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snoozingcat · 6 years

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@stevetonysecretsanta gift for @dontchristmascarol, who wanted AA stevetony with Tony blurting confessions while on painkillers. happy holidays!

Yep– that was the good stuff. Tony could tell from the way he felt dizzy with his eyes still closed.

Nonetheless, he forced them open, blinking away the sticky feeling in his eyelids to see the dreaded lightweight aluminum ceiling panels and cheap fluorescent lights of a medical facility of some sort.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty.”

Tony turned his head with great difficulty, feeling rather as if his neck was encased in wet concrete. Steve was there, sliding a bookmark into a Jane Austen novel with his usual care. He’d probably paid two dollars for it at a used bookstore, but. That was Steve.

“That’s your nickname,” Tony responded.

The words came out slurry, and opening his mouth made him very aware of how terrible the inside of it tasted. He could feel his nose crinkling in disgust.

“I’m letting you borrow it.” Steve smiled, crooked, and leaned forward to smooth Tony’s hair back from his forehead, and, oh.

That was nice. Steve-smell, like leather and laundry detergent. His warm, broad palm on Tony’s skin. Mmm.

Steve cleared his throat, and Tony opened his eyes again. They’d slipped closed on him somehow, the traitors. And also his head had tipped into Steve’s palm.

“How do you feel?” Steve leaned back, leaving Tony’s skin cold.

Like he was on morphine, which was unideal. More relevant: “What happened to me?”

Steve frowned a little. “Crimson Dynamo hit you with a train car. You crashed. Your collarbone is broken.”

“Oooh, that’s gonna suck,” Tony winced, and twitched his shoulders a little, experimentally. Yeah, that didn’t feel right for sure.

Steve’s scowl deepened. “Don’t move it! I told them they should have just put the damn sling on you when you were asleep.”

Tony laughed, and then laughed more when Steve scowled further.

“Tony, please,” Steve said. “You’re going to make it worse.”

“Then stop making me laugh,” Tony said. “In fact, you can’t make me laugh for the next 4 to 8 weeks. Oh, man, this is going to be so much worse than when I was nine.” At least he’d had the endless patience and amazing miso soup of Edwin Jarvis when he was nine. He was going to drive all the Avengers upstate before the week was out. “Just don’t move out forever, okay, Steve?”

Steve’s face went puzzled, then fond. “I’m not even going to try to decipher that train of thought, Shellhead.”

“You’ll stay, though, right? I could call Rhodey, but he won’t give me forehead kisses or soup.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up and his ears turned charmingly pink at the tips.

“I’ve never actually wanted to lick somebody’s ears before,” Tony observed. “That pink is a very charming color on you, though. Yes! That one.” The color was spreading rapidly now, across Steve’s entire face and down his neck, even, god bless that Irish complexion, although Steve was trying badly to hide it behind one hand.

“Please stop talking about, um– licking me.”

Tony sat up indignantly. Tony tried to sit up indignantly. Tony got as far as bracing his elbows before Steve glared at him so fiercely he gave it up immediately on principle. Still: “I never did.”

“You literally– just now, Tony.”

Tony scowled. “Didn’t. Those are inside thoughts. They stay indoors, like cats, on account of their potential negative impacts on the local wildlife. Me. I am the wildlife, and also the cats.”

Steve visibly gave up on something, although what, Tony couldn’t say. “If you were a cat, you’d be a Burmese,” he said instead.

Tony glared. “That’s a snake.”

“It’s a snake, and also a cat,” Steve typed something into his phone. Tony looked up at the ceiling again, mouthing ‘snake-cat?’ at the aluminum panels. God, he loved aluminum.

“I know you love aluminum, Tony, I’ve heard this rant fourteen times.” Steve held his phone out to Tony.

Tony squinted at the picture on the screen. “That looks like a Siamese cat.”

“It’s a Burmese cat. They’re different. Darker. They’re known for being very energetic and intelligent.”

“Oh.” That was nice. “If you were a cat, you’d be a golden retriever.”

Steve snorted.

“Don’t snort at me. You would be. You’re just like a golden retriever, you’re really… warm, and happy, and you have shiny hair. I read somewhere that they can carry an egg in their mouths without breaking it. That’s so you.”

Steve smiled. “I think that almost makes sense. Thank you, Tony.”

Tony was struck by an urge to wrap his arms around Steve and bury his face in his neck. “I love dogs. I’ve always loved dogs,” he blurted.

Steve blinked. His eyes were very wide.

“Dad never let me have one,” Tony rambled, feeling obscurely panicked. “He built me a giant fuck-off robot, but he never let me have a dog. Arsenal wasn’t even cuddly at all, I mean. I loved him. I would have loved him, if Dad ever actually gave him to me. I’d have loved a dog, too, though. I wanted to name it Palamedes.”

Steve put his hand on Tony’s, which was waving in the air. Tony stared at it, but Steve just gently lowered the hand back down to the bed. “You could still get a dog, you know.”

“I don’t have time for a dog. I have a Hulk. And Thor. And Hawkeye. And Sam is allegedly the college student here, but Natasha leaves the gym looking like a frat house after a rager every time.”

Steve smiled again. “It could be a family pet,” he said, and as if that didn’t already fry Tony’s morphine-beleaguered brain, he then leaned down, very close, and pressed a kiss to Tony’s forehead.

He definitely lingered longer than was strictly platonic. Didn’t he? Possibly time just literally froze for Tony, one couldn’t be sure. The face stroking, though. What?

“Steve?” he bleated.

Steve squeezed his hand and stood. “I’ll call the nurse, Tony. We’ll talk later.”

Tony watched him leave the room. I want to have his robot babies, he thought dazedly.

#stevetony #avengers assemble #dontchristmascarol #stevetonysecretsanta

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