He wakes in the middle of the night feeling uncomfortable, but it's just that Tony's splayed on top of him, sweating where they're not sticking together.

He lays like that for a while, staring at the ceiling, trying to decide what to do about it.

Tony's body is hotter than a body should be, and a good portion of Steve's left side is trapped between Tony and the bed, and he definitely can't sleep like this.

But on the other hand, it feels kinda nice.

And, he's not going to let a little something like comfort get in the way of their love.

Not when he can lie here and feel Tony's chest rise and fall with each breath. God, he feels good.

It is extremely hot. Tony is surprisingly heavy.

But he's so cute, his head flopped to the side, his lips just barely parted as he snores.

It's a dilemma.

Eventually, he wrestles Tony's dead weight onto his side and rolls onto his back for some cool air. Leaves one hand on Tony's ass because he doesn't want to let go of him entirely.

The next time he wakes up it's with a gentle shake, and a soft "Steve?"

He recognizes Tony's voice before he's fully awake and so he comes out of it gradually. Doesn't even open his eyes, just rolls onto his back and mumbles. "Yes?"

"Do you have a bathroom?"

He opens his eyes. It's dark. Tony's sitting cross-legged on the edge of his bed, his face lit by the blue glow of his phone.

"What?"

"You weren't paying enough attention to me," Tony whispers.

"I was sleeping."

"I know." Tony grins. "You'll have to work on that."

Steve uses what feels like too much effort to throw the pillow at him. "It's over there."

"Yeah, I got that. I went already."

"What time is it?"

"Shh. Go back to sleep."

"You just woke me up."

"Yeah," Tony says, clearly too amused by this. "Sorry."

Steve glares at him and then he gets up and retrieves his pillow, and retrieves Tony's phone from his hand, and carries both Tony and the pillow back to bed with him.

"God, you're so cranky at 3 am," Tony says, grinning, teasing, and he snuggles up against him anyway.

Steve kisses him on the ear, and as far as he's concerned they're both asleep again.

Tony squirms underneath him like he can't quite get comfortable. "Steve?"

"Mhmm?"

"Promise you'll tell me? I mean, if things get too heavy for you. If you need help. Even if it's not from me."

Steve commits to a soft, low, "mhmm."

"I mean it. I worry when I don't know. And that's not – I can't…" he trails off, takes what feels like a minute or two. "I hate that I can't protect you from yourself."

There are a lot of things to say to that. A lot of unfair assumptions that Tony's making, but he just woke up and he's not even really awake, and he's tired, and comfortable. So he just holds him a little tighter and mumbles something that sounds like it would reassuring if there were actual words involved, and they can talk about this tomorrow.

A few minutes later Steve's almost asleep and Tony's clearly not. "It's funny," he says as Steve struggles to stay awake enough to listen. "People used to say that to me all the time. About protecting me from myself."

And, after another pause, his voice fading out as Steve drifts off to sleep, "I guess I didn't really get it until now."

He wakes up before Tony for the first time that he can remember.

He wakes up underneath him, again, because apparently Tony requires more space than Steve's bed allows.

He tries to squirm out from under him without disturbing him. Has almost made it, is just tugging the rest of his t-shirt out from under him, when he hears a groan which signals that he's been unsuccessful

Tony rolls over, opening his eyes just a crack. "Coffee?"

"I don't have any."

Tony lets out a massive, theatrical groan, and mumbles "you're a barbarian," before rolling over and covering his head with the pillow.

Steve smiles. "I'll go get some," he says. "I can tell it's an emergency."

"No," Tony says, reaching back with his hand and waving it about blindly until it collides with Steve's thigh. "Stay."

He's still noticing every little touch, the skin of his thigh tingling as each of Tony's fingers slides across it.

There's really no way to respond to that except to lay back down next to him, to wrap his arms around Tony's chest, careful to avoid the arc reactor, and hold him.

After a while he does get up, and Tony grumbles about it a little bit, rolls around in the bed, and occasionally lets out long, tortured groans to let Steve know just how unhappy he is with being awake. It's adorable. And by the time Steve's finished making breakfast, he's sitting at the table, one eye closed, a sleepy grimace on his face.

