#to hate someone based on just their orientation is far too impersonal for him

[ketchupcrisp]

#askstrange: so what does a “True” pairing look like? Why does the world care so much that Steve and Tony were both Trues? Would it have been different if one of them was.. one ‘grade lower’ than a True?

Ah, yes. The fundamental contradiction of Trues: they are both nothing special and extremely unique. The deceased version of Tony Stark was correct in arguing that much of the mythos built up around True identification is, essentially, a sales tactic. True orientations are such a rarity that it became easy for them to become little more than a marketing tool, encouraging those outside of those classifications to feel they must make up for a perceived lack through the purchase of jewelry, luxury vacation, cars, etc.

And yet, the mythos is not entirely a fiction. It derives from something deeply real, a way in which the biological and social components of True Dominants and submissive are in near perfect alignment. Perhaps, nauseating though I may find it personally, it is better that I show you the first time Stark decided it might actually matter…

*Even the team, who were far more aware than most of putting too much pressure or focus on Steve and Tony’s True designations, were obviously curious the first night after the two of them had sex. Tony could feel their eyes on both of them as he and Steve tried valiantly to make it through a normal breakfast, seeking out…well, he didn’t know. Rainbows shooting out of their asses? The two of them bursting into a perfectly timed duet? Some kind of supernatural glowing?

He didn’t make it through his pancakes this morning, and from Steve’s faint look of disapproval, Tony guessed that his time before they had some kind of Conversation about eating and rules and shit was numbered. But he had to get out from under those stares, and the weight of the expectations behind them. Because truth was…it hadn’t been quite as amazing as the box had promised. Oh it had been fun of course. Steve was a generous and capable lover, and more confident in his Dominance than Tony had expected. But for all the hype…maybe even because of the hype, he’d felt curiously underwhelmed in the aftermath.

It was almost a relief when Steve was called in to SHIELD HQ that day, despite his having attempted to secure the day off. (The organization was still in shambles, and with such a limited number of people possessing high level clearance, sometimes Steve just didn’t have a choice.) Tony spent much of the day in the shop, ignoring the team’s invites for lunch and blocking the attempts that both Natasha and Coulson made to enter his space. (That would teach them to ruin Tony’s pancakes! And besides, he might have to embrace his submissive instincts on occasion, but that didn’t mean he needed the team checking up on him and hovering like this just because Steve wasn’t there.) Even despite what turned into a bit of a workshop binge, he still beat Steve to bed that night. He was on the edge of dozing when the noise of heavy footsteps preceded Steve’s entry into the bedroom. (Weird…for a big guy, Steve rarely sounded like it when he walked.)

Steve looked…awful. Drawn and defeated and so painfully young. It was all wrong, the way Steve’s shoulders were slumped, the effort every simple movement seemed to cost him. The sight of Steve staring down at his boots like bending down to untie them would be his undoing set something prickling all along Tony’s skin.

Despite all the hoopla about Trues, submission had never come naturally or easily to Tony. He hated it for many reasons, but the most humiliating one was how often he was incorrect in his guesses about what his Dominant wanted or needed. In some cases it was because he’d been so frustrated and angry to need the submission in the first place that he hadn’t bothered to ask or observe enough about the Dom to have a real sense of their desires or expectations. But even when he’d tried, even when he’d put every bit of his goddamn genius intellect into it, Tony had failed more often than he hadn’t. So he’d chalked it up to another consequence of his forced lack of orientational socialization (thanks, Howard!) and accepted that even when forced to cede to his body’s ridiculous requirements, his role as a submissive wouldn’t be any less of an act than his decades-long impersonation of a Switch had been. But right now—now it was like someone had handed him a detailed, well-written and extremely thorough guidebook, and then illuminated the path ahead of him for good measure. For once, Tony knew exactly what to do next.

He was off the bed and on his knees before he’d even consciously planned to stop feigning sleep. By the time Steve seemed to catch up with the sight in front of him, Tony was halfway done unlacing the first boot, and was urging Steve to lift his foot .

“You don’t have to—” Steve’s exhaustion was threaded through the half-hearted protest, but Tony could hear the cautious excitement there too. It felt like having been listening to a radio turned one or two clicks away from the correct station, only to have someone finally find the right frequency. The buzzing and static were gone, leaving behind nothing but crystal-clear sound. (If it wouldn’t have made him the most pathetic human being ever to live, he might have fucking sobbed right there on Steve’s dusty boots.)

He made quick work of shoes and socks, then methodically stripped Steve of the rest of his clothes, piling all of them neatly on the bench in front of the bed. That was when he finally allowed himself to look at his Dominant, who was staring back at him with not a single trace of the exhaustion that had coloured his features just minutes before.

“Tony.” His name. All Steve whispered was his fucking name, but no one had ever said Tony’s name quite like that, as if those four letters contained all the truth there could be in the world. He slid to his knees again, heedless of everything he knew about how to get there gracefully, with poise and control. Steve’s fingers tangled in his hair, pulling Tony’s head to rest against Steve’s thigh. The muscles that Tony’s cheek pressed against shook with fine tremors, and he spared a few seconds to feel grateful, so fucking grateful, that it wasn’t just him, that Steve could feel it too.

Every simple action on either of their parts caused the exhilarated thrumming of Tony’s system to intensity tenfold. By the time Steve was fucking him, helping Tony ride his cock by physically lifting him up and down on it (Tony was never going to snark on super soldier strength again holy fuck he wasn’t he wasn’t), they didn’t even need anything so base as language. Words would have gotten in the way of how Tony’s entire system seemed to have rewired itself to predict just what would make Steve gasp and thrash and surge with Dominance so intense that it should have been terrifying.

He would reflect later (much, much later) about what made that particular night what it was. Tony and Steve had scened together before, had fucked just the evening prior, there was no reason in the world for it to suddenly feel like what everyone said about Trues was not just possible, but the most absurd understatement in human history. Except maybe that was the point. Maybe it had only been when they’d stopped trying to prove anything, when they’d been nothing but a submissive trying to comfort his Dominant after a long day, that their instincts had been able to recognize one another for what they were.