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trickyarchangel · 7 years

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Part 3 - Untitled - Bond!AU

Pt 1 and Pt 2

For those who want one: a visual aid to the italicized portion (4min vid) - I suggest reading first. (Beware the read-more)

Steve watches Tony enter the ballroom, dressed in the finest of black tailcoats. He gains immediate attention from everyone in attendance; they flock towards him like moths to his golden flame. Tall and high-collared, blonde hair artfully styled, Tony is a commanding presence, but something about it settles like a stone in Steve’s gut.

Tony grins, smirks, charms the ladies as he passes them, endears himself to their partners. Steve steps into the light, feeling small and forgotten. He hates it, hates that Tony hasn’t noticed him yet. His hands fist at his sides; they’re rougher than he’s used to, fingers calloused in the wrong places. They tremble a little.

Tony turns, and they come face-to-face, close, too close. Steve can’t breathe through the sheer force of Tony’s attention. It’s instant, electric. He looks up into Tony’s blue eyes and balks, heart stuttering as Tony looks him over, walking around him. He can’t look away from Tony, even as Tony’s attention is caught on the Queen.

Tony goes to greet her, daring and flirtatious, and Steve feels the nausea roll thickly through his system. He forces himself away, back into the shadows where he can watch Tony without the prying eyes of the other guests.

Tony moves away from the Queen’s audience and grabs a passing flute of champagne, which he downs in the same motion as a woman approaches him. She’s daring and demanding in the same way, and Tony takes the challenge.

Steve swallows at the sight of her; confusion making it difficult. He remembers her, though; she was strong and determined, tall and dark. She laughed like rich liquor and had burned just as well. Ophelia Sarkissian. She’d wanted to poison the world. Instead, she’d been left behind in the dirt.

Steve’s knees weaken as Tony spins her into motion, the orchestra all at once loud and seductive, guiding Tony through the motions of an age-old dance. Steve sits heavily, uncaring of the distress it causes the fine silks of his suit. He sits, and he watches Tony press his mouth to her jaw until another pushes Ophelia away to take her place.

Brock is short and angry, dragging Tony into the dance like he’s ready to fight. His movements, while practiced and acceptable, are forceful and meant to punish as much as please, and Steve can see Tony’s almost overwhelmed by it. He throws himself out of his seat, begins to circle the floor, and turns to face the balcony right when Brock pulls Tony to the floor. He doesn’t need to see this.

Steve knows that Brock had stained the floors; they were replaced with the polished, gray bamboo. Tony had picked them out himself.

Tony’s dance partners blur together, and each one curdles in Steve’s stomach, but when he pays attention again -too close, much too close- Tony is flowing in slow motions, swaying with a willowy figure just as blonde as he. They move like a serene river, a brook that’s sure of its path. A hand smoothing down her leg, lifting and guiding, dipping her until she comes up with a breathless smile; she shines like a diamond, like a star. Celeste.

Steve pushes forward, jealousy flooding so profoundly, but tinged in fear, because he knows now what Celeste carries, and he can’t let Tony be hurt, but Tony stills, head turning slightly to the side. He’s aware of Steve, perhaps always has been, and knows that Steve’s restraint is snapping.

And so he snaps first, throwing himself away from Celeste to move into a dance all his own. It’s frenetic and chaotic; it’s everything that Tony is, a force to be courted. Steve is shaken and shaking.

Tony’s partners confront him one by one again on the floor, pushing him through to the end of the dance, taking him along for the ride until they’re spinning and stepping and the music is swelling, and Steve can’t breathe.

All he can do is watch and wait and follow along with Tony to the end. And as the music crests and Tony’s backed into the corner, their eyes meet over the others’ heads, and Steve knows that he’ll always follow.

Steve doesn’t come awake with a jerk or a gasp. He blinks up at his ceiling, the exposed beams distant and without judgement. He hums once, short, just to test his hearing, and relaxes marginally when it doesn’t sound muffled. He presses an arm over his eyes.

He knows he’s alone in his apartment again, knows that Tony had helped him to the couch then left, still just as angry. The device is probably long-since destroyed in the fireplace that’s still burning lowly to his left. The radio on the mantle is playing soft classical. That would explain the dream. Sort of.

