#lemon?

Also TW: lots of religious imagery.

--

The church was empty.

Steve blinked up at it slowly. The church hadn't been empty for... he didn't know how long. It had been his. He had... lived there? He'd... attended, he was certain. And he had... he had died there.

He was born there. It had never been empty in his memory. He had many years of memory, of hours of people sitting-standing-kneeling-weeping-praying. He noted the broken shards of glass where there used to be windows. The colors had once danced across the ground at his feet from the amount of candles inside. The large doors were broken, one hanging off its hinges while the other was lying on the stone steps. He wondered at what could have done this. The doors were heavy. It had taken two people to open and close just one of them.

Then he noticed an ethereal glow coming from inside. The church had always been lit by candles. He was no longer cautious like he had been as a child, coughing and coughing and gasping and coughing. He stepped inside.

Steve had seen angels before. Small things, with wingspans like birds. White-feathered, glowing silvery in the dark. Young. He'd enjoyed scaring them off, spitting fire and venom at them.

This angel could destroy him before he even turned to leave, he realized, the coal that had become his heart dropping to his stomach. Old, older than any he had seen, even the ones he saw walking with the much older demons back in the halls of Hell, discussing things he could never understand. And powerful, more powerful than the angels he saw come down and sing 'be not afraid.' This angel glowed the gold of the first angels, ones who twisted the stars into shape.

As Steve watched, the angel turned, face twisted into a cold mask of fury, eyes still glowing a faint blue. It was too late to run. He would be smote. But there was something... wondrous about it, he thought, eyes wide, trying to take everything in before the nothing he'd surely be wrought into. This church had been damned long before now. Steve hadn't even felt a tingle at his toes from any consecration. It had been desacralized long before he'd died on the altar. The angels he'd seen were only as powerful as the ground was holy. This angel hadn't been stopped by the fact that there was nothing holy here.

"An avenger," Steve whispered as the angel faced him, spread its wings wide and high, the span wide enough that its wings were forced to curl back in against the walls. It glared at him, but he only felt an odd sense of... calm. If he died at the hands of an angel who could wipe out a sinful church full of people with black hearts in an effort to cleanse its stain on the earth, he figured yeah, he could be at peace with that.

Steve felt cool hands cupping his cheeks, tipping his head back and forth. He heard excited babbling, frantic and dismayed, but he couldn't understand the words. He didn't... feel dead. His head was fucking throbbing, though, and he groaned, loudly, to try and get whoever was on top of him to stop moving it.

The voice said something, relief practically dripping from it, and Steve forced his eyes open, blinking against the pulse of pain it caused.

The angel was on top of him. As he focused on its face, he saw it smile, relieved like he'd expected, but also self-deprecating, in a way. "There you are," it said, hands cradling his face again. "I misjudged how strong you were. I'm sorry."

"...you think I was weaker?" Steve asked faintly, feeling a thrum of angry heat in his chest.

"I thought you were stronger. Older," it corrected thoughtfully. "I thought you could withstand the blast. I needed to get you out quickly. Another moment, and the holiness sweeping back through the church would have smote you instantly. Consecration is almost instantaneous when an angel is behind it."

"...you..." Steve blinked. "Saved me?"

The angel dipped its head, eyelashes sweeping down against its cheeks. "You weren't the one poisoning this place. I wasn't sent to smite you."

Steve blinked again. He didn't know what to say. He sort of didn't believe he actually still existed. He lifted his hands to put them over the angel's.

"Oh," the angel breathed, eyes flying open wide. It looked just as full of wonder as Steve had felt, seeing its power. "I didn't know demons were so warm."

It had forgotten, Steve realized. It didn't remember a demon's touch. He was suddenly filled with confidence he probably shouldn't have had. He chalked it up to the angel apparently caring about his existence enough to get him to safety instead of being smote as an unfortunate bystander. He lifted a hand to cup the angel's cheek instead, and the angel shuddered, breath puffing out against his wrist cool and fresh from its parted lips as it looked at him with half-lidded eyes.

"You can make it up to me," Steve told it. "Once my head stops throbbing."

The angel blinked at him, a slow up-and-down of the most beautiful lashes, Steve thought. "...How would you like me to make it up to you, imp?" it asked.

If it had been anyone--anything--else, Steve would be offended. But. He knew the angel was powerful. Old. He probably did look like a young imp to it. Steve licked his lips, allowing the angel to see a hint of just how long his tongue was, and the angel let out a startled giggle that sounded like church bells, eyes crinkling with amusement.

