Warnings: Blood, historical AU where Tony is a vampire king shh just go with it happy halloween fellow sinners 💕
The guards come for him the dawn after the full moon. They only tell him that he’s being summoned to the kingscourt, and ignoring May’s screaming, they drag him up the hill to the black castle. Peter turns and tries to tell her it’ll be okay, but he can’t form words past the lump in his throat. He knows he’ll be dead within the hour.
They haul him up the black stone steps, and as they progress deeper into the castle’s yawning, bleak halls, Peter can feel the very air around him growing thinner and colder. When they come to a set of crimson double-doors with wrought iron bars, he’s shivering and gooseflesh prickles his skin.
The two guards creak the doors open and drag Peter inside the kingscourt, throwing him to the stone floor. Peter stumbles to his knees, trembling and blue-lipped, and he raises his head, eyes wide in terror.
Deathly silence falls over the great hall as everyone stares at him. Flanking the dais, the King’s Council gaze sternly at him. The walls are lined with servants, a mixture of pity and scorn on their wan faces, and the Kingsguard and the nobles who’ve come to petition Stark avoid his eyes entirely.
The King himself is seated at his black throne at the center of the dais, a blinding splash of color in the otherwise dreary hall. He’s draped in deep red cloaks and his hand is lazily wrapped around a polished gold scepter, the end of which has been filed to a fine, knife-like point. His skin is darker, more flushed than Peter’s heard him described, and his sharp trimmed black goatee accentuates his strong jaw and full lips. Tony Stark is handsome, Peter thinks deliriously, and he realizes he’s been staring for far too long and quickly ducks his head, bowing deep from his position on the frozen stone floor.
“Bring him to me,” Tony drawls.
The two guards grab Peter under his arms and manhandle him to the front of the kingscourt, and a noblewoman who must have been mid-petition quickly gathers her skirts and makes way for them. They throw Peter down in front of the dais, and he quickly ducks his head.
He hears quiet footsteps, only audible for the stifling hush that’s fallen over the court as Tony stands and makes his way down the dais, stopping just in front of him. “You’re Peter Parker?” He asks, his low velvet voice suddenly much closer.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Peter says, blinking at his knees. He sees the point of the gold scepter enter his periphery, and the King raises it slowly, nudging the sharp edge at its end against the column of Peter’s throat. Barely daring to breathe, Peter raises his head as the scepter pushes his chin up until he feels the sharp prick of it resting at the top of his throat, and he’s staring into Tony’s coal black eyes.
“You’re the one who released my dinner,” he says, his voice low and almost bored.
Peter feels tears welling in his eyes and he angrily blinks them away. “Yes, Your Grace,” he says again. The point of the scepter pushes against his throat and Peter inhales sharply.
“Why?
“Your Grace, she wasn’t guilty of the crimes she’d been accused of,” Peter rasps. “It wouldn’t have been just to sentence her to die.”
“So you decided to take justice into your own hands?” Tony asks, a dangerous edge to his words. “You think you can alter the sentences I’ve passed down?”
“Your Grace, please,” Peter says, his voice breaking. He feels the point of the scepter break his skin and he sobs as a trickle of blood rolls down the column of his throat, warm and sluggish.
“We have a system of order in place for a reason, Peter Parker.” Tony pulls the scepter back and raises the end to his lips, licking Peter’s blood from it as his inky eyes flutter shut. “Virgin’s blood,” he notes with interest. He returns to his throne and lounges on it, crossing his legs like he’s at the theatre. “Strip him,” he orders the guards.
Peter yelps as an armored hand comes down on his shoulder and the guards yank at his shirt. When he protests and tries to push them off, he gets the flat of a sword sharp across his back and he cries out, falling silent as they tear his shirt to ribbons.
“And the trousers,” Tony says lazily.
“Please, Your Grace,” Peter tries again, sobbing as he gets the flat of a sword again to the backs of his thighs. When the guards are finished with him, he’s hunched in on himself, shaking and shivering as he tries to cover himself as best as possible, his clothes lying in tatters around him. He can hear the nobles and servants tittering among themselves, and despite how cold it is in the kingscourt, he feels like he’s boiling alive with the shame and humiliation.