“Fuck,” he mutters. He’s royally fucked up, and he wonders how long it will take to smooth everything over with... with Q, and with the inevitable shit show Fury is going to cause over this. He slowly, carefully sits up, feeling his stomach roll. He pauses, one hand on his knee, and draws in deep, steady breaths.

As he breathes, fragments of the dream filter through his thoughts, and he grasps at them. It’s not easy; lucidity steals away most of the dream’s crazy subtext. He looks at his hand, the familiar lines and ridges of the callouses formed from his love life with guns.

Q had had blonde hair and blue eyes, dancing with Steve’s ex lovers who had tried to kill him, most of whom Q had personally disposed of. He scoffs and buries his hands in his hairs; he’d been dreaming of himself from Tony’s point-of-view.

“I’m fucking crazy,” he decides. He already knows he’s in love with Q, has been since the first stupidly-big word out of the man’s mouth in that shitty little dive bar where he was still Tony. Steve had thrown caution to the wind and taken Tony home, to an apartment different than his current.

The sex had been incredible, hot and heavy, and yet... They’d laughed and joked and drank, fucking through the night until Steve had been the one to wake up alone not long before noon.

He thinks back to that night now, remembers how he’d talked Tony into taking the job he’d been offered, not knowing then what he’d find out that next day. “007, meet your new Quartermaster.” Tony is gone, and in his place, Q faces Steve with a grim resignation and a hand held out in greeting. And Steve knows then that taking that hand means erasing the previous night. At the time, it seems an easy enough decision. He shakes Q’s hand, a blithe smirk gracing his expression.

“Good to meet you, Q. I trust we aren’t keeping you up past your bedtime. I know folks your age like to watch their Jeopardy while tucked in their beds.”

With the barb came understanding, and Q had taken his hand back and shrugged slightly. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring the tele in next to your crib. When you want your bottle, just pitch a tantrum, and I’ll be sure to warm it up for you.”

Steve pushes to his feet, sways slightly, and scowls. He doesn’t want to think about the past right now. He’s not feeling in the mood for regret and mistakes, except for the one that had caused the headache he’s sporting. He walks steadily into the kitchen to take a few painkillers, and as he’s putting his glass in the sink, he finally notices the plate on the stove. It’s covered in foil with a note scrawled over it.

-To help with the nausea. Eat. Slow.-

Steve’s back curves forward, hunching him over the stove as he braces his hands on the counter. He closes his eyes and breathes, deep and counting. How is he supposed to play the good little agent when Q slips from his part too?

Steve knows for a fact that no other Quartermasters cook food for the agents. Just like how no other Quartermaster kills for the other agents so freely like Q does, out of jealously like Q does, feels the deep down satisfying guilt of it like Q does.

Steve takes the plate, steps out of the kitchen, and grabs a bottle of whatever liquor is closest on the bar -he notices the broken bottle is cleaned up and gone- before returning to the couch. He sits back and does as instructed, eating slow and aiding it with copious amounts of alcohol.

All of that fierce loyalty and possessiveness, bundled up and suppressed, burn like fire for Steve beneath Q’s sneering calm. Long has SHIELD accepted that Q will do as he wishes concerning Steve, and because of this, Steve knows he can get away with a great deal where other agents can only dream.

So when, a few days later, Steve is facing Fury across the evaluation desk and hears, “We’re reassigning you,” Steve doesn’t worry. He smirks.

“Yes, okay. For the five minutes it takes Q to find out? You know how this plays, Director,” Steve replies, idly tapping to fingers on the desktop. “You threaten and Q just blows the smoke away. Why are you wasting my time with this? I’m fine.”

Fury closes Steve’s folder and fold sits back. His eye patch is slightly crooked, and it’s been driving Steve just a little crazy.

“On the contrary, 007, this time, it’s at Q’s submitted request.”

Steve stares, expression unchanging, unmoving. He doesn’t breathe. “Pardon?”

Fury smirks. “You’re on suspension pending your physical eval. After that, if you’re cleared, you’ll be reporting to Quartermaster Hammer.”

~TBC~

#stony #stevetony #superhusbands #Steve Rogers #Tony Stark #bond!au #spy!au #q!tony #bond!steve #james bond!au #my writing

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