Work Text:
Tony’s eyes narrowed as he considered the schematics in front of him. Eight point four five three percent improvement in efficiency, two point three three nine percent increase in power.
Not good enough.
He shook his head and paced toward the liquor cabinet. He could use a fucking drink.
He stopped halfway, considered, took another couple of steps, and finally turned around to return to the displays. A drink wasn’t going to cut it. Ten drinks—ten drinks might about do it, but if he had them he wouldn’t be able to give his work the attention it deserved. The attention he owed it.
He squared his shoulders and returned to his calculations.
JARVIS interrupted him twenty minutes later. “Captain Rogers is here to see you, Sir.”
Tony glared at the display, at the room, at the door. It was probably even odds whether Rogers wanted to chew him out again or to fuck him, but honestly Tony wasn’t in the mood for either. “Tell him to go away.”
Tony looked back at his work, and tried to find his train of thought. A moment later JARVIS piped up again, derailing any progress he might have made in that direction. “Captain Rogers has indicated that he intends to remain outside your quarters until you allow him to enter.”
Chewing out, then. Tony would have thought he’d gotten his fill of that earlier, but maybe he saved some choice admonishments to deliver when the team wasn’t there to act as audience.
Ordinarily, Tony didn’t give a flying fuck what Rogers had to say about his conduct. He knew what he was doing, made his own calls, and only fell in line behind Cap when circumstances were dire enough to warrant it. They did generally argue about it afterwards, but he gave as good as he got, and lately those arguments had more often than not ended in fairly spectacular orgasms for both of them, so he sure as hell wasn’t complaining.
But yesterday— No two ways about it, really, yesterday he’d fucked up. That nobody paid for it in anything but a few broken bones was very little short of miraculous. But no, it was no miracle. Just Thor and Romanoff and Barton and even the Hulk pulling together to make up for his miscalculation. And then Rogers, eager to rub it in his face the instant they were all in the clear.
Tony paced up and down the room, his muscles tense and his mind on a continuous loop of the twenty-three seconds that had gone so wrong. He eyed the liquor cabinet again, and again reminded himself of the amount he’d have to drink to make himself feel anything but worse. Of course, that wasn’t the problem—not really. The problem was that eventually he’d have to stop drinking, and then— He shook his head. The temptation lingered, but he resisted it for the moment and returned to his work.
Half an hour later JARVIS spoke again. “Captain Rogers requested that I remind you that he is here to see you.”
“Tell him to go fuck himself.”
A pause. “Captain Rogers has declined to comply with your instructions.”
“He told you to say that, didn’t he?”
“He did, Sir.”
“Stop relaying messages from him. And tell him as much.”
Another pause. “I have so informed him.”
Tony managed to work—or at least poke at his schematics in a way that he could plausibly describe as work—for another twenty minutes before breaking down and asking JARVIS if Steve was still there.
“Yes Sir, he is.”
“Tell him he’s an asshole, and I’m not in the mood for another lecture.” Tony waited for a moment, before realizing that he had instructed JARVIS not to relay anything Steve had to say. “Did he have an answer to that?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Go for it.”
“Captain Rogers assures you that he has no intention of delivering a lecture.”
“Ask him how long he thinks he can wait. And tell me his answer.”
JARVIS replied more quickly than Tony expected. “’Longer than you can.’ Sir.”
“Jackass,” Tony muttered. “Let him in.”
Steve opened the bedroom door a moment later, and then just stood there, looking him up and down.
“What was it you wanted? Let’s make this fast so we can get back to me telling you to go to hell.”
Steve flinched, and Tony felt a little guilty. “I just wanted to see how you were doing. If there’s anything I can do to help. I was… I was a little harsh yesterday.”
“No, you weren’t. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine, you’re fine, I don’t need your help. I’ve got things to do.” He turned back to his display and randomly modified a few parameters, assuming that to Steve’s untrained eye he would appear to be accomplishing something.
“I thought—“ Steve hesitated in the doorway, his eyes still on Tony. “I thought maybe you could use a distraction.”
He could. He could absolutely use a distraction. And if anything were distracting enough, it would be Steve. Tony looked at him, and couldn’t help but admire the way he filled out his gray t-shirt and dark jeans. As always, he was a work of art. But Tony’s dick didn’t even stir, and he shook his head.
Steve regarded him for a long moment, and Tony worked to keep his own expression impassive, even in the face of Steve’s sorrowful eyes. Finally Steve nodded and turned to go, but before he could move out of sight, Tony felt a tight knot of regret gather in his chest, and he couldn’t keep the word “wait” from tumbling over his lips.
