Work Text:
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Tony ran his fingers through his hair irritably, ignoring how they came away sticky with gel and hairspray and god only knew what else. "For the last time, I didn't sleep with her."
"Who said anything about--" Steve's eyes widened. "Oh my god, you did, didn't you. You slept with her--" and they were off and running.
"What, no, how the fuck do you get 'you totally slept with her,' from 'I didn't sleep with her,' is this some kind of forties lingo that I'm not getting, Cap, cause last time I checked--"
"I didn't even say anything about sex! You were the one who jumped to conclusions, so clearly that means you have something to hide--"
"--the dumbest thing I have ever heard, and keep in mind I run R&--"
"--only been three months, Tony, Jesus, everybody told me that you were, but I never thought, three months didn't know you'd be such a--"
They both fell silent at the same time, chests heaving, glaring at each other with something that looked a lot like anger and a little like heartbreak. Typically, Tony was the first to break the silence.
"Such a what, Rogers?" he demanded.
Steve stayed silent, but his gaze skittered away from the impromptu staring contest they'd been having (and really, being part of an elite superheroes team probably wasn't an excuse for as much immaturity as they ended up showing) and wandered along the crease of his suit jacket, the angle of the Picasso on the wall.
"A what?" He should really have let it go, but Tony's specialty was pressing on the most spectacular bruises, just to see what colour they would turn under pressure, and anyway, he felt like this was something he might have to know at some point in time.
Super-soldier-in-bed stirred. "Nothing," he muttered half-heartedly. "Nothing, St--Tony."
"Oh, come on," Tony said viciously, "you weren't this shy earlier. Thought we'd broken you of your bad habit of never saying a thing you mean, yeah, Cap? It's the twenty-first century and I'm Tony fucking Stark; believe me you I've heard everything in the book and the fucking dust jacket."
As far as smartassery went, this was undeniably true. Tony Stark, post-traumatic psycho, or Tony Stark, merchant of death, or even Tony Stark, billionaire fratboy, were all easy targets. But not even years of projecting shark-like grins at tabloid reporters and blinding schmoozery with lemon-sour socialites hadn't--couldn't have, would never have--prepared him for the way all the air in his gut vanished at Steve's next words, half-mumbled, half-defiant, and all angry.
"A whore, okay? I mean, christ, Tony, you know I hate calling names, but what else am I supposed to call it? Untrustworthy, unreliable, you flirt with everything with two legs and a pulse, I never know whether you're going to spent the night with me or someone else, I leave you alone at a party for two minutes and you're already chatting up some, some dame when I get back--"
And oh, okay, this was what all the fucking cliches meant when they talked about not being able to breathe. "...Right," he managed, restraining himself from gasping in great gulps of air with superhuman control (because he was a superhero, remember? fucking Iron Man, not some pretty boy lab rat). Whore. God. Was that really how Steve saw him?--had seen him, all this time?
He was done, he was so done with this, he was so fucking over not being able to fucking talk to someone, anyone, without Captain fucking America throwing an American fucking tantrum. Fuck this, he was Tony fucking Stark, bitches, and he might not deserve better than this, but he could damn well do better than this.
"For what it's worth, Cap," his voice was remarkably steady for someone whose lungs were rapidly starting to fail from lack of proper oxygen, "I didn't sleep with her. I didn't sleep with any of them, not since--" he stopped. Not like Rogers would fucking believe him, anyway. Realising that he'd spent the last three months slowly obsessing over (read: falling in love with) a man who'd thought of him as an unreliable, untrustworthy whore was more painful than he'd have preferred.
He closed his eyes and turned away.