Title: fuse it back together
Fandom: MCU - Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: NC-17 (for smut)
Length: ~2.800
Written For: Challenge 264: Shelter.
Content notes: Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame. Fix-it of sorts inserting one of my favourite moments of the comics on the MCU. All (more or less) canon compliant.
Author notes: Wow, third in a row!
Summary: Steve is a man out of time. He feels like he has always been like that, he sometimes cannot remember what he was before the ice. Like he was never really in his own skin.



Steve is a man out of time. He feels like he has always been like that, he sometimes cannot remember what he was before the ice. Like he was never really in his own skin.

Now Tony is here, laughing close to him like time hasn't happened at all, and it feels as if for the first time in forever something is anchoring him to the ground he lives in.

*

He almost made it, at first. In Stark Tower he found something close to a place that was happy to come to, a shelter in a world that seemed so different to the one he came from. He started going after New York, same as all of the Avengers, because even if they weren’t friends before there is something that can change your perception of someone and that is seeing him die through a hole in space and come back right after. And live to tell.

He learnt everything about the 20th century there, in the soft light of that enormous living room that Tony had put up just for them. The smell of new things was something that Steve was already used to, at that time, but it was a nice gesture anyway and Steve thinks now that he didn’t appreciate it as much as he should have. There are many things like that, because Tony was a weird person: he’d made it so everyone on Earth new who he was and what he did and at the same time took care of them, Hulk’s destruction and all their food, and, well, everything that made their lives somewhat comfortable and not say a word about it. As if that didn't matter.

Steve had assumed at first that it was SHIELD paying for everything except, of course, the place, and he only learnt about the truth when Fury told him to “ask Stark for a new phone, because that one is going to fall apart”. He went red, for a minute, thinking about all the things que had asked for and got and it was all Tony.

He had tried saying something to him, and Tony looked like he was being insulted. “Please, Cap,” he said, “save your money for, I don’t know, whatever old people do with it, go on a cruise or something. Take some vacation.”

It wasn’t just the money, though. It was evenings watching seventy years worthy of cinema he had missed and asking for cultural references. It was him on the living room and Tony appearing at crazy hours in the middle of the night, with coffee and smelling warm and cozy by his side on the sofa. Remembers that time Clint broke his leg and they spent a stupid morning, still dirty and pained from the fight drawing on the casting, Tony laughing for real as he did when he was too tired and wired to hide it behind the mask. Bruce smiling from his corner, sweatpants always too big for him.

What Tony gave them, specially Steve, was a home, and he never thanked him for it.

*

He remembers calling him “Tony” for the first time, almost unintentionally, and the look he gave Steve, and how at that moment he couldn’t understand it, because why should Tony care about how Steve called him. It was so much late when he got it and by then they almost were something. They had kissed each other and fucked each other in angry bursts but Steve though that was all there is, sex, because he knew how Tony was before Pepper (he, regrettably, had seen the videos of him, drunk off his ass in all those parties, always with a girl on his side). It was better to think like that, safer.

Besides, it was also easier to stop it at that because they were not made to be something else. They were going to end up ruining each other, he knew, he could feel it. He realized he was in love with him just too late, and he couldn’t leave Bucky for him; nor for anyone. Almost something, but he fell feet deep in a conspiracy, and Bucky was, again, on the loose, and he had discovered things he shouldn’t about his friend and Tony and his parents…

They were going to ruin each other, but he had not think about the face Tony would make when betrayed. It has been with him this whole time. He forced himself to forget it (he did the right thing, the only thing he could do, he knows, he knows) but it was always there, the betrayal, that walking backwards and establishing a distance between them two that Steve did nothing to close after. It was an ocean pit, dark, inexorable, half a meter of cold sea that seemed impossible to cross over.

It cost them seven years, seven long, struggling years to talk again like normal people and it’s so much easier than Steve have thought. Different for Tony, even if the marriage didn’t work as well, he has a (lovely) daughter and, with that, something to come back to.

Steve has nothing.

*

He still has locked away the reactor he gave him and one night, he tries to give it back.

“When you came back, from, you know, space”.

Tony raises his eyebrow, not angry, just curious.

“I should have think about it before I started asking for anything”.

“You are remembering that now? Don’t you dare start saying goodbye before we do anything, where is your optimism?”

