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Steve is trying to fuck and run.
Never mind that they’re past that point. There’s his toothbrush by the sink in the bathroom and his sketchpad sitting open on the coffee table.
Tony watches with heavy-lidded eyes as Steve dances around the room, gathering his clothes, muscles moving under his skin like waves. Morning light pours in through the window, catching on small spots of dust and casting just enough of a shadow on the bed that Steve doesn’t see Tony slide until he’s sitting up against the headboard, stretching until the sheets slip off half his body.
Steve heads for the door. “Going somewhere, sweet cakes?” Tony takes pride in the way Steve stumbles and stops.
“Jesus fuck, warn a guy.”
“Oh, but you’re ever so pretty when you blush,” Tony drawls, and Steve levels a look at him that makes it obvious he’s caught on to the sarcasm. Steve’s shoulders slump as he melts back into the room, no longer on the tip of his toes, poised to make a break for it. Tony raises one eyebrow and waits Steve out.
“I…have something to do.”
“Oh, I’m quite aware you have something to do,” Tony lets his eyes sweep down and then back up, and he moves his leg so the sheet slips a few more inches up.
“No.” Steve seems to have realized that his belt is somewhere in the layered mess on the floor, and has suddenly decided that leaving half his belongings strewn about the apartment is no longer in good taste. For all that Tony’s noticed lines deepening around his eyes and weathered bones rubbing the wrong way, he likes to think he still lives as if he’s young, the shattered pieces of his life flung out around him like it’s tornado season.
“I seem to recall you feeling differently last night.” His display ineffective, Tony rolls onto his stomach, propped up on his elbows, and fishes around under the pillows for a crushed pack of cigarettes and a lighter that had fallen out of his pocket the night before. Steve makes a noncommittal hum somewhere behind him and Tony hears the clanging of the belt buckle as Steve pulls it from under a pile of clothing. His fingers trace a quick swipe up Tony’s spine as Steve passes on the way to the door. Tony takes a drag from his cigarette, holds it in for a moment, and then sighs it out before speaking.
“Say hi to Peggy for me.”
Steve stops in the doorway, a jagged silhouette. Tony smirks.
Steve’s fingers curl around the doorframe tightly. “Don’t be a dick.”
“You love my dick.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Tony turns his face up and blows perfect rings of smoke up at Steve’s head. Steve doesn’t smoke and Tony only smokes Newport, so it raises questions when Steve goes home to his girlfriend smelling like smoke.
“I have to go.” He walks away without looking back. Tony hears the door shut with a forceful snap a moment later, and his lips curl in a grimace around his cigarette. He rolls onto his back again, leaning an arm up over the edge of the bed so the ash doesn’t drop and light the sheets on fire. With his luck, he’d start the apartment on fire. He doesn’t think the insurance company calling about his love nest is the gentlest way for Pepper to find out that he’s having an affair. Then again, there are worse ways.
Tony sucks his cigarette down to the filter and watches the smoke dissipate in the air above him. He has six hours before he has to pick up Peter from school. You could burn a lot of things in that time. The question is which he wants to lose first.