“You’ll be happy to know,” Tony starts, “your friend is long gone.” Peter looks up, but the King isn’t in his throne anymore. Black smoke swirls in a thick coil around him like the debris of a hurricane, and Tony’s voice comes again, disembodied and surrounding him all at once: “So whether she did commit the crime, fortunately for her we have no way of gathering further evidence to the contrary.”
He suddenly feels his presence directly behind him, Tony’s cloaked frame materializing to cast a menacing shadow over Peter. He bites back a whimper and ducks his head again.
“Now, unfortunately for you, Peter Parker, I have no intention of wasting my men’s time hunting down a scrap of a meal. Which means the consequences fall to you.” Tony circles Peter’s hunched, naked body slowly, a predator surveying his next kill. “You understand, of course,” he says in a syrupy mocking tone. “What would the people think if I let a farm boy decide if my rulings were just or not?”
Cold fingers coil in his hair and Peter gasps in pain as he’s dragged to his feet, tears stinging his eyes. He’s excruciatingly aware of his nudity and he tries curling in on himself, but Tony yanks his hair hard until he’s whimpering and stretched on the tips of his toes, fully exposed for the entire kingscourt to laugh at.
But the King doesn’t seem to be laughing at him. The sclera of his eyes have turned black as his irises, drinking in the sight of him, and Peter shudders under his horrible gaze. “Divine,” Tony breathes. He tilts Peter’s head back, baring the long line of his throat and tracking the slow trickle of blood from where he’d pricked him with the scepter. He tugs Peter into his chest and as he lowers his mouth to his skin, Peter’s eyes roll back in his head and he clutches at Tony’s shoulders, overcome by a heady feeling like he’s drunk and half-euphoric all at once. The world shrinks down to the space between Tony’s arms wound tight around him, and all he can focus on is the cold, slick feeling of his tongue as it laps the drying blood from his skin in lazy swipes.
He forgets that he’s naked as his nameday in front of the entire court to see, can’t even register the soft moans that come unbidden from his mouth, can only think about how desperately he wants Tony to bleed him dry and use him--
“No!” Peter hears himself screaming. He convulses suddenly, coming back to himself. Still half out of his mind, he shoves hard against Tony’s firm chest, throwing himself backwards to the floor. When he blinks and sees the King’s glittering black eyes trained on him, hungry and intent, he scrambles to his feet.
Two sets of armored hands seize him around the shoulders again and he screams, kicking and flailing against the guards. Around him, the court averts their eyes, many of them shuffling away at the prospect of a feeding about to go violently wrong. Peter can’t bring himself to care though, all he sees is Tony standing over him, his pointed teeth gleaming in the low lamplight.
“There’s no need for that,” Tony says patiently, licking blood from the corner of his lips. He takes Peter from the guards and grips him by the throat, and almost immediately that same heady calm falls over Peter again. He struggles feebly against his hold, but this time Tony’s ready. He forces Peter’s head back and sinks his fangs into the soft skin of his throat, and Peter moans weakly, going boneless in his arms. Peter breathes shallowly as cold lips latch around the puncture site and Tony drinks long and deep from his throat, and all he can do is twitch his fingers around the King’s forearms as a pleasant haziness swallows his mind.
He feels a warm fur cloak being wrapped around his shoulders and then, all too soon, Tony is pulling back and licking red lips in satisfaction. Peter whines at the loss of contact, and he clutches at the King’s shirtfront, dizzy and confused as to why he’d stopped.
Tony looks almost fondly down at Peter with his human-like eyes again. “Take him to my chambers. And Peter? Don’t stray,” he warns, his words honey-sweet and dangerous.
Peter nods dazedly, letting the guards march him out of the kingscourt. He can’t imagine why he’d ever want to leave Tony’s side again.
Tags: shotgunning, marijuana use, drug use, unrequited love, angst
Pairing: Stony
I have no idea where this came from. It was originally going to be WinterIron, but then this just happened. I don't even know. I like it though. Unbeta'd as per usual, and there's no character bashing here, just so you know. Enjoy.
Also read on ao3!
He slips out of the party for fresh air and a moment’s quiet.
He gets why it’s going on of course – they’ve won the war, and everything broken has been repaired, and pardons have been issued, and peace has been achieved – but there’s only so much schmoozing he can do before he uses up his seemingly infinite well of patience and needs to take a moment for himself. That infinite well has been running dry for years because once he’d found out that Bucky was alive, he hadn’t allowed himself to rest or recuperate until he had finally found his best friend, and after that his entire reality had gone to hell. The split with the Avengers over the Accords, needing to always be comforting and a strong leader for the people he had brought down with him, Thanos...it’s been non-stop, and he hasn’t had a moment to himself for years, giving every iota of himself to his team and eventually to the entire universe itself.
