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The smell of the hospital clung to him.
It hadn’t changed. In the 70-odd years he’d been under the ice, they hadn’t managed to find a way to mask the pungent smell of antiseptic, of death. It almost made Steve want to laugh. Sometimes it seemed everything else in the entire goddamn world was different to the point of being utterly unrecognisable, but the horrible hospital smell that reminded you acutely of how sick you were, oh, that was the same. Of course it was.
He’d made it two days in there before deciding he’d had enough of it, and nothing Sam or Natasha said to try and convince him made a lick of difference. He’d hauled his still-slightly-broken body off the bed and discharged himself without hesitation, ignoring the way it’d strained his tender stitches and set his healing muscles on fire. Hospitals reminded him too much of his ma. The slow, withering death of Tuberculosis. He couldn’t bear it. There were already enough ghosts haunting him.
Steve sighed with exhaustion as he pulled out his keys to his new apartment. The old one was too riddled with bullet holes to function, but Natasha had a contact who’d agreed to let him stay at her house while she travelled South America, and so that was to be his new living situation for the time being. At this point, he was happy to take anything. He could pack his life down into a single duffle anyway, and a one-bed studio up in the Bronx was practically lavish, comparative to some of the places he’d stayed in his time. He would be fine here, although he could admit, he was going to miss the sunlight. This place wasn’t East-facing. Then again: when was the last time he’d bothered to pull out his sketchbook? Too busy. Too injured. Too many things. The Steve who sat down and created things was not the Steve who the world had needed these last few weeks, months. Years. Honestly speaking, he knew the world was never going to need that Steve. It never really had.
The North-facing apartment would be fine.
His mind would’ve raced, if it’d had the energy. So much had happened in the last 72 hours that his brain didn’t know what to do with it all. SHIELD, HYDRA, Bucky - Good God, Bucky . Nearly drowning in the Potomac. His body had gone into shock, they’d said. The injuries had been bad, but it was the malnutrition that’d really done him in. His body hadn’t been able to recover the way it should.
How often have you been feeding, the nurse had asked him, her eyes soft and concerned.
Often enough, Steve had responded curtly. He’d looked left at the IV, pumping a steady stream of medical-grade blood into his system. A Positive, it’d felt like. Nice enough. Made him feel a bit drowsy though; like overeating at dinner.
Truthfully, by the time that Nurse had asked him, Steve’s blood feeds had probably gone down to about one a month, if that. He knew it wasn’t really sustainable. He knew he’d eventually have to sort something out, but his initial idea to get the blood via SHIELD was now spectacularly dead in the water, and thank God for it. Steve dreaded to think where they would have gotten it from, what with them secretly turning out to be a fucking neo-Nazi organisation in disguise. It didn’t exactly inspire Steve into action. Besides, it grated on him: the task of having to painstakingly create a plan, a routine, when it’d been so easy for a while.
His fingers fumbled at the lock, but after a moment the door swung open. Steve looked around the dark space. The stillness of it all, mixed with the awareness that this was not his home, made it seem as if he was existing in his own pocket universe. Moving freely through a snapshot of time, everything void and dead and unchanging.
Bucky’s alive, Steve thought dumbly, for the millionth time that day. They made my best friend into a living weapon and tried to get him to kill me.
He dumped his duffel by the door and stood still. His whole body hurt. His brain hurt. He was so very tired.
And then something made a noise in the bedroom.
Steve’s head jerked, and for one dark moment he just thought about doing nothing. Just letting it fucking happen, whatever or whoever it was in there, let them do whatever they were planning on doing to him, he didn’t care. But he shook the thought quickly as he saw the door open, getting into a fighting stance. Habit, mostly. He wasn’t sure how much more his body could put up with, but he might as well find out.
The sight he was met with when the door swung open was definitely not what he was expecting, however.
Steve dropped his fists and stared. “Tony?”
“You’re late.” Tony had his phone in his hand, but his hair was all lopsided and one cheek slightly pink, as if he’d taken a nap. In the darkness, Tony’s deep eyes reflected the city light streaming in through the window. “You discharged yourself two hours ago and it takes 40 minutes to get from the hospital to this lovely little bohemian paradise you’re claiming. Make a stop along the way?”
The shock was still spinning through him. “I got pizza,” he responded, dumb. “And I had to buy new clothes.”
