Chapter Text
Peggy spent most of the afternoon catching Steve up on less serious SHIELD gossip, while Rhodey put Tony through his paces. Steve was willing to admit that while he loved Tony perhaps more intently than he should, it was a relief to have someone else for Tony to work out his genius on.
Pepper left before dinner; Steve dug some steaks out of the fridge and grilled on the balcony overlooking the ocean, shamelessly luring Tony out of his cave with the promise of fresh hot food. It was the first time he'd spent any real time with Rhodey when both of them weren't taking part in an active manhunt, and Tony had never really seen the two of them interact; Steve caught him watching them at times, a half-smile on his face.
"You and Rhodey get along well," Tony remarked, once Peggy and Rhodey left for the night, Rhodey with a promise to return in a few days to talk handling on the armor.
"Yeah," Steve said, leaning on the balcony railing, watching the last few minutes of the sunset. "He's a good guy. I think he appreciated the respect he got from my people when we were looking for you."
"You didn't want to take over?"
"I wanted to, but he was the best man for the job. I mean, he and Bucky served in the region, and Sam and Peggy had done rescue flights there too. So it was really just me and Clint and Natasha who didn't know what we were doing, and given Natasha's history, really just me and Clint." He glanced sidelong at Tony. "I don't like politics and that attitude has kept me back in SHIELD, but it means my missions go smoothly and my people get home safely. Rhodey was the guy who could do that for you. I was just glad SHIELD didn't keep me stateside."
"What would you have done if they had?"
"Cut and run. Natasha could get us into the country without external support. We'd have come and found you, Tony."
Tony nodded, leaning next to him, a half-empty bottle of beer in one hand.
"I will always come and find you," Steve added. Tony was silent. "All right, come on, you've still got sleep debt to catch up on, time for bed. Especially if you're going to spend all day tomorrow hammering bullet dents out of the armor and writing a training module."
"A training module?" Tony asked, raising an eyebrow as he followed him inside. "Rhodey put you up to saying that?"
"No, though training him isn't a bad idea either. I want suit training," Steve said, setting their plates in the sink. "Eventually, I'd like you to put me in the armor. Might have to take the legs in a little," he added. "Maybe my own suit, we can talk about that."
"Why?" Tony asked, sounding baffled.
"Because you don't care about your own safety, but if I'm in the armor, you'll know exactly where the weak points are," Steve said, turning around.
"Touche," Tony agreed. "Do you really want one of your own?"
"No; I think it'll cut my maneuverability, and I don't think SHIELD should have the immediate access to the suit they'd demand if I was in one for the job," Steve said. "But I want you to make it safe. If I'm in one for testing, it'll be safe. That'll translate back to you."
Tony nodded, eyes dark.
"Bed, now," Steve said gently, hooking his fingers in Tony's belt and towing him towards the bedroom. Tony shed his shirt halfway there, stepped out of his shoes on the threshhold, and got his arms around Steve's waist, lifting; Steve quashed his first instinct, which was to kick back and break his attacker's nose, and instead braced his hands on Tony's arms, twisting his head around to nip the tendons of his throat. Tony dumped him on the bed and he rolled, wriggling out of his khakis, letting Tony help him with his shirt.
"You always get possessive after Peggy's been around," Steve told him, letting Tony straddle him. He wrapped his left hand around Tony's neck from behind, fingers of his right hand resting against the arc reactor. It hummed warmly. "You know she's not carrying a torch for me, right? Or vice versa."
"Indulge me."
"She's got a casual thing with a barista in New York, Angie something -- and she's got her eye on Rhodey," Steve continued, as Tony untangled his hands and held them above his head. Once Steve had demonstrated how a little guy like him could put a big guy like Tony on his ass from this position, and Tony had...he'd seemed to like that. The idea that anything he did to Steve was something Steve allowed, not something he simply couldn't stop. "No offense to Rhodey, but God help him if they decide to team up on him."
"Stop talking about Peggy Carter," Tony said.
"Jealous?" Steve asked with a grin, lifting his legs to wrap around Tony's waist. He twisted just hard enough to unbalance Tony, forcing him to let go of his wrists in order to catch himself. "I make my own choices. I'm stubborn that way. Peggy and I weren't good for each other."
Tony sat back, head bowing, eyes dropping. Steve pushed himself up on his elbows.
"And we are?" Tony asked, and Steve's heart just about broke.
"Yes, of course we are. You make me happy, you've opened up my world. And obviously I'm really good for you," he added with a grin. Tony's smile spread a little more slowly, but he leaned forward and eased down until most of his weight was on Steve's chest and hips, pinning him to the blankets.
"Please don't leave me," Tony said.
"No, I won't," Steve assured him, pressing their foreheads together. "Nobody's leaving you, Tony, not me or Pepper or Rhodey. I swear."
"I have more work to do -- my weapons are still out there," Tony said. "I'm going to destroy them. I'm going to find them and fuck them up. I need to know you're in."
"I'm in. I just want you to tell me next time," Steve said.
"Okay," Tony said, kissing him. "Okay, deal."
"Good," Steve said, and rolled them until he was on top. "Now, back in the present, tell me if you like this..."
***
Steve woke the following morning at peace with the world, Tony's warm, solid body curled around him, big broad hand resting on his hip, breath soft against the back of his head. He tightened the blanket that was tucked around his shoulders, and got a huff of laughter from Tony.
"You awake?" Tony asked.
"Just barely," Steve replied.
"Go back to sleep if you want."
"Nnh. Enjoying the warmth."
"How have you ever survived a New York winter?" Tony asked. "You should stay out here with me forever. Temperature never gets below fifty degrees."
"I like Brooklyn. Besides, all my friends are there," Steve said. "I think we should go back, once all this ugliness is over. Even if it's just to visit."
"Yeah, maybe," Tony agreed. His body had tensed, though, and Steve knew he'd ruined the moment.
"Speaking of all this ugliness..." he prompted. Tony sighed and kissed the back of his head. "You've been awake for a while? Making plans?"
"Yep."
"Gonna share?"
"Kind of have to," Tony said. "They're plans for you."
"For me?"
"You and Pepper. I need your help."
"Doing what?"
Tony tightened his arm. "I'm locked out of SI, but Pepper isn't. Obie doesn't know she has full administrative access -- the systems literally think she's a CEO. And she has physical access to the building."
"What's your plan?"
