Title: Sentinel Event
Author: truthiness_aura
Universe: 616 AU
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Beta: None, alas, due to time constraints.
Summary: In which we discover why Logan smokes cigars, what the sparring room in Avengers Mansion smells like, and why Steve is stealing Tony's t-shirts.
Pairings/Characters: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Word Count: ~6,000
A/N: First: I've wanted to write something like this for ages. Thanks for giving me an awesome prompt, giftee! I hope this satisfies. I am sorry for wussing out on the porn. I should note that though set in 616, this story does not attempt to follow current continuity. Finally, I am delighted to receive any and all concrit.



Sentinel event: In healthcare, an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physical or psychological injury, or the risk thereof.

It starts with Steve sitting in an exam room after a fight, wincing against the pain burning across his arm. They'd received a tipoff about Hydra robbing a bioweapons manufacturer, and in the process of breaking up the robbery he had managed to dislocate his shoulder. It's a slow burn of pain along his side. He'd refused painkillers; they never work on him longer than a few minutes, unless he takes enough that it's dangerous, and he wants this over with quickly. Steve rubs his head and sniffs. There had been broken vials everywhere; SHIELD had assured the team that all the biological weapons in this particular lab weren't dangerous, but soon after settling down in this room he'd noticed the beginnings of a headache. The stink of antiseptic in the air is only making it worse. The hospital exams rooms always smell faintly of disinfectant, but it's overwhelming today, like someone had spilled an entire bucket of the stuff on the floor.

“Captain Rogers.” A doctor comes through the door, trailed by two bulky assistants in scrubs. She flips open the chart in her hands and flicks the illuminator hanging on the wall on. “Got your x-rays back, Captain. Fortunately it looks like a simple dislocation, no bone chips or complicating factors. I'd like to reset the joint right now, if that's all right with you.”

Steve nods, then winces. The pain is starting to get to him; the scent is stronger than ever now, antiseptic and copper tasting like fear in the back of his throat. He can hear someone through the doorway, moaning in pain. “That's fine. The sooner the better.”

“That's right, sir. You should have much less pain as soon as we get this back in.” The doctor pulls on gloves and traces over his shoulder, feeling out the tendons; Steve grits his teeth and forces himself to stay still. “Okay,” she says, and beckons over the assistants. “Captain, I'm just going to get a little help to hold you still while we do this.” Steve nods. “Hold his wrist out straight, over here-”

The two orderlies surround him, and he has to bite back a sudden irrational spike of fear. He's fine. He's fine, he's done this before, he just has to breathe deeply and relax. This isn't even that painful; why is he suddenly so tense?

“Try to relax,” the doctor says, and she forces his arm up. Suddenly the stink of fear is overwhelming, driving him higher; the patient outside the door cries out in pain. There are too many hands on him and the pain in his shoulder spikes and too much too much too much-

Lightning curls down his spine and he screams. It feels like his bones are breaking. He twists against the hands gripping him and falls to the floor, shaking, snarling. The doctor leans over him, hands reaching out, then suddenly recoils.

Steve comes to himself a few seconds later. He's sprawled inelegantly on the floor, limbs twisted out awkwardly. He's not entirely sure what just happened. He should get up and apologize; he thinks he scared the doctor. But he's too exhausted to move right now. His shoulder has stopped hurting, at least.

“Captain?” The doctor is crouched on the floor a little bit away from him. Even through the haze of fatigue, Steve can hear the uncertainty in her voice. “Are you...are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” he says. Or tries to say; what comes out of his mouth is a rough strangled noise. His tongue feels too big for his mouth. The fogginess filters away; what has happened to him?

Steve gets his uninjured arm under himself and rolls onto his belly. He's clumsy; everything feels wrong. His arms are too short, his legs are curled up beneath him, and the disinfectant smell is even worse down here. Steve looks down at his hands, braced against the floor, and that's when it hits him.

“Captain Rogers?”

No hands. Paws, broad paws covered in in golden-blonde fur. Steve stares at them, disbelieving.

“Sir?”

