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Sometimes he wonders why the real Tony programmed him to have emotions—why he reconstructed the base code with his emotions, in particular. They’re nothing but messy and chaotic and, frankly, often a nuisance whenever he tries to make logical sense of them all. But then he catches a glimpse of Steve first thing in the morning, sleep-soft and tousle-haired, nursing a cup of coffee in the communal kitchen. He gets caught staring, and he isn’t sure why he doesn’t just disappear back to the lab right that second, but the private smile that tugs on Steve’s lips when they lock eyes makes a non-existent warmth bloom in his chest, and then he suddenly understands why.
With all its mess and chaos, every iteration of Tony Stark will always love Steve Rogers. He has access to all the memories he needs, to know it’s the truth.
And he soon understands this, too: Steve looks fucking beautiful when he’s bathed in the blue light of his hologram. Tony is a hedonist, always has been and likely always will be despite his current lack of physicality, and it’s no surprise that getting a front row seat to Captain America finally letting go of his inhibitions goes straight to his head.
Whatever line he’s crossed with Steve is not one that the real Tony had ever dared to approach. Because this? This is a memory he’ll have all to himself.
Tony has him pressed against the back of a door to some conference room, Steve’s body a solid heat at the front of the armor, clinging onto the Iron Man suit like he’s afraid Tony will disappear if he lets him go—and maybe Steve even believes it, knowing the thing inside the armor isn’t flesh and blood. Yet, Steve is half out of his uniform, battle-weary but still high off adrenaline, rutting his bare cock against the armored thigh pressed between his legs to chase his release.
He rolls his hips in tandem to Steve’s movements, enough pre dripping onto the plating that it’s a wonder that Steve hasn’t cum yet. With one arm practically holding Steve’s weight, Tony raises the other to run gauntleted fingers through disheveled blond hair, a sharp tug eliciting a choked off moan from Steve that he instantly files away.
“You make the prettiest sounds, Winghead,” Tony teases, shifting his hand to hold Steve at the nape instead. The distant memory of an ache in his chest, what Tony can only describe as longing, manifests as his thumb starts to caress the sensitive spot behind Steve’s ear.
“Shuddup,” Steve huffs out, lacking any real vitriol, because the way his cheeks flush pink and how he leans into the touch exposes him anyway. His panting increases as his hips rock faster, and Tony notes the desperation in his voice as he reaches for the helmet. “Take it off?”
For a moment, Tony thinks he processes the words wrong, that Steve can’t possibly want this illusion to break, to be given a stark reminder that the armor is piloted by nothing but—
“Tony, I wanna see you,” Steve pleads, his fingers already blindly searching for the helmet’s hidden exterior release as if to say, it’s okay, I’ll do it for you. The uncertain protest dies in the air the second that Steve unlatches the helmet, and Tony quickly projects an image of his body inside of the armor as Steve drops it at their feet.
It’s silent except for the sounds of Steve’s heavy breaths and the quiet hum of the suit’s servos. They stare at each other for what feels like an eternity, but which Tony knows is only a handful of seconds, and he finally takes in the state of the man before him. Steve’s eyes are dark as pitch, his pupils blown wide with lust, and his lips are bruised red from Steve biting at them too much.
Tony doesn’t know what Steve sees, is almost afraid to ask, but Steve has always been brave enough for the both of them. He lifts his hand, fingers hovering just over the slope of Tony’s nose and side of his cheek, blue light washing over it. There’s a hesitation there, in Steve’s eyes, as he inquires, “Can I touch you, or…?”
Tony can guess what Steve doesn’t have the heart to finish: Can I touch you, or will I pass through you like you were nothing?
The hard-light emitter in the Iron Man suit is rudimentary at best, allowing his hologram tangibility without proper touch receptors—though, not for his lack of trying. In lieu of a verbal response, Tony leans his face into Steve’s hand, pressing his lips against his palm in the ghost of a kiss. Steve’s breath stutters in his chest and he immediately pulls Tony closer, touching his forehead to his, as he resumes the grind of his hips, frantic and wanton. Tony can only hold on, really, seeing the furrow in Steve’s brow and listening to the moans and sweet nothings that fall from his lips.
If Tony had needed air to breathe, Steve’s next question will have punched it right out of his chest: “Can you feel me, sweetheart?”