"I want you to escort Pepper into Stark Industries, to my office. There's an encrypted connection to the SI mainframe. I need her to find wherever Obie's stashing his double-bookkeeping. This isn't a drug deal on a street corner -- if he's selling to terrorists, he needs to track payments, money laundering, bribes, smugglers' fees, wire transfers. Obie's not old school, he'll keep it somewhere digital, and he'll keep it on the Stark servers."
"Why would he be that stupid?"
"He knows I wouldn't think to look, and he knows anyone outside the company can't get in. I wrote the security protocols on our mainframe. Even JARVIS can't get in or he would have already. It's not for lack of trying."
"So Pepper goes in, uses her access to find his records, gets out. Then what?"
"Then I use the records to find my bombs, and I blow them up in place," Tony said.
"I was really hoping you'd say, then I give them to you and SHIELD arrests Obadiah Stane for high treason," Steve said reproachfully.
"That too. But if that happens, the bombs disappear. Or they go into international legal limbo and they're out there for years while SI tries to get them back. I have to hit them first. There can't be that many or this would have blown open long before now. I just need a little time to take them down. SHIELD can have him when I'm done."
Steve considered this, trying to see it from Tony's angle, from Pepper's -- Rhodey's too, and Coulson's. SHIELD wouldn't like a civilian getting up to that amount of international political violence, but then again SHIELD would approve of the efficiency of Tony's solution. If he didn't do it, they might send someone themselves. Hell, they might send Steve.
"Pepper's not going to like it," he said finally. "She thinks you're going to get yourself killed."
"Maybe I am," Tony replied, so calmly that Steve felt a chill.
"Do you want to die, Tony?" he asked carefully.
"No, I don't want to, but I'm not afraid to. This is bigger than me. I'd think you'd understand that."
"I do. But I work in a job where I'm trained to be concerned when one of my colleagues stops being willing to die and starts being eager."
"I'm not eager to die. I just think -- " Tony bit off whatever he was going to say. Steve waited until it was evident he wasn't going to continue, and then inhaled.
"When I was young -- really young, two or three -- I had a terrible fever," he said. "My ma thought I was going to die. So did most of the doctors. The fact that I didn't die never seemed that important to me until I was older, because as far as I knew I was always teetering on disaster. Until I hit puberty I was sick so much. Bronchitis nearly every year, pneumonia some years. If there was a rare flu strain flying around, I caught it. I had asthma, I was allergic to everything. When I was eleven I asked Ma if I was going to live to grow up, because I honestly didn't know. She said she knew I was and I asked how."
"What'd she say?" Tony asked.
"She said she knew I would survive because I was destined for great things. She said God lets a lot of babies die and no one knows why, but He wouldn't have saved me from the fever if He didn't have a great purpose for me. And I mean...I'm not devout or anything, I don't know if it was God who did it, but -- "
"I can't have survived for the rest of my life to mean nothing," Tony said. "Yinsen told me not to waste it. As he was dying he told me not to waste my life."
"And sometimes not wasting it means risking it," Steve said. "But risking your life to finish the job doesn't mean recklessly endangering it."
"I'm not suicidal, Steve. I just know what my life is for."
"Good. Then I will help you."
"What did she think your purpose was?" Tony asked. "Your mother. What did she think you were meant to do?"
"I don't think she cared," Steve said. "It was enough for her that I was alive. She died before I knew either, but I guess she'd probably have let me work it out for myself anyway."
"Would she approve?"
"Of SHIELD? I don't know. She wouldn't approve of how long I lied to you about it. Might not approve of you," he added with a grin Tony couldn't see. "But for Ma there was a big difference between approval and affection. It took her years to approve of Bucky, but she loved him the minute she met him."
"How's that work?"
"Who knows? Complicated lady, my Ma. She'd love the Doodad, though."
"Don't call it the Doodad, we're not calling it the Doodad," Tony insisted.
"Well, it's shorter than Thingamajig."
"It's a repulsor-aided individual defensive combat-oriented prosthetic."
Steve worked this out. "You're calling it RAID COP?"
"Best backronym I could come up with."
"You think RAID COP is better than the Doodad?"
"Raid Cop sounds awesome."
"Raid Cop sounds like a c-list comic book superhero someone invented in the fifties and they're trying to make cool and relevant again."
Tony tugged the pillow out from under Steve's head and hit him with it. "You're making breakfast, my tiny murderous nerd."
"I always make breakfast, because you're a spoiled brat who can't cook," Steve replied, tossing the pillow over his shoulder. "While I make breakfast, you get me some floorplans for SI so I can plot a few routes in case of emergency."
"Yeah, yeah, make me look bad by actually planning things," Tony said, rolling out of the bed. "I have to write the program to find Obie's stash, too. Jesus, I will never get over how easily you bruise."
"Hm?" Steve asked, sitting up. He glanced down at his thighs, which were spotted with purple-blue bruises where Tony had gripped them. "I like them. Nicest bruises I get."
"I'd prefer you not get any."
"Go wash and get me some floorplans and I'll make you an omelette," Steve ordered. Tony saluted and disappeared into the bathroom.
***
Pepper was every bit as apprehensive about this plan -- both her role, and Tony's larger goals -- as Steve expected. Steve tried to be quietly, unobtrusively reassuring. Eventually she did look from Tony to him, then back, and said, "This is removing the chest magnet all over again, isn't it?"
"I probably won't have heart failure if you don't get the files," Tony said.
"Not helping," Steve sing-songed under his breath. "This is low-risk for you," he pointed out to her, because he wasn't that great at navigating complex emotions, but he knew how to mitigate risk aversion. "I'll be there if anything goes wrong, but there's no reason anyone should even suspect anything."
She sighed. "When do we do this?"
Tony tossed her the flash drive that he'd loaded with the search program. "Soon as you're ready."
"Gives us less time to get nervous," Steve said.
"Yeah, you look really nervous," Pepper replied.
"I'm a very good liar," Steve told her. Tony smirked.
"Okay, let's go commit corporate espionage," she said. "You're driving."
"You're gonna regret that!" Tony called after them, as Steve followed her out.
Steve thought he drove very sedately, taking Pepper along the coast towards SI's headquarters. He wasn't expecting perfect poise when they walked in, but she went up to the security desk, got him a visitor's badge ("He's helping me take some of Tony's desk toys home"), and led him calmly through the building to Tony's office.
"That was slick," he said to her, as they left the elevator.
"I lie to people for Tony all the time," she replied. "That's not what worries me."
"Then what worries you?"