Steve laughs. “No, no, it’s not like that. It’s just, I know we are, well, ok, but I was looking for something today and I found this”. He shows him the reactor. It’s a little dusty, and Steve is lying: he has found it because he was looking for it, but he cannot explain why he has done it, so doesn’t try.

The expression in Tony’s face morph into something that has missed dearly. It softens, smiles, takes the reactor.

“Why, Steve?” he swallows, and Steve has to look at his throat, he is so weak. “Why now?”

“I… don’t know. It’s stupid, I know. Just wanted you to know that I care. That I cared, then, too.”

“Jesus, Steve, I know. That’s why it was so fucking hard.”

“You gave us… You gave me a home. Thank you for that.”

“Don’t look at me like that”.

Steve doesn’t know how is he looking at him. It’s the last week of the life as they know it, and he is fucking sad and he is missing Tony as if he were not so close to him that they are touching.

“I’m sorry.”

Tony looks ready to break.

“I can’t do this.”

Gives him the reactor and leaves the room. Steve sighs.

*

They spend a couple days as if nothing had happened, just looks that linger more than they should and touches where they shouldn’t be. Steve doesn’t know if he is imagining them, sometimes, they are so subtle. He doesn’t try anything, because he knows is not his place to do so.

They circle each other and Natasha looks at Steve like she knows, and he shakes his head, as if saying “there is nothing I can do” and she smiles, shrugs.

They are so close to find the places and make the teams and they talk about encountering their old selves and Steve looks at Tony and he looks back and smile at each other. He really wants to see them, it’s the truth, and he tries not to dwell so much in the time-traveling thing but sometimes shocks him what his life is. He remembers a kid, asthmatic, broken, useless, and when he comes back to the present Tony is not on the other side of the table, he is close to him, moving a hand and talking about some maps that is showing of the Stark Tower in 2012, all the attention on his words. At the same time, in his back, a hand, warm and strong and Steve doesn’t listen to another word, really.

*

Then, in the dead hours of the night, someone opens his room, even if he shouldn’t be able to because there is a code, but when has that stopped Tony.

Steve turns on the light on the side table. Tony is closing the door. He turns and looks at him, walking towards the bed.

Steve sits on the edge. He is almost naked, warm with sleep, but he is wide awake. Tony reaches him and stays there for a little, watching him from above and finally touches his face, Steve closes his eyes.

“I can’t do this. We can’t do this. ”

Steve nods. He understands. They can’t, or they shouldn’t because they ruined each other once already, and they are going in a time heist. But he wants, wants so much, that just would take anything Tony is willing to give.

"This is going to fuck me up", Tony says, and kisses him. It's like finding the way home.

It’s like Thanos and a betrayal and seven years hadn't passed at all, they kiss with a hunger Steve had forgotten. He touches his hair and Tony makes the exact same hum he used to, comes down and bites his neck and says, "I've seen the footage, y’know, I would have liked to fuck while you had that beard”, and Steve smiles and kisses him again, “I think it would have burnt you”.

Tony gives a second and answers against his skin, “don’t you always?” and bites him again, harder, so Steve doesn’t have to say anything else.

He doesn’t, because he cannot tell him how he felt after the battle in the airport, like mourning, and couldn’t bother to take it out, he doesn’t want to think about it.

They keep kissing and rolling in the bed like fucking teenagers, savaging each other through the clothes, hard as they can be. It was always like that, stealing moments and places and kisses when they shouldn’t. Fucking when they should have been resting or healing.

It was always about sex, but it was never about sex. As it isn’t now, even if they seem like it; they kiss and bite all that can be kissed and bitten, Steve moans and pulls Tony’s clothes, “out, out, come on, let me feel you” and Tony curses against his shoulder, “god, Steve” and undresses himself and Steve takes a moment to watch him, because he always remembers how thin he was five years ago and now he’s fine not thin, not rippled in muscle, just Tony, the light always on the center of his chest. He takes him with the hand and Tony cries a “fuck” and “fuck, your hand, Steve, I’ve… fuck”.

He could make him come like this and would be happy, he loves having him like this, on his lap, with the legs around Steve and kissing him while he fucks his hand.

“Wait, wait, I don’t want to, not yet”, Tony says, voice pained, kisses him and whispers on his ear, “ I want to fuck you, Steve”, and there is only an answer. Steve thinks, yes, and says “Yes”, and Tony smiles, leaves him looking for his pants and takes out a little lube plastic tube. “Always the planner”, and Tony laughs. He comes back and puts himself between Steve’s legs, already spread.

