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The first time was two months after New York. Steve hadn’t been living in the tower all that long, and Tony had the feeling he didn’t really want to be there but didn’t know where else to go. JARVIS said he didn’t sleep much. Tony wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t have to or because he was just as fucked in the head as everyone else on the Island of Misfit Toys he’d built in the middle of Manhattan.
Tony didn’t sleep much either. He didn’t need much anyway, and he slept less than he should. That night, he’d been working on R&D for Stark Industries, but his vision had started blurring and JARVIS had finally cut him off.
He was still too caffeinated to sleep, so he headed up to the common area to get something to eat and watch the city until he got sleepy.
“Sir,” JARVIS said in the elevator, “Captain Rogers is in the common area.”
“Oh,” Tony said, not quite sure why JARVIS thought he had to tell him. He and Steve weren’t BFFs, but they could carry a civil conversation if they ran into each other in the kitchen. Usually. “Does he want to be alone?”
“He may wish to be,” JARVIS said, “but I do not believe he should be.”
That... did not sound good. “Is he okay?” Tony asked.
“His vitals indicate that he is in distress, but I do not believe he is in immediate danger.”
Well, that was nice and vague. Tony didn’t have time to ask for clarification, either, because the elevator doors were opening.
It took him a few seconds to find Steve. He wasn’t in the kitchen and he wasn’t immediately visible in the living room. Steve was so big, he was usually pretty easy to spot. But he’d wedged himself into the corner made by the giant sofa, sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest, as small as he could possibly get. He was completely invisible from the kitchen, the bar, and the vast majority of the living room. If JARVIS hadn’t said anything, Tony might have missed him altogether.
It took Tony under five seconds to realize Steve was having the world’s quietest panic attack. Tony’d had more than his fair share since Afghanistan, and they were never pretty. He wheezed and sometimes he heaved. There were tears and snot involved. It was disgusting.
Steve was... efficient, for lack of a better word, in his panic. Tony could see how fast he was breathing, and he was crying, but there was no flailing about. He was just very quietly spiraling out of control. A very contained sort of out-of-controlledness.
Which, Tony thought, was a pretty good metaphor. If this was a recurring thing, he’d had no idea. He’d bet money none of the others had either. Maybe JARVIS had, but JARVIS hadn’t said anything until Tony was on his way up to the common room in the elevator, and he bet that if he hadn’t chosen to come up here, JARVIS would’ve never said a word.
He and his AI were gonna have words. Privacy was all well and good, but some things he had to know about.
That was for later, though. Now was for Steve.
Fortunately, panic attacks were something Tony could deal with. He crouched down next to Steve and put his hands on top of his. “Cap?” he said quietly. “Hey, Cap, look at me if you can.” Steve’s eyes opened. Goddamn, his eyes were even prettier when he cried, and that was just not fair. Tony picked up his right hand and pressed it to his chest. “Need you to breathe with me, okay? In and out, just like this.”
Tony breathed in slowly, then exhaled. Steve dragged in a ragged breath and let it out on a sob. “You’re okay, you’re safe, you’re not about to be eaten by a bear, even though your body thinks you are,” Tony said, keeping his voice even.
Steve actually kind of cracked a smile at that, and then he managed another ragged breath. “Good,” Tony said. “Now one more. One breath at a time. That’s how you get through this.”
It took a few minutes, but eventually he was breathing more evenly on his own. Tony felt comfortable dropping his hand. He stood up,got an afghan off the back of the couch, and draped it over Steve. Steve let his head fall back against the couch.
“Be right back,” Tony told him, and went into the kitchen.
JARVIS already had the water boiling. Tony found Bruce’s stash of herbal tea, the stuff he swore kept the Hulk away, and stole some for Steve. Somehow he didn’t think Bruce would mind. He added honey and lemon, same as Bruce did, and while that was steeping he got a box of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies he’d been hoarding since the spring out of the back of the cupboard.
Steve still looked pretty awful when Tony dropped down next to him on the floor––with a faint groan, because he wasn’t twenty or even thirty anymore. Steve was pale, with dark circles under his eyes, and his face was streaked with tears he hadn’t bothered to wipe away. “Drink,” Tony told him, pushing the mug of tea into his hands. “And when you feel like you can, have some of these.” He held up the box of cookies, and then opened it, taking three for himself.
