, and we’ll see who still believes this is not why we’re together,” he growls.
“Hey,” Tony says, a little hurt, “sex isn’t everything–”
“Says the man who’s been having it since he was fourteen. It’s easy to go without something when you’ve had a lifetime and everyone else’s lifetimes of fucking,” Steve retorts.
“Okay, let’s not go with the slut-shaming again,” Tony says, sternly.
Steve colours in embarrassment. “Sorry,” he says, quickly.
“Sex isn’t everything,” Tony says, carefully. “Love means more than sex, and I have that in spades for you, and I believe you have it in spades for me too.”
Steve huffs. “Of course I do. I just…” he swallows, “I just, this morning, I could have fucked you into the mattress, gone all night, and now, I can’t… I can’t even keep it up for a couple of minutes, and now, I’m just…” he looks down at his limp cock, hanging against his thigh, “I’m just soft,” he says, bitterly.
“I have the same problem,” Tony tells him, after a moment’s pause.
Steve’s eyes lift to catch his. Tony forces himself to not look away, to not shy away in shame, because Steve will only believe this is nothing to be embarrassed about if Tony himself is not embarrassed by it.
“In fact, I’m pretty sure that the same reason why you’re, uh, struggling with, well, you’re struggling right now is very similar to what I’ve been struggling with since I came back from Afghanistan,” Tony says, quietly.
Steve shifts closer to him. “Tony,” he says, unsure, but then, stops before saying anything else.
“It’s hard for me to stay hard,” Tony explains. “It might seem like it’s just the fact that I’m over forty, but no, it’s because, well, of all my health conditions post-Afghanistan. Blood circulation doesn’t work very well. I get really worked up when I need to get hard, and well, my lack of lung capacity and various heart conditions work against me there as well, which means even if I’m getting there, the pain’s kind of a turn-off, and I just go soft. I think, without assuming that our experiences are the same, that’s also what happened with you?” he offers. “And that’s okay, that’s just… well, it’s the same thing that’s happening to me, so I couldn’t judge you for it even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to.”
“So, is that what we are now?” Steve asks, miserably, running his hand over his face, the one not covered in lube. “A sexless couple?”
Tony shrugs. “There are worse things to be, and we’re in love. Besides, I think you need to stop thinking these things in binary terms.”
Steve lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?” he says, archly.
“Look, just because you can’t get it up, right now, doesn’t mean that you’ll never get it up ever again,” Tony says, carefully. “You’re stressed right now. You’re amped up; you’ve had a shitty day; you’re getting used to all of this again. Without pretending that I’m a sex therapist or something, I think it’s fairly normal for this kind of scenario. We can try again tomorrow, and failing that, there are pills that we can take. I just… don’t do them, and we might have to see a doctor about what works with your conditions and my conditions and all, but still, there are pills. In any case, sex isn’t just about genital penetration. We both have fingers and mouths and there are toys that we can use, and it will be just as good.”
“Will it?” Steve says, disbelievingly.
“Well, three days ago, I sucked your brains out of your dick, and you’re telling me that you have doubts that blowjobs and fingering and vibrators won’t do the trick?” Tony retorts.
Steve flushes. “Yeah, you’re right.” He looks at Tony, running his knuckles over his cheek. “I’m sorry. I ruined tonight, didn’t I?”
“No, you didn’t, because you’re going through shit, and I’m not going to hold it against you, just like I know you wouldn’t, if the situation was reversed,” Tony says, shrugging.
Steve watches him with that tempered gaze of his, an uncomfortable, thoughtful intensity that makes the feeling lurch within Tony’s body.
“What did I do to deserve you?” he asks, after a moment.
Tony’s face dimples with pleasure. “Something great in a past life, I suppose,” he says, haughtily.
“Yeah, I think so too,” Steve murmurs, and he curls a hand around the nape of Tony’s neck, pulling him close so that he can press his lips to Tony’s brow. “Let me make it up to you.”
Tony blinks. “Huh.”
“On your back, baby,” Steve coaxes, prodding at Tony’s shoulder with the palm of his hand.
Tony goes down like he’s made of butter, landing on his back.
“Spread your legs for me.”
Tony spreads his legs.
Steve hums, watching him from beneath hooded eyes. “Good boy,” he drawls, dragging his thumb over his lower lip. “You’re always such a good boy for me, Tony.”
