Off the prompt "cuddles."

I just attempted to select "Tony Stark" as a mood rather than an icon. *facepalm*

Okay, I have no idea whether this particular story will ever see the light of day so I just need to complain, COPIOUSLY, that TONY STARK IS FUCKING INSANE. At one point Steve ends up eavesdropping on Tony and Pepper gossiping about him and *flail* them, how things are going between him and Tony (the sex is apparently not as exciting as Tony would like, but on the other hand he does acknowledge that Steve HAS actually put people through walls literally and that would probably be something to avoid, no matter how much he likes the idea of getting fucked through the wall. or floor. or mattress, if you're going to be vanilla. Oh fucking Tony, what is even wrong with you).

When Tony realizes Steve's been listening, he doesn't seem embarrassed or bothered (other than by the fact that Pepper was planning to take Steve out to lunch where Tony couldn't use JARVIS to eavesdrop on them gossiping about him) and in fact he's like "Well, of course you'd be interested" and tells JARVIS to set up a subscription feed basically, to drop surveillance audio in Steve's inbox anytime Tony talks about him. And Steve facepalms, because WHAT DO YOU EVEN, and Tony is like, "What? I mean, I did it for you because you wouldn't know to ask, and that's not fair, I could be pulling all your conversations," but the thing is, he's not actually? Like, yeah, he totally wants to hear what Pepper is going to tell Steve about him, but on a daily basis, no, he's not actually that much of a stalkertastic spy boyfriend. And when he did it he was being halfway sarcastic and halfway serious and Steve can't actually figure out if Tony means for him to listen to all these files or not because what sane person would do that.

(In a related incident, Pepper tries to give Steve her privacy override with JARVIS so he can have time not under Tony-accessible surveillance; Tony is like, "No, that won't work, that's keyed to your voice signature. JARVIS, generate a full set of overrides for Steve and send it to his inbox." This whole time is really weird for Steve and his burgeoning affair with email.)

But so for ages Steve gets just random snippets in his email of like, Tony asking JARVIS where Steve is in the house or if he's already had lunch or whatever, that he doesn't feel any guilt about listening to because it's not like eavesdropping on gossip but it does kind of make him smile, how often Tony thinks about him and checks on him when he's in the middle of other shit down in his workshop or whatever. It's like when you save that one voicemail that's just something dopey like "I'll see you there at 8, love ya babe" because you want to have it in your phone to listen to whenever, except that Tony is inadvertently leaving Steve about fourteen dopey voicemails a day, and I say inadvertently because Tony doesn't think about it at all, pretty much totally forgot he did that.

So then later in the story they undergo kind of a sea change in their relationship and there's a phone call to Pepper where Tony flails about everything--commitment, identity, the sex, the fucking sex, Steve continues to be a little bemused at how frank Tony is about his sex life, with his ex. And this whole phone call lands in Steve's inbox and this is the first time since that time he was sitting on the stairs eavesdropping that he feels like maybe he's listening to something he's not supposed to be listening to. Except--Tony did this, right? Tony means him to hear this. Is Steve supposed to respond? He really feels like he should respond to Tony's freak-out, even though it wasn't at him directly.

Steve ends up trying to talk to Tony, to apologize for some of the stuff that Tony was freaking out about, but to Pepper and not to him, and Tony realizes pretty much immediately why Steve knows all this shit and is like, "Huh, I didn't think you were listening to those files," and Steve's like "Do you want me to stop, I'll stop," and Tony's like, "No, whatever, I know how to use the privacy override," and pretty much he means it, he means he'll adjust to if he really doesn't want Steve to hear something he's saying he'll block him and the rest of the time, well, he'll be expecting Steve to hear.

Only Steve pretty much figured that was weird, he shouldn't have been listening, Tony didn't expect him to be listening because who does that, and he should really stop. So he does. I think possibly he can't quite bring himself to tell JARVIS to stop the feed, because, you know, even if he's not listening to them it's sort of nice to see the stack of 15-second files from Tony checking on him all day, but yeah, he's not opening any of the files.

So naturally this is when Tony expects Steve to be listening to everything and doesn't understand why Steve is IGNORING all the important EMOTIONAL STUFF he figured out talking to Pepper (because Pepper is totally the sane one). And, just. His wibble. And getting more pissed off at Steve and not saying it to his face and expecting Steve to find out why he's annoyed from him venting to other people and Steve is still not listening to the fucking surveillance audio because he doesn't think he's supposed to because who even does that, and he never should have been in the first place.

I am not sure at what point Tony figures out WHY communication has broken down, or if Steve gets it first once Tony gets pissed enough to say something to his face, but jesus fucking christ on a balloon. I just. TONY, WHAT IS EVEN WRONG WITH YOU. I cannot say this enough. WHAT IS EVEN WRONG WITH YOU, TONY. WHAT.

So. Yeah. I just needed to get that off my chest. TONY. WHAT.