Then he shut up. Contrary to popular belief, he was capable of shutting up.
Steve was quiet for a long time. Their shoulders brushed together. When Steve finally spoke it was, predictably, to apologize. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“Don’t,” Tony said. “Don’t apologize, Steve. Not for this.”
Steve went quiet againt. Tony offered him the box of cookies and he accepted them. “I don’t know why––sometimes I just, I can’t breathe. It reminds me of when I used to get asthma. But it’s not... that.”
“It’s a panic attack,” Tony said. “I’m intimately familiar with them. Something probably sets you off––I have triggers I avoid if I can, but of course I can’t always.”
Steve looked down at the cookie in his hands. “It’s awful.”
“Yeah,” Tony said softly. “It is.” He cleared his throat. “For a while, when it was really bad, I took medication. It couldn’t stop it once it started, but sometimes it headed it off at the pass. If you talked to Bruce, he might be able to come up with something. You don’t have to just suffer.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. “Maybe.”
But Tony didn’t have the impression that Steve was actually going to give that any kind of real consideration. He didn’t know why; maybe it was bullshit 1940s ideas about masculinity or mental health, or maybe Steve just didn’t believe Bruce could find a way around his super soldier metabolism. Either way, he pegged it as maybe a 9% chance he’d say anything to Bruce. And there wasn’t much Tony could do about that. He knew from experience that no one could force anyone to accept help they weren’t ready for.
But he could be here now. He offered Steve another cookie, and together they watched the sun come up.
***
The second time, Tony was elbows deep in the new suit when his music suddenly cut out.
“What the––”
“Captain Rogers requests your presence in his suite.” JARVIS hesitated. “I suggest you hurry.”
“Goddammit.” Tony ripped off his protective goggles. He guessed it was better that Steve had asked for help this time, but why was he asking him? Bruce and Natasha were better at this sort of thing. Tony guessed he ranked above Thor or Clint, but not by much.
The elevator ride seemed to take forever, but at last the doors opened up onto Steve’s suite. Steve was nowhere to be seen, but there was really only the bedroom and the bathroom to check. The bedroom was empty, but the door to the bathroom was cracked open, with light spilling out of it. “Steve?” Tony said, crossing toward it.
Steve apparently had a thing for corners when he was panicking. He’d wedged himself in between the wall and the bathtub and had his face buried in his knees. Tony could see his shoulders moving as he tried to breathe, way too fast. “Hey, hey,” he said, crouching down. “Steve, can you look at me?”
Steve lifted his eyes and looked up at Tony. His eyes were unfairly blue. “Can’t... breathe.”
“I know. Remember what we did last time?” Tony picked up Steve’s hand and pressed it against his chest. “In and out. Just like this.”
Steve managed a couple of breaths. “Stupid,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut.
“No, not stupid,” Tony said. “And believe me, being mad at yourself for this isn’t going to help. I’ve been there and done that.”
Steve’s hand squeezed his. Tony squeezed back and kept breathing. In and out. Easy as pie, until it wasn’t.
It took long enough that Tony’s knees started to ache from the hard floor. But eventually Steve started breathing more evenly, more steadily. His head fell back to knock against the wall.
“Okay?” Tony asked. Steve nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
He swallowed a groan as he got to his feet. He was just too fucking old for kneeling on bathroom floors anymore.
He rummaged briefly through Steve’s cabinets and found, to his surprise, a stash of Bruce’s tea. He made two cups of it, because Steve apparently didn’t have a coffee machine (sacrilege). He also found a box of Wheat Thins. Not as good as Girl Scout cookies, obviously, but they’d do in a pinch.
“Thanks,” Steve said, when Tony handed him his tea. He just held it in his hands, staring down into it like it was going to tell him his fortune.
Tony managed to sit on the floor next to him without spilling his own. “So. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Steve said dully. “I was watching TV, and... I think I got overwhelmed.”
“You should probably stay away from stuff about war,” Tony said. “I make JARVIS fast-forward through torture scenes and anything involving caves. Or drowning.”