He's never really seen him this way. It's very cute.

Tony puts his spoon in the oatmeal, and he raises a little bit of it almost to his face, and then he wrinkles his nose and stops. "Do you have hot sauce?"

"No," Steve says, feeling bad for a second, that he didn't think of that. And then he shakes that off. It's oatmeal. It's good oatmeal. If he tried it, he'd like it.

Tony frowns. "Do you have other food?"

"Bread and mayonnaise." Or he could just try the oatmeal.

Tony grimaces. "I'll take some bread, I guess."

"You could just try the oatmeal." Or maybe his food's not good enough. Not fancy enough.

Tony makes a face and puts the spoon into his mouth, a little bit. And makes another face. "I'll take the bread."

Steve sighs, and then he smiles anyway, because it's still kind of cute. And gives him two slices of bread. Gets the mayonnaise out, too, "in case you want a sandwich."

Tony looks at him like he's a little bit off. "A mayonnaise sandwich."

"Yeah."

"Mayonnaise and bread is not a sandwich."

Steve shrugs. "It's cheap."

"You go out to eat," Tony says. "You brought me to your favorite diner. And you can't spring for more groceries than bread and mayonnaise?"

"You remember that?" As soon as he says it he knows it's a stupid response. He shouldn't be surprised. He shouldn't be able to be surprised by that. He should expect Tony to pay as much attention to him as he pays to Tony. But Tony is… well, Tony, and he has all of his grand gestures and fancy restaurants and Steve's never been entirely sure that he measures up.

"Yes, I remember that," Tony says, with another one of those looks. "It was not that long ago and I have an excellent memory. Now, back to your atrocious food decisions –"

"I buy other groceries," Steve says.

"And yet, all you have to offer is…" he looks at the food, raises his eyebrows.

It's perfectly good food. "It's perfectly good food."

"Right," Tony says. "Not disagreeing. Just… there is not much of it. Not much variety either. I mean, you do eat… vegetables, right? When you're not with me?"

"Yes," Steve says. "I didn't really feel like going out the past two weeks."

He watches as Tony realizes what he means by that. "I'll put some mayonnaise on my bread."

"You don't have to."

"No, you said it's good, I'll try it."

Steve shakes his head and pours Tony's oatmeal into his bowl.

"You gonna put mayonnaise on your oatmeal?"

"I don't put mayonnaise on everything." It comes out too sharp, too angry. Tony seems shocked.

"I'm sorry," Steve says, immediately. "I don't know why I – I'm sorry."

Tony frowns. "Are you mad at me?"

"No." He's the complete opposite of mad at Tony, but he's irritated, somehow, didn't even realize it until now. Maybe at himself. For what?

"Are you sure?"

"I'm not mad at you."

Tony shrugs and takes a bite of his mayonnaise sandwich and doesn't hate it. Steve can only tell with that degree of precision what's happening on his face. He's more focused on himself, anyway, on why everything is going so well and he's still upset

He cleans up while Tony buries himself back under the covers.

"Going back to sleep already?"

Tony just yawns at him, and beckons with one hand. "C'mon."

Steve can't really resist his pout, and so he finds himself kneeling on the bed, trying to find enough space to lay down because Tony is, typically, sprawled over most of the bed.

"Didn't sleep that well," Tony says. "I kept waking up with you half on top of me. Which was not terrible, actually. Just a little too warm. And you're a bitch to move when you're asleep."

"That can't be true," Steve says, nudging him over so he can lay down. "Because I kept waking up with you on top of me."

"Couldn't have bought a bigger bed?"

"I didn't think I'd be sharing it."

"That's a depressing outlook on life."

Steve swallows.

"I mean – I didn't mean it like that," Tony says, putting his hand on Steve's thigh in what's probably supposed to be a comforting manner.

"It's okay," Steve says. "You're probably right."

"This whole place is depressing, actually," Tony says, propping himself up on one elbow. "You haven't bought a single poster, or anything?"

"Can we go back to when I was happy you're here?"

Tony grins. "Tired of me already?"