Tony nodded. He was wearing a full suit - it’d undoubtedly been all board meetings and nonstop business for him that day - but when he stepped forward, closer to Steve, he still oozed energy, ceaseless. Steve let him approach, trying to work out what the hell was going on. Last time he had seen Tony, they hadn’t exactly left things on good terms. And now Tony was in his home. Well - Natasha’s friend’s home, but whatever.
“How did you get in?” Steve asked.
Tony tilted his head over to the fire escape. “Jimmied the lock.”
“That’s… okay.” Steve didn’t have the energy to call him out for casually breaking into someone’s apartment. It wasn’t as if that was the worst thing either of them had ever done. It probably wasn’t the worst thing either of them had done that week, in fact. In absence of any scolding, however, there was only a heavy silence that settled into the room. Tony stuffed his hands into his pockets, then immediately took them out again. He rocked forward on his heels, looking at Steve with such a burning intensity that if he could still flush, he probably would’ve. Tony always had such a way about him. He could make the smallest, most insignificant person feel like they were king of the world, just by levelling that look at them. He made people feel seen, for better or worse.
But Steve was erring on the side of ‘worse’ just then. Being around Tony, on top of everything else, felt like scraping on another unbearably raw wound. He looked away. “Is there trouble?”
There was usually trouble. That was his life. Trouble, dealing with trouble, dealing with fallout from trouble. Rinse, repeat.
But Tony shook his head jerkily, taking another few steps closer to Steve. Steve felt as if he could feel the heat of him warming up the room. “You fell out of a helicarrier,” he said - blurted, rather, with uncharacteristic clumsiness. “I thought… hell, Steve, you scared the Bejesus outta me.”
“It all worked out.”
“You should have called me.”
“Yeah. Probably.” Steve shut his eyes and scratched at the thin line of scabbing across his forehead. It’d been a gaping wound twelve hours ago. The physical damage may have healed but he could still remember how it’d felt to take every beating Bucky – the Winter Soldier – had doled out on him. “Weren’t you in Madripoor anyway?”
“I could have flown back. I would have.”
“Yeah.”
“Steve.” Another step forward, and now he was really close like this, Steve could see the tightness of his jaw, the permanent knit of a frown across his forehead. He had an air of mania about him, like when he went too long without sleep or had one too many coffees. “I know I fucked things up, alright, but you can’t just not call me when you’re in danger. You can’t.”
Tony smelled like expensive cologne and stress. Steve wished he knew how to quell the urge to draw himself into Tony’s orbit, quieten the need to massage away the other man’s worry and dispel all his unhappiness for him. But he hadn’t, not yet. The desire was still there, stronger than ever. Steve wanted him in every available way and the months they’d spent apart had done nothing to change that. Not even a little bit.
Dammit, he was gorgeous. He was warm and alive and – and delicious –
Steve blinked, pushing the thought away. It would do him no good. The blood bag they’d given him at the hospital would see him through for a while, until he could find another more stable solution.
“You said we were getting too invested,” Steve responded, quiet. “That we needed to step away. I thought calling you in to help me hunt down my friend on a non-Avengers op would be… inappropriate.”
Tony’s face became even more distressed. He took another step forward, and Steve may have been exhausted, but the growing proximity succeeded in waking up one particular part of his brain. Since Tony had gone, he hadn’t tasted anyone else. He didn’t even want to - an embarrassing part of him already knew that nothing was going to come close – but now that Tony was in his space again, that instinct was hard to ignore. It was the product of months of neglect. And ingesting sterile hospital blood donations was like trying to live off nothing but boiled rice: it filled a gap, but there was nothing to it.
Steve longed. He craved. It was infuriating, how much of an affect Tony had on him. From the very first moment, right up to now. He was like a grenade in Steve’s brain - one look at him, and Steve just went off. This had always been the problem.
For a while, things had been amazing. In fact, Steve would go so far as to say that the summer months of that year had been some of the easiest, warmest of his life. This thing with Tony, it’d started on a whim. April. An Avengers party, celebrating yet another successful operation, tracking and destroying a prevalent superhuman extremist sect in Alaska. Injuries had been minimal, but Tony had had a close call. It’d been playing on Steve’s mind, and so he’d sought Tony out on the evening of the party, just to talk to him. He’d never meant for it to go anywhere - not that it hadn’t been something he’d spent the last year thinking about, mind you. But one thing had led to another, and Tony had seemed… he’d seemed reciprocal. He’d stayed the night. He’d taken Steve to a museum the next day. They’d fallen in together so naturally that it’d seemed insane it hadn’t happened sooner. Dinners and dates and sex and matching ties, and Tony had been the first person Steve had ever met who’d been outright enthusiastic about Steve’s particular needs. He wanted it.