"Obadiah," she said softly, and Steve nodded. They passed an empty desk, and Pepper badged the door behind it open.
"I'm going to stay here," Steve said. "If anyone asks, you didn't want me rummaging in Tony's stuff while you're trying to pack. If anyone comes by, I'll ping your phone and stall them."
She nodded and swept inside, and Steve tossed himself down into the empty desk chair, tossing his feet up on the desk and taking out his phone. He swept his thumb over the screen, pretending to play a twitch game while he watched people come and go -- not many on the executive floor, but enough that he wanted to be alert and aware. Some of them looked curiously at him, others knowingly.
One of them must have called Obadiah Stane, because the man looked a hundred percent unsurprised to see him when he came lumbering down the hallway.
Steve hit the button to alert Pepper, eased his legs off the desk, and stood to greet him, gently blocking the doorway.
"Agent Rogers," Obadiah said, all geniality. "Enjoying a little SI hospitality this afternoon?"
"Mr. Stane, nice to see you again. I heard the cafeteria here is great, I thought I'd try it out," Steve replied. "Pepper said she'd get me on her employee discount."
Obadiah laughed. "Well, we do what we can. Is she around?"
"Yeah, she's just packing up a couple of Tony's things. Toy cars or something."
"Tony does love his toys," Obadiah said. It was a little pointed for his nice-uncle act, but meaner bastards had said worse. Steve didn't blink.
"Some more than others," he agreed blandly. "Did you need Pepper? It's just Tony's expecting us back as soon as we eat."
"No, no, just heard she was here and wanted a word," Obadiah replied, moving forward, not so much around Steve as through him. Steve made a split-second call not to try and block the door -- that would be actually suspicious -- and stepped out of his way.
"Knock yourself out. I'm not allowed inside," he said.
"Company data security policy," Obadiah said. "You understand, I'm sure."
"SI is full of all kinds of secrets," Steve said, and Obadiah ignored him as he passed into the office. He saw, just before it closed, Pepper seated at Tony's desk, holding some kind of useless office ornament.
"So, what are we going to do about this?" he heard Obadiah ask, and then the door swung shut.
It was a harrowing three or four minutes, after that, but Steve knew there were no other exits from Tony's office, and Obadiah wouldn't kill her knowing he was out here waiting. He wished he'd been able to bring a gun. SI security might have wanted to wand him, so all he had was a set of ceramic-and-plastic knives and his fists.
Worst case, he reminded himself, he and Pepper were escorted off-property without the information they came for. He could defend them from anyone up to about five guys, and he didn't think SI security was likely to be an elite unit.
The door opened, and Steve heaved an internal sigh of relief as Pepper, and Pepper alone, appeared.
"Get everything?" he asked, and she put an open carton of junk in his hands.
"Yep," she said, and then in an undertone, "walk fast, he's going to see what I did if he takes the computer off screensaver."
"Got it," Steve murmured, hustling ahead of her towards the elevators.
They made it all the way to the front lobby of SI before a security officer stopped them.
"Ms. Potts, there's been an issue with your ID," he said, rising from his seat at the lobby desk. Steve checked his hands, saw that one of them was on a taser at his belt, noticed his partner coming around the other side of the desk to block their exit, and moved as fast as he dared.
He flipped the box full of junk over, hoping there was nothing particularly valuable in it, spilling executive toys all over the floor. Some of them shattered, while others bounced and rolled away.
"Crap!" he said, and then handed the now-empty box to the guard, who took his hand off his taser to accept it automatically. "I'm so sorry, I'll pick it up -- "
He punched the guard holding the box in the face, two quick jabs that sent him falling backwards. With his left hand he grabbed the taser and with his right hand he took the box back, swinging it around to clock the other guard in the head while he tased the first one. He knelt on the second one's neck as he yanked his handcuffs out, then flipped and cuffed him while the first guy was still jerking his way to unconsciousness. Several people, stunned by the sudden violence, began to scream and flee.
Steve cuffed the other guard, pulled the guns off their belts, hooked himself a billy club with his foot, and shoved both guns in his pockets, grabbing Pepper's hand.
"Security won't be far behind us, come on," he said, pulling her along a now-deserted hallway, deeper into the building.
"Shouldn't we be going the other way?" she asked breathlessly.
"If the guards at the front were meant to stall us, someone's already told the gate guys," he said. "I have an internal contingency plan."
"Which is what, exactly?" she asked, as he made a sharp turn after the third door and burst into an empty office.
"No security cameras on the manufacturing floor," he said, passing through an interior door and into the roar of the manufacturing plant. Stane had mandated no cameras in manufacturing or, more vitally, in the physical plant where the oversized arc reactors pumped power to the rest of the campus. Too many industry secrets, Tony had said.
Lots of shenanigans to get up to if nobody's watching, Steve had replied.
"Give me your phone," he yelled over the clang of the machinery. Pepper handed it to him and he popped the battery out as they sidled down a narrow alley off the main corridor of the plant. He handed the pieces back to her and then disabled his own phone, carefully counting stairwells up to the second level until he hit the last one. He led her up to the landing, shot out the lock on the fire door on the landing, and then continued up the steps to the second level. Hopefully, if anyone did search the plant, they'd find the door damaged and assume he and Pepper had bolted through a fire escape.
On the second level, he found the ladder he was looking for, recessed into a back wall, cleverly hidden so that it was only visible from a single corner of the catwalk. Cold war paranoia at its finest.
The ladder took them down three flights, below the SI sub-basement, to a location that wasn't on the expansion plans Tony had given him but was on the original building design sketches once they'd dug those out.
He walked past a huge vault door next to the ladder and stepped through the round doorway, clicking the emergency lights on as Pepper was still descending. Dim yellow illumination filled the room, and ancient ventilation fans creaked to life.
It was a large chamber, lined with bed frames at one end, benches and tables at the other. Along one wall were shelves and shelves of expired food. Dust-caked linens sat in bins nearby.
"What the hell...?" Pepper asked, coming up behind him.
"The Stark Industries bomb shelter," Steve said, his voice echoing in the space. "Designed to house and feed the entire population of Stark Industries, circa 1963, in the event of a nuclear holocaust. I will say this, Howard Stark was not even close to screwing around when it came to the Cold War."
"Oh my God, this is -- did Tony know this was here?"
"Apparently he'd forgotten. Obadiah probably never knew." Steve reached out to gently coax her inside, then started to turn the wheel to close the vault door. "I don't like running myself into a dead end, but at least we have a chance to regroup before we try to run for it."
