It was dark, so very, very dark.
And it was cold, a dry, bone-numbing cold.
He was insignificant. A speck. A blip in eternity.
And he was falling.
Someone was shaking him. "Tony. Tony, wake up."
His eyes opened and he gasped, remembering the end of his nightmare. Falling. He jerked a bit, tried to sit up, but there was an arm on his chest. It was heavy and reassuring.
It was Bruce's.
Tony raised a hand and scrubbed it across his face. "What happened? Where are we?"
In the dim light from his arc reactor he could see Bruce, lying next to him, head raised. He could just make out a smile. "Whiskey happened. A lot of it. You were pretty smashed, so I got you to your room, but I was pretty smashed too, I guess." They were on Tony's massive bed, though fully clothed, the bed still made. "I woke up when I heard you…talking in your sleep, I guess. Nightmare?"
"Yeah."
"Wanna talk about it?"
Tony knew that Bruce would understand, but he didn't think he was ready to delve too deep into the damage left from the battle just yet. Also, the haze from the nightmare was fading due to the distractingly warm arm still on his chest. "Do you ever get them?"
"Yeah. I don't know that I know what it's like not to have them." The cool, dim light brought out the angles in his face, the circles under his eyes. Not as bad as when Tony had first met him, but still there, marking him as a person with a burden he could never put down. "I don't like talking about them either."
Bruce's arm tensed, as though he was going to remove it, and Tony's hand shot up and grabbed it by the wrist. He looked at the other man and saw no fear there, nothing that said he was going to be scared off by anything Tony did. Instead, he smiled at the pressure Tony had put on his wrist, and dropped his head down onto the pillow. Tony could feel the heat of him, Bruce's chest not quite against his arm. "Go back to sleep, Tony."
"Thanks."
Bruce didn't reply, but his hand shifted a bit on Tony's chest, fingers grazing the circle of the arc reactor, and then settling comfortably on his sternum. Tony didn't remove his hand.
They slept.
When Tony woke again, it was slowly. Even before he opened his eyes, he wished he had his sunglasses handy. This was going to be one killer hangover.
Bruce was still there. At some point in the night they had shifted, and Tony opened his eyes to find his head buried in Bruce's chest, their arms and legs entangled. This was a good sign, right? Tony tried not to move, not to wake Bruce, so he could take a moment to process this.
Bruce had taken care of him when he was sloppy drunk (he didn't want to think of how he'd probably embarrassed himself, if not the both of them, at that point; he had no illusions about how bad he got when he was wasted). Bruce had also taken care of him after a bitch of a nightmare. He'd also stayed in Tony's bed all night, but not like a friend or a brother. Tony wouldn't have to move far to be wrapped around the other man. This was good. Bruce wouldn't still be here, arm around Tony and snoring slightly, if he wasn't interested, right? Or at least open to suggestion?
Tony shifted carefully, still trying not to wake the other man, so he could see Bruce's face. In sleep he looked more relaxed than Tony thought possible, the lines etched into his face by time and stress eased. He was scruffier than Tony usually saw him, probably a few days since he'd shaved. His curly hair, streaked grey here and there, was sleep tousled, and Tony practically twitched from wanting to bury his hands in it. He got a sudden mental image of Bruce, on his knees in front of him, looking up at him with those brown eyes, putting his hands in that curly hair while Bruce's hands fumbled with his zipper…
He had to take a deep breath to stifle the noise that wanted to escape his mouth, and that was all it took to wake Bruce. He blinked his eyes a half-dozen times, trying to focus and take in his surroundings. He didn't seem surprised at how intertwined they were. He tilted his head up and looked at Tony.
"Morning, sunshine," he said, trying not to grin too hard.
A small smile curved Bruce's lips in return. "Morning, Tony."
"Sleep well?"
"Yeah."
Given their entanglement, Tony had no way of hiding his arousal from Bruce – he could feel his erection pressing into the other man's thigh. "Look, Bruce. I'm not going to play games here. I think you have an idea of what's on my mind." Bruce didn't say anything, but he didn't stop smiling either. Instead, he blushed.
Tony took that as a cue and pressed forward to kiss him. Slowly at first, giving Bruce an out, in case there was any misunderstanding his intent. There wasn't. Bruce hesitated only for a second before melting under his mouth and pulling Tony even closer, one hand into his hair, the other on his ass. A surge of lust swept through him, and he arched his back and pressed onto Bruce. He freed a hand from behind Bruce's head and it went straight down and palmed his erection. Definitely no misunderstandings there. When he pressed down Bruce gave a moan, and Tony started to slip his hand under the waistband of Bruce's pants.
His fingers barely grazed hot flesh when Bruce pulled away. He took a few shuddering breaths. "No Tony, we can't do this."
Tony pulled back instantly and looked questioningly at Bruce. "What's wrong?"
Bruce pulled back a bit further, taking his hands off of Tony and rubbing them over his face and through his hair. "I don't think I can do this."
"You're not interested?"
Bruce shook his head. "No, not that. More than interested. Too interested."
Tony frowned at him, "Help me out here, buddy. What's wrong?"
"I...Tony, look, I don't know if doing this will bring out the other guy, and I don't want to hurt you."
There it was. Bruce looked away, pained, but Tony wasn't giving up just yet. He ran a hand along Bruce's chest. "You don't know?"
Bruce covered Tony's hand with one of his own, stilling it on his chest. "No. I haven't…not since the accident. It's too risky."
"You haven't tried it at all?"
"No."
"So…you're just hypothesizing?"
Bruce gave him a warning look. "Tony…"
"Well, you are, aren't you? Aren't we scientists? Geniuses? Shouldn't we be able to test your theory out?" He inched his face closer to Bruce's again. "Test it, disprove it, or failing that, find a way to work around it? Any theory must be fully tested before accepted as fact. Tested thoroughly and scientifically…"
Bruce took a deep breath, but didn't push Tony away again. He sighed. "People have been trying to get me in a lab and study me for years now, but not quite in that way."
"Then I get bonus points for thinking of it first." He dropped his face down and nuzzled the line of Bruce's jaw, feeling the scruff against his lips and tongue.
"No publishing your findings!" Tony nipped at his neck in response. Bruce put a hand on his shoulder to draw his attention back to the conversation. "Serious, Tony, we can't fuck around with this. We have to go slow."
Tony smirked at Bruce. "If my theories are correct, fucking around is exactly what I intend to do. Serious. Though I've never heard you say fuck before. You know how hot that is?"
"Fuck you," he said, though his eyes were bright with laughter.
"Mmm." Tony kissed him again then, slowly, hands in almost respectable places (though he couldn't help the one that ran up into Bruce's hair). He broke off and looked Bruce in the eye. "There. Perfect gentleman. Well, nearly. We'll go as slow as you need Bruce. We'll figure this one out." He sat up, giving Bruce's shoulder a strong squeeze. "Come on, let's go get some breakfast. I need to clear away this hangover and start planning exactly how to fuck you until you can't walk." He hopped out of bed and headed towards the kitchen, the sound of Bruce's shocked laughter following him out.