He looks up, past the doctor tentatively reaching towards him, and sees his reflection in the long mirror hung on the back of the exam room door. Pricked ears, heavy ruff, long snout. A dog- no, a wolf- looks back. It has the same blue eyes he's seen in the mirror every morning of his life.

Steve blinks in disbelief, and the wolf blinks back.




After a few days stuck deep in SHIELD's hospital wing, Steve insists on checking himself out. He's fine now; his shoulder was almost fully healed within the day and his other minor injuries have completely disappeared. The other thing, the- wolf thing- that's, well, it's like it was immediately after taking the serum. Everyone wants to see him, absolutely everyone. They frown into his mouth and draw blood and prod him all over looking for who knows what. There's one team doing detailed analysis on the destroyed samples from the biowarfare lab and a separate team of agents digging through every shred of documentation they have on the Super Soldier project. Nothing's come up yet. Fortunately, time doesn't seem to be a factor. Steve seems absolutely fine. Perfectly normal, once his injuries from the fight have healed up. It's just that he now will occasionally turn into a two hundred and fifty pound wolf.

The “occasionally” is a problem. There hasn't been another incident like the first one, but Steve feels constantly on edge in the medical wing. The place still stinks of disinfectant and fear, and the rattle of boots on the hard floors brings him upright and twitching from what little uneasy sleep he manages to grab. He can remember feeling like this on field assignments, back in the Ardennes, where everything was bright and sharp-edged and simple. But this isn't wartime, and the people he focuses on, coiled for action, are not Hydra agents, not Nazi troops. He knows that- he's known that, hasn't had a problem with that, not for years- but he cannot begin to conceive of the horror he would feel, if he- No. He can do this, relearn peace and himself, but this place is too much for him and after a few days all he wants is to go home.

It takes a good six hours of steady cajoling, plus a promise to come back for additional testing over the next few days. Steve finally wins his point, and that evening he's able to open the door to the mansion and breathe in deep. It smells like home. There's the beeswax Jarvis uses to polish the staircase, the ozone sharpness of Mjolnir, Ororo's expensive hand cream and Peter's coat drying in the closet and a faint whiff of one of Logan's cigars. Steve puts his bag down. He inhales again, slowly. The scents flash past him once more and he holds the breath like a mouthful of wine before breathing out. He's aware that the tension that has lined his back for the last few days is dissipating. He smiles and breathes in again.




The news the next time he shows up at SHIELD is that they've been through Erskine's papers and found nothing concrete. This, however, is SHIELD, and they have agents who can build detailed factual analysis out of a single intercepted phone call. Their conclusion is that the formulation of the Super Soldier Serum may have included a virus from Erskine's private research identified only as “vulkulac”. “Probably a corruption of the old Slavic term for werewolf,” the agent debriefing him explains. “We think that virus might be the basis for a great deal of the speed and healing capabilities of the Super Soldier project. And it may be that exposure to something in the lab triggered your, uh, event.”

Steve shrugs. At this point, he's less concerned with how they ended up here and more with the possible outcome. The doctors still draw his blood every day; the reports come back the same. No changes. There was apparently a little spike of something immediately following his first shift- and here the agent rattles off an acronym he doesn't even attempt to follow- but that's returned to normal as well. At least, Steve thinks, nothing's getting worse.

“So you're stable, Captain Rogers, and you appear completely healthy.” The agent shrugs a little ruefully. “We may just have to chalk this up to chance.”

Steve nods. He doesn't mention that he can smell the agent's confusion, his frustration, the shampoo he wears and the dye in his shoes.




Steve smells Logan before he sees him. He could have done that before, in all honesty. But now he picks him up fifty paces off, wandering through the trees with a lit cigar. Steve closes his eyes and tries to pick up the threads of scent again.