Then, one night in the tail-end of August, over takeout pizza and Reservoir Dogs , Steve had asked Tony to put a title to what it was they were doing, and Tony responded by moving to Malibu. Come September, Steve had left the tower and moved into a Brooklyn apartment. Alone.
“I know what I said,” Tony told him, and Steve knew he was thinking about that night too. “But I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean for it to become this.”
“If you wanted me to keep in touch, Tony, it might’ve been easier if you hadn’t run to the other side of the damn country.”
“I thought it would be what you wanted.”
Steve laughed hoarsely, looking away. Five months of sharing everything, and Tony really thought Steve was going to buy that? He couldn’t have been more obvious with his feelings if he’d tried. Tony had to have seen it. He had to.
“Sure,” he snapped, “because when I ask the man I’ve been sleeping with what kind of relationship we have, that’s secret code for ‘get the fuck out of my life by tomorrow morning.”
“You looked all, all torn up, Steve, I thought you were trying to let me down gently, so I – fuck, I dunno, maybe I jumped the gun?” Tony shuffled on his feet. “I came back,” he said weakly, “a few days later. I knew I’d… but you were already gone. I just. I don’t know, Steve, I’m not good at this. But–”
“What do you want, Tony?” Steve cut in flatly, because he was fucking worn out. There was nothing left for him to give, and he couldn’t start thinking about all the reasons he wasn’t ever going to be enough for Tony Stark. It would be the killing blow.
Tony said nothing, but checked Steve over anxiously. His eyes lingered on the cut that ran from forehead to ear, on the arm that had been broken yesterday and was being held funny now. He bit gently into his lip, an absent action, but one that Steve was unable to tear his own eyes away from. He watched how the pink of his bottom lip turned a sharp white where the tooth pressed in. He swallowed.
“I looked at your hospital record.” Tony’s voice was soft. “It said you were malnourished, that you hadn’t been drinking enough.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Steve, you know how dangerous that is. You need to drink to heal like you do, so you can go fall in the fucking Potomac and come out alive. It was by the skin of your teeth that you survived that, but it shouldn’t have been. Not if you’d been looking after yourself.” Tony looked terribly guilty, then. “Is it since we… y’know, stopped? Was that the last–”
“Tony, enough ,” Steve snapped. God, he wanted to scream. To fall to his knees and just sink into the floorboards, have away with it all. “I’m tired. Bucky is… oh, God, he’s still out there. HYDRA has infiltrated the highest levels of government and I’m just fucking tired, too tired to keep up this stupid charade where I pretend not to know when you’re paying lip service. Please–”
“Bite me,” Tony said, his eyes wide, his expression full of conviction.
Steve froze. The two words alone were enough to stall his breath completely, and he couldn’t help but turn his eyes to the thin, delicate skin of Tony’s neck. His pulse thrummed gently just over his jugular. Steve knew exactly what it felt like to taste him, and the memory of it had been enough for him to get by, most nights.
Now Tony was standing there offering the real thing again. And Steve was worn thin - too exposed to even try and hide the desire that those words fuelled him with. Tony saw it, because Tony saw everything, and he came even closer. But Steve forced himself backward, the heel of his boot brushing against the door. He shook his head.
“I’m fine,” he choked, in a manner which did not sound at all convincing.
But Tony kept advancing, then slowly lifted his hand to rest it against Steve’s cool cheek. Steve wished he had the willpower to push him away. One look down at Tony in that dark, quiet room, however, and the last vestiges of strength left him as if it’d never been there at all.
“You need this,” Tony said, his spare hand coming up to loosen the tie that clung to his throat. “I was selfish. I didn’t think about where else you’d go. I just assumed you already had other people to… but you don’t, clearly, and it’s not good for you, and I can help. I can fix that, at least.”
“You don’t have to,” Steve said, sounding weak in his own ears. He was gazing at Tony’s throat like a fucking animal and he knew it, but Tony didn’t seem to care. The fingers against Steve’s cheek stroked gently over the ridges of his face, while the fingers fiddling at Tony’s own tie made quick work of loosening it. It landed on the floor without a sound. Tony thumbed open the first few buttons of his shirt, revealing the smooth expanse of olive skin underneath the crisp white cotton.