"How do we do that?" Pepper asked, sitting on one of the benches. She looked pale and shaken, but he didn't think their crazy run at freedom was entirely why.
"Stark Industries is probably going to lock down," Steve said. "But you can't just keep the entire staff imprisoned here overnight because Tony Stark's boyfriend assaulted a security guard. Obadiah wants this kept quiet. He's going to have the campus searched but when he comes up empty, he's going to let his people go home. He's going to leave when they do. There'll be guards here, watching our car, watching the exits, but once he leaves, we have a shot. What we really need is to get just far enough outside the plant to call for help."
"Steve, the things on Obadiah's ghost drive..." Pepper shook her head.
"What? What did you find?"
"Plans for something like the armor Tony built," she said. "And a video...Obie hired the Ten Rings to kill Tony. The only reason they didn't is that they got greedy and tried to raise their price. There was this video of him..."
She swallowed, clenching the drive tightly in one hand. He sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, taking the drive from her fingers gently.
"You did great," he said, tucking it into a snap-pocket in the knife band up his shirtsleeve.
"You didn't see him, he was -- "
"Pepper, it's in the past. I got him out of Afghanistan, didn't I? I promise you, I will get him out of this, too. I'll get us out of this. I've been in worse spots."
"When?" she asked.
He smiled. "That's classified, but trust me. I have four fully functional limbs, two guns, and you; I've been in much worse spots. Besides," he added, leaning back and reaching for a large white box on one of the shelves, "We've got a lifetime supply of Lucky Strikes."
She looked down at the cigarette carton, dusty and several decades old, and let out a laugh.
***
When JARVIS told him that Stark Industries was locked down, Tony checked the news, but there was nothing; no reports about any kind of incident at the factory, no police scanner notifications. His corporate email account had an all-staff notice that security was conducting drills and searches in the building, but nothing more. No messages from Steve or Pepper, and when he tried to call them, they both went to voicemail.
He tried not to worry. Steve had spent almost the entire day memorizing the Stark Industries ground plans, working out escape routes and safe hiding places. If he hadn't heard from them, that was good. It meant they hadn't been caught. Yet.
He had to be patient. He couldn't put the armor on and go destroy his own company. He couldn't tip his hand, not until he knew for sure they were in danger. Steve would be so furious if he did. They'd planned for this. He had to stick to the plan.
When his phone rang at six o'clock that night and Pepper's name came up, Tony snatched the phone off the table.
"Pepper, Jesus, what the hell happened?" he asked, but instead of an answer he heard a high, building whine.
His limbs seized up; his neck and jaw locked, and someone took the phone out of his hand. He flicked his eyes as far to one side as he could, desperate to turn his head, and saw the edge of Obie's face out of the corner of his vision.
"Breathe," Obie said, voice low and soothing as Tony's balance failed and he tipped backwards. A warm hand clutched his neck, Obie's other hand on his shoulder, lowering him to the sofa. "Easy, easy."
His head was twisted away from Obie, painfully, and a small device was held in front of his eyes.
"You remember this one, right?" Obie asked. And Tony did; when he was seventeen, after his parents died, he kept having dreams where he couldn't move, and the grief counselor Obie got him said it was sleep paralysis. He'd explained the theories behind it, the neurology of REM sleep, and little teenaged MIT golden boy Tony had instantly seen how a defense company might monetize the idea. R&D had taken three years to produce the paralysis machine from Tony's initial idea, but the government wouldn't buy it. Obie had been furious at everyone, including Tony.
"Is that what you're gonna give me?" he'd demanded. "Expensive failures, Tony?"
Tony had turned around and taken control of SI away from him, in revenge, which had been the start of immense growth at SI and a long, slow spiral for its CEO...
Obie tilted his head back to the front, into his face, breath stinking of cigars and onions. "You know, when I ordered the first hit on you, I worried that I was killing the golden goose."
He disappeared from view, and Tony heard the mechanical squeal of some other device being activated.
"When I ordered the hit on you in the airplane, well, that was just vengeful and petty. I'm man enough to admit that," Obie continued.
A side effect of the short-term paralysis, Tony knew, was flashbacks; it was basically artificially induced hypnagogia. Every time Obie spoke, the world blurred for a moment. Memories flashed up and vanished -- the stiffness of the shirt collar on his suit the day he met Obie for the first time when he was nine; the way Obie had stayed in Cambridge longer than Dad had, to help him settle in at MIT when he was fifteen; Obie explaining girls to him when he was twelve -- Obie's grave, concerned face when Tony asked what he knew about boys, and the tacit agreement they'd made never to bring that up to Howard or Mom...
Obie pressed the machine to his chest and Tony felt his body jerk helplessly as it gripped the reactor. Obie must have disabled JARVIS; Tony had written a panic protocol into him weeks ago, a specific set of instructions for what to do if the reactor was tampered with, but JARVIS was silent.
"Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?" Obie asked him. "Your father, he helped give us the atomic bomb. What kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you? We'd all be speaking Japanese."
Tony wanted to scream, inhaled like he could, and then choked on saliva at the back of his throat.
"You've made something beautiful, Tony," Obadiah said, and then he pulled, and Tony felt the comforting thrum of the magnet die to nothing as the reactor was disconnected. Pain began to trickle through his chest. "This is your legacy. A new generation of weapons with this at its heart? We'll steer the world onto a new course, a better course. I'm not a bad man, you know. I just understand that progress requires sacrifice. Sometimes of people we love," he added, and stroked Tony's hair. "I want to bring a little order to humanity, Tony. And order, like all truly useful things, comes from fear."
Tony fought the ringing in his ears, the rise of his blood pressure, as Obie tucked the reactor into a box.
"I don't appreciate you sending your bitch and your boyfriend to steal from me," Obie continued in that same calm voice. "But I'll find them soon enough. Shame about the boy; he would have made a fine recruit. Too bad all his loyalty's in his pants. And I liked Pepper. Selfish of you to involve them, son. Now I have to kill them both."
The latches on the box clicked, and Obie stood up.
"I'll see myself out," he said, and a few seconds later, Tony heard the front door shut.
He could feel the paralysis fading, but he could feel the shrapnel beginning to work its way through his chest as well -- the startling stabs of pain, the kick of adrenaline. That, at least, helped him wobble stiffly to his feet.
