Chapter 12
Steve awoke groggily with a crick in his neck, sitting up against the wall on his bed, to movement. He felt the space beside him, and found the indent to be warm but empty. He vaguely recalled sitting there with Tony but wasn't sure when he'd drifted off.
"Tony?" He muttered under his breath, and the movement halted.
A beat of silence passed, before the movement resumed and then Tony's head appeared over the railing. "Miss me already?" He whispered cockily.
Steve made a face at him.
Tony made a pouty face in response. "Want me to cuddle you back to sleep?"
"No," Steve said defensively. "I was just wondering where you went."
Tony pursed his lips for a moment, and then climbed back up onto Steve's bed. "Okay, if you insist."
"Tony, I just said I don't-"
"Shh," The raven pressed a finger to Steve's lips. "You'll wake the girls." He whispered.
Steve let out an annoyed huff as his friend settled himself across from him on the bed.
They simply regarded one another for a moment. Steve glanced down to see that mysterious blue light shining through Tony's shirt. It illuminated his features, causing odd shadows to fall, sharpening his jawline and cheekbones.
Wow, Steve thought. He's beautiful.
Steve hadn't even realized he was leaning forward until Tony gave a knowing smirk.
"So it's not cuddling you need to sleep," he began suggestively, leaning in as well. "But maybe something… A little more… personal?" He leaned closer all the while, so that by the last word his mouth was by Steve's ear.
The blond resisted a shudder. But his mind traveled to the two girls sleeping across the room from them, and he grew suddenly uncomfortable.
He drew back quickly, and Tony frowned, though his expression was hard to read in the low light.
"Look, you can stay up here if you want," Steve whispered quietly. "But I can't… Get into anything while they're over there sleeping." He nodded in the direction of the other beds. "It's weird."
Tony made a face, glancing behind him.
Since the raven didn't seem quick to move, Steve began to adjust the cover so he could lay down. Once he had lain down, he looked up at Tony inquisitively.
A beat of silence passed. The billionaire looked to be considering carefully.
Steve pulled the covers back, and looked back up to see Tony scrutinizing him. Another moment's solid inactivity passed between them.
Then, suddenly carefree again, Tony quickly moved to shimmy under the covers, though he did it so he was facing Steve.
The blue light from his chest in the dark dorm was enrapturing, and Steve couldn't help but eye it.
He relaxed, feeling the tension he'd carried over trivial worries slip away.
He would be just fine.
They would be just fine.
Steve awoke alone again, the analogue clock on the wall informing him it was just after five.
He quickly donned sweats and a tank top, plugging in his headphones and starting out into the cold snowy morning.
He could see his breath as he ran around the outskirts of the campus, pushing to the back of his mind all thoughts relating to his problematic roommate.
He ran past his apartment complex, through the courtyard where he sometimes saw Sam, and looped back towards the campus.
He slowed to a walk as he approached the dorm building, and a woman who was about to enter stopped to hold the door.
As Steve drew nearer, he realized he recognized the woman. "Hey, it’s Sharon, right?"
She smiled, but a suspicious edge stayed in her gaze. “Yeah, Steve, right?”
He nodded as the two walked in together. They meandered down the hall side by side in semi-awkward silence, until Sharon turned off with a small wave.
When Steve reentered the dorm room, he found it empty. This, he thought, was probably for the best considering the assignments piling up.
He wasn’t one hour into working on his homework, however, when an excitable Tony and Janet burst into the room together.
“-absolutely not! You can not convince me they were ‘just friends.’ The chemistry is undeniable,” Janet was saying hotly.
“All I’m saying is that the movie came out in 1987, and I find it highly unlikely that Mandy Patinken or Andre the Giant played it that way on purpose,” Tony shot back, an edge of amusement in his voice.
“Tony, I don’t know if you’re aware, but gay people existed in the 80’s.” Janet deadpanned, looking at him sincerely.
The raven cracked a smile, shaking his head. “No shit they existed, but they weren’t represented in film. Besides, their friendship is too iconic; saying it’s more than friendship is almost insulting to Rob Reiner, because their direction was clearly a brotherly relationship.”
“Unbelievable!” Janet threw her hands up in the air, turning to Steve. “You’ve seen the Princess Bride, right?”
Steve pressed his lips together, giving a small shake of his head.
Janets eyes widened, and she drew a hand to her mouth. “You haven’t?! Well, I know what we’re doing this weekend.”
“You’re gonna ruin the movie for me,” Tony grumbled with no real dismay.