God, Steve wanted to cry.
“There’s no ‘have to’ about it,” Tony told him, voice barely above a whisper in the vast silence of this stranger’s house. “You know I enjoy it just as much as you do.”
He did, Steve knew. He really did.
Still, though, in the back of Steve’s mind, he knew this was a bad idea. Tony had walked away from this. Tony had pulled the plug. Their lives were intense, so of course throwing in a relationship with someone who needed to suck out mouthfuls of your blood every few weeks would only complicate things further. Steve understood it. It had hurt like hell, but he’d understood.
This was not going to be conducive to the healing process, Steve thought.
He could feel his mouth filling with saliva; the sharp taste of venom as it sprung from his canines - nature’s perfect answer to bloodsucking monsters. Prey didn’t run if it got its own kick out of proceedings, and the numbing effects of it made the whole thing feel like nothing more than receiving a strange kind of hickey. That’s what Tony told him once, at least. Hot , he’d finished succinctly, before rolling back on top of Steve and asking him to do it again.
I can’t lose this for the second time, Steve thought slightly hysterically, not after everything else I’ve already lost.
But then, was he really going to say no? He couldn’t. He didn’t have it in him. Tony was beautiful and he was offering up one good thing, one single moment of relief in what had to have been one of the most gruelling weeks of Steve’s life. Steve could hurt about it later.
“Are you sure?” Steve murmured, breathing in the heady scent of Tony all around him. His own hand rose, settled on top of where Tony was stroking his face, locking him in place with a grip that erred on the side of desperate.
In response, Tony wordlessly leaned in, pressing his mouth softly against Steve’s. The grenade in Steve’s brain exploded with a thunderous boom. All logical thought was vaporised. Good God, the taste of him.
Steve groaned, and then moved with a speed that surprised even him, taking Tony by the waist and twisting them around. Tony’s back hit the door with a dull thump, and Steve swallowed his gasp of surprise. A moment later, he tore his mouth away from Tony’s, looking down at the man and seeing the way his pupils were blown wide, his lips slick and still half-formed around the ghost of the kiss.
Steve wanted to kiss Tony, sure. But not as much as he wanted to latch his teeth into Tony’s neck.
Sensing where Steve’s focus was at, Tony subtly shifted his head, turning sideways, exposing the smooth plane of his throat, so utterly tempting. Steve’s breath was ragged. He’d become so used to tamping down on this urge over the last few months that now, it was all hitting him at once. A Freight train of basic instincts and heady desire. His grip tightened around Tony’s slim waist, pressing him solidly against the door with the weight of his own chest. Then he dipped his head and grazed his canines softly across the hot skin. Tony gasped in anticipation. Steve could feel his pulse. It hammered.
“Last chance to walk away,” Steve breathed against the side of his neck.
“Bite me,” Tony reiterated, and who the hell was Steve to say no to a request like that? Tony was a man used to getting what he wanted. And Steve was a man who was more than happy to give it to him.
He sunk his teeth in.
Holy hell. All it took was one drop and it was as if he were high; the euphoria washed over him like a wave as the taste of Tony suddenly overwhelmed his senses. He was an obscenely rich man - not just materially, but his blood too - deep, flavourful, and bursting at the seams with different notes. It was your first meal after a week of starving in the desert. Steve had only ever had a handful of live blood feeds: some of the Howlies had offered while they were out and about, then there was a lady in the 21st century who he’d dated for two weeks and wanted to try it. Living people were always better, they always just tasted of more , but no-one, no-one held a candle to the way Tony tasted. Steve could barely even describe it. It was like nothing you could eat, no flavour profile that came close. It was like swallowing liquid gold. Hot, gushing and thick. Pools and pools of the silken blood filled Steve’s mouth, and he heard himself let out a noise of pure joy against Tony’s neck, pressing somehow closer to the man under his teeth, trying to absorb as much of him as was possible.
Tony’s breath stuttered out a shocked gasp, his body responding to what his hind-brain perceived as a threat. He struggled instinctively, just for a moment, until the venom began to work its magic and make him relax. Steve felt his hands fly out aimlessly, hitting the door, before scrabbling to find purchase against Steve’s shirt. They fisted into the material and clung on tight. “Oh, Steve,” he gasped, sounding for all intents and purposes as if he’d just died and gone to heaven.