“It’s because I love you.”
Steve grins. “I know.”
And then, he slides three fingers inside Tony, still stretched, still dripping with lube, and Tony cries out, almost throwing himself off the bed.
“That’s it,” Steve says, softly, watching him, his gaze even, studious. “That’s it, you beautiful boy, sweet thing.”
“Steve,” Tony gasps, rocking back against Steve’s fingers.
“My boy, just mine,” Steve says, darkly, kissing the curve of Tony’s knee. “You are mine, aren’t you, Tony? Just mine?”
“Yes, yes, I’m yours, only yours,” Tony says, eagerly, rolling his hips back against the thrust of Steve’s fingers inside him.
“You’d never give it up for anyone but me, would you?”
“Never, never.”
“This greedy fucking hole of yours is just mine, isn’t it? You’d never let anyone touch you the way that I touch you. No, of course, you wouldn’t. I just worry sometimes, because you’ve got such a pretty cunt, and you take care of me so good, always, and you look so fucking beautiful like this, you look like you’ve been fucked good and hard and put away wet, just like I wanted you to be. It’s not what I wanted,” Steve growls, “not the way I wanted to do this, but you’re right, watching you take my fingers like a fucking pro, watching you swallow me in and tighten up around me and fuck back like you want everything that I can give you, well, there’s nothing sweeter than that. There’s nothing sweeter than you.”
Tony’s a little embarrassed of the high, needy whine that escapes him, as he tears at the sheets.
“It’s because of you,” he finally manages to say. “It’s because of the way that you look at me, the way that you touch me, now and always. You look at me like you could eat me whole, like you could crawl into my chest and stay there forever. That’s why I’m so sweet for you, Steve.”
“I love you, Tony,” Steve swears.
“Give it to me, Steve, please,” Tony whispers.
With a firm hand on Tony’s thigh splaying him wide, he shifts his fingers, the next thrust dragging so relentlessly against Tony’s prostate that the knot tightening in his belly bursts apart in a melting of sensation, and Tony’s coming, coming with his cock not even hard, and he feels it everywhere, behind his eyes, his toes curling, in the pit of his throat and his belly and in the notches of his spine, and he’s suspended in air, light cutting through him at different points, before that too shatters, and he’s falling back against the bed, his chest burning and his arms and legs tingling.
“You okay?” he hears Steve’s voice come through, a little muffled.
Tony nods, dazed, something hazy creeping into the edges of his vision. “That was pretty fucking amazing,” he murmurs. “I didn’t even think I could come like that. Hell, I didn’t even think that I was hard.”
He looks down at finds evidence of a wet orgasm all over his belly, which Steve leans down and doesn’t hesitate to lick up until his stomach is spit-shiny and damp. Tony groans, and his cock twitches.
He sends Steve a little glower through the dip of his lashes.
“Don’t do that,” he warns. “Don’t make me want.”
Steve grins, even if there is some sadness to his features. “Don’t take this away from me,” he drawls.
Tony sits up, and his chest is still burning, his throat still tight. He presses a fist to his breastbone, over the arc reactor.
“You okay?” Steve asks, worriedly.
Tony smiles at him. “Just need to catch my breath,” he tells him, as the pain in his throat starts to relax. “I’m old, remember?”
“No, you’re not,” Steve says, lowly.
“Fine, I’m sickly.”
Steve lifts an eyebrow. “I’m sorry. Have you met me?” he asks, dryly.
Tony sits up, shifting his legs underneath himself, ignoring the strain in his thighs. He curls his hand around the nape of his neck, pulling Steve forward so that he can kiss him slow, deep, messy, their tongues tangling.
“Let me take care of you,” Tony says, seductively.
He puts a hand on Steve’s cock, feels it firm up between his fingers, now that Steve was calm, was breathing at a steady pace, but he only gets to about half-hardness, still flagging every other moment – no matter, Tony’s been with enough people with penises to know exactly how to do this, and had struggled with his own erectile dysfunction in previous years to know exactly how to make someone come even with a soft cock.
“Tony, I don’t think this is going to work,” Steve says, uncertainly, his pupils blown wide, as he looks down at Tony’s hand on his cock, dark against pale skin.
“Don’t worry about it. I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m not,” Steve flushes, “I’m not… hard.”