“That’s just homophobic,” Janet said teasingly, crossing her arms as she moved past Steve where he sat at the desk into the kitchen.
Tony cast her a disbelieving look, his mouth opening slightly without sound. Janet cracked a smile. “That- you can’t-” Tony glanced at Steve, pointing at Janet like she’s crazy. “Can you believe this?” He turned back to Janet. “I’ll kiss him right now. See how homophobic that is.”
A bubbly laugh accompanied Janet bringing a hand to her mouth, shaking her head as she turned back to call, “It was a joke, Tony.”
“You think I’m kidding?” Despite his disbelieving tone, Tony cracked a smile as well. He glanced down at Steve, shaking his head. “Do you hear this disrespect?”
Steve smiled up at him, a hint of teasing in his voice when he said, “Hey, I’m no authority on who is or isn’t homophobic.” One of the first things he’d learned in modern-day America was that ‘homophobic’ had become nearly as taboo a slur to cast on someone as ‘gay’ had been in the forties.
Tony threw his hands up in resignation. “You’re both impossible,” he whined.
The door opened again to admit Natasha, who looked up from her phone at them. “Fezzik and Inigo are totally gay,” she said, deadpanned, to Tony.
“Unbelievable. Why- how can you sexualize such an iconic friendship?” Tony crossed his arms.
“Ask the writers, directors, and actors who played them,” Natasha reasoned, looking back at her phone and starting for her bed. “Besides, no one said anything about sex; they’re obviously in love with each other, but that doesn’t mean it has to be sexual.”
Tony shook his head. “You guys are the worst,” he decided. “I don’t even understand how you have the energy for an argument like this right now.” He glanced at his watch, then looked back at Steve. “You wanna go get breakfast?”
The blond looked at his own watch, seeing it was nearly six-thirty. “A little early, isn’t it?”
Tony shrugged. “Or coffee.”
“We have coffee here,” Steve pointed out, frowning. Weird, he thought, that he would invite only him.
Tony raised his hands. “Right, but dorm coffee can’t compare to coffee shop coffee.”
Steve, who always drank his coffee black, considered protesting that dorm coffee is just fine with him, but let out a sigh instead. He clearly wasn’t going to get anything else done if Tony was gonna sulk around anyway, so he may as well go have some fun.
He closed the notebook where he was drafting an essay with a shrug. “Sure.”
Tony pumped a fist victoriously. “Let’s go.”
When the two had packed up and exited the dorm, Tony bumped him with his shoulder. “I saw this super cute diner in town - you’re gonna go nuts. It’s all fifties themed; super retro; just your, ah, vibe, or whatever the kids say these days.”
Steve couldn’t help the small, bemused smile that slid onto his face. “I think I know the place. Sharon, Janet’s friend from the sorority house, works there.”
Tony stopped, turning to him with a frown. “Sharon… Blond hair, brown eyes?”
Steve tilted his head, stopping as well just a few steps ahead. “Yeah, that’s her.”
Tony snapped his fingers like he’d just made a connection. “That’s who it was…” He looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Who who was?” Steve pressed.
Tony waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing - it doesn’t matter. Maybe let’s try somewhere else, if you’ve already seen it.” The two emerged from the dorm building into biting winter winds, snow swirling around them.
While Steve wondered at what Tony wasn’t telling him, the raven crossed his arms and brought his shoulders up, after lowering his shades back onto his nose.
“It’s cold as hell out here,” Tony commented, bracing against the wind.
Steve considered a smart comment, but held his tongue in favor of putting an arm around his roommate’s shoulder. Tony leaned into the heat, a small sigh escaping him as the two walked.
“Better?” The blond asked, tone smug.
“Much,” Tony returned easily. He uncrossed his arms to wrap one around his waist. “God, you’re like a space heater.” He pressed his head into Steve’s shoulder, pressing himself almost bodily against the larger man.
It made walking a little difficult, but Steve didn’t mind. If it feels right… And it did. He’d been hesitant to admit it at first, but he’s more certain all the time that it just feels right with Tony. Everything - even when he gets on his nerves or does and says things that are shocking or crude - it all feels right. The two wandering down the boardwalk toward the edge of campus in the cold fell into serene quiet for a long while. They left campus and passed into the town. Shops and retail stands buzzed with activity, and the few people they passed outside walked hurriedly with their heads down toward whatever warmth awaited them.
“We should get a hotel room,” Tony breathed, consideration in his voice, breaking the entrancing silence.
Steve stopped, caught entirely off-guard by the comment. “What?”