Steve grunted in response, readjusting his hands so that one was pressed against the side of Tony’s face, providing some stability as his teeth pressed in on the other side. His other hand went to Tony’s belt, grabbing ahold of it, using it as leverage to tug him wherever he saw fit. Steve was chasing a high here, and he knew Tony was too. Mutually assured satisfaction. The destruction would come later.
Tony was healthy, his blood pressure was good, and he didn’t smoke. His blood was divine, and Steve found himself getting lost in it, the bliss coating his mouth, his brain, his body. Tony, too, was reacting as if he needed this almost as much as Steve did. As he fed, Tony squirmed against him, legs falling open and shifting a little so Steve’s thigh was nestled between them. He pushed his hips up, once, then twice, making quiet noises as he did so. Steve could feel his cock, hard and wanting, up against the top of his thigh.
“Can I,” he asked, voice breathless, “Steve, please, can I–”
“Mm hmm,” Steve hummed affirmatively, and Tony wasted no time: once the second syllable had left Steve’s mouth, Tony was already beginning to rut up against him in earnest.
Steve had forgotten exactly how much Tony loved this. Well - no, that wasn’t quite right. He actually thought about it often, but in the whirlwind of his desire that evening, he'd barely had room to consider the other things that usually happened while Steve fed off him. But with the initial rush of endorphins and need fading out into a steadier stream of pleasure while Steve continued to siphon off ribbons of Tony’s blood, he was able to focus on other elements of their ritual. He moved his thigh, pressing forward while Tony hitched his hips up, creating a rough rhythm. Tony keened, calling out Steve’s name again, and he’d lost his faith many years ago now, but there was something in the way Tony said Steve that made him feel close to God. Maybe it wasn’t real - maybe once this was over, Tony would button up his shirt and walk out and re-establish that distance that had driven him to end things in the first place - but right now, Steve could get lost in it. In him. Nearly a century of living, and Steve reckoned he wasn’t going to find a better place to be.
He growled against Tony’s neck as Tony began to move faster, grinding up against his leg with an urgency that made his whole body shake. It threatened to knock his teeth out of position, and so he grabbed Tony’s waist without thinking, pinning him to the door. There was no room for compromise in the way Steve held him down, and the last vestiges of rationality left in him knew that was wrong. He wasn’t usually like this - he never, ever wanted Tony to feel like he was in any danger, but it had just been so long , and he needed it so badly. The bloodlust was making him single-minded, and all he could think about was getting his fill, uninterrupted. Besides, from the way Tony moaned at the feeling of Steve’s hands locking him in place, he didn’t seem to mind all that much.
Emboldened by this, Steve let his fingers wander further south. He skirted the waistband of Tony’s trousers. Went lower, unzipped his fly. Found Tony’s cock through his boxers and stroked until he got another noise out of the man underneath him. It was like a game, and one Steve wanted to be the best in the world at. The Number One champion of eking out whatever he could from Tony Stark. His blood, his moans, his affection. Steve wanted to have it all.
“God, I’m fucking stupid,” Tony gasped, quiet and slurred enough that it was probably not even meant for Steve’s ears, “letting you walk away, letting go of this, so, so stupid, why the fuck do I do this to myself, I – ugh,”
Steve wished there was truth to it, but he knew it would be a delusion. Tony was buzzed off the effects of the venom, off the heat of the moment. It meant nothing. He gripped Tony tighter and pretended anyway: created a world where Tony wanted this as much as Steve did. In that world, Steve would have someone to come back home to. Someone by his side, supporting him in the months to come, because he knew if ever there was a time when Steve needed that more than anything, it was now.
Maybe even if Tony didn’t want to know him as a lover, he would still be willing to let Steve feed off him now and then. He didn’t know how he was going to give this up again. The months of repressing every urge and refusing to drink at all had drained him both physically and mentally. Tony was right: he should’ve been able to win that fight over the Potomac. So yes, clearly he needed something - but how could you go after anything else, when the most beautiful taste in the world was already under your nose? He scraped his tongue gracefully around the roof of his mouth, picking up whatever he could, trying to appreciate every flavour and every feeling it imbued him with. He realised he was rocking into Tony’s leg too, almost aimless, the sexual pleasure a pleasant secondary feeling to add to the relief of a feed. He twisted his hand around Tony’s cock, alternating between firm and soft, matching the sensations with how hard he sucked against Tony’s neck. The smell of sex permeated the air, and the taste of Tony’s pleasure coated Steve’s palate. His entire body thrummed with electricity, the thrill of Tony’s blood soaking its way down Steve’s throat. Divine.
