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Steve massaged at his neck as he walked, digging his fingertips in along his spine. He ached everywhere. It had been a long day of training, and then he’d devoted most of his afternoon to running and basketball games with neighborhood kids. Most of them were the regular groups of kids who’d gotten used to him, and Steve stopping by to play with them wasn’t a cause for chaos. It was mostly the adults who made a fuss about him being on the basketball court. They always ended up with an audience, dozens of cellphones out, Twitter filling up with #CapHoldsCourt. Steve wished they’d leave him alone, but the kids loved it, and it got them some exposure, brought attention to the neighborhoods. Steve didn’t get to be an anonymous citizen in a hoodie with a basketball, but that was alright. He was used to it.
Chin drifting down toward his chest, Steve took one hand away from his neck and nudged the bedroom door open. The curtains had been drawn across the floor to ceiling windows, blocking out the city lights. The corners of Steve’s lips drifted up. He’d never had to say anything, but Tony had somehow known that the cityscape made him feel untethered. One day Steve had been standing at the window with his forehead pressed to the glass. He’d been watching the tail lights of the cars going by, thinking about how much they looked like toys from so far up. The next day, the curtains had been up. They were mostly sheer, gray, sleek and very Tony. They blocked out just enough of the cityscape to make Steve feel comfortable. Insulated.
“You look very moist,” Tony said.
Steve turned to find him propped up in bed with the top sheet spread over his lap and a pillow pushed under his knees. He had a laptop on his thighs, his fingers poised over the keyboard. The screen highlighted his face blue, and for a second Steve wondered what Tony’s skin had looked like highlighted by the arc reactor.
“I am very moist,” Steve answered. He plucked his shirt away from his abs in illustration. His fingers left an impression in the wet fabric after he’d let it go.
Tony grinned at him. For whatever ridiculous reason, he liked it when Steve said moist, and Steve liked indulging him. He dropped his backpack by the closet and tugged his shirt up over his head. The cool air lifted goose bumps on his skin. He was conscious of Tony’s eyes on him as he dropped the shirt to the laundry hamper and toed off his shoes, but there was no hunger in it.
Slipping his shorts off, Steve glanced back. “I’m going to take a shower. Want to join me?”
“Hmm… freezing cold shower, or stay in the nice comfortable bed and just wait for you to come back all clean and cool?” He gave it his best thinking face, turning his hands palms up and moving them up and down, weighing the two options.
Steve laughed. “Alright. I’ll be back.” He heard the soft tap-tap-click-tap of Tony’s fingers on the keyboard almost immediately. The sounds followed him into the bathroom, and Steve left the door open so he could still hear them while he brushed his teeth, used the toilet, and then finally turned on the shower. He always ran a little hot, and cold showers felt so good after a long day of New York settling into his skin. Tony kept unscented everything for him on hand for the times when he got over sensitive and strong scents gave him headaches, but Steve liked Tony’s body wash – rosemary, peppermint, and tea tree oil. It made his skin tingle and left him with a chill for a while after he got out of the water. Plus, it smelled like Tony. He took his time, scrubbing the washcloth over his chest and down his arms, scrubbing every finger, cleaning under his nails with the opposite thumb, rubbing the cloth at his cuticles. His toes got the same treatment, and then the bottoms of his feet, the back of his knees, the spaces between his legs and over his ass. He even managed to stretch and twist enough to get his entire back. Even under the lukewarm water, the body wash made him feel cold, almost like his skin was vibrating.
By the time he made it back to the bedroom and into his boxers, Tony had shut the laptop down and set it down beside the bed. He was still sitting up against the pillows, but he looked like he was starting to drift off. Steve flipped the light off and felt his way back to the bed, listening to Tony rustling around in the blankets to guide him while his vision adjusted.
The sheets were warm with Tony’s body, and soft on Steve’s buzzing skin. They rolled together without a word, Tony moving up the mattress and Steve squirming down so he could tuck his head under Tony’s chin. He liked the way it felt to have Tony’s arms draped around his head and shoulder, the steady thump of his heart close to Steve’s ears, the scent of his skin.
“Did you have a good day?” Tony asked, tipping his head to set this lips to Steve’s temple in a sideways kiss.
“Long,” Steve answered. He shrugged. “It was productive. Tomorrow will be worse.”
