Tony stepped out of the shower and checked his phone while he rubbed a towel through his hair. There was one missed call from Steve. Frowning, Tony glanced at the time. It was rare for Steve to call after nine, but it was pushing midnight. Without bothering to check his voicemail, Tony hit redial, and put the phone on speaker while he finished drying off.
“Hey, buddy. It’s Tony. Everything okay?”
“Hmm? Yeah, sure,” Steve sounded confused.
“You called me. It’s late. Just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”
“Oh? Oh… yeah. Sorry, Tony. It wasn’t anything important.” Steve sighed. “Actually… actually, it was just a booty call.”
If Tony had been eating or drinking, the entire contents of his mouth would have ended up sprayed across the bathroom mirror. “Excuse me?”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“No, no, it’s -” he blinked at his own reflection. Well. “No, it’s no bother. Honestly. I mean… I’d be down to come over and hang.” Tony held his breath.
“Oh, really? Sure, yeah. That’d be really nice. It’s not too late?”
“Not for me. I just stepped out of the shower actually.” He wondered if he should add something about being naked, but he was surprised Steve was comfortable with the concept of a booty call at all; phone sex might be pushing it. “I’ll come down.”
“Okay, great.” Steve sounded significantly more chipper than before. “See you soon!”
Tony hung up and threw on clothes at random. It wasn’t like he’d be wearing them for long. He brushed his teeth, gargled some mouthwash, and blasted out the door. By the time he knocked on Steve’s, his palms were sweaty, and he was rocking up and down on his heels. Had Steve noticed his crush over the last few months? Or maybe, maybe he had his own crush? Either way, Tony’s heart was pounding and he couldn’t seem to calm it.
Steve opened the door with a smile. “Hi, Tony. I’m really glad you came over. Wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”
Tony shut the door behind him and shifted closer. “Well, you know, how could I refuse such an enticing offer?”
“Mhm.” Tony shifted even closer. He could do this. It didn’t count as making the first move when you’d literally been invited over for sex, right? Steve was a gentleman; he wasn’t going to want to push Tony into anything. So Tony kissed him.
When he pulled back, Steve’s cheeks were incredibly red, and his eyes were incredibly wide, and his eyebrows looked like they were on an expedition to the North Pole. “Um,” Steve said. “Okay?”
Tony licked his lips self-consciously. Did he taste weird? “Uh. You seem surprised? Did you get confused watching Pretty Woman and think booty calls don’t kiss on the lips? Cause I do.”
Steve’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again. Then he took out his phone. “One second,” he creaked out, his voice a rusty cellar door hinge. He typed for a moment then scrolled, and his cheeks glowed redder and redder. Finally, he cleared his throat roughly and tucked his phone back in his pocket. “Butt dial,” he barely managed to whisper.
“Pardon?” Tony’s genius brain tried to jump four or five steps ahead, but Tony reeled it right back in again. None of the available conclusions to jump to were fun ones.
“I - it’s called a butt dial. Not a booty call. I, um. I must have misremembered that one.” Steve looked about two seconds from truly putting to the test whether spontaneous human combustion was possible, so Tony took two careful steps backwards, out of Steve’s space.
“Ha!” he said loudly, in a way that was absolutely not a laugh. “Ha. That’s funny.”
Tony turned to the door. “Well, I’m leaving now and we will spend twenty-four hours doing whatever punching-bag-yoga-calls-to-the-therapist healing needs to happen here and then I’ll see you again on Monday and this will never have happened. Goodnight!”
Tony froze, then turned to see Steve reaching tentatively out towards him.
“I read what it was,” Steve said.
“I read what a booty call actually was. That’s what you thought I meant. You came here thinking I wanted to have sex with you.”
“Steve, the whole point of pretending something didn’t happen is so we don’t need to talk about it.”
“But I want it to happen. To have happened.” He frowned. “I want that. I want to pretend I knew all along what it really was. You wouldn’t have come up if you didn’t want to sleep with me, right? You would have said no. So that means you do. And I do too. With you.”
Tony swallowed twice, letting that information percolate through his brain like a game of Plinko. “Oh. Okay. Well. You want to have sex with me?”
Steve smiled tentatively. “I want to do pretty much everything with you. But yes, I very much want to touch you.” His eyes wandered down Tony’s body like the super serum had given him x-ray vision as well. “And a booty call would be great, but if a date call is on the table too, I’d like that very much.”
“Well, shit. Okay.” Tony shifted back into Steve’s space, but once bitten, twice shy. He waited.
Steve ducked down and kissed him firmly on the mouth. When he pulled back, he grinning brilliantly.
“Yes, please. If you want.”
“Oh, I want,” Tony breathed. “I’ve wanted for a while.”
“Perfect.” Steve gathered Tony up in his arms and carted him off towards the bedroom. “One favour?”
“If you haven’t already, don’t listen to the voicemail I left you. Or rather, my butt left you. It’ll ruin the illusion when you find it out that it’s just five minutes of me watching home renovation shows and grumbling about hardwood installation.”
Tony grinned and snuggled deeper into Steve’s hold, giddy for the best night of his life he knew he was about to be treated to - and hopefully many more nights after. “Don’t worry, gorgeous, I’ll just close my eyes and imagine you said something else about hard wood.”
Steve laughed so hard he almost dropped him. Off to a good start.