"I see why the word 'impudent' starts with 'imp,'" the angel answered coyly.

Steve didn't allow it to demure, instead rolling on top of it and wedging the angel's thighs open with his knees, even as his vision swam and his head throbbed. Its white robes fell around it in a way that Steve could only describe as indecent, and he thought it was only because this was an angel who could easily snap him in half, but it was allowing him the position of being on top of it. "Call me Steve," he offered. He didn't want to be called imp, to be reminded of their stations. He didn't think he could follow through if he kept being called that.

The angel hummed, thoughtful, then arched its back a little with a pleased hum. "I'll call you that," it decided, spreading its wings out over its head. "Older, stronger demons have run away with their tails between their legs. You deserve the respect, I think."

"Thanks," Steve couldn't help but deadpan.

The angel offered him a cheeky smile. "You can call me Tony, Steve."

"Tony," Steve repeated quietly, rolling it around in his mouth. "I like that. Yeah, I wouldn't mind panting that in your ear."

"Panting that in my ear?" Tony repeated, brows furrowing together, before its eyes went wide and Steve had the distinct joy of watching one of the most powerful angels alive blush from its face down to its chest, the redness visible through the thin cotton of its robes. "Oh!"

"Oh," Steve agreed, reaching up to grab Tony's wrists and pin them next to its head. The angel let him, and it stoked the heat in him higher, the pulsing pain behind his eyes now an annoyance he pushed aside rather than a debilitation. Belatedly, he figured he should ask, "You're not gonna smite me for this or anything, are you?"

"Far be it from me to smite you for your innate demonic urges," Tony drawled, smirking, and twitched its hand back and forth just to show him how easy it would be to break free of his grip. It batted its eyes at him. "I like a male form, but I can switch to a female one if you like. To make it up to you."

"This is just fine," Steve promised, and then added a careful, questioning, "Sir?"

"You don't have to call me sir, beloved," Tony purred, wings fluttering against the ground. "Just because I'm old, it doesn't mean I adhere to the social hierarchy." Then it blinked, surprised, before letting out another bell-toll giggle and added, "I don't hold to any of those pronoun conventions either. Call me as you see me."

"I'll call you mine," Steve offered, and Tony threw his head back, laughing with delight. Steve didn't know how to tell him he wasn't being cheeky. He suddenly and irrevocably wanted nothing but the angel beneath him.

He pushed it aside. Meeting angels as powerful as Tony was were a once-in-a-lifetime event, especially among demons as young as he. Instead, he leaned down, pressed his mouth to Tony's, shivering as the angel gasped cool and wet against it. He wondered if Tony's shiver was because of how hot he felt. Hoped it was.

I hadn't really planned on it, at least for a while, but again: I was surprised by the amount of people who were immediately like "Yes. I like it. Picasso."

SO! Some thoughts:

Obviously the Captain and his Lieutenant are Steve and Bucky. Steve is an alpha and Bucky is a beta and they want nothing more than to form a triad with Tony. The only reasons they don't are: 1) Tony is skittish. He accepts their gifts with a sweet smile but he also doesn't open up at all. They can't tell if he's just being polite, or if he's just that guarded and they're desperate to keep seeing him so they don't push for fear of scaring him off. (Hint: He's just that guarded and he would be scared off.) 2) The war is on the cusp of ending and the brass are talking about them triad-bonding with someone important. They're pretty sure they heard a princess's name thrown around. What they really want is to go home and work their farm again but apparently they're expected to live at the capitol and marry well just because they've been successful in all their missions, even though a failure meant them dying so they didn't really have a choice but to succeed. 3) They can't tell if Tony remembers them at all. Tony had been the lord of their lands growing up, was about a decade older than them, and they're scared that Tony might worry they're using him as a 'peons fucking their lord in revenge' way. They're not, they were smitten with him even when they were young, but Tony is... well, they've come to understand that Tony expects the worst for himself. And they can't really blame him when he's been whoring himself for a decade. (Tony doesn't remember them, but even if he did, it wouldn't change anything.)