“I think –” Tony shuddered. “I think I’m gonna… oh fuck, oh God, I am, I am, fuck–”
If Steve could’ve grinned with satisfaction, he would’ve. As things stood, however, his mouth was very much occupied. He sped up the pace of his hand against Tony instead, and sunk his teeth down just a tiny bit deeper, feeling a fresh burst of hot blood splash against his teeth. Two seconds later, pressed up against Steve’s hand and held in place by Steve’s teeth, Tony arched his back and came with a strangled cry.
Steve, too, was close. His own orgasm was still pretty far off, but he was reaching the point where the feed was becoming more of a thrill than a necessity, and that was always when it was best to stop. He lapped up Tony’s blood until the urge had subsided, until the craving had eroded away to leave only deep, deep satisfaction in its wake. Even so, the desire to remain latched onto Tony, drinking him up forever and ever, was a strong one. But that would happen, Vampire or no. It was just the way Tony affected Steve.
Slowing his drinking gradually, he tapered off the flow until it’d stopped completely. With a quick brush of his tongue over the two small openings, Steve sealed off the wound. It would leave an innocuous mark, visible only for a few days, and then it’d be like it never happened. Try as he might to pull away, however, it took a good moment or two before he could manage it. His face remained buried against Tony’s neck, hands holding him up against the door, for long enough that even a blind fool would be able to sense how desperately Steve wanted to be near him. Their chests heaved gently in tandem with one another as each of them caught their breath. God, he felt good. The high of the feed, the feeling of fullness that Steve hadn’t experienced in months. He wanted to stay there forever, in the one single moment he was sharing here with Tony. It was so easy.
That was, of course, right up until it got hard again.
“Steve,” Tony mumbled, his voice thick, the vowel strangely slurred, “think I’m… I feel a bit…”
Steve pulled back. “Feel a bit what?”
Tony looked at him, a mildly confused expression on his face, then opened and closed his mouth like a fish for a few seconds. Bizarrely, he looked like he was falling asleep, and Steve had one shining moment before it all clicked into place with frightening clarity.
“Catch,” Tony managed to force out of himself, right before his eyes rolled back and his body went limp beneath Steve’s hands.
Oh no. No.
Panic stamped ruthlessly over the brief window of satisfaction as Steve held Tony up against the door, halting him from collapsing completely. Tony’s head lolled against Steve’s shoulder, his hair tickling at Steve’s cheek, slack mouth pressing against the open collar of Steve’s Henley. Oh God, how much had Steve taken? It hadn’t been much longer than usual - a few moments, half a minute more, tops, no–
“Tony,” Steve called to him, one hand wrapping around his waist while the other patted his cheek, “Tony! Fuck. ”
In a daze, Steve scooped the other man up and carried him hurriedly over to the sofa. Tony’s face was slightly grey, his expression placid. He’d passed out. Steve had fed on him until he’d passed out, that had never happened before. How much had Steve taken? How much?
He wheezed, terrified, as he looked down at Tony. His desperation had made him careless, how could he have done this? Steve could talk all day and all night about wanting to keep people safe, but in reality, it was always the people closest to him who ended up getting hurt because of him. Oh God. Steve felt his pulse with shaking fingers. Steady. Okay, that was good. Breathing was normal. He toppled back against the rug on the floor beside Tony’s prone form and scrabbled for the phone in his pocket. He needed to call… oh, Hell, who the fuck was he even supposed to call ? SHIELD didn’t exist anymore. No regular hospital was going to understand this.
Bruce. Steve could call Bruce. Tony was O-Positive, Bruce knew that, and maybe they’d need a blood transfusion, and Steve could concentrate on never ever forgiving himself later, because if that was the case then he needed to focus on working as quickly as possible–
“Mmmfgh”
His head shot up from his phone again, latching onto Tony’s slowly-opening eyes, and the relief that surged through him felt even stronger than the pleasure of the feed had. He made an audible noise in the back of his throat, a hand stretching out to press against Tony’s cheek without thinking.
“Oh my God,” he croaked, “thank God. Tony, I’m so sorry, I’m… are you okay? Do you know where you are, what’s happening?”
Tony blinked slowly, and then sat up on his elbow. “Did I just pass out?” He asked. “Oops.”