Steve shoves him, lightly, on the shoulder. "Stark."

"No, no no no," Tony says. "That didn't hurt me at all. C'mon, you gotta put more hatred into it."

That's hard, because the way Tony's looking at him, full of expectant glee, he can't really muster up anger.

But still he grabs him, pins him and wrinkles his nose in what he hopes is disgust. "Stark."

"Rogers," Tony replies, not even coming close to contempt, and he laughs and squirms away. Grabs the pillow and smacks him with it, once, twice, so many times that Steve has to take it away from him.

And then Tony's on top of him, wrestling it back, and then Tony's on top of him, and then neither of them is struggling, and then Tony's on top of him and –

Well.

Then they're kissing, soft at first, then with building intensity and Steve is enjoying it but he also can't help worrying that he needs to stop this, if he doesn't want it to go too far, but oh, no, he doesn't want to stop it, not yet.

He lets himself go until Tony's hand slips under his shirt and then he takes control of himself and pulls back just enough to whisper "I don't want to have sex right now."

He regrets that immediately, wants to take it back, to let things go a little longer first. Maybe he does want to have sex. He doesn't not want to have sex.

Tony stops. "That kinda kills the mood, huh?"

Steve nods.

"So uh, how about we just assume that we're not going to, and if I'm in the mood I'll ask? And same for you."

That would be a lot better. He can always tell when he wants it too much to hold back. He nods.

"Okay, we'll do that then," Tony says, smiling, giving him one chaste kiss, not making any effort to get off of him. Which is nice.

He may have killed the moment, but he likes what it turns into – cuddling. Sleepy cuddling, on Tony's part, with occasional cute yawning and even cuter kissing.

Eventually Tony sits up, yawns, and stretches. "Okay, I'm gonna fall asleep any minute now if we don't… do something. Talk about something."

"You can sleep," Steve says.

Tony shakes his head, nudging him affectionately on the shoulder. "Uhh, don't hate me, but there are some things we should probably talk about."

And everything was going so well. "Like what?"

Tony shrugs, an ineffectual movement of his shoulders against the sheets. "Like what you want. From me. From life. Whatever."

Steve takes a moment to process that, but there's not much to go on. "You'll have to be more specific."

"Okay, from me."

"I want –" he starts speaking before he knows what to say and the words aren't coming. What does he want? He wants love. Companionship. He wants to matter, he wants Tony's undivided attention and affection, all of the time, wants to see him and feel him and that can't be what Tony is asking. He can't say that out loud. It's so selfish. He wants to take care of Tony and watch out for him and be everything for him but Tony doesn't even seem to need that. "I don't know what I want."

"Well, I could've told you that."

Steve frowns.

"Okay, I'm sorry. That's good. You know, that you know. That you don't know."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to –" he shakes his head. "You've done this maybe a thousand times, but you're my first."

Tony nods, a short, sharp motion. "I get that. I do. But from my end it looks like – well, the only time you tell me what you want is when you're saying you don't want me."

"You mean sexually." It's not a question, just disappointment.

"Well, yes, but, no. I mean, yeah, you're not particularly affectionate and maybe that's my fault for pressuring you but just – feel like I am initiating everything in this relationship. You know?"

"No."

"Oh, come on. Don't be difficult. We should just, talk about this. If you're, you know, committed to this relationship. Because it's fine if you're not, just tell me, I'll go."

"I am," Steve says, and he is, but he still feels too defensive.

"So what gives?"

Steve shrugs. He can't seem to muster up anything more than a few words at a time. He's being put on the spot. He cares. Too much. He cares.

"I mean, maybe you're just so wrapped up in the past that you don't quite realize that you're… you know, not really engaging a lot with the present."

He can feel himself closing up, can feel that shift, what used to make him fight and now seems to make him run. "That's not true."

"Okay, name one thing that happened in this millennium," Tony says, and it sounds little slow, condescending. "Something you weren't a part of."

That's easy. "The bombing of the World Trade Center."

"Okay, A, proving my point, and B, you just say 9/11."