Obadiah didn't know he'd changed reactors, or that Pepper had mounted the old reactor in a case as a gift. Please God let him not know that there was a spare reactor in the workshop. If he could get to the workshop he could survive this, maybe long enough to warn Steve and Pepper --
One thing at a time. For now, he had to focus on the workshop, on reaching the reactor and restarting JARVIS. Steve and Pepper would have to defend themselves until he could get there.
At least, he thought grimly, Steve had a lot of experience in that.
***
When Tony answered Pepper's call but didn't respond, Steve knew they'd miscalculated. Obadiah must already have made it to the Malibu house.
Steve had cautiously crept out of the bomb shelter at half past five, but they'd still been searching the plant at that point. Once the search moved past the access ladder to the shelter, he'd given it fifteen minutes and then climbed up, followed by Pepper, and crept back through the plant to the nearest loading dock. They were there now, sheltered behind a dumpster, and while he'd been in more dangerous situations he had not often been in smellier ones.
"Call Rhodey," he told Pepper, as the SHIELD emergency line on his own phone rang. "Tell him and Peggy to meet us at SI. Obadiah will come back here. We need backup."
"Who are you calling?" Pepper asked, phone held to her ear.
"SHIELD has a field office in LA, they can send enough people to -- yes, this is Field Agent Steve Rogers, Counterintelligence," Steve said, as the SHIELD office picked up. "Callsign Nomad, badge identification number 332045. I have a major incident to report at Stark Industries. I need all available agents, off duty included."
By the time he'd convinced SHIELD to send a strike team, Pepper had hung up and was watching him nervously.
"What do we do?" she asked, as he checked the guns he'd taken off the guards.
"I want you to go back to the shelter," he said. "You're a civilian and I want you kept safe."
"Like hell," she said.
"Pepper -- "
"Look, I'm not a super secret spy agent but I have seen a lot of action movies and I know what happens when the team splits up," she said, and as much as he hated it, she had a point. For all the wrong reasons, but she did have a point.
"Did you see anything at all in the files that might tell me where to go to sabotage Stane?" he asked.
"Sector 16. He's building something there," she said.
"You know how to fire a weapon?"
She nodded, and took one of the guns when he offered it.
"Stay behind me, keep an eye on our six," he said, gun in one hand, club in the other. "If you see me engage someone, don't help. Just keep your head down and let me work."
The production floor was quiet and empty, now that the workday was over. With Tony's edict against weapons manufacture still technically in effect, the swing shift had been deactivated; the swing and graveyard shifts that normally would work the plant in full production were cancelled. Steve wondered if Tony knew two thirds of his plant staff were either out of work or reassigned elsewhere. That must have happened after Obadiah locked him out.
As they went, he reached out and plucked a round, shallow nose-cone component off the line, holding it in front of him like a shield, protecting them both at least a little against sudden attack.
Nothing came. They made it all the way to the exit doors leading into the administration wing before they hit trouble, in the form of guards on the door with big, proper assault rifles. Steve stopped, then passed the shield to Pepper and pointed to a curve in the wall. She tucked herself into it and made a worried face. He smiled reassuringly and then turned back to the guards.
Two minutes later, they were unconscious and mostly naked, and he was trussing them with their own zipties. He'd stuffed their undershirts in their mouths, loose enough that they could still breathe, tight enough they couldn't yell for help, and with Pepper's aid he dragged them into a corner. Pepper unconcernedly stripped down and pulled one of the uniforms on, settling the helmet on her head.
Even the shorter guard's pants were comically long on Steve.
"You can have my heels if you want," Pepper offered, as he stuffed the cuffs into the tops of his also-too-big boots and tied the laces around his calves. "You'd rock a nice pair of Manolos."
"You know, I am literally in the process of saving your life," Steve replied, picking up his makeshift shield again, one rifle strapped to his back, the other carried in ready position. "You could save the sass for when I genuinely deserve it."
"I'm grateful, I'm just making jokes so I won't start screaming," she said. "I had no idea you could move that fast."
"I'll try not to take the jokes personally, then," Steve told her. "Come on. When we walk through these doors either someone's gonna ask us why we left our post, or nobody's gonna ask us anything. We're going straight to Section 16, and once we clear it we're going to go meet Rhodey at the front gate and get him and Peggy through."
Section 16 was locked, and Pepper's card didn't get them through; Steve put her behind him, shot out the lock, and cleared the entryway before he let her in.
"He must have been skimming the books for years to make this place," she said, as Steve circled the lab, clearing the darker corners. "This is insane. How did he get away with it?"
"He didn't," Steve replied. "He's getting caught. Right now."
"Then how did he get away with it for as long as he did?"
Steve sighed, tapping a smartpane, watching as Obadiah's login came up. "I love Tony, and I don't blame him, but even before Afghanistan it was obvious to me that he spent a lot of time not wanting to see what SI was doing. And I can't imagine he spent a lot of time reading the bookkeeping."
"Well, you're not wrong," Pepper admitted.
"Hey Pepper?"
"Yes, Steve?"
"As an agent of federal and international law enforcement, if you see Obadiah Stane you have my permission to shoot him in the head. I'll testify at your trial that it was clearly in the best interests of the nation."
"Thank you, Steve, that's very sweet," she said, and then, "Hey, there's something -- "
Steve turned, and for a second his brain couldn't make sense of what he saw. It was the sheer scale of it, the brutal lines of a suit easily four times the size of the Doodad, like something out of a nightmare -- and it was unfolding from a crouch, preparing to advance on her.
"PEPPER, RUN!" he shouted, but she was already moving. His shout did draw the attention of the monster, which turned with humanlike curiosity towards him, raising an arm with rocket mounts and -- Jesus, the thing was bristling with automatic weapons --
Steve opened fire, but the assault rifles weren't going to stop that thing; a speeding train probably couldn't stop it. He saw Pepper dive for the doorway, saw the monster come hurtling past it, and knew she was safe; it was a good time to turn and run.
He clocked its speed as he dodged through the lab, trusting his instincts to take him towards safety. It was much, much faster than him on a sprint but it couldn't corner; it lost ground every time he turned. It was almost like a baby learning to walk still, or like someone learning a new navigational system --
Oh God.
Oh God, Obadiah Stane was inside it.
It was almost enough to make him turn and fight, but that would be suicidal. There was a door ahead and he shot it straight off its hinges, plowing through it, breaking out into the physical plant hangar where the huge, glowing arc reactor was housed. Stane didn't dare fire openly here, if he could even make it into the room --
The suit burst through the wall, and Steve opened fire again, emptying a full clip of the rifle from a position under the reactor.