Tony hummed. “You have that embassy meeting tomorrow,” he recalled aloud. “Do you need moral support?”
“Don’t you have a shareholders call or investment something or other?”
Tony laughed. “I have a shareholders call and an investment something or other. But I can still be your moral support. I can multitask.”
Steve shifted to get comfortable, tucking his arm under the pillow and looking for that elusive position where his body and Tony’s body locked perfectly into place and they were both too comfortable to move again for a while. Tony shifted to let him move.
“I can handle the embassy,” Steve said finally, settling down again. It wasn’t exactly the right position, but pretty close. Close enough for a while, anyway. He’d try again in a few minutes, or Tony would. They’d figure it out, or they’d roll apart when limbs started falling asleep. He nuzzled into the underside of Tony’s chin, kissing idly at his throat.
Tony shifted against him. He threw a leg over Steve’s hip, and leaned back slightly against the pillows behind him. Steve sighed happily as they fell into a comfortable sprawl.
“Do you need anything?” Steve asked after a moment of quiet.
“No, I’m alright. Thank you.” His fingers drifted across the back of Steve’s shoulders, and then down his spine.
Steve returned the favor, skating his free hand up Tony’s arm. He hooked a thumb under the strap of Tony’s tank top and let his knuckle rub softly over his collarbone. Steve had never been with someone who was as content with touching and being touched without it leading to sex as Tony. It was a relief after a lifetime of anxiety and constantly having to be aware that his partner might not interpret cuddling as just cuddling. He’d never felt before that he was free to just indulge in touch for the sake of touch. It wasn’t that he disliked sex, and he really liked making Tony feel good, but he’d never been drawn to it. Most of the time he was pretty sure that he got the same enjoyment out of cuddling that other people got out of orgasms. When he’d woken up in the new century and had the term ‘asexual’ defined for him the first time, he’d almost wept from relief. In his time, he would have just been labeled queer, and would have been in just as much danger from not having sex as having the wrong kind of sex.
Steve looked up. Tony had his eyes closed, but his fingers were still brushing across Steve’s skin. The motions were growing slower, pauses between strokes growing longer. He was obviously drifting off to sleep. “Tony?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you really not mind that… well, we don’t have sex often?”
Tony cracked one eye open. They’d talked about it before – talked it to death, it felt like – but confirmation wasn’t a bad thing. Communication was important. Just because Tony hadn’t minded at one point, didn’t mean he wasn’t starting to mind six months later.
Rubbing at one eye with his knuckle, Tony managed to get both eyes open. “When I was younger, I might have minded,” he confessed finally. It could have just been the sleepiness, but he looked a little guilty. “No, I would have definitely minded. I would like to say that I would have seen you for the prize you are and not let it get in the way, but it probably would have. I’d like to think we would have worked it out anyways, but I was a different person then.” He put his hand on the side of Steve’s face and urged his chin up so he could see Steve’s eyes. “Darling. I am over fifty, and have an actual heart problem. I promise you, it does not bother me. I’ve never been with anyone I could just touch without having to put on a show all the time, and that’s nice.”
Feeling warm, Steve stretched up and kissed Tony gently on the corner of his lips, and then rubbed their noses together. “You’ll tell me if it ever starts to bother you?”
“Cross my heart,” Tony said.
“And when you need it –”
“I will continue to communicate any needs with you as they arise,” Tony interrupted, tucking Steve’s head under his chin and shifting closer so they were tangled up together. They wouldn’t stay like that for long – Tony kept the room cool to make cuddling more comfortable, but he’d get hot eventually and roll away.
Steve took advantage of it while his body heat was still pleasant for Tony, wrapping his arms around Tony’s waist and holding him close. “I love you,” he said against Tony’s collarbone.
Humming, Tony said, “That is something I will never get tired of.” He leaned back so he kiss Steve’s forehead and then curled forward again, wrapping his free arm around Steve’s head and carding his fingers through Steve’s hair.
It was another position that wouldn’t last long – Steve liked feeling cradled and sheltered, but it would eventually turn from sheltering to smothering, and he would probably roll out of it even before Tony was driven away by his body heat.
Tony curled over a little further. He kissed the top of Steve’s head and gently squeezed his neck. “I love you too.”
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