Disclaimer: See initial chapter.
A/N: I just can't seem to write that sick!Danny installment just yet. This is just a short piece. Hopefully it works okay.
It's dark. That's the first thought that enters Steve's mind. The second isn't much more helpful - it's the middle of the night.
It's dark. Check.
It's the middle of the night. Check.
Need sleep. Double check.
Semi alert, Steve listens for a few seconds, and hears nothing but the pounding of his own heart, and his own breath.
Steve blinks at the bedside alarm clock. It's three in the morning. He's only been asleep for maybe an hour, and up for almost seventy-two. His brain is just not registering what it is that woke him at dark o'clock in the morning, and what Danny refers to as Steve's, 'Spidey senses' aren't tingling.
Groaning, he rearranges his pillow and turns his back to the alarm clock, hoping that it won't be too hard to fall back to sleep. If whatever had woke him was something dangerous, like an intruder, he'd be more alert. As it is, he can barely keep his eyes open.
When Steve is just about to close his eyes and seek out the sleep that he's been denying himself for days, he nearly jumps out of his skin as he becomes aware of a pair of glassy blue eyes staring back at him.
At first, Steve thinks of his weapon, hidden beneath the mattress, and he twitches in reaction, but then his brain and racing heart catch up with what it is that his eyes are telegraphing to them. There is an intruder in his room, yes, but there's no immediate danger to his welfare.
Alert now, Steve sits up so quickly that his head spins, and the blue-eyed intruder crawls into his lap, and wraps him in a surprisingly strong grip, immobilizing him. Steve temporarily forgets how to breathe, and his brain short circuits, leaving him completely trapped and at the mercy of the intruder who is now plastered to his chest and digging a bony knee into his groin.
"Danny?" Steve ventures, and he subtly readjusts the little boy's weight so that his knee is no longer digging into Steve's groin.
"Nightmare," Danny mumbles, face hidden against Steve's chest. He's trembling, and overly warm and sticky. "Can I sleep with you, Dad?"
"Sure," Steve says, fingers already working their way through Danny's sweat matted hair as he wraps his other arm around the little boy and rasps out a song that he remembers his aunt singing to him once upon a time.