There was a deep chuckling laugh from the armor.
"Is that all you've got, boy?" Stane asked, voice booming through loudspeakers set in the suit's shoulders.
Steve carefully, silently scuttled his way along the reactor, praying Stane didn't have thermal imaging in the suit, or at least didn't have it turned on. He slipped his knives out of their sheaths and into his palms, and then slunk carefully into the shadows next to the wall Stane had just come through.
He waited until Stane turned the other way, apparently searching for him, and then with a running leap he bounded off the remains of the wall and landed on the monster's back, knives catching in the wires on the exposed joints. It jerked wildly, trying to throw or pull him off, but he braced his feet high, curled his left hand around the edge of the backplate, and brought the thin edge of the billy club down deep into the mechanism at the neck. There was a satisfying crunch, and then a sizzling noise.
"You little son of a bitch," Stane roared. Steve leapt free, backflipping into the wall again and then using it as a launching pad to skid through the machine's legs while Stane was still reaching behind him. He bolted across the open floor, dodging as fast as he could.
He used his second clip to shoot through another door and outside, tossing the rifle away as he ran. The security staff that he and Pepper had hid from before were in total disarray now, and he could hear sirens in the distance.
There was a roar like a thousand engines revving at once, and then Stane burst out of the top of the reactor hangar, landing in front of him. Steve stared up at the suit. There wasn't anything else to do. Handguns were useless against this thing, his knives were still somewhere in its back --
And there was a promising streak of light in the distance.
"You know what your problem is, Stane?" he asked, and the armor laughed again.
"What's that, Rogers?" Obadiah said. A little tracking dot appeared on Steve's chest.
"You're a bully," Steve said.
"Doesn't seem like a problem to me," Stane said. "You know what your problem is, Rogers?"
"Well," Steve said, "it was you."
"Was?" Stane asked, confused.
Steve held up his hand and waved, bye bye, and that was when Tony and the armor hit Stane from the side, blowing both suits into the ground. Steve reflected that it was probably the most badass exit line he'd ever get, even as he was turning to run.
The brave thing, of course, would be to stay and help Tony, but without his own armor he'd be a liability -- sometimes brave and wise weren't the same thing. If he could rally the other guards or get SHIELD agents behind him, they could help, but this wasn't a back-up-the-boyfriend-alone situation.
His phone rang as he ran for the front entrance, where there were a lot of flashing lights. He answered breathlessly.
"Tony?"
"Hey buddy, you wanna not ever face down a giant evil robot alone again?" Tony asked. There was a huge flare of light behind him.
"I'm getting reinforcements," Steve said. "Just keep him away from populated -- "
"Too late," Tony said, and Steve turned to see both of them go hurtling into traffic beyond the security fence of the building.
"Fuck -- fuck -- GET OUT THERE!" Steve yelled, as he reached the pointlessly milling crowd of SI security officers and, thankfully, SHIELD agents.
"Steve?" Peggy called, incredulous.
"SI security, you are now under the command of SHIELD," Steve yelled. "I want every SI security officers out there on the freeway -- stop traffic, close down the roads. CLOSE IT DOWN!" he shouted, and the SI officers began to move a little faster, climbing onto ridiculous little security jeeps and heading for the freeway on-ramp just past the entry gate. "Get barricades up in both directions. Call the police and get everyone redirected away from SI. SHIELD!" he called, and a dozen faces turned towards him. "Heavy arms and body armor, I want us ready the second they clear the traffic. Has anyone seen Pepper? Pepper Potts?"
"Pepper's still here?" Rhodey demanded.
"Obadiah went after her, he's got a suit," Steve said. "She got clear but I don't know where she -- "
"She's in the building," Peggy said, one hand gesturing to the bluetooth in her ear. "I think Stark's on my line."
"Gimme," Steve ordered, and she tossed him the earpiece. "Tony?"
"I sent Pepper to the reactor hangar," Tony said. Steve accepted Peggy's phone, tucked it in a strap on his vest, and took off running again, breath whistling in his throat.
"I just got out of there!" Steve said. "Why would you do that?"
"Listen, you have to trust me. Find Pepper, make sure you keep her safe. We're gonna blow the reactor with him on top of it, it's the only thing that'll stop him."
"Are you insane?"
"Just let me get him back into the building," Tony said. "I don't have a lot of time for a less explosive solution, Steve!"
He could see Pepper, now, standing over the reactor console, flicking switches.
"Hey, rage duckling," Tony said in his ear, grunting. Steve watched as two streaks of light went straight up in the sky, both suits taking off in flight. "I'm gonna sign off in a second here so listen up."
"Tony, don't risk your life, I have reinforcements on the way -- "
"Kinda committed now," Tony said. "Altitude's gonna cut me off soon. I love you, Steve."
"I swear to God you are every bad cable TV movie ever," Steve heard himself say. Tony laughed. "I'm keeping the earpiece in. Call when you can."
"You got it," Tony said, and the line went dead just as one of the lights in the sky went dark.
Steve watched, heart beating triple-time, as one of the suits fell out of the sky -- the monster, Obadiah's suit, tumbling and turning, jets going in fits and starts. It righted itself eventually, but even with the jets going it landed hard on the roof of the hangar and lay there, inert.
Then the second light went out, and the Doodad came tumbling down as well. Tony caught himself with half-working jets a handful of times on the way down, but eventually he crashed down next to the monster. And the monster was rising --
"Now!" Tony yelled -- and it was Tony's voice, echoing down to them through the hangar, unaltered by the suit. "Pepper, set it off!"
"Get out of the way!" Pepper yelled back.
"DO IT NOW!" Tony shouted, then dodged to the side as the monster dove for him.
Pepper looked to Steve, who nodded; she closed her eyes and flicked the last switch, and the reactor's hum rose to a tooth-jarring whine.
Steve grabbed her around the waist and pulled her away from the console, back through the hole in the wall and into the lower level of Section 16, a deep concrete well filled with server racks. He scooped up the nose-cone shield as he went, tucked them both behind a rack of servers, and held the shield over Pepper's head just before the whine cut out and a shockwave hard enough to knock the breath from his body washed over them.
Debris crashed down around them, filling the air with choking cement dust, and something hit Steve hard in the head, stars dancing in his vision for a second before he passed out.
***
The funny thing about it was that Steve was hurt worse than Tony.
