Declivity
The first time Tony drinks, he’s thirteen. Barefoot, he wanders through Stradivarius covered halls; Light catches on chandeliers and whiskey glasses. Tony is a genius, and a child, and nothing to anyone that matters. He’s all alone in a mansion on Park Avenue and he wants to know what bad decisions taste like.
He coughs at the first sip, bitter against his tongue. He swallows it anyway- the feeling of forcing everything down his oldest friend. Stomach churning, he finishes the glass and pours another, and then another. Laughter echoing down the marble floors, he does his math homework.
Everything’s always too easy, and the liquor slows everything down. His thoughts drip like honey, sweetly into the next, and the whiskey makes him feel warm against the granite counters where his cheek rests. He blinks, realizing he stumbled into the kitchen with his algebra textbook. The thought is terribly funny to him for some reason.
He’s got his cheek pressed to the cold counter again, now nineteen years old and still nothing to any of those people. But he hears laughter bubbling up from the base of the fridge, and he can't seem to remember any of their names. Steve Rogers raises a measuring cup full of Cabernet at him, smiling like the whole universe has been condensed to Tony Stark’s kitchen. The sun is slipping down the sky, golden hour catching on the flush of their cheeks.
It spills over his hair, pale lashes painting shadows underneath his eyes. His lips are wine red and curled at the corners, dimples nipping sweetly at his cheeks. The blinking fluorescents beg to be replaced, but every warm touch of light against Steve’s skin makes his mouth water. Tony smiles before laughing, tiptoeing off the stool with gentle footsteps.
Tony isn’t used to gentle. No one had ever held him with soft hands. His palms are warm but callused like his father’s. His gaze polite but distant, just like his mother’s. And then Steve blinks up at him, slow as wine could make it, and suddenly his gaze is tender. His hands ache to caress; to hold gently, reverently. To get on his knees at the altar of a god who is nothing like him and all the better for it.
Too much of Tony’s life has been disassembling broken things. The habit of taking things apart to put them back together is a hard one to shake, but it’s never easier than when looking at Steve Rogers.
“You’re perfect,” he sighs, and then flops onto the tile next to him.
Steve just laughs, the thought ridiculous to him. He is at the mercy of that smile, ever desperate for the sight of it. His teeth are just a bit crooked, and all the more charming for it. He dreams of that laughter pressed to his throat.
“I’m serious. Perfect. Couldn’t make you better if I tried.”
Sometimes Tony thinks about his hands, worries something is fundamentally wrong with him. The fear that everything he touches might start to resemble him keeps him up at night, staring at fridge magnets. He goes to look at Steve’s palms. Artists hands. Gardener’s fingers. The things he touches grow, come to life. It makes sense Tony’s heart started beating again after he met him. He feels a little sick.
“I think I’m drunk," Tony says, and the sound catches on the silence in all the worst ways.
He meets Steve’s eyes, and his brow is furrowed. Tony’s hands tremble, and he can’t control the urge, reaching forward and thumbing away the crease. Steve’s eyes slip shut at his touch.
“You’re brilliant, Tony Stark.”
It’s Tony’s turn to laugh. He’s always known he was a genius. Even when there was nothing and no one, he still had his mind. Sharper than his boarding-school teachers, faster than all his peers combined. Still, the way Steve says it doesn’t sound like he means Tony’s ability to do non-Euclidean math in his head.
Steve reaches forward so suddenly, warm palms wrapping around his jaw. Tony’s heart is dancing in his throat, brought to life as it always is in his presence. He licks his lips, fingers tightening around the collar of Steve’s shirt where they had come to rest without realizing it. He is always caught up in the gravity of Steve Rogers, limbs reaching for him even in sleep. They say objects in motion stay in motion, and his heart has had open palms for this boy since before he knew what was happening. Tony swallows, and Steve’s eyes track the movement, tracing the slow motion of his throat in the dimming light.
A bird croaks somewhere in the distance, a reminder that the world is bigger than just the two of them. Steve looks startled, but his hands tighten, slim fingertips resting on his throat. Tony is aching, feverish, starving. His fingers twitch in the fabric of Steve’s top.
The sun is melting further down the sky, making way for moonlight to kiss at the pale skin of Steve’s throat. There isn’t a drop of light that wouldn’t paint him lovely. Sculptors would die to mold the slope of his nose, the curve of his jaw. Tony’s never had an artistic bone in his body, but he’s never regretted it more.
“Perfect,” Steve whispers, and the sound breaks every lonely bone in his body.
He feels disassembled, suddenly. Taken apart and put back together, better. Steve is Daedalus, forming the melting wax of his heart into something ready to take flight. It burns already, even as the sun sleeps. He remembers Icarus, defined by the fall. Recalls thinking him stupid- that he could build wings that never faltered, never failed.
Steve’s hands are still resting against his pulse, each dizzy thump a roadmap to his desire. Tony used to wonder why they called it falling in love.
“Perfect,” Steve sighs one last time, and then disentangles their limbs.
Tony doesn’t wonder that anymore.