It's 3:30am and Steve is cold.
So damn cold.
He went to bed hours ago, praying that tonight would be different, that for once since he "woke up" he could sleep through the night. His king size bed is layered with seven of the towers warmest blankets and his body is still convulsing as if he were having a seizure. His teeth chattering so hard it feels like he's going to crack them all in half. He even had Jarvis put the heat up to 90 degrees in his room but nothing is working. He just can't stop shivering. He can't stop.
Nothing helps the cold that seems to be sunk down right to his bones. That swirls in his blood and flows through his veins making his body feel hypothermic. He can't even feel his hands and feet anymore, their just there.
He feels as if he's freezing to death all over again. He just can't seem to get warm.
During the day it's controllable. He's able to keep the tremors to a minimum, and stop the constant trembling in his hands by putting them in his pockets or clasping them together. He wears as many layers as he can without looking suspicious. He also has the distraction of the other avengers to keep the cold and ice off his mind even just for a little while. Nights are however, almost unbearable. The memories of his past engulf him, and he's by himself with no one but his haunted thoughts to keep him company. The emptiness and the pain of losing everything swallow him, just like the water that filled his lungs when he crashed the plane.
He shakes and shakes and shakes and he feels so pathetic that he can't stop this. That both his body and mind are turned against him. The frustration of it all makes him want to scream and scream until his throats bleeds and keep screaming until his cold blood surrounds his even colder body.
He can't though, because then everyone would realize how messed up he is and Captain America has to be perfect. Captain America is strong, heroic and brave. There is no room for the useless, weak, and pathetic Steve Rogers in this century. So he won't let them know. He won't let them see what this is doing to him. They'll never know that he wishes he was never found.
So he'll smile, laugh and control the shaking. He will act as if everything is fine and that Captain America is perfectly fine. Even if Steve Rogers is not.
He just wants to feel warm. He just wants the ice to thaw that has frozen around his heart.
It's so hard to sleep when your cold.