But now he can take a moment, suck in a deep breath, rest.
He wanders through the Avengers compound, the dark corridors silent and still under FRIDAY’s watchful eye, and recollects himself, allowing himself this moment where he can just be without having to put on a mask of power and justice and collectedness. It’s nice to just wander around in a place he now calls home, every fibre of carpet and every molecule of air familiar and safe, and not for the first time, he feels bone-deep gratitude that he’s able to be here, with the people he calls family in this facility that makes him feel secure, despite everything that’s been thrown at its inhabitants over the years.
He’s not sure how long he wanders, lost in his thoughts and gathering his mental fortitude to return to the party, when he smells smoke.
He pauses, tense as his sensitive nose breaks down the scent of it, and when he’s convinced that it’s simply the sharp, pungent odour of marijuana, he relaxes, because it means that nothing’s burning. It’s an odd smell in this area of the compound, because the smokers have designated areas with air filtration systems to eliminate odour and this section of the compound – the Avengers training areas – don’t have one of those. Those sections are sequestered near the living areas, the kitchen, and the staff areas, to eliminate a sizable walk for a cig.
It’s even odder here. Only a few people have access to this wing, as it houses and supports the Avengers directly, and none of the Avengers smoke. Well, marijuana at least – he knows that Rhodes enjoys the occasional cigar, and Clint and Tony had partaken in the occasional cigarette back when Tony had been...well, going through everything. Still, Rhodes is a stickler for the rules (and he’d been quite busy with Hope and Sam, all of them remarkably drunk, so he knows that it’s not Rhodes), and the other two are in a better place now, not resorting to vices like drugs and alcohol to cope with the horrors life keeps throwing at them. In any case, he’s never smelt marijuana in the entire Avengers complex, and while he’s certainly for any medication use (including marijuana, courtesy of an hour-long lecture from Sam waxing poetry about how it can help so much for all sorts of people, including war veterans and trauma survivors), he hadn’t been aware that anyone smoked it. Well, other than Tony, but that had been years ago.
Though, now that he thinks about it, Tony had hopped out of the festivities a while back and therefore Tony’s the only one that he’s not currently tracking. It hadn’t been a surprise that Tony hadn’t stayed long; between being sober and the past years of trauma, shoving him in a room full of celebrating, drunken people isn’t exactly the best idea, as Tony had said with his usual, wisecracking nonchalance (laced with self-deprecating humour that Tony tries to hide but doesn’t quite have the strength to anymore). ‘Tempting a sleeping beast,’ he had said, grinning, but the wide smile hadn’t reached his eyes.
Tony doesn’t smile like he used to, and it’s a damn travesty.
Steve Rogers – little, bumbling Stevie, who volunteered for an experiment to win a war and came out looking like he does, but still doesn’t know how to use it all outside of a fight and doesn’t know how to really connect with people without it being about his image – takes a deep breath and follows the scent to the balcony.
He leans against the open glass door for a long moment, just observing. Tony’s the first thing that he notices, leaning over the clear glass balcony and looking out to the distant New York skyline, a blunt in between his almost elegant but strong fingers. Tony’s hard to miss, even in a crowd (always so big, his infamous personality and charm making him seem ten feet tall when he really is just a man, a man who’s been crushed by the weight of the universe and suffered for it), but here, alone in the very-early hours of an autumn morning, he’s utterly poignant. The perimeter lights illuminate him dimly and the smoke is curling round his head like a moth, and he looks so tired in the poor lighting (or maybe he’s simply washed off the expensive concealer that he liberally applies to the dark bags under his eyes). Steve looks him up and down – short, compact body with that lean waist and strong muscles, greying hair getting longer now and slightly curling around his ears, and Steve can’t help but acknowledge for the umpteenth time that Anthony Stark is a handsome man.
