#yesssss boy. hate eachother!!! love eachother!!! blur those goddamn lines!!!

[intelligentbees]

“I still hate you,” Tony mutters, voice shaky and entirely unconvinced while his hand expertly unbuckles the clasps of the uniform he designed so carefully, months and months and months ago.

“I know,” Steve responds gruffly. His beard scratches Tony’s jaw as those perfect teeth run down the thin skin of his neck, trace his jugular. His hands are rough iron clamps against each side of Tony’s beautifully tailored Versace two-piece. The fabric will be ruined beyond repair in less than ten minutes - Tony could bet his fortune on it.

They’ve played this stupid game before. Every time, Tony swears it’ll be the last.

Steve hitches him up onto the kitchen counter of the ridiculous New Jersey safehouse, and Tony goes willingly, yanking Steve into the open spread of his legs. This is the closest Steve’s gotten to New York since he first read those damned accords. The closest he can get to home is some 1965-styled kitchenette with pictures of old-timey adverts lining the walls and a microwave that’d probably irradiate you if you went near it.

It’s wrong- all of it. But there’s no changing it. Steve made his choice long ago, and Tony hates him for it. He should remember that. He should tell Steve that again.

“Fuck, God, Steve,” is what comes out instead, breathed against the other man’s mouth. Tony’s whole body is hot, taught, desperate, and he tugs the top half of Steve’s uniform off his torso. Steve spray painted over the colours- the whole thing is dark now, void of any trace of what it used to be. Tony hates that too.

“Tony,” Steve says, like there’s more to it- a name at the beginning of a sentence which never comes out. He clasps his teeth over Tony’s bottom lip, pushes his hands under Tony’s rapidly-wrinkling shirt and brushes his thumbs over each nipple, rubbing quick circles. The movement pulls another noise from Tony’s throat.

Fuck- the man knows him.

Steve steadies himself for a moment to catch his breath, nose brushing against Tony’s. Tony tries not to look into his eyes, whenever they do this. He’s never been good at seeing Steve’s soul - the one he never tries to hide, to mask. He’s not like Tony, you see. Everything he does, he does earnestly and from the heart.

The decision he made to leave with Bucky - to keep the culprit of Tony’s parents’ deaths a secret from him - they’d both come from that same heart. Hence, no eye contact. Tony has no desire to see how truly insignificant the space he takes up in Steve’s soul was.

Except now.

He does it without meaning to- just catching sight of those infuriating baby blues as he leans in for another messy kiss. Error number 1.

Error number 2 is not shutting his damn eyes and grabbing Steve’s dick like he normally does.

And error number 3 is the worst. Error number 3 is when he catches sight of Steve’s suddenly agonised expression, doesn’t ignore it, and instead asks “what?” Thus inviting conversation. They don’t come here for that. They come here to fuck eachother’s brains out for a night and then keep playing their cat-and-mouse chase across the globe as if anyone in a position of authority actually fucking believes it.

Steve goes perfectly still for a moment. Then he swallows. “This… this really makes you miserable, doesn’t it.”

He doesn’t frame it like a question.

Tony looks up at him, breathing hard. “Oh, I’m sorry I’m not looking ecstatic while getting groped by my ex boyfriend in a place that’s decked out like a prop house in a nuclear testing site. Would you prefer for me to giggle jovially while you fuck me amongst the dust and cobwebs?”

They’d used to have sex that was so full of love. This is how Tony always talks to Steve, now.

Steve shakes his head, a minute, grieving little thing. Tony feels the man’s breath skating across his face- feels the warmth of his bare chest, his shoulders, pressing against Tony.

“I thought…” he begins, then trails off for a moment as Tony skirts his hands down his chest, unlatches his belt. “I thought this made you happy. At least a little bit, even if you didn’t admit it. But it doesn’t. ”

Of course it doesn’t. But it’s all I have left of you.

“You think I’m coming here to find happiness? Jesus Steve. I’m coming here for tension relief,” Tony says, because he just can’t be truthful- he did his best when they were together, he really did, and it all failed anyway. Besides: Steve was never as truthful as Tony had always so fervently believed him to be either. “How about we both just stop talking and get down to that part.”

