New York City shines brightly at 1:11am; brighter than the blankets of stars, gathering in suffocating spheres above the Heavens. Steve's awake, as he's awake every other 1:11am, because in his ears again they'd been screaming. They screamed to him every time he closed his eyes.
The blasts of mines, the cries of 'grenade!'
He'd not known the horrors of war before he walked head first into one.
He'd run, Steve decided, throwing on the first-grasped sweatpants and a shirt- a clean shirt- to replace the sweat drenched cling upon his chest and even grabbing a jacket for good measure. He'd run thirteen miles, thirty miles, fifty miles, a hundred and eighty nine miles. He'd run however many miles it took to forget the way that landmines click before they blow.
Only, he'd never forget; not really. He'd just cease to remember for a while.
Steve risked a glance in the mirror before he left the room and saw the shell of a war-torn stranger whom he did not recognise. Steve Rogers did not know Captain America, two sides of the very same coin who would never meet. Whether he was a national icon or a Brooklyn boy had become irrelevant since the formation of the Avengers Initiative. He knew, because Fury had told him. Told him that it didn't matter how broken he was or if he could even hold himself together so long as he still smiled in the public eye, because that's what mattered now. The publicity. The photographs. The newspaper scandals about him and Natasha and 'are they dating?' because they'd been seen buying groceries together once. He didn't matter. Steve Rogers didn't matter.
Captain America mattered, for that was the man that the world had met and carried with it.
Stark tower was decidedly larger than the dingy apartment building he'd found himself in after the thaw, but that wasn't to say it was better as per say. He was here only on a temporary basis, because when Tony'd offered up the prospect of turning the tower into a "superhero frat house", he'd graciously declined.
As graciously as one could decline such a proposition at 3am after an argument with the very same man and a full bottle of Russian standard Vodka (not his first choice, but Nat'd given it to him once and he'd not touched it), anyway. All the same, Tony's almost desperate eyes had compelled him to agree to come over sometimes, and that was tonight.
The skies were dark, abysmal. What he could see through the windows were the silhouettes of walls and electro-stars (street lights), obscured by the hazed reflection of his own broken exterior. Steve sighed harshly through the nose, turned, and left slightly more hurriedly into the turns and dips to the front door.
Only, he didn't get there as quickly as expected, because there was a sudden nightmarish blast Steve's entire body shook, before falling deathly still, because he knew that sound.
He'd heard that sound every single god damn night since the thaw and a few before then, but he'd slept significantly less during his wartime escapades than the maximum three hours nightly that he managed more recently.
Stepping into the living room, an abrupt grunt caught the soldier's attention and he became relatively stiff, freeing mid-step, foot pressing slowly towards the ground and curling his toes inwards against plush carpet. His body, muscles tight, turned towards the location of its source.
If Steve said he'd been fully expecting to see none other than Tony Stark, slumped into the couch cushions with his head rolled to the side, neck aching, mouth slack open and (charmingly) snoring against the television remote in hand, then he'd be lying. But he was safe.
He was safe; the bomb threat was from a movie which he rushed to, squinting over the remote control before switching it off.
The room descended into a comfortable quiet, and his attention turned to sliding the control from between Stark's fingers.
Tony grunted, slapped Steve's hand, and then rolled into it. The soldier took this as incentive to manoeuvre the Iron Man onto his back, feet pressed to the seat's arm, head propped beneath the best replacement for a pillow that Steve could find; the soft jacket tucked beneath his arm, folded into what could vaguely be called a square. Come morning, Tony would know he'd been here.
The red, white and blue was a dead giveaway.
All the same, as Captain Rogers pulled the blanket from the back of the sofa and draped it carefully across the only billionaire who couldn't take care of himself in the history of the world, he supposed he didn't really mind a week of minor teasing if it saved Stark from an aching neck and, in turn, saved the team from a week of whining.
Steve's fingers dared to brush a stray hair from its path to Stark's eye, and delicately passed over a relaxed wrinkle.
He left, then- because touching Tony felt ever so /wrong/- to run thirteen miles, thirty miles, fifty miles, a hundred and eighty nine miles. He'd run however many miles it took to forget the way Tony muttered about donuts in his sleep.
When Tony wakes up, Steve's still running; only, he doesn't know where to, or what from.
He's just running.