It’s always been a tickling thought in the back of his head, wondering what it would be like to touch Tony’s skin and see him shiver, feel him pressed against Steve and Steve licked every millimetre of him, but it’s never been anything too distracting. Tony, despite his clear attractiveness and intelligence, had rubbed Steve the wrong way until he had been forced to examine the reasoning behind Tony’s every action and word, which had nipped any true possibility for attraction in the bud back then. Surprisingly, considering everything, it had been Wanda to explain it to him. ‘I’ve been inside his head, for better or for worse, and for the most terrible purpose,’ she had said quietly, when he had been warring between guilt that he’d destroyed the lives of his family and the anger that Tony hadn’t listened, had fought people he called allies and friends once, had struck at Bucky, for God’s sake, a man who had been through too damn much himself. ‘He suffers, every single day, Steve, and when you live in a spotlight that the whole world is watching, you put on a mask. The mask Stark wears is strong and hard and malleable with long use, but it is just a mask, and you do not know his mind like I do. He is hurting, full of guilt and sorrow, and he fights just as strongly as you to give the illusion that everything will be fine, that everything will be better, even when everything is falling apart around you. I have spent my entire life hating him Steve, but you cannot blame a man for doing what he thinks is right, even if you don’t agree with his actions, and in hindsight perhaps we should agree. However, in the end, he is human, and he is doing the best he can in a world that will do nothing but break him.’
Steve still doesn’t think he’s ever heard words that opened his world so dramatically since he’s come up from the ice.
Steve can see Tony for what he is now: a man who was shaped by traumas both old and new, who was trying to assuage his guilt by seeking oversight and giving reparations, who puts on a face to protect himself in his softest spots, and who overcompensates with sharp humour and tactlessness in order to assure the world that he is strong and unruffled enough to protect the innocent.
Steve gets that, because he does the same thing, albeit with different mechanisms, and that’s probably the reason why they were never able to really bridge the gap back then. God knows it’s been better since joining forces to defeat Thanos, though, now that Steve can see underneath the mask Tony displays to the world, and surprisingly, they’ve come a long way since then. Steve, for the first time since meeting Tony Stark, can safely say that he would give his life for the man, can call him family and have it feel honest.
Though, if Steve’s current respect and affection he as for Tony means that he dreams about taking Tony apart with every trick he’s read about, then it’s not like anyone has to know. It’s not like anything would ever come out of it anyway – Tony wouldn’t touch Steve with a bargepole, and honestly Steve doesn’t really blame him. Even though Steve knows that he’s made some right choices and Tony’s made bad ones, that sometimes he was right and Tony was wrong, it doesn’t change the fact that Steve’s made far more mistakes than Tony has, and maybe Tony’ll truly forgive him for it one day, but Steve can’t blame him if he doesn’t. There are some things that Steve can’t forgive Tony for, so it’s only fair.
Tony Stark is not someone Steve can have, and while he thinks about him too often to be healthy, he’s still at peace with it.
“You curing your asthma?” Steve finally says lightly, after he’s glanced at the silent, dimly illuminated grounds and sees no other living soul around. He’s not surprised by that either; with the revelry going on in the public wing, he can’t imagine that anyone would want to get away from that. Even Natasha is enjoying herself, having a few drinks and as she mends things with Bruce, both of them accepting that that relationship will never bloom now but wanting to remain friends despite everything.
Tony doesn’t jerk or startle with surprise, which figures. FRIDAY had probably told him of Steve’s approach before Steve had even made the conscious decision to journey outside. Instead, he brings the blunt to his lips and takes a deep drag, holding the smoke in his lungs for long seconds before exhaling slowly, the cloud of smoke billowing around his face. Once it’s all but dissipated in the slightly chilled breeze, Tony says in a low murmur, “Must’ve been a hell of a time, growing up in the forties, when they gave you smokes and weed for lung issues and heroin for everything else.”
“It had its moments,” Steve says, then adds, “though a lot more people died back then, from cancer and who knows what else.”
In profile, Tony’s lips quirk, and then he turns to lean against the glass railing so he can face Steve directly. “I can’t imagine you stoned,” he says, chocolate brown eyes scanning Steve’s body as if trying to do just that. It’s oddly exposing, being looked at as if he’s being dissected by Tony’s genius mind, and Steve almost wants to look away and wrap his arms around his body. Tony continues, “Were you paranoid as hell or did you smile more instead?”
Steve purses his lips, trying to work out Tony’s angle, and then huffs. “I’ve never done it, so I wouldn’t know. Does it make you smile more?”