“You did.” Steve nodded miserably. “I’m sorry. I must have taken too much. I’m going to call Bruce, have you checked out. I’m so sorry, Tony, I swear, I didn’t mean–”
“Hey,” Tony cut him off with a wave of his hand, face morphing into a frown. “Hey, whoah, slow the horses, Cowboy. It was only a baby faint. It’s been a while, is all. Look, I’m awake again now.”
Steve stared at him, willing his mind to focus, to put aside the emotional response that was lurching around under his chest and instead try to properly assess Tony’s condition. It was true that it had only been a short faint, and the colour was once again returning to Tony’s cheeks. His eyes were focused and aware. But Steve couldn’t shake the fear, and the idea that someone else in his life had just been endangered by his failures made him sick. He no longer had the wherewithal to be pragmatic about things. Every terrible reality of Steve’s life was coalescing down into this moment, right here. Tony became Bucky became everyone else Steve had ever loved and lost. He had to be sure.
“What’s the date?” Steve asked him.
“Bad question, I never know the answer to that one–”
“Tony, please .”
“Fine. January 7th.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“I’m in your new digs, lying on a couch that smells like weed and kombucha, apparently.” Tony pulled a face, glancing derisively at the trippy patterned throw before looking back at Steve, expression softening. “Deep breaths, Drac. I haven’t eaten today. I didn’t… this dalliance was a little impromptu. I was actually in Hanoi when I saw you on the news, and I sort of flew straight over. I forgot to factor food into the flight. Sorry for freaking you out.”
“I still might have taken too much.” Steve couldn’t stop thinking about it - how easy it felt, sometimes, to just keep going, to get carried away and drink and drink and drink. Tony put so much faith in him when they did this, and Steve had let him down. He shook his head, looking back to his phone. “I’m going to call Bruce. He can… I’m gonna call him.”
“Steve.” Tony reached out a hand and covered the phone before Steve could press a button. “Do not call Bruce. I’m fine. You won’t have taken any more than a pint, and that’s being generous.”
“You don’t know that,” Steve whispered, and it sounded hysterical.
“I do. Your intake rate is tiny, the surface area you’re siphoning from is even tinier, and we were doing it for what, five minutes?” Tony cocked his head. “If I were to put a number on it, I’d say around 540 mils. I lose more than that on an average outing in the suit. Trust me, okay? I know I don’t – maybe I don’t deserve that from you, but please, indulge me anyway.”
The look on Tony’s face was soft and honest, the blood coming back to his face in an enthusiastic manner that made his cheeks flush and his mouth darken. Steve wanted to kiss it, and he wanted to fall into it and never leave, and he could do none of it. It was probably for the best. Steve wasn’t a man who was meant for that kind of love. It didn’t suit his lifestyle.
Steve’s head dropped, the exhaustion of the day, of the last ten minutes alone, suddenly crushing him. “Promise me you’re okay,” he muttered. As he asked it, the memory of Tony’s face, brief and transient, passing across the list of HYDRA’s Most Wanted, popped into his brain. He shuddered.
With his eyes facing the floor, he missed Tony’s hand moving until it tugged gently at Steve’s chin, lifting his head upright. If Tony saw the shine of Steve’s teary eyes, he chose not to mention it.
“I promise you,” he said, before delicately swiping at the corner of Steve’s mouth with his thumb. When he took it away, it was flecked with red. Tony licked it into his own mouth, humming softly. “You know, I really don’t get what all the fuss is about.”
Steve said nothing. He had no energy for banter, for jokes, for anything at all. Tony had offered himself up this evening, and Steve had taken it. Now came the pain of living with that choice. Now he had to watch Tony walk away, and Steve would have to sit in this empty alien apartment and think about everything he’d ever let slip through his fingers.
Bucky was still out there. There was going to be a court hearing soon, where every action Steve had taken over these last few days would be pulled apart and analysed. The depositions would bring about even more collateral damage, most likely. It kept going and going, piling on, and Steve was stronger than most, but he felt like maybe, today, he’d reached his limit.
“There’s a shower… somewhere,” Steve muttered, because if Tony was going, he would rather rip the bandaid off sooner rather than later. “I can see if there’s any food in the kitchen, make something up for you before you go.”
“There’s also a shower at my place,” Tony said, while Steve’s heart just sank further because of course, of course Tony wasn’t going to want to spend any more time here than absolutely necessary. “And food. Lots of food. Enough for two - or, well, more like twenty, actually.” Tony hesitated. “Or one normal person and one superhuman vampire.”