He had come home late from SHIELD HQ that evening, and Jarvis had politely insisted on cooking him dinner. The smell of hamburgers cooking on the stove seemed to fill the entire world. Steve felt his mouth watering, lost in the scent. The noise of pots and pans being pulled out of the cabinets had brought Peter downstairs from correcting papers and Hank and Carol in from the TV room. Before long, the entire kitchen was filled with past and current Avengers. Steve knew that only some of it was Jarvis' cooking; everyone who walked through the door eventually turned to look at him carefully, or to come stand by him, or to ask in an undertone how he was doing. It was nice. Steve was glad to feel his teammates, his friends, looking out for him. But it became overwhelming after a while, the noise of so many voices in the small brightly-lit space, the mixed smells of human bodies and cooking meat threatening to overwhelm him every time he breathes in. Steve had escaped outside to sit on a bench and clear his head in some place that doesn't grate against his new senses.

“Hey.”

“Evening.” The two of them are silent for a while. It's better out here. The air is cold and blank, just grace notes of leaf mold and dead grass that are drowning in the stink of cigar.

“Gets to you, doesn't it.” Steve looks up; Logan hasn't moved, still staring into the middle distance. The ember at the end of his cigar is bright in the shadows.

“I guess there's more people in there than I realized.”

Logan makes a face between a wince and a smirk. He pulls the cigar from his mouth and taps the ash off the end. “You know, I've been smoking these things for years. Decades.” A pause. “Hated 'em the first few times. Hell, probably the first three years.” Logan looks at Steve's face and answers the question there. “Kept at it for the smell. Made it easier, when there was too much goin' on. Too many things to smell. Kind of turns the volume down, lets you think straight.”

There's a busy silence.

“Does it still bother you? All the scents?”

A shrug. “Little bit. Took a while before I got a handle on it.” Logan takes another draw on the cigar. “Wouldn't trade it back now, though. Even if it does mean I know more about Parker's sex life that I ever wanted.” Steve lets out a horrified little noise of agreement at that.

“Thanks,” Steve says finally, looking down at his hands.

Logan shrugs again, embarrassed, and sticks the cigar back in his mouth. “Take your time, Rogers.”




It does takes time, but less than he expects. Within a few days Steve's managed to find some approximation of control. He's started to hang at doorways for a few seconds before entering a room, head down and nose open, reading the scentmap before he steps in. It feels like his brain is able to deal more easily with the new information rushing in, taking it and placing it into actions and reactions he built up years ago.

One night Steve closes the door to his room and strips down to bare skin. It's cool and dim; his senses tell him that nobody nearby is awake. He breathes in and focuses, tries to bring forward the prickling itch across his spine, down his shoulders, pulls out the watchfulness that never goes away. The change isn't painful so much as it is deeply strange, the alien feeling of his bones melting and reshaping, muscle migrating to new spots and his face narrowing and extending. Finished, he finds himself panting on the floor for a few minutes while his brain attempts to reassemble pathways.

Steve blinks. His vision is poorer in this form- all faded sepia grays, like an old film- but scent overrides it entirely. He spends the next few hours sniffing every surface in his room in minute detail. The next morning he wakes up, still in wolf-form, with one of his leather gauntlets tucked beneath his muzzle.

The sparring room is the hardest. Everyone keeps it clean, but even before his change the stink of sweat had been irreversibly ground into the walls and floor. Now it smells to Steve like a challenge, the kind of aggression that makes his teeth clench and the warning buzz of a shift run across his shoulders. He starts slow. He wanders in and out during workouts, listening and watching and telling himself to relax, relax, it's fine, relax. It doesn't always work. One day Natasha and Carol are sparring, and Bruce finds him in the locker room, head down and fists clenched against his thighs. Banner had said his name, questioning. When Steve's head had whipped up in reflexive response he had stood still for a moment before taking a seat on the bench next to him. Neither of them spoke, and eventually Steve became aware of Bruce's slow, deliberate breaths, the measured pulse of his heartbeat. He focuses there, uses it to pull himself back to calmness and steadiness and stillness.