He gets his hands all the way to Steve’s boxers before Steve stops him- a gentle yet utterly unmoving grip. When Tony looks up at him again, Steve shakes his head. He’s grey in the face- if Tony didn’t know better now, he’d even say heartbroken.

“Tony, I…” Steve’s struggling for the words and he looks so beautiful, so so beautiful, just the same as the very first time Tony laid eyes on his photograph in the SHIELD folder he’d hacked his way into. “I didn’t realise you felt that way. Or maybe I did, but just didn’t want to acknowledge it because I was selfish.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I can’t do this with you. To you.” Steve steps away jerkily, half his body lagging while the other half pulls, as if warring with his own system. His pale skin is patchy, covered in faint marks where Tony has grabbed him. “I thought we were both doing this for enjoyment, but you’re not, and so I can’t. It’s cruel.”

Tony realises what Steve is implying here. His heart - what’s left of the poor thing anyway - convulses in panic, and he stumbles off the counter. “I’m not a fucking dog,” he snaps, “I make my own choices.”

“You don’t even look at me,” Steve’s voice breaks then. “I wished more than anything that you’d look at me. But I just saw it, then, when you did.”

“Saw what?”

They’re facing off against one another now - it’s like they can’t stop themselves. They have to be on either side of the argument, they can never just agree, no matter how hard they both want to. Tony hates and hates and hates.

“Your eyes don’t lie to me, Tony.” Steve’s voice is soft, and he says it like that alone is enough. “Your mouth does. And you don’t want this.”

“See, do you see what you’re doing here, again?” Tony steps forward, smashes his finger against the place where the star used to sit proudly on Steve’s chest. “You’re making an executive decision about how I feel, as to what I need, when you don’t have that right. You don’t get to decide what’s best for me!”

“But you never do what’s best for you!” Steve’s hands flail helplessly. “You do what’s best for everyone else, or what you think you deserve, and you never think about how it’s going to hurt—“

“I DESERVED TO KNOW MY PARENTS WERE MURDERED, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!”

Tony was supposed to be making his way to an orgasm right about now - instead he suddenly feels so angry he can hardly breathe. Fucking typical. He just had to go and open his mouth, didn’t he?

He glares at the man who tore his heart out over a year ago. Steve looks back, his expression shattered. Tony feels angrier still when he realises that he’s never going to be able to see this person in front of him and not love him. He’s trying so hard, right now, and he can’t. Even after all this. He can’t find it in him.

“Just fuck me,” Tony says, and it comes out more exhausted than demanding.

Steve shakes his head. “I can’t.”

Right. Steve’s made up his mind about what’s best for tony. Again. Was it ever going to go any other way?

Sometimes, the tiredness goes so deep that Tony starts to feel it in his bones. His therapist says it’s psychosomatic- that bones don’t actually creak and groan like wooden doors in abandoned houses. Tony begs to differ.

“If we stop now, this is the last time you’ll ever see me,” he says, hoping, even now, that maybe something will change. That maybe for once, Steve will just put him first.

It’s a pipe dream. Tony comes to that realisation as soon as Steve shakes his head. Stupid.

“Maybe that’s for the best.” Steve’s voice is hoarse. Like each word is painful. Tony wishes that were true - in reality, he doesn’t doubt Steve is just wary of the fight his words will bring - the argument that’ll erupt out of Tony’s mouth in response.

But Tony’s done fighting. It’s a losing battle. Always has been.

He looks at Steve. Nods.

He walks out of the door without another word.

#stevetony #Steve Rogers #tony stark #i hate civil war passionately and yet I am obsessed with writing about their fucked up little dynamic #yesssss boy. hate eachother!!! love eachother!!! blur those goddamn lines!!! #die in one another’s arms and then finally see everything you should’ve done differently with the clarity that only comes when you know #the opportunity to fix it is gone for good!!!!!!!!!!! #anyways