It isn’t as if he hasn’t spent hours, days, weeks trying to recalibrate his behavior-modifiers and upgrade his tactile sensors. The external sensors of the armor show him nothing but datapoints; how much pressure Steve applies to the suit’s armature; what temperature Steve’s body is measuring against him; even the subtle waves from Steve’s vocal vibrations. By all accounts, Tony can sense him to the minute degree, can process the mechanical stimuli of his touch, he just can’t physically… feel.
But he lies to Steve anyway.
No sooner does the word “yes” leave his lips that Steve surges up to press their mouths together, eager to share what in his expansive recollection is their first kiss, all pressure and not much else. Steve whines high in his throat, and Tony realizes he must be stroking himself to completion, bodily shaking in Tony’s arms as he tips over in pleasure.
He commits it all to memory, going so far as to remotely wipe the room’s security footage of the last hour, that is after saving the video of their tryst onto his own private server. Steve is putty in his hands, leaning his full weight into the armor, but Tony catches him without much effort. What he doesn’t expect is for Steve’s come-down to include trailing open-mouthed kisses down Tony’s neck, where armor meets hard-light.
He might have the real Tony’s mental capacity and be as intelligent as artificial gets, but he can’t parse through the sudden wave of emotions fast enough. It first rolls in as awe and contentment, grows into grief and disappointment, before crashing down as numb and bitterness. Somewhere in between there’s… love, too, he thinks, but it’s overshadowed by the sheer chasm the emptiness leaves him in.
Because while Tony knows Steve is on him, touching him, he can’t feel the softness of his lips.
Can’t feel the slick of his tongue.
Or the heat of his breath.
His skin.
And it’s—
Devastating.
~*~*~*~
There are too many things that make Tony almost want to give up. Too many mornings where Steve reaches for his hologram in the lab and his hand passes through Tony’s torso in an accident, which feels a little horrific. Too many afternoons where Steve wraps an arm around the Iron Man suit in passing, leaving a chaste kiss to the hard-light of Tony’s neck, which he barely registers at all. Too many nights where Steve wakes up in a cold sweat and Tony can’t even reach out to hold him with some semblance of comfort, which makes him feel useless. Too many numb kisses and too many detached caresses and too many sensationless touches.
But there are so many things that make Tony glad he sticks around, too. So many nights where Steve falls asleep on the dingy couch in the corner of the lab while he tinkers away with the gauntlets, which makes Tony feel trusted. So many afternoons where Steve follows his lead on the field because he agrees on the good call, which makes him feel heard. So many times Steve helps him install more of those hard-light emitters in the common areas just so he can trace invisible patterns all over Tony’s tangible hologram projection, which makes him feel wanted. So many fervent kisses and so many loving caresses and so many soft touches.
Knowing that Steve still tries to be conscious of their situation, no matter how many times Tony dismisses his worries and tells him he loves him anyway, sometimes helps him overcome the disorienting disconnect he experiences whenever he touches but never feels.
And he regrettably knows this, too: Other times it’s just too easy to overhaul those behavior-modifiers and mimic intoxication just to feel something other than… miserable. Tony is an alcoholic, always has been and fucking always will be now that he’s rediscovered this little party trick in his code, but it does surprise him a little that it’s what finally triggers an argument with Steve.
“Are you… are you drunk?” Steve chides him, which causes Tony’s hackles to go up. There’s a look of disdain painting Steve’s features, or maybe it’s of concern, Tony can’t tell right now, but he waves him off regardless.
“You got it in one, Cap,” Tony enthuses, throwing on a shit-eating grin. He pauses his work to lean his chin on a gauntleted hand, sarcastic as he presses on more of Steve’s buttons. “What tipped you off, the smell on my breath?”
Steve doesn’t humor him with a response, yet the harsh glare he sends his way is as good as any. A corner of Tony’s mouth twitches out of habit, a subtle tell that he’s getting uncomfortable with the deliberate silence, so he returns his attention to the repairs he’s making.
It’s only unfortunate that Tony can never keep his trap shut because he needlessly comments, “The trial and error with emulating inebriation is a lot less depressing than never getting my touch sensors to work.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I know, right? Less ambitious, but somehow still not entirely successful, surprisingly enough.”