“You don’t have to be,” Tony tells him. “Contrary to popular belief, an erection is not needed to have an orgasm. Just… do you trust me?”
Steve’s eyes meet his. “Of course I do,” he says, without hesitation.
“Then, trust me to know what I’m doing,” Tony says, gently.
He starts stroking Steve’s cock, even if the flesh is limp between his fingers. It’s an odd sensation for both of them, Tony admits, and he makes sure to use his left hand to rub over the head of Steve’s cock with the heel of his palm.
“Holy shit,” Steve gapes at himself, “it feels good.”
“Yeah, I know,” Tony says.
He reaches forward, closing his mouth around the tendon in Steve’s throat, connecting his neck and his shoulder, setting his teeth there. Steve’s head falls onto his shoulder, and Tony can see the strands of Steve’s hair sticking to his neck, damp with sweat.
“It feels really good,” Steve pants, shifting closer to Tony. “I don’t… it’s not like when I… not like before, not like when I could come before,” he says and swallows like there’s a lump in his throat.
“Make sure you keep breathing,” Tony warns him. “I don’t want you to keel over in the middle of the this.”
Steve huffs out a laugh. “I won’t, I promise.”
He starts moaning, his muscles straining, tendons taut against the skin, especially as Tony quickens the motions of his right hand, still rubbing the head with his left, and then, Steve comes – it’s not wet like Tony’s orgasm, there’s no actual come dribbling out of Steve’s cock, it’s not as intense and blinding, but judging by the slack look to Steve’s features, when he lifts his head, the dazed expression on his face and his eyes tells me that it was satisfaction, nonetheless.
“That was… that was…” Steve struggles to get out a word to adequately describe exactly what he’s feeling.
“I know,” Tony says, fondly, kissing him on the cheek. “But it was nice, right? Good?”
“The best.” Steve kisses him back, kisses him firmly on the mouth. “Thank you, Tony, thank you.”
“Anytime, and you never have to thank me,” Tony replies, feeling a little giddy himself at the thought of putting this look on Steve’s face.
“How did you, how did you even know to do this?” Steve asks, his eyes widened with obscene awe.
Tony clears his throat. “I have troubles myself,” he explains, “with the whole erection thing, especially after Afghanistan – plus, you know, I had a very toxic relationship with alcohol and drugs back in the day. And at the risk of spoiling the post-coital mood with a conversation about my hedonist past, I’ve been with enough people to know that it’s not as uncommon as an issue that people might think it is. There’s a, well, a lot of stigma for men who can’t get hard, and most people don’t talk about other ways of coming, or how to, well, how to deal with those issues without the use of a little blue pill, so, yeah, there are ways to come without being hard. And now you’re a proud recipient of those ways.”
“I shouldn’t have underestimated you,” Steve says, ruefully. “You always know how to take care of me.”
“That’s what we do for each other,” Tony insists. “You take care of me too, and I will always take care of you.”
“I love you,” Steve says, so fiercely that Tony feels it in his bones. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” Tony replies, with a laugh in his voice, especially when Steve climbs all over him, their legs tangling together, and kisses him until the ache in his chest starts up all over again.
Three weeks later, Thor comes to them in their penthouse, away from prying eyes, and tells them, in a solemn, kind voice that a doctor might use when informing a patient of a terminal illness, that he has spoken to his mother, who confirms that Loki was telling the truth, that there is no way of returning Steve to his serumed form.
Steve takes it in with a stoic face, but when Thor leaves the penthouse, Tony waits for it, waits for the grief to come. It starts off slow, with Steve’s hands, poised on his thighs, clenching and unclenching around nothing. The tension then spills into his shoulder, as his body curves inward, as though protecting himself from the onslaught of emotions that he must be feeling.
“Steve,” Tony says, gently, placing a hand on Steve’s shoulder.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Steve insists, his voice sounding thick.
“You don’t have to be.”
His hand moves to the centre of Steve’s back, feeling the notches of his spine through the thin shirt that he’s wearing. He tilts his head, nudging his nose against Steve’s shoulder.
“You don’t have to be fine, if you don’t want to be,” Tony murmurs. “You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be. I just… I love you, I hope you know how much I love you.”
Steve twists his head to look at him, and there’s colour in his face, and his face is pinched thin, like he’s in pain.