“I have some experience in meditation techniques,” Bruce eventually says in a wry tone, and Steve is recovered enough to laugh. He starts to meet Banner every few days in the sparring room. They sit together on the floor and talk to each other. Bruce tells Steve some things he already knows, and many more he doesn't, and they practice focus and breath and control, first alone, then with other people in the room, talking and laughing and fighting. Steve settles on a favorite spot to sit in, crosslegged in a corner with a spare t-shirt draped over his shoulders, and sits and breathes in and lets the room move around him. Steve likes Bruce. Like all his teammates, he's a good person. But somehow being with him feels terribly lonely. As his control improves, as he spends less time panicked and reacting to every new change, he becomes more aware that something deep and fundamental is bothering him. There's an ache in his chest, something bright-edged and sharp that surfaces to cut him. It feels like it's something he's been able to ignore for years, but now it's demanding to be seen the same way the urge to shift cannot be denied.

Steve takes to shifting every few nights and prowling around the mansion. It's good training; for all his size and the pale gleam of his fur, he finds he can easily stay hidden in the wolf-form. He's shy as the wolf. Maybe it's leftover instinct, maybe it's embarrassment, but he finds himself avoiding his teammates. Instead he sniffs out the overlay of scents that have been laid down during the day. It becomes almost a game for him, following the twists and pools of his teammate's paths through the mansion and matching it with what he remembers seeing during the day. Other evenings he does the same, but in human form; stands in a room and tries to build a picture of the day from the palette of aromas in it. He's in the kitchen late one night trying to work out who had eaten what for lunch when he hears the front door open. A few minutes later, Tony walks in and makes an immediate beeline for the coffee machine.

“Welcome back.”

“Oh, hey, Steve.” Tony yawns and pops open the tin Jarvis stores coffee in, and the scent immediately assails Steve from across the room. He sighs out and gives up, there's no way he's going to be able to read odor trails with that in the air.

“How was China?”

“Good. Worked out a deal with Fenglong International, I think we've managed to convince them that Tiberius Stone's a bad choice.” Tony yawns again. “Incredible food. I like Beijing, I just wish it wasn't thirteen hours ahead. How have you been?”

“Uh. Okay.” Steve rubs his hand through his hair. He's not even sure how to begin this conversation.

“I heard you've got some new skills the medical crew is going nuts over.” Tony pushes the Brew button and turns to look at him with a gleam of amusement.

Well, that was simple. “You heard already, huh?” He shouldn't be surprised that Tony already knows; half the team was on base at SHIELD the day he first changed, and it's not like the rest of them have been keeping it a secret.

“Pepper called. She's got a friend in R&D.” Tony turns, settles himself against the counter. “The virologists are having a field day, they'll use this to get Fury to approve their grants for the next decade. You're going to have the lab staff chasing you down the hall with needles.”

“I'm used to it.” He is, but maybe he's a little sharp about it. Tony looks at him closely for a while, and Steve takes the opportunity to stare at Tony's expensive Italian loafers. The question, when it comes, is unexpectedly soft.

“You're okay?”

Steve tilts his head back and rubs a palm up his neck, thinking. The room smells like coffee and clean laundry and Tony's expensive shaving soap. Despite their conversation, he feels more relaxed than he has in weeks. “Yeah,” he replies, and dips his head back down in time to see Tony's quick smile. “Yeah, I think I'm okay.”




Steve's working on a punching bag in the sparring room. He's not really paying attention when Tony wanders in and looks around. But then Tony moves towards a corner. It's the one Steve's started to think of as his own, and when Tony grabs the old t-shirt off the matting where Steve usually sits, he can't help but turn around in confusion.

Tony waves the wad of fabric at him. “Thought I left my old MIT shirt around here. Just going to throw it in the wash, it's probably grown new life by now.”

Steve manages to nod and smile. When the door shuts and he's alone again, he crosses the room and sits down in his corner. When he breathes in to meditate, there's a note missing in the symphony of scents he's grown used to, and the gap brings out that same keen hollowness that he's learned to dread since this all began.




Late at night, Steve is making his circuit of the house in wolf-form. There's a new note in the air, metal and burnt wires and oil, and he follows it to the door of Tony's lab. The room is well ventilated, but the faint metallic burn of solder is still overwhelming to Steve's nose. It's oddly relaxing, actually, like white noise, and he thinks of Logan's cigars.

