“I missed you,” Steve whispers, warm breath ghosting over Tony’s tingling lips. Before Tony can take in the blush he knows is there, Steve buries his face against Tony’s neck and hugs him closer still. “God, I missed you so much.”
They’ve not seen each other for weeks at a time—months, in some cases. But now that this switch has apparently been flipped, time feels precious. The ache of separation that had burrowed under his skin is gone, pushed out by Steve’s touch; Tony wraps an arm around Steve’s neck and the other around his broad shoulders and holds him for the sake of holding him, nuzzling the fine hairs near his nape until Steve shudders.
“Not far,” Tony replies. Steve grunts, pulling back. “Too far—” Steve kisses the words out of his mouth as Tony says them, one hand splayed across Tony’s cheek and holding him there. It’s like burning, this—an instantaneous wildfire, glowing so hot Tony can feel in the fractions of space between their bodies. He wants to tear their clothes off and put them through a shredder and live skin-to-skin with this man, fuck him and taste him and know him and—
“I thought…I was worried…” Steve’s eyes are downcast, his hand heavy on the join of Tony’s neck and shoulder. Steve ‘I Make Up Inspirational Speeches on the Fly’ Rogers, fumbling for words because of a hurt Tony inflicted, is more than Tony can handle. He kisses Steve, this time. It’s the least he can do.
“The rest of our lives intervened,” Tony explains, touching Steve all the while: “it has a bad habit of doing that, did even before this started.” He gestures between them with a lazy finger, vaguely signifying us. We. Steve nods, but his expression is stuck in a moue of uncertainty. Tony takes that same finger and lifts Steve’s chin with it. “I’m sorry,” he says, staring straight into Steve’s wide, unblinking eyes. “I owe you a week’s worth of make outs and dates, I know. If you’ll still have me.”
“Tony,” Steve sighs, palpably relieved. Tony brushes a hand down the front of his chest—Steve catches it right over his sternum. “Is there anything about this, about that night, that makes you think I don’t still want you? That I don’t always want you?”