Steve stopped, but didn’t turn back.
“You can—“ he offered, certain that Steve would be able to fill in the blanks. “Just— make it hurt.”
Steve did turn then, and stepped across the threshold. “I don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said carefully.
“Make. It. Hurt,” Tony repeated. Steve’s troubled look didn’t falter, and Tony moved to palm open the door to his toy closet. He stepped in and grabbed the nearest switch off its peg and threw it onto the floor of the bedroom. He followed it with a couple of floggers, a crop, handcuffs, a paddle, a cane. He stepped back out to see that Steve hadn’t moved, and his face still wore a look of confusion and concern. Tony met Steve’s gaze and kept his expression as neutral as he could. “You asked what you could do.” He gestured at the array at his feet. “This is it. But, look, if you don’t want to—”
“I—“ Steve swallowed. “Wanting isn’t the problem,“ he answered, his voice low and rough. He shook his head. “I’m not saying no. But I… need to know what this is about. Are you asking me—“ He frowned. “Do you want me to… punish you?”
“Fuck no,” Tony answered quickly. It was very nearly true. “Purely a bedroom thing.” The claim would probably have been more persuasive if his cock were a little more interested in the proceedings, but if this went the way he wanted it to, he’d get there sooner or later. “Like you said, a distraction.”
Steve eyed the pile at Tony’s feet, and Tony was pretty sure that he read lust and guilt in his face, both of them making an effort to unseat concern as Steve’s primary reaction.
Tony knew which one he wanted to win, and he was pretty sure he could arrange for it. He stalked over to Steve, grabbed the front of his t-shirt, and met his eyes. “I’m asking you for this. I want you to hurt me. And then I want you to take me.” He let go, dropped his gaze, and moved away slightly. “Please,” he added, looking up at Steve again for a fleeting moment before turning away.
Steve didn’t answer right away, and for a moment Tony expected him to refuse, to leave him there with his shame and his purported work and the liquor cabinet which looked more appealing by the second.
But then Steve spoke, his voice low and commanding and thick with lust. “Lose the shirt.”
Tony swallowed at Steve’s tone and stripped off his t-shirt, tossing it into a corner.
Steve glanced around the room, and his gaze stopped on the desk in one corner. He nodded towards it. “Bend over and grab it.”
Tony watched him, suddenly wondering if he’d bitten off more than he really wanted to chew. But when Steve bent to examine the switch Tony had chosen, all Tony’s doubts vanished and he did as he was told.
Really he was a little old to be bent over like this—the position would better suit a schoolboy, and he hadn’t been that in a couple of decades. Just maintaining his posture took a certain amount of effort, and if Steve didn’t get started soon he’d be trembling with it before the first blow. He looked over his shoulder to see just how soon he could expect that blow, and what Steve planned to use, but Steve noticed his gaze almost immediately and shot him a quelling look. “Head down.”
Tony put his head down and listened, trying to glean any information about Steve’s intentions from the sounds he made. But Steve didn’t give him much to work with. The man didn’t look it, but he moved like a cat when he wanted to—silent and graceful.
So Tony felt more than heard it when Steve finally stood behind him, and in spite of his active attention the first stroke took him by surprise.
It fell heavily on his back—more pressure than pain, though pain was definitely a part of it as well. One of the floggers—the gentler of the two he’d brought out, in fact. Tony wondered if Steve knew enough that he’d chosen that on purpose, or if it had been a matter of chance. People new to painplay often assumed that floggers were harsher than something like a switch, when a lot of the time the opposite was true.
The second stroke was like the first, the third and fourth a little harder. He could feel the skin of his back heat under the blows, knew that Rogers would be able to see his flesh turn pink. But it wasn’t even close to enough. Tony kept his mouth firmly shut, and made no sound as the blows continued to fall.
Steve took the hint after a few more strokes and tossed the flogger aside. Rather than select something else, though, he ran one hand over Tony’s back. The touch lit up Tony’s skin where the flogger had fallen, the pain enough to be a little relief, if not actually enough to distract him from himself. But then Steve shifted and Tony let out a little hiss of real pain as Steve’s fingernails scraped two parallel lines of fire into his sensitive skin.
“The toys you picked—those are the ones you want?” There was a hint of disappointment to his voice, and Tony couldn’t make himself process why.
“I don’t—Steve, please, just don’t stop.” The anticipation, the first blows, none of it was even close to what he needed, but it was enough to make him want it desperately. The thought of Steve walking away now raised a choked feeling in his throat, like the first half of a sob, frantic and incomplete.