Tony shrugs one shoulder, takes another lingering drag, and then steps forward. His gait is steady and strong, but as Tony gets closer to the brighter lights in the corridor, Steve can see that Tony’s eyes are a bit glassy and bloodshot, even if he doesn’t look worse for wear. He turns when he’s too close and heads to the chairs nestled in a corner, dropping into a chair and draping himself lazily in it. He motions to the other chair pressed against the building as he flicks off accumulated ash into a metal ashtray, and Steve meanders over, relaxing a bit into the white cushions and turning a bit in Tony’s direction.
Finally, Tony admits, “Not really, but I do think really deep thoughts. I can get a remarkable amount of brainstorming done, and God knows I can stomach SI board meeting better. Here, try it.”
“It won’t work,” Steve says, eyeing the proffered blunt. He’s not adverse to smoking – he had used his ‘prescription’ for asthma when he was growing up, not realising that the cigarettes were actually making his health worse, so he’s certainly no stranger to it. He also knows that marijuana is relatively harmless (and it’s not like Steve can get normal illnesses, thanks to the serum, so he’s safe no matter what he decides to put in his body outside of napalm or something) and after hearing Sam’s lecture, he’s all for anyone using it. Knowing Tony, who’s practically allergic to therapy, he’s probably using it to cope, and Steve can’t fault him for that, especially when he could be falling back on his toxic habits of alcohol and prescription drug use. Still, Steve’s pretty immune to pretty much everything, and he doesn’t see the point of trying it if it probably won’t work.
Then again, maybe it would, and maybe the voices in his head screaming at him for the choices he’s made will finally go away for a blessed moment.
He takes it and lifts it to his mouth, pulling deeply and trying not to think about his lips wrapping around something Tony’s own have touched. His lungs are strong enough and his muscle memory vivid enough that he doesn’t cough, and he mimics Tony’s long pause before he blows it out smoothly. It’s weirdly flavourful in his mouth, something very...earthy and sharp. He can’t really explain it, but it’s much nicer than the ashy, bitter flavour of the cigarettes he remembers from the forties, and he smacks his lips as he tries to connect it to something familiar.
“Huh,” Tony says, and he sounds a bit taken aback. His arm is still outstretched towards Steve, fingers lax in surprise. “I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”
Steve fights the urge to roll his eyes and brings the blunt back to his lips. He inhales once more, this time the pull a bit hotter and biting as he burns it closer to the end, and reaches to snuff the nub out in the ashtray. He rolls his tongue in his mouth, tasting pleasantly sharp flavour of the smoke, and then exhales as he says, “I might be an old man without a lot of real-life experience, but I know my way around this sort of thing. I’m not nearly as stuffy as you all make me out to be.”
“This coming from the man that made me and Hope shake hands after we got into a bitch-fest and constantly tells us to watch our language,” Tony mutters as he reaches to a small tin on the little table between their chairs. He opens it up, revealing one last blunt, and lifts it to his lips, lighting the end with a deep inhale and offering it to Steve once again. Steve takes it, ignoring the tingle in his hands and his fingers brush Tony’s, and inhales as Tony continues, “Still, it’s weird. Good-weird, I guess, even though I guess I shouldn’t be egging you on, but still weird.”
“You didn’t egg me on, Tony; I’m a grown man capable of making decisions, and we both know that I’m too stubborn to be goaded into something like this,” Steve says around his mouthful of smoke, and he actually quite likes it, the taste and the smell and the way it feels in his lungs. He can’t feel anything, which isn’t surprising, but when he glances over, Tony’s smiling, one of his big grins that brightens his eyes and takes years off his face, and maybe it doesn’t matter that Steve can’t get stoned. He hasn’t seen Tony smile like that in literal years, and he feels a bit lightheaded at the fact that it’s directed toward him of all people.
“You are stubborn. Probably why we drive each other so batshit all the time,” Tony says with a laugh, but there’s something in his eyes as he watches Steve take another drag. If Steve was being gracious, he’d probably call it desire, but it’s probably just appreciation that Steve’s relaxing a bit and letting this private interlude be soft and light instead of heavy and filled with ghosts. Nevertheless, seeing those dark eyes focus on him, bright with amusement but half-lidded and focussed on Steve’s mouth, is actually rather arousing, and he can’t help but swallow thickly as he blows out the smoke. He crosses his legs as naturally as possible, even though he’s certainly not hard, but he still feels the longing in his blood.