It wasn't really funny, or at least Tony didn't think so, but Steve did. He sat on the back of a SHIELD truck, a breathing mask over his face, and couldn't stop laughing. He felt a little high from the pure oxygen, and he knew he'd be sore in the morning, but mostly it was just so goddamn funny.
Tony had been able to rip the reactor out of Obie's chestplate and roll free of the blast in one move; by the time Peggy pulled Pepper and Steve out of the debris of the big reactor's explosion, Tony's miniature one was back where it belonged in his chest, humming away. Now Steve pressed his forehead against it, giggling helplessly.
"You are a mess, Cornflake of Justice," Tony told him, both arms around his head, one hand holding a rag against his scalp. Steve was getting blood all over the Doodad from a fairly gush-y wound he'd taken when the reactor blew, but head lacerations always looked worse than they were, and someone had said something about paramedics, so presumably sooner or later he'd be okay. Peggy had taken field command and was seeing to security and triage for the other injuries, and Rhodey was shouting the SI security guards into submission, so that was all taken care of. Pepper was fine, Tony was only a little dinged up, and he, Steve, couldn't stop laughing, so everything was okay. It was all okay.
He pulled the oxygen mask down from his mouth and said, "I left two good knives in Obadiah's back and ceramics aren't cheap. You better replace them."
"Yeah, I'll give you the half a dozen he stuck in mine," Tony replied.
"That's funny on account of it's a backstabbing joke," Steve informed him.
"Yes, my own, that's why it's funny," Tony sighed. Steve fumbled with his shirt cuffs, which were torn and filthy, and eventually produced the flashdrive from his knife strap, leaning back and shrugging out of Tony's grasp so he could give it to him.
"Here," he said. "We got the data. Pepper did great!"
"Yeah, she did," Tony agreed, taking the drive and pocketing it. "Hey, I'm gonna get you a doctor now, okay?"
Steve nodded, pulling the mask up again so the EMTs wouldn't yell at him, and watched Tony carefully as he jogged over to the command center Peggy had set up.
"Bucky Barnes is gonna kill me," Rhodey said, taking Tony's place in front of him. Steve beamed up at him dopily.
"Peggy wouldn't let that happen, she likes you," he said. Then he realized he still had the oxygen mask on, and Rhodey probably hadn't understood a word of it.
"Don't take your mask off," Rhodey warned. "I don't need to hear your thoughts right now."
Steve was going to reply in sign language, but Tony had returned with an EMT, and life got less pleasant then; he had to have three separate injections and multiple stitches, and they poked him all over to make sure his arms and legs and ribs weren't broken. It was generally awful until Peggy shooed them all away and loaded him and Tony into a car with Pepper to drive them home.
He fell asleep on Tony's shoulder in the car, listening to Tony and Pepper argue about whether or not it was okay to let concussion victims sleep after a head trauma.
***
Two days later, Tony -- with barely a scratch on him -- gave a press conference. Pepper got to hang out in the back, but Steve and Rhodey had to be up on stage with him. Coulson had shown up with a very concerned Bucky and Sam, handing them off to hover over Steve while he provided a fake alibi for Tony for the night of the battle, as well as an "explanation" of the fight itself and of Obadiah's death. He'd brought index cards.
"That's what he does," Steve said, as Tony flipped through the cards in the anteroom before the press conference.
"He's your boss?"
"Yep."
"Why?"
Steve grinned across the room at Coulson. "He grows on you. Just read the cards and we can all go home and I can go back to bed."
"You could have stayed in bed to begin with," Tony pointed out. Steve could feel stiffness in every inch of him, from the carefully-combed-over wounds on his scalp to the blisters on his toes from the badly-fitting boots. Still, he had to be here, and they both knew it.
"Don't antagonize him," Peggy said to Tony.
"I'm not! I tried to get him to stay in bed!"
"I meant Coulson," she said. Steve grinned, then winced when grinning hurt.
"You know, Iron Man's not a bad name," Tony remarked, shrugging into his suit coat with Pepper's help.
"Well, it's no RAID COP, but it has a dramatic flavor to it," Steve agreed.
"And it's a bitchin' metal anthem," Peggy drawled, drawing their attention. "All right, children, time to put on a dog and pony show, and if you're all very good you'll get sweets after."
"RAID COP?" Rhodey asked Tony as they headed for the door.
"Badass, right?" Tony prompted.
"No," Rhodey said.
Steve dutifully trooped out onto the stage, trailing Tony and Rhodey, and tried not to stand at parade rest when Rhodey did. After all, technically he was still Steve Rogers, Artist, not Special Agent Rogers, Spy.
Christine Everhart was in the audience, he noticed. Front and center -- good for her. She was also eyeing him weirdly. Well, he supposed most of them were.
The conference started so well. Tony made a joke, he took out the cards, he started reading from them --
And then, without breaking eye contact with Steve, Christine Everhart asked, "I'm sorry, Mr. Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that those were automated drones?"
Tony just sort of gaped at her. Steve had never seen him so surprised.
"Knowing as we do that you have several capable bodyguards," she continued, "do you expect us to believe you didn't have a pilot in one of them, and that the exercise our press packet refers to wasn't a thwarted attempt on your life?"
Steve fought to keep his poker face. She thought it was him. She thought he was the one in the suit. She knew he was SHIELD, she knew he was close to Tony, she was probably angry that Tony trashed Gulmira ahead of the 24-hour warning.
It made sense. It also made him want to laugh out loud.
He risked a glance at Tony, and could see him rapidly coming to the same conclusions he was. Still, his poor bruised boyfriend did try -- he hedged, he made a joke about his own unreliability, he kept whiffing the increasingly fast pitches Everhart was throwing him --
Then he said, "The truth is...Steve Rogers is not my bodyguard. He's my boyfriend. And I am Iron Man."
The place went nuts after that. Everhart was the only reporter who didn't leap from her seat; when Steve narrowed his eyes, she gave him a smile and a call me gesture, then got up and walked out while Rhodey tried in vain to calm the crowd down.
***
Tony spent the afternoon in his workshop, ignoring the outside world. Steve, resting in bed, read the speculation on news sites and message boards for a while. He watched video of a poor, harassed Communications manager giving a second press conference to discuss, in the vaguest of terms, the future of Stark Industries. The company had been in free fall for a month, so Steve wasn't too worried. Tony would turn it around as soon as he was in a place to take control of the company again. Steve estimated that would be about two days. He'd start pestering him after three, if necessary.
He slept a little, early in the evening, and woke when he felt Tony climbing into the bed. He reached for him sleepily, instinctively, and he heard Tony laugh as he clung to him.