“Oh,” Steve said. And then, as though he was just getting it, “Oh. Jesus Christ.”
“Sorry,” Tony said. “That might’ve been an overshare.”
“No,” Steve said. “No, that’s... I wasn’t expecting it, but it helps. To know. But, um. It wasn’t anything like that. I think it was just––too much I didn’t understand, all at once. And I was already tired and...”
He trailed off, but Tony didn’t think it was because he didn’t have an end to the sentence. “And what?”
Steve sighed. “Sad. I was already tired and sad.”
“Ah,” Tony said. “Yeah. Depression and anxiety are a real dynamic duo.”
“I’m not––” Steve started. Tony stopped him with a look. “Yeah, okay. I guess I’m––I wouldn’t call it depressed. I’m... grieving.”
Tony nodded. “So, you were already sad, and then you got overwhelmed?”
“And then I just... I kept thinking that I was never going back, and I was never going to fit in here, not really, and I just...”
“Spiraled into the bad place.”
Steve nodded, looking down at his tea.
Tony sighed. “Ah, Cap. That just sucks.”
Steve, to his surprise, chuckled. “Yeah, I guess it does. Christ.” He tilted his head back against the wall. “I’m so tired. It’s all just so much work. Everything, from morning to night, is just so fucking hard.”
Tony didn’t know what to say. Nothing he could say was really going to fix the situation. Steve was right: he wasn’t going back. And he might not ever fit in here. In a lot of ways, he was living in a foreign culture, and he might not ever totally assimilate. He might not want to totally assimilate. The people––the entire world––he’d known were gone. Nothing Tony could say would change any of that.
“If you ever want a break from it all,” he finally said, because this was the only thing he could do, “you’re welcome to come find me. We can talk, not talk, whatever. You can hang out with my ‘bots, read or draw while I work. Whatever helps.”
He felt more than heard Steve swallow hard. “Thanks, Tony. I might take you up on that.”
It might’ve been wishful thinking on Tony’s part, but he thought that was a little more genuine than Steve’s previous noncommittal response to the idea of medication. He thought Steve might take him up on it. He hoped he would.
A few days later, Tony had his entire top half buried in the prototype of his next suit when JARVIS said to him, “Sir, Captain Rogers is requesting entry to the workshop.”
“Let him in,” Tony said. “He need anything in particular?”
There was a brief pause. “He says he wants to take you up on your offer to draw while you work. He asked me to convey to you that this is purely preventative, and you don’t need to stop what you’re doing.”
“Oh,” Tony said, with some relief. “All right. Tell him to make himself at home, okay, J?”
“Of course, sir.”
When Tony emerged from the suit an hour later, he found Steve asleep on the sofa, sketchbook open on his chest. Tony covered him with the afghan he kept for when the workshop got too cold and asked JARVIS to turn down the music.
***
The third time, it was Tony. Unlike Steve, who didn’t seem to really know what his triggers were, Tony knew his intimately. And the worst of them was not being able to breathe.
Unfortunately, the arc reactor took up precious lung space and compromised his immune system, so he was unusually prone to lung infections. Lung infections equaled not being able to breathe. Not being able to breathe equaled panic attacks. And panic attacks equaled not being able to breathe. It was a vicious cycle.
It was January and Clint had brought home some kind of creeping crud from a month-long holiday jaunt to only God––or Fury––knew where. Tony had ordered him quarantined, but no one ever listened to him, so Clint had spent a week lounging around the common area, touching everything, leaving his tissues on the sofa, and of course Tony had gotten sick, because who wouldn’t?
Well, the rest of his teammates wouldn’t, because they were a bunch of freaks with super immune systems. Which was definitely not Tony’s situation, not that anyone had figured that out yet, and he wasn’t going to be the one to tell them. He might’ve let everyone else think he was in his workshop on a building binge, when in fact he’d crawled into bed twenty-four hours and barely moved since. Being sick was a never-ending series of indignities, and he didn’t need an audience.
“Sir, are you quite certain you don’t want me to call Dr. Banner? Or perhaps Captain Rogers?” JARVIS asked for probably the tenth time, after a night spent in feverish restlessness. “Your fever is very high, and your lungs––”
“I’m fine,” Tony grunted. The last person he needed to see was Steve ‘I’m So Pretty When I Cry’ Rogers. Even if he wouldn’t have minded propping himself against a nice, firm chest to try and get some proper sleep without risk of triggering a panic attack because he couldn’t breathe through the congestion.