“Jesus.” Tony has jerked upright, soldering gun still in one hand as he stares at him, and Steve shrinks back into the doorway.

“Wait, no. Wait wait wait.” Tony puts down the soldering gun and comes hurriedly around the table. “I'm sorry, Steve, that's you, I'm sorry, you just startled me.” Steve stays pressed into the doorframe. He doesn't come forward into the light, but when Tony comes to crouch in front of him, he doesn't move away either. “Wow. Okay. That's- Did I say I'm sorry, because I am, I really am. I just wasn't expecting anyone, let alone big blonde wolfmen, and you were really quiet. And big.”

Steve hasn't worked out the wolf equivalent of a shrug yet. He settles on flicking his ears at Tony, who laughs. “Yeah, I get it. I'm still on Hong Kong time, I'm a little slow. Hey, can I-” and he puts out a hand, lets it hover over one of Steve's furred shoulders.

Steve's body seems to move without outside input, brushing up against Tony's offered palm. Tony laughs again, more softly, and gently rubs down the fur there. Steve can't help the way his body relaxes into the touch, the warm animal pleasure of contact, and apparently one of the advantages of fur is that nobody can tell when you're blushing furiously.

Tony pats his shoulder and stands up. “You want a drink? I think I've got some Coke in the fridge.”

He should leave. Should go find a nice quiet corner somewhere and try to figure out what the hell just happened, but suddenly nothing sounds more appealing than staying here, near Tony, sniffing through his office and listening to him talk out his current project and swear at his robots. Steve makes a little subvocal noise- just a hum, a buzz- and wags his tail once in assent.




He doesn't know what's happening. After that interlude in the lab, Steve's new senses won't let him ignore Tony. He has to know where he is, or he'll find himself pacing through the halls, unable to let it go. When Tony walks into a room, Steve has to look at him, watch him, smell his scent winding through the air. Trying to ignore that need makes it even worse, like denying an itch beneath the whole of his skin. The only upside is that the hollowness in his chest, that sharp echoing ache, hasn't returned in a while. But at this point, Steve's not sure which is worse- the old ache or this new driving need. He can hardly think straight, it takes all his training to keep a proper distance from Tony every single day. He wants to just walk up and press against him and bury his head in Tony's warm neck and breathe in that heavy dusty-sweet smell...

It takes Steve weeks to see past his own denial. One morning he wakes in wolf form with one of Tony's t-shirts tucked beneath his paws. He'd stolen it, he remembers now, lifted it from the floor of Tony's room and ghosted away with his prize, and he simply can't fool himself any more. Steve shifts, and when he's done, stays curled into himself, fists clenched. The shirt is bunched up beneath his forearms, and every time he breathes in that scent washes over him, warm and deep and perfect. He wants. He wants. He wants Tony, wants him so badly it's driving him to distraction, wants him like he can't deny. And- he's wanted him for, God, for years. Tony's sure hands and his quick mind, his loyalty and his drive and the way he builds himself back together no matter how many times he shatters. The way he looks, sometimes, drinking coffee in the half-light of a dark kitchen, or lost in thought over blueprints...How long has he wanted this?

Tony doesn't suspect anything, he's pretty sure. Steve can hardly think straight around Tony's scent, but he doesn't seem to be any different. Tony still treats him with that same easy openness they've always had with each other. Tony always smiles at him; even when they've fought...

Smiles. Friendship. That's a shadow of what Steve wants. Has Tony ever looked at him like Sharon did? Has he ever tried to touch Steve, to offer any more? What if he asks Tony and Tony doesn't want him back?

And at that thought, Steve can't repress a little noise of distress. He buries his face back into the stolen shirt and breathes. If he has to do this every day, holding himself back from what his body is telling him it wants, holding himself in check every hour of every day for months, years...