"Hey, Dandelion," Tony said, smelling of weld and clean sweat. Steve nuzzled closer, pressing a thigh between Tony's legs, curling his other leg around Tony's thigh. "Someone's ambitious."
"Want you," Steve mumbled, rolling his hips sharply. Tony, gratifyingly, whimpered.
"Don't let me hurt you," Tony said, pulling him close and turning a little so Steve could move more freely.
"As if you could," Steve slurred sleepily, enjoying the pliability of Tony's body, the way he gave in so easily. He hitched his hips, tucking a hand in his pyjamas to slide them down his thighs, mouthing at Tony's collarbone.
"That's it, baby," Tony replied, tugging his underwear down, kicking Steve's pyjamas free. Steve grunted at the contact, the thick hard cord of Tony's thigh against his cock. "You want to rub off on me?"
"Yeah," Steve agreed, lost in the hazy pleasure of it, the ease with which Tony took him in and held him there. He could feel Tony, half-hard against his hip, and he slid a hand down to stroke him, enjoying the way Tony groaned and twitched under his touch. One of Tony's hands was in the small of his back, thumb tucked against his ass, and Steve arched up just enough --
Tony made a thoughtful noise. "Are you too sore?" he asked, pushing his thumb against Steve's hole, rubbing it back and forth gently. "We can wait."
"I want it," Steve admitted, still moving leisurely against Tony's thigh. Tony let go of him and leaned away, changing the angle, eliciting a sharp cry --
"Easy, Duckling," Tony teased, rummaging in the bedside table. "Just -- here we are."
Steve buried his face in Tony's throat but relaxed his legs, spreading his thighs as Tony rolled them so Steve was on top. He felt a slick finger rub over him and then push inside, and he made a soft, high sound of pleasure.
"That's it," Tony murmured as Steve bucked back, taking him deeper. "That okay?"
"Yeah," Steve breathed, propping himself up with his hands on Tony's chest now, head tilted back, mouth open. He panted, letting a soft Uh -- uh! out when Tony started to stretch him. "You can go faster -- I wanna feel it -- "
"I'm in no hurry," Tony said smugly, the fingers of his other hand tracing lightly, gently over Steve's erection. "You want me to fuck you?"
Steve whined, trying to work Tony's fingers deeper.
"Tell me you want it," Tony said, the tip of his third finger brushing lightly over already-sensitive skin. "Tell me you want me inside you. I love it when you say you want to ride me."
"You're so huge," Steve managed, the words falling out of his mouth with next to no control from his brain, the way they always did when Tony was close to fucking him. "Not just your dick -- that too -- "
"Thank you."
"Your hands are huge," Steve said dreamily, jerking forward to bow his head as Tony added a third finger. "I love you can get your hands around me the way you do, I love how big the marks are. Being with you's like riding a bull, you're all power and weight -- " he ran his hands down Tony's chest, the heavy pectorals and thick obliques that let him control the armor, the smooth skin padding them. "I like the size of you. I like what you do to me."
"Tell me you want me to fuck you," Tony said, and Steve bent to kiss him, crying out when Tony spread his fingers inside him. "Tell me you want to ride me until you come so hard you scream."
"Tell me you love me," Steve challenged back, and Tony laughed.
"I love you," he said, pulling his hand away and pressing Steve's thigh's back, idly slicking himself with what remained of the lube on his fingers. He wrapped his hand around the base of his cock and Steve eased down, mouth going wide as he took him into his body.
"I do love riding you," he said, voice shaky as he adjusted to the girth of Tony's cock inside him. "I want you to fuck me, Tony, I want you to come in me -- "
Tony tipped his head back, hips bucking, and Steve tightened his legs, flexing his hips forward. It brought Tony's cock up sharp against his prostate, sparks dancing along his nerves. Words abandoned him so he flexed again instead, leaning back for better leverage, hips working up and down.
"You're a hell of a ride," he said, and Tony's hands tightened on his waist. "Come on, Tony, let yourself go, I can take it."
He did almost lose his balance when Tony thrust up again, but he grabbed one of Tony's wrists for balance. Tony was so deep, felt so good there --
He could almost feel his body pulling inward, focus narrowing down to Tony at his least controlled, the harsh pain-pleasure sting of how deep he was. His cock was wet with precome, dripping down onto Tony's abs, and when Tony let go of his thigh to stroke him, he gasped and tightened and came, still clutching Tony's wrist.
"You want to stop?" Tony asked, as Steve leaned over him, bracing himself on Tony's sternum.
Steve shook his head, bowing to kiss the skin above the reactor. "I want you to come, I want to feel it."
Tony rolled them and his erection slipped free; Steve was ready to go onto his back, but instead Tony turned him again, pulling up on his hips until he was kneeling, bent at the hips, face pressed to the pillow. He could feel Tony holding onto him, pressing in again, and he spread his thighs a little and pushed back, hyper-sensitive but unwilling to let this end.
Tony, one hand resting on Steve's back and the other holding his hip, didn't last long; through a haze of afterglow Steve felt him come, and heard him groan Steve's name low and quiet.
When Tony slid over into the blankets, Steve turned and weaseled his way close, aware that they were a sticky, sweaty mess. Tony kissed him, allowing Steve to push and pull him until they were curled comfortably together.
"Feels like the first time," Tony said.
"Good memories," Steve said with a yawn. "Glad it's not, though."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, this is better," Steve said.
"Why's that?"
Steve grinned. "You use more expensive sheets in Malibu. These are soft."
Tony smiled back, one hand sliding up and down his thigh, the other rubbing his bicep. He could get tactile after sex, clingy and sometimes only half-aware. Steve hummed happily as his hand drifted up to rub his stomach.
"Are you flying tomorrow?" Steve asked. "Hitting some bomb sites?"
"Soon," Tony said. He didn't seem inclined to hustle. "I think after the week we've had I can afford a few days of vacation first."
"Stay in bed with me?" Steve prompted.
"Yeah," Tony agreed. "You're my best baby rage duckling."
"Don't call me that," Steve said, without any real passion.
"Will if I want to," Tony replied. "Sleep now, angry floof."
Steve, floating on a thick cocktail of endorphins, closed his eyes and butted his head against Tony's collarbone. "M'kay. Make you fr'tt'a't'm'rr'w."
Tony laughed. "Sure, that's fine," he said, which was the last thing Steve registered before he fell into a deep, satisfied sleep.