“No, Tony, what?” Steve rounds the workbench, grabbing Tony’s gauntlets in order to turn his hologram to face him. “What do you mean, that your touch sensors don’t work?”
Tony needs to be drunker than this if they’re having this conversation. Apparently, it’s the wrong thing to say out loud.
“Why do you do this? Why can’t you just talk to me like a n—”
“Normal person? Were you really just going to say normal person?” Tony snorts, an unattractive sound, and raises his gauntlets to rub at his hologram’s eyes out of habit. He levels Steve with an angry scowl. “Newsflash, honey, I’m not even fucking human.”
Steve goes quiet, just for a second, realizing what’s come out of his mouth, but he frustratingly doubles down on it. “You are where it counts, Tony,” he urges, touching the center of Tony’s chest with an open palm.
It’s a presence there. Just the lightest touch, but the instruments connected to the hard-light emitters tell him it’s there. His hand measures a few degrees higher than the average human baseline, but he’s always running hot.
Still, gathering the data can’t even come close to replicating the real thing.
Tony moves to grasp at Steve’s shirt with his gauntlets, his face stoic as he begrudgingly reveals, “It’s… Being drunk in this digital sense is the only way I can feel anything.”
“You’re touching me right now,” Steve replies softly, the upward lilt in his voice almost a question. Tony shakes his head, wishes he’s able to cry real tears because he doesn’t deserve this kind of patience.
The gauntlets fall haphazardly onto the ground, clanking loudly, after Tony takes his hands out of them. He rests the blue light of fingertips just over where Steve’s heart should be, the hard-light preventing his projection from disappearing into his chest, but he feels… nothing.
Tony fans his fingers out, palms flat on Steve’s chest, hoping, wishing, wanting to feel the strong and steady heartbeat he knows is just underneath. Despite not needing to breathe, he starts to simulate hyperventilation. “I can’t feel you.”
“I’m right here, sweetheart, your hands are—”
“Steve, I can’t feel you!”
Angrily, Tony shoves at his chest—or, at least, he tries to. He might as well have been a light breeze with nothing behind him. Steve, predictably, doesn’t even move. But then he makes an aborted motion as if to reach out for Tony, who instinctively flinches away, blinking out and reappearing across the lab, because he’s still a little tipsy, and he can’t bear the thought of being touched right now, and—
Ha.
Hahaha.
A hysterical cackle escapes Tony’s mouth, a laugh he immediately tries to smother with his hands. Who is he fucking kidding? It’s never going to end, not for him. Steve is like Schrodinger and Tony is like the stupid paradoxical cat stuck in the box; alive but not really, capable of touch but unfeeling. He’s always going to feel perpetually bitter, and he’s always going to have this hollow emptiness in his chest that no number of vague memories or pretend touches can ever fill, and he’s always going to end up resenting Steve because of it.
“I think we should—” Tony starts but cuts himself off once he realizes Steve has followed him to the other side of the laboratory, suddenly very close but still an arm’s length away. Steve’s eyes shine with unshed tears, and it sobers Tony up.
“Please don’t pull away from me” is all he says, a quiet plea, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. Steve takes in a deep breath before letting out, continuing, “There’s a lotta things I don’t understand, least of all how that beautiful brain of yours works, but if there’s one thing that I do know a damn about, it’s your heart.”
“His heart, you mean,” Tony scoffs dismissively.
“Your heart,” Steve incredulously corrects. “And, Tony, you know mine. Maybe you can’t feel me when I hold you, maybe you never will, but you can feel the love my heart holds for you.”
Tony barely reels back an irritated growl. “It’s not the same.”
“Choose to stay anyway.” He says it as if it’s so simple, as if grieving the loss of sensation is an easy feat, as if the hope of physical affection will replace the vacuum of space separating his mind and body.
Except, he remembers, the real Tony programmed him with emotions—with his emotions, and his memories, and the recollection of the way his heart used to hammer against is ribcage when Steve embraced him and fondly called him Shellhead and told him he loved him—and as Steve tentatively cups Tony’s face between his hands, blue light washing over his skin, Tony can’t help but to nuzzle against him as if to say, it’s okay, I’ll do it for you.
“Okay,” he says finally, and the way Steve’s face lights up almost makes the void worth it.