“You know, you and me. Just for one night, on a weekend or something. Be nice to be alone…” He raised an eyebrow suggestively, looking up at the blond. “That is, unless you don’t think you can handle me all by yourself without the others walking in and interrupting us.”
Steve narrowed his eyes, a competitive fire stirring in his stomach. “At the risk of sounding conceited, I think I’ve got handling you down to something of a science.”
Tony’s eyebrows rose high above his mirror shades. “Is that so?” The hand on Steve’s waist trailed slowly down, resting on the small of his back. “So you’ll get a room with me this weekend?”
“I don’t really see why-” Steve was cut off with a small gasp when the raven turned to him suddenly, pulling him off the road and placing his other hand on his chest. Tony stretched up onto his toes, eyes hidden behind those mirror shades and mouth slightly upturned.
“I don’t know about you,” he said in a low, sultry voice, his other hand lowering still further until he buried it in Steve’s back pocket. He leaned closer, pressing their chests together as he breathed in Steve’s ear. “But I would really, really like some alone time.”
The implication of getting a hotel room together, and the images that implication conjured, brought heat to Steve’s cheeks. He raised an eyebrow himself, trying to play off the flush as he drew them still further off the path. He led them into the shadow of a building where he placed a hand on the wall behind the smaller man, effectively trapping him.
Tony’s throat bobbed, but behind those shades Steve still couldn’t get an honest read on him. Steve glanced around pointedly, taking in the quiet deserted streets around them. At length, he smiled down at Tony. “I’d say we’re pretty alone right now.”
The raven smiled lasciviously, and that hand on Steve’s chest began to migrate down his midriff. Tony paused at the hem of his jeans, and ran his hand along it, chasing chills. Steve reached up, gently cupping his face with the hand not confining Tony to the wall. He ran a finger along his jaw, then gingerly took the shades and lifted them up into the raven’s hair.
Dark, guarded eyes regard him intensely. “So we are,” he breathed, running his hand back along to the fly of Steve’s jeans. Heat rose in Steve’s chest against the winter chill, and he pressed forward, pinning the hand between them as he pressed Tony against the wall.
The raven’s breath caught, and he let out an incredulous laugh. Steve leaned in further still, lips not quite touching. “What would we do, with a whole night to ourselves?” he breathed.
Tony looked up at him, swallowing. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Steve swore he saw red creeping up the smaller man’s neck. “I can think of a few things,” he says, clearly trying to sound cocky despite the slight waver in his voice.
The blush and mild fluster, though well concealed, made Steve’s heart beat strangely. The mild nerves showing through are really rather flattering. He wondered how else he could elicit such becoming disquiet. The hand he had on Tony’s face he trailed slowly down his chest, avoiding the cold circle where in the dark that entrancing glow emanates.
Tony pulled his hand from between them around to Steve’s waist, running the other through his hair rhythmically. A fragile sort of sincerity existed in the movement, and when Steve met his roommate’s eyes, there was a deep weight in his gaze. Then, observing Steve, the look turned mischievous once more. The hand in his hair slid to the back of his neck, and Tony pulled them together a little forcefully, pressing his lips to an unbelievably sensitive spot right below the blond’s ear.
Steve let out a small gasp, not expecting the move to be so effective, and felt himself shudder. Tony kissed the spot roughly, teeth grazing the neck tissue and Steve felt physically weak at the knees as the heat pooled in his stomach. Encouraged, he began trailing kisses down the sensitive muscle.
Steve’s breath went heavy, and he tried to lean in but Tony gripped his hair. That, for some reason, made his stomach flip. Then he caught another spot, near the collarbone, and Steve failed to repress a small whine.
The raven pulled back, looking up at him triumphantly. “Something like that, but with a little more… coverage,” he said tauntingly. Before Steve could recover his wits, the raven winked, lowered his shades, and ducked under Steve's arm and out of the shadow of the building.
He made it several steps down the boardwalk before Steve mastered his racing heart. The temptation to slam the raven against the wall and undress him right there in the alley he tamped down insistently, evening his breathing and collecting himself before following his roommate.
When he caught up, the two walked in silence for a while, a respectable distance between them. At length, Steve hummed thoughtfully. “You’re on,” he decided. If it feels right, he thought. And why not? He’d already come this far.
“Hmm?” Tony asked, looking lost in thought.
“Let’s get a room this weekend.”
“Oh.” Tony looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “Oh?” he repeated.
“What the hell, right?” Steve reasoned, shrugging. “I mean… I don’t know what we’re doing, but… maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
A mischievous look turned the corner of Tony’s mouth slightly upward. “You are so on, Rogers.”