Eventually, his body betrayed him, and he fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. And then his mind betrayed him by sending him straight into a dream of drowning. His head was being held underwater, and he knew he shouldn’t breathe, but his chest hurt, and he couldn’t hold out any longer. He was going to drown––if not here, then later, from the water in his lungs––but he couldn’t, he couldn’t––
“Tony, wake up!”
Tony jerked awake and dragged in a deep breath. Or he tried to. He choked on it, then coughed and gagged, his diaphragm spasming helplessly, uselessly. His body was trying to hyperventilate and it couldn’t even do that, because it couldn’t get any air in at all.
“Fuck,” he heard Steve swear. “JARVIS, start the shower, will you? As hot as it’ll go, but keep the shower bench dry if you can.”
“Mr. Stark’s shower has a steam function,” JARVIS said. “I’ve taken the liberty of starting that.”
“Perfect, thanks.” Steve scooped Tony up. The change in position didn’t help, but things could hardly get worse than they were.
The bathroom was already filling with warm steam. Steve set Tony down on the shower bench, propped up against the cool tile wall. “Hey,” Steve said, crouching down in front of him. “Breathe in and out, right? Just like you showed me.” He picked up Tony’s hand and held it to his chest, just like Tony had done for him.
Tony tried. He choked again, coughed, and then gagged. He leaned forward, almost retching, but the next breath he drew felt a little better. Some of it actually seemed to make it in, and the ringing in his ears and the spinning in his head abated, just a little. Tony managed to raise his head.
Steve handed him a bowl. “Just in case.”
God, how humiliating. But it probably wasn’t a bad idea. Tony felt pretty nauseous, and he had the feeling there was some crap in his lungs that wanted to be expelled.
There was some small––very small––comfort in the fact that Tony had twice now seen Steve at his worst. The comfort would have been greater if Steve’s worst was anything near as ugly as Tony’s.
The steam was billowing properly in the bathroom now, soothing Tony’s throat and nasal passages and making it easier to breathe. JARVIS had added something to the steam––eucalyptus oil, maybe––that was helping, too. And as the feeling that he was drowning decreased, so did his panic. They left bone-deep exhaustion in their wake.
Ah, there was the firm chest he’d thought about. Tony leaned against Steve shamelessly.
“There you go,” Steve said. “Better?”
“Yeah,” Tony managed. He pulled in a deep breath––through his mouth, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Ugh. Remind me to kill Clint. All his fault.”
“Not gonna argue there,” Steve said. He carded his fingers through Tony’s hair, a curiously intimate gesture. It called up memories of Jarvis––the human Jarvis––when Tony had been small. “What happened?”
“Couldn’t breathe,” Tony said. “Which made me panic, because not-breathing is... a trigger for me.” He sighed and it ended in a painful cough. “I’m just gonna sleep right here, okay?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Steve said, sounding a little amused. “But we can stay here a bit longer.”
“Thanks.” Tony closed his eyes.
Steve hesitated. And because Tony was practically in his lap, he felt the hesitation. “I wish you’d told me you were sick.”
“I’m kind of bad about that sort of thing,” Tony admitted. “I have a hard time admitting when I’m not at a hundred percent. I once had a therapist tell me that I have a pathological need to be useful because I’m convinced no one actually cares about me, and also I’m desperately seeking my dead father’s approval, which, obviously, I will never receive.”
Too many words. It left Tony out of breath and also wondering why the fuck he’d felt the need to word-vomit like that all over Steve. It was the fever, he decided. Had to be.
“Oh,” Steve finally said. “Well. Stop that.”
Tony snorted a laugh. It quickly turned into a cough, which eventually resulted in him hacking up a bunch of crud into the bowl in his lap. Which was disgusting, but Steve seemed totally unfazed. Tony guessed he’d grown up sickly in a time when medical enemas were still very much a thing, so he’d probably seen worse.
By the time Tony finally stopped hacking, he was more or less lying on top of Steve, barely able to hold himself up.