It's late when Steve finally hears the faint sound of footsteps on the front path. His ears prick; even in human form, he can tell when Tony is coming now, but in wolf form the sound of his feet is unmistakeable. Steve leaves off trying to pick up Thor's scent on the back staircase and trots downstairs instead. There's a voice in his head telling him not to go, that he's only tormenting himself with what he can't have. But it's overwhelmed by his instincts in this form; all he wants is to hear Tony's voice, smell his scent, even if he knows Tony will never want anything more-

There are two people outside, a lighter clicking pair of steps next to Tony's own. Steve freezes for a moment, then slinks to a patch of shadow next to the front staircase. There are two voices now, Tony's and a softer, higher one, and as the door swings open Steve catches the scent of hairspray and perfume and his stomach twists.

The two of them come in, laughing and comfortable. Both shed their coats; as Tony's hanging them up, the woman looks around, rubbing her hands together to warm them. They're still talking, something about toroid spheres and grant cycles, when the woman's gaze turns toward the shadow Steve is standing in. She trails off and taps Tony's shoulder, and Steve hunches further into the shadow, a discontented growl rumbling in his chest.

“Steve?” Tony's voice, and he has to come out now. He does so, but with his head low and his eyes fixed on the woman. “Uh, Ella, this is...Steve.”

“Oh, he's handsome. Can I say hello?” She's unsettled. Steve can hear her pulse picking up and the beginnings of a nervous sweat around her temples, but she smiles at him, then extends a hand slowly towards his nose in an invitation to sniff. She smells like spices from her hand lotion, but beneath that is ink, metal, old paper. They're not bad smells, and Steve sternly tells himself to calm down. He's intimidating in this form, and it's impolite to make other people nervous.

“Hello, Steve. Hello. It's a pleasure to meet you.” Ella slowly moves her hand behind his head, and Steve allows her to rub behind his ears for a few seconds before stepping away. “I guess he's a little shy of strangers.”

Tony clears his throat; a small mean part of Steve is gratified to see him looking awkward. “Yeah. Hey, do you want something to drink while we talk about the grant submission?”

Steve follows them into the kitchen, where Tony starts making a batch of coffee. Steve sits immediately behind him, just far enough away to not have his paws stepped on, and switches his gaze between Tony and Ella, who's sat down in a kitchen chair and pulled out a netbook. The discussion they were having in the hall picks up again. Steve ignores the talk flying over his head and simply sits and watches. Tony says something, and the woman laughs, and Steve stares at her, intent. Tony moves to sit down next to Ella, coffee in hand, and Steve moves with him; he sits with one side pressed against Tony's chair and continues staring at Ella as she swipes her fingers over the touchscreen on the table and gesticulates. Tony leans over to look more closely at a file she's pulled up, and Steve shuffles forward, interposing his head between them. Ella looks at him with some amusement, and Tony frowns. He doesn't care. He can't stand to see this, this woman smiling with soft eyes, smiling at his Tony- and he doesn't even clamp down on that his now.

Finally Ella starts to yawn. When she gets up to leave, Steve is immediately behind, following between her and Tony as they all trail out to the front hall.

“Thank you for letting me come by, Tony. It's always a pleasure.” Tony helps her on with her coat, and they hug; Steve can feel the hairs prickling along his ruff, and as they separate he shoulders his way between them.

“Steve!” Tony's disapproving tone makes him shrink inside, but he stays firm. Ella laughs a little, and he can detect a note of sadness in her voice as she leans over him.

“It's all right. It's all right, big fellow, I'm going. I know who he belongs to.”

Steve freezes, stock-still. He doesn't dare look at Tony's face. It's only when the door shuts behind her that he comes to himself; he darts away before Tony can make a move.




When Steve comes into the kitchen the next morning, Tony is sitting at the table waiting for him.

“You going to tell me what the hell you were doing last night?”

Steve sighs and opens the refrigerator. After a sleepless night, he'd gone out early for a run hoping to clear his head. It hadn't worked. “Nothing. Forget it.”

“That was not nothing, Steve. What the hell was that? I can't bring a friend home?”

Despite himself, despite all his efforts, Steve feels the prickling buzz of anger roll across his shoulders. “A friend? Right.”

Tony puts down his coffee mug with a jerk. “What? What does that even mean?”

“Come on, Tony, I saw the way you were looking at each other.” Angry, angry, he's killing himself with this but he can't make himself stop.

