Steve had nightmares. He supposed they were normal. He was a soldier, and he knew to expect them. Sure, maybe his were different from other's, but they were nightmares nonetheless.

They were always cold. Frighteningly cold. When he'd started sharing a bed with Charlotte those particular nightmares, the ones where, no matter how high the heater was turned up, he was always cold, had stopped. She was a warmth and comforting weight during the night, and the nightmares seemed to have disappeared altogether.

And then they came back.

The night the first nightmare hit him was a night that Charlotte had spent at the tower with him. Charlotte had spent that whole day job hunting, only meeting up with Steve for dinner. He had been training SHIELD recruits that day, and had been pleasantly looking forward to dinner with his girlfriend after a whole day of his patience being tested. They had ended up at the small Italian restaurant where they'd had their first date, Charlotte sighing about the lack of openings and Steve quietly complaining about the lack of respect from the new recruits.

They'd gone to bed early that night, after sharing a long shower, Charlotte lazily talking about the next day's plans, mumbling more to herself than anything. Steve had smiled drowsily at her, giving her a long kiss before they both drifted off to sleep.

And then he was wide awake, cold sweat breaking out all along his body. He'd woken up with a deep inhale of breath, quickly surveying the room before his eyes zeroed in on the body next to his. Charlotte was sleeping on her stomach, one of her arms, which had been lazily draped along his torso, now lay in his lap. She hadn't woken up, and Steve almost smiled in amusement at her lack of senses when sleeping.

He decided to stay in bed in hopes of calming down, except that panic over took him, the bed suddenly too soft and Charlotte's arm on his lap feeling like dead weight. After a quick debate with himself, he disentangled his legs from Charlotte's, quickly tucking her arm against her body.

He ended up laying on the wood flooring next to the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling in hopes of calming his nerves. He was cold, so cold, but he couldn't bring himself to move to grab a blanket.

It seemed like hours that he stayed looking up at the ceiling, before he felt a pair of eyes looking at him.

Charlotte was staring at him, still on the bed and on her stomach, one side of her face smooched against the side of the bed as she stared at his rigid form.

"The bed was too soft," Steve murmured as a way of explanation.

"You're shivering," Charlotte mumbled in response, her eyes settling on his.

"I'm cold," Steve sighed, staring back at the ceiling. He hadn't planned on Charlotte seeing broken Steve Rogers ever. He supposed he had become too comfortable, thinking that his nightmares were all suddenly gone, and had not given the thought of sleeping next to Charlotte much consideration. He had been doing so great so far.

He felt Charlotte's warm fingers grace his shoulder and he shuddered.

He heard the rustling of the bed sheets and then the light sigh Charlotte emitted when she got off the bed. She was laying next to him on the floor within seconds, her form warm, but not touching, looking up at the ceiling like he was. Their hands were mere centimeters apart, but not touching.

"You know I can sleep anywhere, in any position," was the only thing Charlotte said after a minute of silence. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

"Not really," Steve replied, shutting his eyes for a brief second before he realized that that only made unpleasant images flash through them.

There was a long stretch of silence in which Steve thought that Charlotte had fallen asleep for sure. He was proved wrong when he heard her deep sigh, and then the sure conviction of her voice.

"My dad was unemployed once for about two years. He lost his job when I was about nine, and my brothers were far too young to remember, kindergarten and preschool, I think. We were living in a studio apartment, all five of us, because that's what my mom's paycheck could afford, with my parents on a pull out couch and my brothers and I on the floor. We were so poor that I remember breaking the piggy bank my grandmother had given me a few years prior so that we could go buy a carton of milk and cereal for dinner one night. Anyway, aside from only really eating the free breakfast and lunch at school, and missing dinner for the most part, we survived…and I guess, my point is, I slept on the floor for those two years, and I can sleep on the floor tonight. And any other night that you need me to."

Steve didn't know what to say, suddenly overcome with the knowledge that he was truly in love with Charlotte, and even if some of the things she said sometimes seemed to be random and spewed without much thought, she always knew what to say to him. And he really, truly, loved her right in that moment more than he had in any other moment.

So he inched his hand closer to hers until he had gently taken her hand in his. "I love you," he mumbled, because he couldn't come up with anything else to say.

"Thanks," she said, and there was a long silence before she chuckled and he smiled at the familiarity of it all, "sorry-I love you, too. It's three in the morning, cut me some slack."

Steve chuckled lightly, his shivering slowly coming to an end, until he merely felt the memory of a chill. Still, though, Steve refused to close his eyes for sleep for fear of more vivid flashbacks of ice and crashing, coupled with newer ones of aliens and dead SHIELD members. He still held Charlotte's hand, though, calmed by the small gesture, and Charlotte's tact in giving him space.

It was probably an hour of the two laying together in silence before Charlotte started talking again.

"You still awake?" she mumbled sleepily.

"Yeah," he answered just as quietly.

"I went through a phase where I had nightmares for about three months straight, right before I started college. It was probably all that stress. Anyway, I'd wake up sobbing from them. Except they were totally stupid, and not worthy of tears. Like, I once dreamt that I was being held prisoner in North Korea because I had gone parachuting off an airplane on a vacation in Australia and had accidentally landed in North Korea. And one time, I sobbed for about an hour after dreaming that my brother was kidnapped in the middle of Mexico and the only way they would give him back was if we somehow paid them in one million dollars' worth of chocolate bars. I don't know, don't ask. Anyway, my point in all of this-and there is one, it's just that, it is four in the morning now, and my brain is talking and my mouth is having diarrhea-is that, it always helped to be surrounded by something. Like pillows. Except now I have a boyfriend-that's you, by the way- and you have a girlfriend-that's me-and we could totally cuddle. I'll be the big spoon and everything."

Steve turned to look her in the eyes, and chuckled when he caught her droopy eyed gaze. "I never get to be the big spoon," she added.

Steve chuckled again and turned his back to her, and, in a move that was probably fueled by lack of sleep and the residual chill left in him, he said, "hold me like the river Jordan."

"Oh my God, you did not just quote a song," Charlotte breathed, circling an arm around him and pulling her body flush against his, her legs quickly tangling with his. "You watched Free Willy without me?"

"Thor cried like a baby," was his only respond, her warmth instantly lulling him, thoughts of the hard ground below him gone.

Charlotte shook in silent laughter against, kissing the back of his neck and then in between his shoulder blades. "I'm going to laugh harder about this when we wake up,"

Steve hummed in agreement before he was pulled into a dreamless sleep.

And when he woke up later that morning, stiff from laying on the floor, but without any chill, it was to Charlotte staring at him, her laughter loud as soon as he opened his eyes and met hers, and her breathless, "You quoted a Free Willy soundtrack song," in between peals of laughter made him laugh loud as well.