“Just surprised, is all. You didn’t pick out any of the whips.” A low thrill of lust ran through the casual tone, and Tony shuddered.
“Wasn’t— I wasn’t really in the mood to give a tutorial.”
Steve’s nails dug harder into the skin of Tony’s back. “What makes you think I need one?”
The dangerous tone in Steve’s voice did fascinating things to his insides, and his dick gave a tiny twitch of interest. Tony took a breath and forced himself to think rationally about this. “You can do real damage with a whip if you don’t know how to use it.”
“I know.”
Tony swallowed, trembling at the effort of holding himself in place under the lines Steve’s fingernails tracked over his back. “How? And why?”
“I learn fast. And— you’ve got four of them hanging in the closet. Figured there was a reason for that.”
“You learned how to use a whip because you thought I’d like it?” For the two of them it was actually kind of sweet, and Tony had to fight back a little shiver of discomfort with the intimacy it implied.
But then he felt Steve’s fingers lace in his hair, pulling hard and wrenching his head back. “I learned it because the idea of laying stripes on your skin makes me—” And then Steve’s hand disappeared, and Tony could feel him shift and take a couple of steps away. “The things I want to do to you...”
“Do them. Right now. You call it.”
“Usual safeword?”
Tony could weep. He figured he’d have to beg for everything he needed tonight, but by Steve’s voice, he could be in for something much better. “Yes. Please yes.” He raised his head to look back at Steve. “Don’t go easy.”
By the dark look in Steve’s eyes, going easy was the last thing he wanted. Tony shuddered in anticipation.
“Head down,” Steve told him again, and Tony complied.
His legs shook a little, more at the tension than out of any real strain on his body. He listened as Steve selected something from the closet and returned to his place. Tony felt rough hands slide over the bare skin of his back, and the unmistakable pressure of Steve’s cock pressed against Tony’s ass through layers of clothing. Tony knew it for the message it was—Steve wanted this. Wanted to strike him and hurt him and use him and make him feel it. Wanted it desperately enough to have his cock rock hard and straining already.
Tony pressed backwards and let a little moan slide from his throat, and Steve chuckled and moved away.
Tony swallowed a little sound of disappointment at the loss of contact, reminding himself of what it meant was coming. He tensed for the blow, but for a long moment it didn't come, so he had plenty of time to consider how it would be when it did. Not too light, probably. It would be harder, sharper than the flogger, but Steve would take his time to warm-up to the main attraction. He’d calibrate it, make sure it carried just enough bite to make Tony gasp and beg for more.
The wait stretched on, and Tony's lips had just parted to beg for anything at all when the first stroke fell, hard enough to put any expectation, any anticipation, any thought at all from his mind, and draw a wordless cry from his throat.
Steve didn't pause, didn't check on him or ask him for a color, barely even let him gather the breath he'd need to choke out his safeword before sharp pain lanced through him again. He cried out at that one too, and the next, and the next. Soon he was babbling between the blows as well, begging incoherently for Steve to stop, to continue, to have mercy, to go harder. The stripes touched every part of his back, covering him with fire until he was weak with it and feared his legs would give way.
That Steve apparently noticed. "Kneel," he ordered, but Tony remained too lost in the blessed, gorgeous, necessary pain to attend to him, and Steve solved the problem by jerking him away and down by the hair. As soon as Tony's knees hit the carpet, Steve shoved his head to the floor. Tony felt his arms drawn in front of him, stretched and secured to something—what Tony neither knew nor cared.
And then the blows started again. They landed differently, a little sharper at first, the pain building and multiplying as stripe after stripe fell in exactly the same place, tracing line after line of fire just below one shoulder. Tony squirmed, not sure whether he wanted to press down against he carpet to lessen the blows or buck up and back to have them harder, cleaner, sooner, faster. But really he couldn’t do either anyway, couldn’t move from where Steve put him, couldn’t shift away or up or anything else.
Steve paused for an instant, and then rough pain bloomed on Tony’s other shoulder, turning quickly sharp, then vicious, then profound as Steve worked the new spot over and over.
The agony overwhelmed him, engulfed him in its hot perfection. Powerless to stop the blows or change them, Tony could barely control his lips, which formed desperate little begging noises, punctuated with sounds that could have been gasps or moans or screams on every fall of the whip.
“Look at you take it,” Steve whispered, a harsh kind of awe in his voice. “You love it. Need it.”
It was true. It was almost more than he could handle, almost everything he could take, which made it exactly what he needed.
