A/N: There is a lot of… caricature in these characters nowadays. They're fiction, of course, but most people forget that they're real. Suspension from disbelief works miracles, but it won't cover gaping holes. Steve and Tony are superheroes, yes, but they're a functional couple, and they each have coping mechanisms with problems to boot that a regular person would have. I hope this short chapter sheds some light on that. But apart from that, enjoy! Quick and simple, hopefully not too abrupt!
With a silent gasp and a quick start, Tony woke up to a dark room illuminated by the city lights twinkling through the sheer glass. He stared at the ceiling, unmoving, watching little dots dance across the pale canvas, from cars, buildings, and streetlights. The walls thrummed with the yelling, whispers, crying, laughter, mews, barks, howls, chitters, squeaks, and squawks of a thousand tenants, human or otherwise.
Without a sound he slid the thin sheet off his naked body and set foot on the wood floors, a slight creak as he touched the cold ground. Steve's breathing hitched and he groaned as he rolled over, eyes opening slightly and shutting just as quickly, his inhales and exhales resuming their same, slow pace. Tony picked up his watch from the nightstand, squinting at the minuscule hands. He checked the clock on the wall as well.
He stood up and quietly walked into the kitchen, sitting on the couch and flipping on the TV. No more appetite for sleep. It never did him much good anyway. His finger hovered over the mute button as the TV chimed, pressing it so as to not wake Steve up. Rifling through the channels, Tony settled on some dull antique show broadcast, subtitles shuffling up the screen as the appraisers examined one lifeless bowl after another. Tony drew his legs up to his chest as he watched, eyes blank. A streak of memory flashed before his eyes, pain as sharp as a whip jolting through his shoulder. He stared at the TV screen, repeating the subtitles in his mind, trying to drown out the still-tender memories.
He lost track of time. When he snapped out of his trance, he found a blanket around him, a slight luster to the sky as dawn approached, and a new TV program about pigeon migrations. He switched off the TV, feeling no more enlightened on porcelain plates than he started, and reentered the bedroom, that one floorboard creaking once meekly as he climbed back into bed. Steve felt the pressure shift, and he awoke fully this time, the first time since placing a quilt on Tony's exposed back.
"Everything okay," Steve asked, voice gravelly with sleep as he drew close to Tony, warming him up from sitting out on the couch for so long.
"Everything's fine," Tony assured, with reason to think otherwise slipping into his voice, which Steve detected readily.
"We'll deal with it tomorrow. Or rather… in a couple of hours," Steve asserted, gently brushing down a stray strand of Tony's hair with the back of his hand. "Tell me all about it later. But right now, you're here with me, in bed, and that's no place for superhero stuff." He placed an arm over Tony's side and settled in to sleep again.
For most people, each day is a struggle to get up, make coffee, and work nine to five, sit through an hour of traffic, come home, eat, and then sleep. For the protectors of Earth, it's pretty much the same thing. But every now and then, someone walks into your life that makes it not so unbearable. You don't mind having coffee with him, arguing about what the solution for four across really is in the puzzle section of USA Today. "Work" means tinkering with his motorcycle to make it run at four hundred miles per hour. And every night, there's another glittering day worthy of being set on a plaque and bragged about.
Every so often, you meet someone like that. And Tony considers himself lucky to have that someone.