“Sorry,” Steve said contritely. “No laughing until you’re better.”
“Yep,” Tony said. “Also, you’re not allowed to move.”
“You really shouldn’t sleep here.”
“I’m not.” Tony closed his eyes. “Just a little longer.”
“Okay.” Steve’s arms tightened around Tony’s shoulders. “Just a little longer.”
Tony must have fallen asleep after all, because he woke to Steve tucking him into bed. He grumbled an incoherent protest.
Steve hushed him and smoothed Tony’s hair back from his forehead. “I’m going to stay, all right? You can sleep propped up here, just as well as you can in the shower. And you should drink something. Is tea okay? It’ll be good for your throat.”
Tony was reluctant to let Steve leave at all, but letting himself get dehydrated would be an all-around terrible idea. “Okay,” he said, and refrained from protesting when Steve climbed out of bed to go make it.
He dozed while Steve was gone and woke only when he slid back into bed. Steve propped him up against him and even helped him hold the mug, because Tony was sleepy enough that dropping it was a real danger. It was hot and sweetened with honey, and Tony had to admit that it soothed his throat.
“You don’t have to stay,” he mumbled when he’d drunk it down to the dregs.
Steve set the mug on the nightstand. He brushed a hand over Tony’s forehead––it must have been a hand, because no world in which Captain America kissed him on the forehead made sense to Tony.
“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” Steve said. “Go to sleep, Tony.”
***
The fourth time, it was Steve again, and this time Tony saw it coming.
Triggers were unpredictable, but once Tony had started paying attention, he’d noticed that Steve really liked being warm. The tower was kept at a baseline seventy-two degrees during the day and sixty-five at night, with the residents able to control their own spaces, and Steve’s was always a little warmer than Tony himself would prefer. He was surprisingly prone to hibernation during the winter, and when he did have to go out, he bundled up way more than Tony would have expected from Captain Stoicism. And while Steve had never said anything, Tony was fairly sure that the hot tub in the gym was his favorite thing about the tower––possibly excepting his teammates, but then again, possibly not.
Unfortunately for Steve, he lived in New York, and that meant actual winter. Last winter had been mild enough, but this year had already been colder and snowier, and then, right after New Year’s, they got hit with a storm that the Weather Channel took to calling a “bomb cyclone.” Tony was pretty sure they were just making shit up, but the cold was real enough, and so was the snow.
Tony liked snow days. If the weather was bad enough to close Stark Industries, all his meetings were canceled and he got to hole up in his workshop. Or he used to, before he had teammates who decided that snowdays meant a Lord of the Rings marathon and hot chocolate on the communal floor. He couldn’t complain too bitterly, he guessed, since he’d gone to some trouble to make the communal floor a place where everyone would want to hang out.
It was also, Tony had to admit, a great place to storm-watch. It was almost entirely glass-enclosed and high enough up to watch the clouds roll in, then watch the snow as it blew around in flurries past the windows and gradually settled in a thick blanket over the city below. So high up, the less pleasant aspects of a city snow storm––such as the inevitable gray slush that accumulated at intersections––weren’t obvious.
It was beautiful and dramatic and cozy, all at the same time. Or it was if you hadn’t once crashed a plane in the Arctic and then been frozen in a glacier for seventy years.
Steve came, of course, because Steve wouldn’t ever think of begging off of team activities. He came, he drank his hot chocolate, and he sat with his back to the windows.
“You okay?” Tony asked him quietly during the lull between Fellowship and Two Towers. Everyone else was actually gathered in a little cluster over by the windows, watching the weather.
Steve grimaced. “Yeah, it’s just... it looks a lot like the view out the cockpit window when I put the plane down. Lots of gray, lots of white, lots of cold.”
Tony wasn’t surprised. “You know no one would think less of you if you left, right?”
“I don’t need to leave,” Steve said, because he was stubborn as ten mules and didn’t know what was good for him. “I’ve been fine sitting with my back to the windows. I think as long as I stay warm, I’ll be okay.”
Tony was dubious, but he knew how obnoxious it was for someone to think they knew your mental health issues better than you did yourself. Even if it happened to be true. “Okay. If you need to leave, though––”
“I will. Thanks, Tony,” Steve added, with a small smile. He reached out and squeezed Tony’s arm. “I mean it. It helps just knowing you know.”