"Fine," Steve says, and this is it, this is the point where he realizes that he'll never be good enough, that it'll never work between them. "You're right. I'm too wrapped up in the past. This isn't going to work. You should just forget about me."

Tony lets him sit, lets him stew, and then he shakes his head. "What do you want from me? Just tell me and I'll do it."

"I –" he speaks almost instinctively, wanting to take away the pain he can hear in Tony's voice but 'I'm sorry' doesn't fit and he doesn't want anything, except Tony's love and attention and he already has that. "I'm sorry."

"Don't tell me you're sorry," Tony says. "Tell me what it's going to take so I can talk to you. I don't want to give up on you. But you're making this awfully hard. So what gives? What's the problem?"

The problem. Steve is the problem, obviously, they both know that. Steve is the one who somehow has ruined everything, who keeps doing it. Steve is the person who isn't the man he was supposed to be, isn't the man that he used to be and that's it. That's what he has to say.

"I don't like who I am," Steve says, licking his lower lip like that'll help to soothe the blow of admitting that out loud.

"Well, I like you," Tony says, slow, as though he's afraid to set him off and this is exactly what Steve didn't want happening.

"I want you to stop treating me like I'm fragile."

"Then quit acting like you are."

That shouldn't stun him. It does.

"And all I said is that I like you. I do." Tony looks him in the eyes. "How is it that you are still not getting that?"

He licks his lower lip again, the way he used to when it was just split open, and maybe he did that to make it hurt, too. "What happens when I don't live up to your idea of me?"

Tony quirks his lips. "You're talking like that hasn't already happened."

That shouldn't make him feel good but it does. It pleases that part of him that wants to feel bad, but there's more to it, too, this idea that Tony knows he's not perfect, knows and is somehow still here.

"You're definitely a huge mess," Tony says, and Steve swallows but he can't say anything because he asked for this, and he's not going to ruin that. "But that doesn't mean anything. You'll work it out, we'll work it out. Or not, whatever, if that's your thing."

He manages to get out a soft noise of assent, but it takes some effort.

"All I'm trying to tell you is I'd rather be sitting here with you than in almost any happier situation with someone else."

Steve nods. Knows he should do more, show what that means to him, but he doesn't.

"And don't take this the wrong way," Tony says, which immediately makes him want to, "but I can't believe that I'm the first person to notice that you're not doing okay."

That's fair. "You're not."

"Who? SHIELD? And they just left you on your own to figure everything out?"

"Peggy," Steve says. "Maybe SHIELD. I don't know."

"I'm still at a loss to understand why no one has, I dunno, helped you deal with it?"

"Peggy did," Steve says, and it's not Tony's fault for assuming that but he's still bothered that he'd write her off like that. "She helped me with everything. It got better, she stopped pressing me about it."

"This is better?" There's a clear cutting sarcasm in that, and the moment he says it Tony throws his hands in the air. "You told me not to treat you like you're fragile."

Steve nods. "This is better," he says. Shrugs. "Maybe not the last few weeks."

"You need to talk to someone. A professional someone. I'm not kidding. I can't help you with this."

So that's his reward for opening up? A snap judgement and the order to go tell someone else, because Tony doesn't have time for his problems? "I'm so glad we had this discussion."

Tony stays infuriatingly calm. "I'm sorry. I can't fix this for you."

"I don't want you to," Steve says, and he suddenly feels almost on the verge of angry tears and that just makes him angrier. "I never asked you to fix me."

"But I need to."

"Why? So I can be good enough for you?"

"Oh my god," Tony says, and rolls his eyes, exasperated, like Steve is an annoying kid and Steve balls his hands into fists because there's no words for how that makes me feel. "You won't talk to me. You won't fuck me. You're distant and sad and angry and I can't do anything about it and I can't stand watching you dig yourself into a hole and I feel like I'm gonna get sucked in. And I love you, and that means I'm invested, I'm not giving up on you, but it also makes it so hard. It hurts, you know that? Worrying about you, worrying about what you might do and… I'm turning my life around. I'm gonna make this work. I just can't do that if you're just going to act like it's okay to be depressed, if you're not even willing to try to meet me halfway."