“Gimme, you good-for-nothing bastard; you’re hogging my weed,” Tony says and Steve laughs himself, not able to tear his eyes away as Tony wraps those shapely lips around the end and pulls. Tony’s eyes close, long lashes fluttering against his cheek and casting shadows along his face, and Lord, is Tony gorgeous. Perhaps Steve is feeling something, because he feels a bit tingly and lightheaded, but it can’t be, because no painkillers or alcoholic beverage has been able to affect him since the serum.
A flash – Tony on his knees, wide mouth stretched around him, or Steve on his knees instead – of fantasy, and then he has to look away as he jokes back a bit thinly, “You offered, and besides, you’ve had more than I have.”
“I bought it, I smoke it. Get your own green,” he snarks back, and he almost sounds like his old self. He slumps even further into his chair, grin tapered off into a small quirk of his lips, and asks, “Do you ever wonder how it would’ve been if we had started like this, instead of how it did?”
Steve sighs, relaxes back against the soft cushions of his own chair, and replies heavily, “Every single day, Tony. Every single goddamn day.”
He expects a jibe at the language, but instead Tony says quietly, “Me too. I think I could’ve...” He trails off, looking a bit wistful, and Steve wants to hear the rest but he can’t bear the thought of hearing it at the same time. Steve regrets a lot of choices he’s made and stands by the rest, but he can’t stomach knowing what could’ve been had he just opened his eyes sooner, what he’s lost because of the path he walked down. He thinks it would kill him if Tony could have reciprocated even a tiny sliver of the emotion (it’s love Steve, don’t deny it) Steve feels for Tony, had Steve just looked underneath the underneath instead of the bombastic self-defence Tony wears as a second skin.
They sit in silence after that, passing the blunt back and forth, and when it’s almost gone, Tony clears his throat and asks, “Can I do something? To share the last of it, y’know?” Steve tears his eyes away from the silent grounds, something in Tony’s tone making Steve hold his breath, and looks at Tony for a long moment before nodding.
Tony stands, makes his way over to Steve’s front, and then falls to his knees, right in between Steve’s legs. Steve can feel the warmth of him and he shudders at the sensation as well as the sight of Tony, right in front of him, pupils large from the lack of light and the marijuana. “Just once,” Tony murmurs almost absently, as if he’s trying to convince himself of the truth in those words, and then takes the last drag of the blunt before blindly snuffing it out in the ashtray and reaching for Steve.
The first touch of that rough hand is electrifying, and feeling Tony pull him close is almost unbearable. It’s a slow pull, hands cupping Steve’s cheek and bringing them nose-to-nose, and Steve realises what Tony’s trying to do a split-second before it happens: masking the tentative question behind the flimsy excuse of sharing that last drag.
Tony pauses, his nose brushing the side of Steve’s, waiting to see if Steve’s okay with this, waiting to see if Steve will meet him halfway, and oh is Steve more than willing. He lifts his own arms and then wraps his arms around Tony’s neck, pulling him the rest of the way and slotting his lips against Tony’s own.
They open their mouths in unison and then Tony’s blowing the smoke inside, slowly and intimately, and it’s singlehandedly the most intoxicating thing he’s ever experienced in his life. He inhales as Tony exhales, taking it into his lungs, and then he slowly deepens their connection into a proper kiss, holding his breath and he winds his tongue with Tony’s own. Tony groans, his other hand gripping Steve’s thigh for leverage as he leans upwards, mouth and tongue moving so fluidly against his own that it nearly breaks Steve’s heart to know that he’ll never get to have this outside of this single stolen moment.
Steve exhales but he doesn’t break the kiss, the smoke practically non-existent, and he pushes closer, wanting so much to make this moment count. Tony meets him, so much unrestrained passion in his kiss, lips smooth and tasting like smoke, and Steve wants, he wants so much, and he can feel in the shudders of Tony’s body that it’s a mutual longing.
When they finally break apart, both of them panting against each other’s lips, Tony whispers, “That’s what I thought. Thank you.”
“I’m sorry we can’t have more,” Steve breathes, heart aching as he also acknowledges what could’ve been.
“Me too,” Tony says, voice cracking in the middle, and then pulls away with an obvious hesitance, getting to his feet. He looks at Steve, takes in every line and angle of Steve’s body as if committing it to memory, and then smiles, something sad but honest, before he turns and walks away, disappearing back into the compound and once again untouchable.