There was just a little bit too much intensity in Steve’s gaze, a little too much emphasis on you in his voice; his hand on Tony’s arm lingered just a little too long. Tony knew he had a crush on Steve, but lately––basically since Steve had put him to bed after his own panic attack last month and sat with him for the rest of the night––he’d been wondering if it wasn’t quite as unrequited as he’d previously assumed.
“Whatever you need, Steve,” Tony said softly, and meant it.
He kept an eye on Steve for the next couple of hours. The storm worsened, and Steve’s mood worsened with it. He got quieter and quieter, and he stopped responding at all to the movie. Natasha caught Tony’s eye, her mouth thin and serious, and he nodded to let her know he’d seen it.
When they stopped for another break after Two Towers, Tony got up to use the bathroom and came back to find that Steve had disappeared. Tony glanced at Natasha, who nodded at the elevators. Tony decided he didn’t feel like waiting and headed for the stairs. Steve’s floor was only two up from the communal one, anyway.
“Steve?” he called, stepping in. The blackout curtains had been pulled in the living room, but Steve wasn’t there. Tony followed his gut to the bedroom.
Steve was standing at the windows. The curtain was in his hand, like he’d been about to pull these, too, but he was staring outside as though transfixed, breathing way too fast.
“Aw, shit, Steve,” Tony sighed. He went over and took the curtain from Steve’s lax and unresisting hand, then pulled them shut, cutting off Steve’s view of the snow. He tugged Steve back toward the bed until the backs of his knees hit it and he sat, abruptly. He looked up at Tony, face pale and eyes so bright and blue. Tony picked his hand up and held it to his chest, just like he had the other two times. Just like Steve had done for him.
Steve spread his palm out over the arc reactor. Tony’s breath caught, somehow taken completely unawares by such a small gesture. Steve leaned in and rested his forehead against the reactor. Tony cupped the back of Steve’s head with his palms and held him close.
It wasn’t quite as bad as the other two. Tony suspected that Steve had nearly headed it off at the pass. In a few minutes, Steve’s breathing was almost normal. Neither of them moved, though.
“It’s warm,” Steve murmured at last. “The arc reactor. I’d never noticed.”
“It puts out more light than heat, but yeah.” Tony’s fingers curled into Steve’s hair at the nape of his neck. “You doing okay?”
“Better.” Steve pulled away and looked up at Tony. “I’m sorry. You tried to warn me.”
Tony smiled ruefully. “The number of things people have tried to warn me about, Steve... Some things you just have to find out for yourself. You want to go back upstairs?”
Steve sighed. “Not really. I kind of want to hide in my bed. But I wouldn’t mind company,” he added, almost shyly, looking up at Tony through his lashes in a way that, from literally anyone else, Tony would have assumed was deliberate. “We could watch the last movie down here.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, mouth suddenly a little dry. “That’s––that’d be good.” Tony cleared his throat. “J, will you tell the others that we’re all good, but we probably won’t be back up?”
“Yes, sir,” JARVIS said. “And I’ve taken the liberty of starting the kettle.”
“Good man, J,” Tony said, and went to dig around in Steve’s cupboards for appropriate snacks. He also made two cups of what he was starting to think of as the post-panic attack tea while he was at it, and put it all on a tray to take back into the bedroom.
Steve was in bed by the time he came back. He’d added a hoodie to his ensemble. Tony flopped on the other half of the bed, and Steve leaned against him, head on Tony’s shoulder.
“Warm enough?” Tony asked, offering him his cup of tea.
“Through and through,” Steve said, and smiled.
***
The fifth time, Tony woke with a start from a dream of black, black emptiness and a nightmare on the horizon.
His chest was tight and he was drenched in cold sweat. The dark of the room was broken only by the arc reactor, and Tony wheezed out a breath, feeling as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. Like in the vacuum of space.
The bedside lamp turned on. “Tony?” Steve murmured, pushing himself up. “Oh, damn. Tony, come on, sweetheart, breathe.” Steve hauled him up bodily and set him against the headboard, gathering his hands up and pressing them against his chest. Tony trained his eyes on Steve’s and tried to convince his body that he wasn’t about to die.