The York boroughs were the first to fall in the war as they were closer to Hydra's borders. Tony's parents had died and he'd been unable to control his holdings as an unmarried omega, and as it turned out, Uncle Obie didn't necessarily have his best interests in mind anyway. So he'd fallen in line with the rest of the York refugees as they'd fled their homes to escape Hydra's armies. But he doesn't have the skills that the rest of his people have--he was expected to take on a home and make a family and all that entailed. He knows how to keep books, but there's not a lot of that type of work when a country's at war, he comes to realize, at least for an omega. He has no money, most alphas would rather marry their sweethearts or no one at all before going off to war, and there's really no one he can turn to for help nearby. He needs money to travel to the Van Dynes'. So, reluctantly, he... opens himself for business. Just to get enough money to travel. Just to get to Jan and the safety of her home. (Tony cries and cries when Jan shows up at the brothel a year and a half later and asks him to show her the ropes, and Jan just holds him, feeling sorry for herself and for him and for every other omega in the brothel. They eventually move brothels--following the Shield's army is more lucrative, and eventually they might earn enough between them to buy a tiny place for them to share, if the war ever really ends.)

Jan hears someone scoff a mean 'yeah, right,' and then a smack and offended 'hey!' She rushes to get her stockings pulled up so she can run into the common room, but Tony lets out that laugh she hates before she even gets them up past her knees--plastic, brittle, a cheap veneer over a broken heart. It's too late. He's snapped shut like an oyster, hope dashed under someone's sympathetic cruelty.

"No, you're right, that was stupid of me," Tony says, as if his heart hadn't just been trampled.

Jan throws herself into the common room just in time to watch Tony's bedroom door close, and she grinds her teeth in frustration. Closed doors are the only hard boundary they have here, after business has closed. Only the owner of the door was allowed to open it again.

"What have you done?" she hisses, turning wild eyes on the rest of the room.

One of the other omegas scoffs again, glaring back at her. "He's been here longer than the rest of us. If anyone was going to look past him being a whore, it's too late now. They'd choose fresher meat."

Jan isn't aware she's moved until she's pulled off the other girl, blood on her knuckles and hair between her fingers. "Don't you ever talk about Tony again," she hisses, and then, "Just fucking leave her," when a few of the other omegas nervously make motions to drag the girl's unconscious body to her room. She'll get the message when she wakes up.

Or she won't, and Jan will kill her.

It's not even true, she seethes, storming back into the bathroom to wash the blood off before it can get on her stockings. Tony's not popular like the younger omegas when the army comes through, sure, but he's a favorite of the Captain, and his Lieutenant. Jan's seen the way they look at Tony. She knows they're gagging for any time they can spend with him. They seem to genuinely like him, even. They could fall in love with Tony. Justine wouldn't fucking know.

Jan doesn't either, really. She doesn't even know their names. But they look at Tony with soft eyes as they follow him into Tony's room, and Tony has shown her gifts they've given him on top of his fee. Maybe that's the only way they can show him they care. After all, she knows war ruins people.

Marvel showed us Tony Stark with a child and we all went absolutely feral making sure he had one, I see.

When HYDRA Wants a Supersoldier Genius Baby....

Tony smelled... incredibly good.

Bucky and Steve watched him pace the length of their cell from the tiny cot occupying the corner, hands carefully clasped in their laps so that they didn't accidentally look threatening. Tony had snarled at them when he'd thought they were going to stand and advance on him, and quite frankly, no supervillain had ever filled them with as much terror as Tony had in that moment.

Tony was speaking. They knew he was. They couldn't really make out the words over the blood pounding in their ears, the hyper focus they had on the way Tony's slacks were beginning to cling to his ass and thighs as his body started to leak with arousal. They'd all been given a lower dose of some sort of aphrodisiac, but apparently Hydra hadn't wanted to chance Tony's weaker body and given him a smaller dose.

That, or Hydra had completely underestimated the rage Tony would feel when he realized he was being forced into an unscheduled heat.

Tony turned toward them, throwing his hands out as he shouted something. It sounded like one of the adults from a Peanuts short. They nodded and hoped that was correct. Tony had shown no compunction against simply grabbing the chair that constituted their only other piece of furniture and attempting to beat them with it.

Tony stared at them, expectant. Steve and Bucky stared back, feeling wholly inadequate for being so horny they could barely think straight when Tony apparently wasn't. Tony sighed. They tried very hard to listen.

"If I actually get pregnant, you can't get mad at me," Tony repeated slowly.

"Why would we get mad at you for something Hydra did?" Steve asked, bewildered.

Bucky blinked, stunned. "If you get--so that means? Yes?"

I mean, who had any doubt that Tess was a top?