Tony uses the lube and goes down, down, down with his hand; softly, presses a little. Steve lets out a breathy “Fuck, yes”, and Tony laughs and chastises, “Language, Steve” at the same time that goes in with two fingers and Steve laughs and moans, all at the same time.

This was it: it was never about sex.

Tony doesn’t wait too much, he is already three fingers deep, moving him just to make him crazy and nowhere near to help him come. “Come on, Tony, it won’t hurt me”, and Tony nods, “I know, it’s just, Jesus, I would like to make you come like this, you were always so fucking pretty, you just don’t fucking know”, he says, as he steals one of the pillows to put it below Steve’s ass.

Tony watches him while he spreads himself with a little more lube, and keeps looking every second between that and arranging himself and going inside Steve, every goddamned inch until he is pressed against his ass. Steve can see everything, the need, the moment that he has to take air so he doesn’t come. It was always so fucking intense Steve sometimes forgot to breath.

He watches Steve and smiles just before he starts moving. “Breath, sweetheart”, and Steve does. He have missed this, the low burn inside him and Tony’s kisses and the way he doesn’t stop talking once he is this gone, calls him pet names and calls his name and Steve doesn’t want this to end.

Tony moves back his hips and repositions himself a little, looking for, Steve doesn’t know, something but it gives him some time to steady himself, to take air, tries to touch everything he can reach of Tony. Tony’s hands on him, stroking and scratching his skin, and with no prior notice he slams right in the perfect spot and Steve loses it while Tony says “so that’s where it was hiding, I haven’t forgotten, I got you”, and Steve thinks “yeah, you do” and copes with the storm, Tony nailing each time when he goes inside him.

Steve is moaning and he is so, so close. Tony takes his leg with one hand, moves it up and takes Steve’s cock with the other, as he keeps shoving his hips against Steve. Steve cannot understand how he can keep the coordination but cannot understand anything at all, really, and Tony says, “come on, love, I’m so close, come for me, I want to see it, it’s been so long”, and Steve wants to fucking cry and he comes after a stroke, closes his eyes because it’s just too much, everything is white and his whole body tenses and can hear Tony say, far away, his name as he finishes inside him, a cry and a “fuck” and Steve looks at him for a second and he is beautiful, head back, neck exposed and muscles straining there.

He always feels different when fucking like this, raw opened and vulnerable. He has only done it with Tony, and remembers then the first time, how nervous he was, and Tony asking him if it was ok like twenty times and saying that he liked it just fine as they always did it. It was not perfect but it was special, even if in that moment none of them say anything.

Tony is coming down and takes him some minute to stop moving, shaking still with post-orgasm. He finally looks back at Steve and makes an attempt of separating himself.

“C'mere”, Steve says, and Tony cocks his head, analyzing. Steve looks at him, and Tony surrenders, lies on top of him, and allows Steve maneuver them until the sheets are on top of them.

Steve wants to say many things, like I’m sorry or I’ve missed you or I love you, but he doesn’t, just stays there stroking his hair until he feels Tony falling asleep and, much later, he falls asleep himself.

*

He wakes up alone and panics a little, but the bed is still warm on his side and can hear Tony in the bathroom, opens the door and lingers there, stark naked and beautiful.

“Hey”.

They should talk. They could die, so they should talk.

Steve answers, “Hey, you. To be fair, I’m a little surprised to see that you are still here”.

Tony laughs, walks to the bed and sits beside him. “To be fair, I am too. But my room is like, two meters from here, I would not have gone very far”.

“That’s true. It’s not like you could lock yourself up in the workshop and avoid me for days”.

“I used to do that, didn’t I. But, we don’t have days, anymore; not before, you know”, he says, and Steve nods.

“Yeah, I know”.

He takes Tony from the nape of his neck and kisses him, just a little, to check that he is here and he is with him. Tony smiles, like he understands.

They spend some more time like that, not talking, not arguing, not fucking, Tony checks his cell and shows him the photos Morgan has send him, and Steve thinks about all the time and crossroads they have lived.

For a moment, a home.

They could die, in two days. They could end up trapped in the past, or they could change the course of humanity forever, but in this exact moment in history, it’s ok.

They are ok.