Steve's not sure what to say to that. Is sure that he's not angry anymore, that's turned into a pit in his stomach, and he's not sure what to say.

"I'm just saying, there are two of us in this relationship. You know?"

He nods, nods harder until he feels like he has to say something. Licks his lip. "I'm sorry."

"I don't want you to be sorry," Tony says. "I want you to do something about it."

"Like what? Promise you that that everything's gonna be okay? Because I can't do that." He swallows, blinks, tries not to feel pathetic and Tony leans against him, chin on his shoulder, and sighs.

"No," he says. "Obviously not. I just think you should go talk to someone."

"A professional someone," he adds. "But you should also talk to me. Because I can't just keep guessing until I get it right."

Everything feels better with Tony against him. Everything feels better with Tony, period.

He exhales, slow, letting go of the anger he wants to feel. "Okay."

"You know, you've never told me about the war."

He shrugs, still leaning into him. "Not much to tell."

"Somehow I doubt that."

"Really."

"Well, I want to hear about it."

Steve isn't sure he wants to talk about it. Isn't sure he wants to talk about it now, right now, when he's already a little upset. Isn't sure he can, that the words won't sound wrong coming from his mouth.

Tony shifts his weight, looks almost uncomfortable. "I mean, I get it. I'm not the guy people trust with… well, anything they don't absolutely need to, really." He twists the side of his mouth into a smile and Steve knows he's being guilted but it's clear there's some hurt there too.

He's read enough to know that people used to think of Tony as a screwup. Before today he'd never gotten any sign that Tony still feels that way.

Tony's taking his silence the wrong way. He can see that in his eyes, the way he's trying so hard to look disinterested. Steve doesn't want to hurt him. He'd never want to do that.

"I don't regret anything we did," he says. "If that's what you're thinking."

Tony snorts.

"I don't. We did a lot of good."

"You killed people."

This isn't where he's expecting it to go, but there's no accusation in that statement so he lets it go. "Only people who chose to fight us. Hydra. White supremacists. Murderers."

"Did you ever kill anyone with your bare hands?" Again, it's innocent, curious, and he didn't expect to talk about this but somehow it's easier than talking about the people he knew.

"Where'd that come from?"

"I've seen you fight," Tony says. "And I've heard shoot. You're not exactly a crack shot."

"I wore gloves. And I don't know. We didn't exactly determine cause of death." That sounds too defensive. "I probably have."

"That's heavy."

Steve shrugs. "That's war."

"Well," Tony says, sighing, heavily. "I can see how that would weigh on you."

He could go along with that.

It's too dishonest.

"That's not what bothers me," he says. "I almost never think about it."

Tony, as he could have guessed, doesn't take that well. "You've killed people with your bare hands and it doesn't bother you?"

"Do you feel bad about killing the Chitauri?"

"No," Tony says. "They were trying to enslave us. Also, they're aliens."

"A life's a life."

"But a human life –"

"A human who was complicit in the genocide of millions of people? Who maybe did it because they were hateful and bigoted and evil? Or maybe just did it because they were told to? Because they didn't have the ability to look at what they were doing and think it was wrong? People who knew who I was, knew what I stood for, knew I could kill them in a second and still thought it was worth giving their lives trying to stop me, so Hydra could kill and enslave and control everyone else?" He shakes his head, lip curling up in disgust. "I don't regret any of that."

Tony looks at him for a long moment before whistling, low. "I don't know if I should be scared, or turned on."

Neither. It's just what he does. Did. "Don't tell me you would have done any different."

"No," Tony says. "No, I'd be there right next to you, but –"

"But what?"

"It's war," Tony says. "It's different. I mean, you hear about guys come back and they can't – I mean, that's gotta fuck you up. It's – different."

"Only difference is when we beat the Chitauri it was over. It was still a battle."

Tony shakes his head. "And that's – a big difference," he says. "Being able to feel like it's over, to feel like you could start feeling safe again. I mean, something about that's gotta weigh on you. Something you did, something you didn't do, I don't know."

"I don't regret anything we did," Steve repeats. "It was all justified."

"So what do you regret?"