Steve let the words wash over him, his eyes glassy. “Fair enough. Well, I’ll call you a cab. Please let me know when you get back–”
“There’s an easier way for you to know if I get home safe,” Tony blurted, “and that’s by coming home with me.” Steve blinked owlishly at him, confused, and so Tony just sighed and waved a hand around the room. He sat upright fully, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, until he was inches away from Steve’s face again. “You can’t stay here on your own, Steve. Not after everything that's happened.”
“You don’t want me there,” Steve responded, voice flat and dull.
“You have no idea how much that is not true,” Tony told him, the frustration seeping out into his voice as he scratched absentmindedly at the bite mark on his neck. “I can’t… look, I’m terrible at emotions and I’m even worse at apologies, and right now, sweetheart, I don’t think you’re mentally capable of dealing with either. But if you just – if you come back with me, we can talk, when you're feeling better. I can do better than whatever the hell it was I was doing back in August. I can look after you.”
“I don’t need–”
“You do,” Tony cut in firmly, and he looked so goddamn wretched as his hand settled around Steve’s wrist, gripping him tightly. “You really do.”
It wouldn’t be right. Steve was the one who’d just pinned him against a wall and leached out his blood for a quick thrill. Steve was the one who needed to be looking after him. God, and Tony had said he hadn’t even eaten today. Steve should’ve asked, should’ve checked it would all be okay before getting caught up in his own wants and needs - what if Tony had become anaemic or something? It happened. It happened, and Steve hadn’t given a damn, and then Tony had passed out and Bucky had tried to kill him and HYDRA was back and bigger than ever and Steve wasn’t enough, he wasn’t enough, he wasn’t–
“Hey. I’ve got you. Shhh. It’s alright.”
In the moment it took for Steve to hitch his first panicked breath, he suddenly found himself with an armful of Tony, who’d rolled off the sofa and straight into Steve’s lap. The warmth of a living body suddenly coalesced around Steve’s chest, his torso, and unable to hold himself back any longer, Steve wrapped himself up in it and just clung. Clung to Tony’s life, his comfort, to whatever it was he was offering up. Just for tonight, perhaps. He let out one single sob; short, clipped and raw, and then buried his face into the juncture between Ton’s neck and shoulders. His ear pressed to the other man’s pulse, letting the rhythm thump its way through the panic in his brain. This was where he anchored himself. If Tony wanted to offer himself up as a lifeboat, then Steve would hold onto him with all he had and not think about the implications. It was survival, plain and simple.
“Come home with me,” Tony said again, the words gentle and spoken against the side of his face. Steve felt the soft vibration of them run up his skull. “Please, Steve. Don’t stay here. This is the setup of some West Coast trust-fund baby who’s just started microdosing magic mushrooms but insists they live a sober lifestyle - totally not your vibe. Hell, it’s not even East facing. Steve Rogers can’t live in a place that isn’t East facing, that’s like, some sort of crime against humanity.”
Steve chuckled wetly. “It’s not that bad,” he mumbled.
“Oh shut up, you fucking hate it, I can tell.” Tony snorted derisively. “Or you would, if you weren’t having a panic attack. Just trust me. You shouldn’t be here.”
“But I should be with you, huh?” Steve pulled away, looking seriously at Tony. “You really think that’s a better idea?”
Tony hesitated only for a moment. His fingers pushed gently through the short spikes of Steve’s hair, and he nodded his head. “I do. I’m not saying… you don’t need to forgive me. Or even like me. But I wasn’t there for you through this shitshow. I would like, at least, to be there for you now.”
It sounded like a recipe for disaster, quite frankly. Steve knew, rationally, that he should turn it down. But as he glanced around the room they were in, this apartment that wasn’t his own, he realised Tony was right. Steve couldn’t live here. Or, more accurately, he just didn’t want to. There were so many difficult things in his life, he couldn’t bear the idea of his living situation becoming one of them as well. He needed something, at least, to get up and fight for every day. Even if it was just a place. Or a person in a place.
He made the call.
“Okay.”
Tony smiled. “Perfect,” he declared, before tacking on, slightly awkwardly. “Oh, but before we blow this popsicle stand, I need a favour.”
“What?”
Tony glanced down at his crotch. “I’m gonna need to borrow some underwear.”