The stupid thing was that he hadn’t even panicked in the moment. In the moment, he’d been totally calm. Accepting even. And now, months later, he was freaking out.
Steve pressed his lips to Tony’s hands in his, and Tony managed to drag in a breath. “Good,” Steve said. “In and out, just like you always tell me. You’re not about to be eaten by a bear.”
Tony tried to force a smile, mostly because Steve looked so worried. He didn’t think he succeeded. His chest still felt tight, and his head was pounding. He could feel tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. Steve frowned for a second, then pulled the blankets up over Tony’s chest, up to his chin, and slid closer––not holding him or restricting him, just... being there.
Warmth was good. There hadn’t been any warmth on the other side of the wormhole. Warmth, and feeling Steve breathing beside him.
It felt like it took forever. It’d been a long time since Tony’d had a panic attack this bad. Maybe since before everyone had moved into the tower. Definitely since before Steve had started sharing his bed.
“There you go,” Steve said quietly. “Better?”
“Yeah,” Tony said. His head was still throbbing, but it felt like a normal headache, not the pressure of oxygen deprivation. He was exhausted. “Bad one.”
“Was it Afghanistan?” Steve asked. “Or...”
“Wormhole,” Tony confirmed, cutting his eyes away.
Steve made a quiet, wounded sound. He leaned in and kissed Tony softly. “Tea?” he asked, pulling away.
“Yeah,” Tony said. “Thanks.” Steve climbed out of bed and headed for the kitchen. Tony hugged a pillow in his stead and said, “TV, J. Planet Earth, random episode.”
“Of course, sir.”
Tony felt totally drained. He felt like he blinked and Steve was sliding back into bed. He hadn’t been sleeping, but he couldn’t have said which episode JARVIS had put on. He let Steve manhandle him into sitting up against him so he could hold the tea. Tony blew across the surface to cool it and let the warmth seep into his hands.
Steve turned and brushed his lips across Tony’s forehead. “You remember the first time you made me this tea?”
Tony blinked. “Yeah, of course. Stole it from Bruce.” He frowned down at his cup. “Actually, I think it tastes better stolen. Most things do.”
Steve gave him a rueful smile. “You don’t have to always ruin the moment, you know.”
“I use irony to distance myself emotionally. This can’t possibly be news to you.” Steve looked supremely unimpressed. Tony grimaced. “Fine. Sorry. You were saying?”
“I was saying,” Steve said, with palpable patience, “that I think that’s when I started to fall for you.”
“Really?” Tony said skeptically. “When I brought you tea? Why then?”
Steve smiled a little. “You’re going to hate it.”
Tony raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”
Steve slumped down a little so that he and Tony were at the same level. “I already knew you were handsome, because I have eyes in my head. And I knew you were brilliant, and I knew you were brave. But that was the first time I realized you were kind.”
Tony felt himself turn bright red. “I do my best to keep that under wraps, Rogers.”
“I know you do,” Steve said, with a smile that looked kind of sad. “But I see it. I see it all the time, even when you don’t mean for anyone to.”
Tony didn’t know what to say. Steve did this sometimes, just said things Tony didn’t know how to respond to. It was disarming and frankly kind of annoying. And right now he felt like he didn’t have any defenses against it, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to—which was maybe even scarier. He’d already let Steve see so much. Not that it was a one-way street; Steve had let him in just as much, maybe a lot more. But that never seemed to bother Steve the way it bothered Tony.
“Steve...” he finally said, at a loss.
“It’s okay,” Steve said, leaning in to kiss him. “You don’t have to say anything. I just... I wanted you to know. How much that meant to me. I really––I didn’t think this century was a very kind place. I still don’t. But that was.”
“It wasn’t––anyone would’ve––”
“No,” Steve said. “Not anyone would’ve. But you did, because you knew, and having someone who knew, when I didn’t think anyone could know...” Steve took a sharp breath. “It made the twenty-first century less lonely, and it made me look at you differently.”
Tony looked at him. “I’m glad,” he said, hoarsely.
Steve smiled. “Me too. Drink your tea.”
Fin.