He should have been expecting that question. It still catches him unprepared. "Bucky," he says, breathes, before he gets a chance to think.

He shakes his head, tries to pretend that he didn't admit that, that he can just move on and not think about that. "I –" Bucky, who trusted him. "Lots of things."

That's not right either.

Tony puts an arm around his shoulders and it is soothing and so is his voice as he asks, gently, "Bucky?"

"He was my best friend," Steve says. He was his everything.

"I know."

"I killed him," he says, and it's true and he knows he's not supposed to admit that but it is. "I made him follow me. And he made his choice, but –"

He smiles, feeling the tears begin to pool in his eyes. "He was always looking out for me. Even after the serum. He'd never make me go it alone. I could have left him behind and he wouldn't have fallen, and –"

"I led other people to their deaths, and I don't cry about them," he says, inhaling through his nose in a way that sounds too much like a sniffle. He's not letting himself blink, can't let himself blink. "What makes him so special?"

He loses it then, loses what's left of his composure as the tears fall, hot and heavy, down his face. He can't do anything to stop it, can't do anything at all but sit there and let the tears stream down his face and hate himself, hate himself so much.

He lets Tony pull him against his chest, lets Tony hold him and rub his back and rock him as he shakes and cries and shakes. He just lets it happen, lets himself focus on Bucky, on what they had and what he's lost, so he doesn't have to think of what he's become.

He cries for Bucky's life, for everything he missed out on. He cries because Bucky never even wanted to fight. Because it's all his fault.

He cries for himself, and then he cries because he's crying for himself, because he's being selfish and horrible and because he can't stop it.

He cries because he's crying. Because he's broken.

"It gets better," Tony says, low, serious. "It never goes away, but it gets better. When mom and dad died I thought I'd never…" He doesn't finish that, just squeezes Steve's hand. "But, time helps. "

"I know," Steve says, whispers, and he does know. But it still helps to know that Tony's lost people too.

Steve's been through this before.

But he hasn't. It's not the same. He's never been responsible before.

He cries until he doesn't need to anymore, and nothing feels resolved, nothing feels better but the tears have stopped coming and that's something. Like he's emptied out the bucket of tears and can start collecting them again.

He sniffles and tries to regain his calm. Lets Tony hold him up until he feels up to supporting himself. Wipes his face on his shirt, wipes his nose on his shirt and it's disgusting but Tony's still holding him close, kissing his hair even though he's gross.

Eventually he feels good enough that he can stop letting himself be held and start holding Tony too, can turn it into an embrace. And he can't quite meet Tony's eye but he still gets a little comfort from the way that Tony is looking at him. And he closes his eyes, kisses him, gently, hesitantly.

He waits for Tony to hesitate, to tell him that he's not attractive like this, that their intimacy is conditional on him being happy and well-adjusted but he doesn't.

He's not sure what he wants, what this is about but maybe it's nothing, maybe it's just his touch.

It's just the whisper of Tony's breath on his lips and Tony's lips beneath his tongue and Tony's tongue against his teeth and –

It feels good. He feels good, feels the relief that crying didn't give him, feels like his lungs can fill with air, like he is going to be okay.

And there's a part of his brain that even now wants to remind him that he isn't, that nothing is better, but he has Tony now and he didn't have him two days ago and that might not count for much but it helps.

He closes his eyes and just holds Tony's face against his, breathing heavily, and Tony touches his cheek and it makes him smile.

He's still embarrassed, still not sure why he cried, why he couldn't even talk about Bucky for a minute without breaking down when sometimes it feels like it's all he thinks about.

Still worried that this is all Tony sees of him, the part of him that is drowning, worried that even if he wants to he can't stop reinforcing that.

He lays down and Tony follows his lead, rests his head on Steve's chest. It feels nice. ls nice.

They lay there like that so long that he finds himself drifting off, but then it's never that hard for him to sleep. He tries to shake it off, has to stay awake because Tony is here, and because he just slept, and then he realizes that what jolted him back awake was Tony snoring.

So he just stretches, and smiles, and leans his chin against Tony's head, and lets himself relax.