And then the blows came faster, no longer focusing on one spot. But by that time Steve had worked every inch of Tony’s back enough that his nerves lit up with that perfect, vicious pain on every strike. Those were definitely screams coming out of his throat, and if he’d been able to think he would have been shocked that Steve didn’t stop, didn’t wait, didn’t hesitate or worry. But under the circumstances Tony could only revel in the harsh freedom of it, the ability to exist wholly and completely in his body and feel no guilt or fear, no duty or shame or lurking doubt. Just the clean, flawless pain.
It barely lessened when Steve’s arm stilled, and it only shifted and changed when he felt Steve’s hands, one on his shoulder, one in his hair, jerking him up and shoving him face down on the bed, wrists secured again somewhere in front of him, legs dangling over the edge. He shifted to take his own weight just as Steve made short work of his pants and pulled them down and off.
Tony rolled his hips into the side of the bed, feeling his cock harden at the contact and the anticipation of whatever Steve planned next. Tony was pretty sure it would be one of two things, and not sure at all which one he’d prefer.
Steve scraped a line over Tony’s back, lighting It up like fire, like ice, like a razor’s edge, and Tony arched up against him. “Not done with this.” The thick, lust drenched voice made Tony buck against the bed again. “But the way you writhe— the way you beg, and scream— there is no damn way I can wait.”
A finger pressed into him, and then, before he could even hope to adjust, another. The pain was nothing compared to the whip, but the brutal invasion of it made Tony whimper, made his cock strain and his balls draw up. Steve stretched him just enough to shove a third finger inside, slick with lube but viciously fast. All three fingers gave one hard twist inside him, and before Tony could draw another breath they were gone, replaced by an insistent pressure that made Tony gasp with desire.
Steve grabbed him and pushed, sliding in and not pausing for an instant before pulling back, pounding into him with direct, brutal strokes that made no secret of their intentions. Steve just wanted to get himself off, fast and without the slightest interest in Tony’s pleasure. Tony had the odd sensation that Steve wasn’t fucking him at all, that he was just jerking off in the most convenient possible way, which happened to be deep inside Tony’s body.
Tony whined and tried to shift to get that deep pressure just where he needed it, but Steve shoved him down and held him in place, his hand pressing against the welts he’d raised in Tony’s back. The pain forced a hoarse cry from Tony’s throat, and Steve moaned above him, gave one more shove and then he was pulsing, shuddering his pleasure while his hand drew fresh pain from Tony’s skin.
Steve collapsed forward, letting his chest press against Tony’s back, and Tony whined in disappointment.
He felt Steve’s face next to his own, heard Steve’s ragged breaths. “Color?” Steve managed.
In spite of the rough pain of Steve’s body above him, Tony managed a short laugh. “Now you ask?”
Steve sucked in a breath, suddenly tense, and Tony regretted the joke.
“Kidding, Steve. Green. Really green. I know how to use my safeword. You don't have to ask at all.”
Steve hauled himself to his feet, and again pressed a hand over Tony's back, tracing some kind of pattern. It was light this time, an artist's touch, but still enough to make Tony hiss at the delicate webs of pain Steve’s fingers left behind.
Then he shifted away again, and Tony craned his neck, trying to look up to see what Steve planned next.
He didn't manage it, and instead felt hard fingers curl around the back of his head, shoving him down against the bed. "Head down or I will blindfold you."
Tony felt his cock twitch at the thought, and seriously considered pushing the issue to see if he’d do it. But then a stinging blow fell on his bare ass, sending a delicious thrill of pain straight through him, and all he could do was gasp. Another landed, and another, and Tony couldn’t hold back the little moans that fell from his throat with every stroke. The sharp cracks against his skin felt almost nothing like the hard pain of the whip—where those fell viciously, obliterating every thought but the clean heat of pain, these spark against his nerves and make his cock twitch, set his whole body shivering, begging for more.
Tony shifted his hips, not to move away from the blows, but to find some little hint of friction against his cock. He could come like this, wanted to come like this, as soon as humanly possible, and didn’t care in the slightest that he was humping a mattress and moaning like a cheap whore under Steve’s blows.
Then the blows ceased for a moment, and Tony heard a plaintive whine which he quickly identified as his own.
And then he felt pressure behind him—Steve’s cock pressed against the cleft of his ass, hips tight against his thighs, chest just brushing over the tender heat of Tony’s back as Steve leaned over to whisper in Tony’s ear. “Do you have any idea how desperate you look? What you do to me? Fuck, Tony, I want to see you like this all the time. Want to do this to you every day.”