“I-” Tony gives a disbelieving laugh. “I can't believe this. Suddenly you're in charge of my romantic life?”

Steve closes his eyes. “It's nothing, Tony. I'm sorry. I-” he forces it out- “I hope you two are happy.” And oh, oh, there is that emptiness again, sharp enough to cut his fingers on, and he grips the counter with both hands and bows his head.

There is a pause. Steve is so deep in his own misery that he doesn't realize Tony's moved until he hears his voice next to his ear. He's low and serious like Tony hardly ever is.

“What's going on, Steve?”

Steve can only shake his head. This is torture, standing next to Tony, hearing his voice, smelling him so close and having to tell himself no, no, not for you, never for you.

“You've never- I've never seen you like this before.” A pause, and then, hesitant, “Is this a, a werewolf thing? Because if you just tell me, maybe I can help you-”

“I've changed, Tony.”

“No, you haven't, Steve. But this isn't like you, I need to know-”

“I have!” And it's ripping out of him now, his hands clenched onto the countertop. “I've changed, it's changed me and I can't go back now, I can hardly control myself around you, I can smell you, all the time, and then some new girlfriend comes in and what am I supposed to think-” He stops short, aghast.

There is a shocked silence, and then Tony says, wonderingly, “Oh.”

Steve bows his head low. He can't think beyond this moment.

“Steve.” He hears Tony swallow, and then there's a warm pressure over one of his clenched fists; Tony's hand, wrapped over his own. “If you'd just said. Steve, I can help you-” His voice is unsteady, and Steve is struck by the sudden horror that he can hear pity in that tone. A sort of dull sickness rises in his stomach; the idea of Tony offering himself in some parody of love, out of necessity-

“Don't- Tony, don't try to be nice to me-” He tries to move his hand, and Tony makes a frustrated noise and grips tighter.

“I'm not trying to be nice, you idiot-”

“I can handle this. I'll handle this. I shouldn't have told you-”

“Steve, for God's sake, I'm not trying to do you a favor here,” and as he lifts his head to snarl back a reply, Tony reaches across his body and yanks him down into a kiss. It's hard and sharp-edged; their teeth click, and Tony bites at his lip, and it's so good it blanks Steve's head, leaves him dazed and breathless and chasing Tony's tongue through his mouth. When they come up for air, Tony licks his lips and gives him a small wry smile.

“Are you going to listen to me now?” Steve nods, still stunned. “Okay. First of all, Ella is a business partner of mine. Nothing more. Second, I am not offering whatever you think I'm offering out of some kind of misplaced compassion.” This close, Steve can see Tony's eyes darken. “Not in the slightest.”

Steve stares at him, agape. “Oh,” he manages, eventually, and as the words leave his mouth he realizes he's grinning. “Really?”

Tony sighs. “Steve, I've been smitten with you pretty much since the day we first met.”

“Really?”

Tony laughs. “Yes.” He's managed to detach Steve's other hand from its death grip on the countertop, and now they're facing each other. “I just got used to the idea it would never happen. You were getting settled in, and then you found people, and I found people...when did this happen, anyway?”

Steve can feel himself blushing, but with Tony looking fondly into his face, it all matters much less. “I just realized recently. I couldn't stop thinking about your scent, whenever you were around, it drove me crazy. But...it wasn't just that. I think it's been years. Years and I never realized it.” His voice is almost sad. What if he'd never realized? What if they'd never had this?

Tony leans up and presses another kiss on his lips, and Steve forgets thought in the sweet surge of pleasure that goes through him. When they break apart, his hands are wrapped around Tony's shoulders and Tony's hands have migrated down to settle suspiciously close to his ass. “Years,” Tony says thoughtfully, and gives him a wicked smile. “So we should start making up for lost time right now, right?”

Steve laughs and buries his nose in Tony's throat, filling his nose with the intoxicating scent of him. “Right,” he mutters against the scratch of his goatee, and nips at the skin beneath his earlobe. Tony groans and arches back, and the warm sweet pulse of him fills Steve up to the brim.