Chapter 26
"I don’t give you instructions just to annoy you, Tony!" Steve snapped, following Tony into the lab. "I do it to keep you safe, because I care about you! The least you could do is have a little self preservation and do as I say!"
Tony had almost died in their battle that morning. Again. Steve had thought that watching the suit drop like a sack of bricks would get easier, that seeing Tony unconscious and barely breathing wouldn’t feel quite so gutting after so much time, but he had been wrong. Every time, he felt like he had been turned inside out. Even now, hours later, he still felt sick at the mere thought of Tony no longer being there with them.
"I was doing what I thought was right!" Tony replied heatedly, easing himself down onto his stool. "I had the suit on, okay, so I had the best chance of coming out of it alive. Sorry for taking your life seriously for once -“
"Shut up and kiss me."
”- but I care about you just as much as you claim to care about me, okay - wait… what?”
Before Tony could say another word, Steve surged forwards and cupped his face in his hands, drawing them both together for a breath-stealing kiss. He made sure to pour all his repressed feelings, every heartbreak and moment of hope, into the kiss, and was more than a little relieved when Tony almost immediately melted against him and kissed back.
"You," he gasped against Tony’s lips, kissing him again and again. "Are not expendable. Not ever."
One day he vowed to make Tony believe it, too.