I am so, so sorry for the delay. School. That's all I have to say is school. If I could just write fanfiction all day, I would. But, no, I have to learn things. Pssh. Learning. Anyway, enjoy! I will try to update much faster now. I hope nobody hates me.
While Tony slept, he dreamed. He dreamed of falling. He watched the Hellicarrier grow smaller and smaller in the distance, and felt the branches breaking and snapping beneath him as he fell through the trees. True, it was probably the branches that had saved him, but that didn't mean they hadn't hurt like a bitch on the way down. When he finally made contact with the ground, Tony woke up.
He shot up in bed making a strangled noise that was half out of fear and half out of the pain of sudden movement. He gasped and tried to steady himself. Tony felt pathetic as he watched his hands shake. Up until now Steve hadn't seen this side of Tony, a fact for which Tony was grateful. But tonight Steve had been too worried to leave.
"You should have told me you were having nightmares." A soft voice sounded from the side of Tony's bed. Steve's large, warm hand made contact with Tony's chest, pressing the smaller man back down on the bed. Once Tony was settled the hand moved to rub gently up and down the brunette's side, mindful of all the sore spots.
"I'm fine." Tony insisted once Steve had successfully pulled him out of his head. Blue eyes stared down at him, soft and concerned and disbelieving. "I really am. Fine, you know…" Steve obviously still didn't believe him.
"How can I help, Tony?" Steve asked.
"You could bring me a bottle of vodka." Tony suggested, earning himself a disapproving (if not ever-so-slightly amused) glare from the super soldier.
"Tony." Steve said warningly. "I'm being serious. I want to help."
"Cap, I really don't think there's much you can do, this time." Tony sighed as a heavy weight seemed to draw his eyelids closed again. As he drifted off, the genius felt the bed shift next to him and blinked on weary eye open to watch Steve crawl carefully into bed with him.
"What are you doing?" Tony asked lightly, a small smirk twitching at the corners of his lips.
"Something I kind of wish somebody would do for me when I have nightmares." Steve said quietly, sheepishly. A rosy blush tinted the captain's cheeks and he found himself unable to look Tony in the eye.
"You have nightmares?" Was what Tony decided to take away from the admission.
"Yeah."
"What about?" The brunette was genuinely curious now. "What does captain America have nightmares about?"
"Um, you know, sometimes it's just the usual PTSD thing. Kind of like replaying the events back to myself while I sleep. Sometimes I dream of Bucky, falling off a train. And I play that scene over and over again and when I wake up I just kill myself for never catching him, because I'm a super soldier, I should have been able to save him." Steve said, settling in next to Tony, placing one cautious arm around the other man's shoulders. "And one time I dreamed that I had caught him. In a way, waking up was worse that time around."
"I also have nightmares about the ice. What it felt like. To die. It was awful Tony. Most people think I just went to sleep, but I didn't. I half drowned and half got severe hypothermia first. I never knew the cold could burn like that. And Peggy's voice. I hear her, how broken she sounds. I hate that. It might be the worse part, just knowing how much I hurt her." Steve continued.
"But the worst dream, well, it's different. I dream that I go to sleep one night, and I just don't wake up again. I can hear the world around me, and feel it changing, but I'm still asleep. And another seventy to a hundred years go by and I wake up. But there's no one there. No one to help me adjust, to show me what's changed. No body knows who I am. I'm lost and it's terrible." Steve sighed sadly and the breath of air ruffled the genius's hair. "What do you dream about."
"Used to be a cave. In Afghanistan." Tony said tiredly. "Now it's falling." Tony suddenly huffed out a low chuckle.