Tony bucked back, rutting up against Steve and letting plaintive entreaties fall from his lips. “Please. Please, Steve, please, more, need it. Need you. Take me. Let me—“ He cut off as Steve lowered his lips to Tony’s shoulder and bit down hard. Tony arched back against him and felt a surge of hot pleasure all through his body, throbbing and spilling and moaning and begging all at once under Steve’s smug hum of satisfaction.
Tony’s head had just cleared enough to bring himself back to his surroundings when he felt firm hands on his shoulders. Strong thumbs dug into his back, under his shoulder blades, along his spine, up and down in a parody of a back rub that multiplied the pain of every welt, every mark and impression left by the whip. Tony cried out, sobbed, struggled to move away, but resolutely didn’t allow his safeword to leave his lips. The pain went deep, deeper than before and harder, and so very close to too much that Tony could barely stand it.
But could stand it, wanted to stand it, wanted to revel in it, and did. After the first shock passed, his cries turned to moans. Steve shifted closer until Tony could feel Steve’s cock pressed against him again, thrusting just a little, like Steve was too aroused to keep himself still.
Too soon, Steve moved away, and Tony let out a little whine at the loss, but soon a stinging swat to his ass sent new jolts of need racing through his blood. His cock, thoroughly spent, managed to give a little twitch anyway.
Steve let the crop fall again, lighting up the skin of Tony’s ass, his back, and down. Tony gasped. the pain against thighs felt different—sharper, and more intimate. Steve groaned his approval, whether at the sounds Tony made or look of his thighs reddening under Steve’s blows, Tony didn’t know and barely cared. His cock stirred in earnest as the assault continued, peppering the whole of his backside with sharp bites of pain.
Tony barely felt Steve shift before a foot wedged itself between Tony’s ankles and shoved his legs apart, and he had no time to register what that meant before the first blow fell on the inside of his thigh and made him sob with pain and need and twisted pleasure.
“Please,” Tony begged, as Steve landed another swat against the sensitive skin between his legs, “fuck me. Steve, take me, please.” He tried to say something clever, something seductive or infuriating or just too damned hot for Steve to hear it and not give Tony exactly what he needed. But his lips formed nothing but “please” and “Steve” and “please” again.
Steve gave one more blow—or, not a blow at all, really, barely a tap against Tony’s sac, and Tony felt his whole world explode. He wasn’t coming, not yet, it was still too soon for that to be possible, but the sensations overwhelmed him anyway, and he couldn’t fight, could barely notice when Steve shifted away and grabbed Tony by his hips.
Tony sure as hell noticed when Steve rolled him over, though. His back made contact with the bed and sent pain blazing along all his nerves. And then even that flew out of his mind as Steve’s fingers entered him, thrusting in fast and deep and pressing hard against Tony’s prostate until he sobbed out another string of entreaties.
“Jesus, Tony,” Steve cursed softly as he removed his fingers and grabbed Tony’s calves to stretch them over Steve’s shoulders.
Tony had only an instant to feel how wide open the position left him, how vulnerable and exposed, before Steve thrust in. Tony arched, the pain of his back competing with the sharp pleasure of Steve’s cock deep inside him. Or, no, no competition at all—the rough agony made a perfect counterpoint to the gorgeous slide and drag as Steve pounded into him.
Steve’s hands left Tony’s hips, and his fingers wrapped themselves around Tony’s thighs, digging into the sore spots between his legs and very nearly whiting out Tony’s vision as Steve huffed above him. “So good. Tony, oh God, you feel… so good. Always… so good.’
Tony moaned and writhed under the assault. Steve’s pleasure echoed through him, and Tony shivered at the sweet amazement that his voice always carried when he lost himself in Tony’s body. Every sensation, every spark of nerves, every gasp and grunt and word out of Steve’s mouth—everything conspired in Tony to ratchet his nerves tighter, tenser, higher. Uncounted gasps, moans, thrusts—each one harsh with need—passed before the tension reached its impossible limit and finally snapped, sending Tony throbbing and falling, dissolving into fierce pleasure.
Tony stayed with it, refusing to shift his focus to anything less spectacular than the rush of perfect body chemistry that filled him. He barely noticed as Steve rearranged them both to lie side by side on the bed, as Steve’s breaths returned to their usual rhythms, as Steve pressed a kiss against Tony’s shoulder and let his head fall on it as well.
By the time Tony did emerge from his state of bliss, Steve’s fierce gaze had grown sleepy, and Tony smiled at his soft expression.
“That was… that was exactly… fuck, Rogers,” he finally managed. “That was exactly what I needed. All of it.”
Steve responded with a satisfied groan. “Yeah, well, any time you need it again, just ask.“
“I am so going to hold you to that.”
“Good.”