It starts not long after you wake up. You feel it under your skin like needles, like someone is setting fire to your flesh, your nerves, your blood. You roll over and blink blearily against the brightness of the sun, eyes fluttering shut, until you manage to rotate yourself in a way that does not blind you. The man next to you – your boyfriend, your lover, your best friend – sleeps soundly. Strands of golden blond hair fall over into his eyes, shielding the thick black lashes from your sight. He sleeps the same way he lives – quietly, and with more innocence than you are sure you will ever have.
The first time you and Steve make love, you shake as though you are lying in a tub of ice water, arms, legs, even your jaw trembling. He looks at you with blue eyes blown black with lust, and asks you if you are scared, if you are sure this is what you want, like this is the first time that you have ever done this with a man, like he is not the blushing virgin that he is. You cannot help but laugh.
"Steve," you whisper, and your voice is wrecked, "Please."
You do not tell him about the fire, about the panic that worms its way into your belly; instead, you lay there and lose yourself in him. He breathes into your neck, peppers your throat with kisses, tells you that you're beautiful, and you forget for a moment what exactly it is that you fear. When you come, sharps bursts of pleasure that travel up your spine and make you moan out his name, Steve wraps you in his arms and holds you tightly against his chest, as if he has resolved to stop the shaking of your bones. It is only after he falls asleep, breathing evenly into the crook of your neck, that the thoughts return, reminding you how you ruin everything you touch; you do not sleep. Rather, you trace the lines of his jaw with your fingertips absentmindedly, sucking in air until finally you have some semblance of peace. When things return to normal, the sun is filtering through your window.
Since then, you have resolved to keep it from him. It pains you, sometimes, to keep things from him. You sit in your workshop, fiddling with circuitry, and whisper terrible things under your breath. He deserves better. You can't give him what he wants. It's been three months, and you're already lying to him. Days like these, with a head full of thoughts that cloud your mind like bees, you spring from your chair and pace the room. Jarvis talks to you, but you do not answer, only listen to the sounds of his voice – and of course you do, because he is your most perfect creation. Sometimes, you drink, enough so that there is a pleasant buzz in your head, but not enough that you make a fool out of yourself. It takes the edge off things. It helps you forget. You know yourself well enough that you can keep from falling apart when you are around Steve, but you like to think that deep down, he knows. You like to think that Steve knows you the same way you know the insides of your vehicles, the same way you have memorized the lines and scratches on Dummy's casing. You like the thought, the idea that he knows you the same way you know him.
Now, you roll out of bed and make your way to the bathroom, and it is all that you can do to keep yourself upright and breathing. The anxiety burns through you like you are being poked with embers. Your stomach aches, and your hands tremble, and you step into the bathroom and close the door behind you. The wood is cool on your bare back as you slide down against it, bringing your knees up to your chest. Against your will, your throat constricts tightly.
"Oh, god," you whisper this into your kneecaps like a secret, "Not this, please."
You try to swallow, but your mouth is dry and your tongue feels like it does not belong there, too big to settle into place. You pull yourself together, enough so that you can function, in steps. 1. Breathe in. 2. Breathe out. 3. Crawl. 4. Breathe in. The porcelain of your bathtub soothes the heat that rolls off of your forehead, and you cannot help but sigh into it. Your body shakes, your heart races, and you have to force nausea from your throat back to where it came from. Everything is so warm, so warm, and you know that you only have so much time before Steve notices you are missing, comes to find you, and sees you like this, weak and defenseless and so very useless, lying on the bathroom floor.
This is your biggest fear: you do not believe you are enough. This is not new – you have always felt like this, inadequate and unimportant, as far back as you can remember. You do not suppose your father's emotional distance and neglect did much to prevent the development of this attitude, but you try to refrain from thinking about him. It haunts you, though, in dreams, and waking thoughts, in your past and your present and your future. It is partially why you spend so much time in the workshop, tinkering and improving and creating new suits. When you are inside them, when you feel the cool of the metal through your body suit, when you move in perfect sync with them in battle – that is when you are most important, most useful.
You try to stand up. Your mind agrees, and for a moment you can almost picture yourself standing, moving, pacing back and forth in order to put this behind you, but your legs do not cooperate. The thumping of your heart is deafening; you can feel the blood pumping in your veins, and suddenly there is a fluttering in your chest, behind your arc reactor. This is new – your breathing picks up, and your hands tingle, and you have never felt your lift spinning so far out of your control.
The door opens. When you look up, Steve is standing there, eyebrows furrowed in confusion and concern. He's beautiful, you think, somewhere in the darkness of your mind, he is so beautiful. And he is – Steve looks at you, and he opens his mouth, and for a moment you think he might lecture you.
"Oh, Tony," he whispers instead, and kneels beside you on the tile floor.
You let him run his hand up and down your back instead of fighting, mostly because you know that will not go over well. He squeezes at the junction between your neck and shoulders, and you feel some of the tension slip out of your muscles. Steve's lips press against the side of your head, just along your temple.
"What can I do?" He asks, softly, quietly, so sweetly. You don't deserve this, you think, and you know deep down that you do.
There is no way to tell him what you want. The words you have cannot convey the ache that you feel, the way that your blood travels through you like fire, eating at your nerves and skin and your everything. With trembling hands, you reach out for him, clinging to him in a way that you have never clung to anything before. He wraps you in strong arms and holds you to his chest, whispers sweet nothings in your ear until your breath comes against his neck in puffs that are no longer erratic and jagged, but steady and full.
"Steve," you whisper, and your voice is wrecked, "Please."
He holds you the way he held you the night you first gave yourself to him – strong enough to stop your shaking, and with enough warmth to show you that you are loved.