“I know,” he says, like it’s the only thing that’s grounding him in that moment. “I know you love me. I love you too.”
“This sucks. It’s allowed to suck. If you want to,” he clears his throat, a knot burning at the pit, “whatever you want to do, we’ll do. If you want to sit here, we can sit here. If you want to cry, you cry. If you want to go and throw shit, we will go and throw shit. If you want to go and set things on fire, I have a flamethrower down in the workshop–”
Steve huffs out a laugh.
“If you want to kill Loki, well, let’s do that.”
Steve starts laughing properly this time, the sounds wracking his body, and then, as if there was switch that finally turned on inside him. He heaves, his hands shaking atop his thighs.
“I don’t why this is hurting me so much,” Steve whispers. “I don’t think know why this is so hard. Why is this so hard?”
“I think it’s because you got used to living your life in a certain way, and imagining what your future was going to be like in that way,” Tony offers.
Steve looks at him, and his skin looks more taut than usual. “I was going to marry you.”
For a second, there’s dull, dead calm, and then, something, a feeling tries to claw its way out of him.
“Steve, we can still get married,” he says, carefully, sucking in an unsteady breath.
“I know, I know,” Steve says, almost annoyed at himself. “I just… I had ideas about how this would all go, and it… it’s not going to be like this anymore.”
“No, it isn’t, but it won’t be less,” Tony promises. His hand settles on the nape of his neck. “It doesn’t mean much from me right now, and it will be an adjustment for all of us, but it won’t be less. Our life won’t be less, Steve.”
Steve stares at him for a moment, a bleak, hard look in his eyes, and then, he kisses him, full on the mouth, tender, his hand clutching at Tony’s shoulder. He pulls away and presses his cheek to the flat of the arc reactor, without hesitation, with immaculate confidence. Tony settles back against the sofa, wrapping his arms around Steve, his chin propped on the crown of his head – he tightens his arms when his shirt grows damp with tears.
Steve is still Captain America, albeit in a different way.
First, they go to a doctor. Most of Steve’s ailments can now be handled with medication. They get an inhaler for his asthma, all the vaccines that Steve didn’t have previously, blood pressure medication, beta blockers, anticoagulants, pre-diabetic medication. He has to have a couple of procedure, which the doctors recommend to correct issues that can now be fixed instead of taking medication for the rest of his life, like a catheter ablation and a bioprosthetic artificial heart valve that Tony and Bruce make for him.
Steve struggles with it, of course, with the sudden onset of a daily routine with medication and surgeries that require bedrest and recovery, and it doesn’t help that he can’t sequester himself in the gym and beat the shit out of a couple of punching bags, which leads him to therapy.
Slowly, though, he starts to come out of the depression that had ensued after they’d received confirmation that he would never go back his serumed self. He trains with Natasha, building up muscle and strength, and he goes out, to the VA, on runs, and he meets a nice ex-pararescue named Sam, whom Tony thinks could steal Steve away from him and he would probably be okay with it.
He even comes out in the field, in a remodelled outfit, still chucking the shield and beating up the bad guys, just without lifting tanks over his head or carrying girls on motorcycles – people don’t like it at first; in fact, there’s a whole petition demanding that Steve hand the shield over to someone else, that the government step in and end this ‘farce’ in case their enemies start laughing at their not-so-fearsome symbol of truth, justice and the American way; this sets Steve back a little, the surge of hatred that he experiences, until Tony reminds him that America was already ridiculous long before he came along, and frankly, he’s the only one giving the country any kind of class nowadays.
Steve is still Captain America, because at the end of the day, what he was as Captain America was nothing physical, had nothing to do with the serum or his muscles or his ability to forty miles per hour – it has everything to do with what’s on the inside, all the things that Tony loves about him, his kindness and his goodness and his sense of justice and honesty and his persistence and determination, especially where those he loves are concerned.
Steve is still all of those things, still embodies all of the best parts of being Captain America, so he’s still Captain America, and Tony will sue the shit out of anyone who says differently.
It’s not the same, though, and Tony or Steve won’t delude themselves into thinking it is; it’s change, a total, uncompromising shift to their lives, and it takes time, takes time to readjust all of those spaces so they fit again.
But they do fit again, one day; one day, it does work out.
It’s not the same, but it sure as hell isn’t less.