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It’s always the same, in the dream.
Tony is falling and there are lights above him, explosions in the darkness, millions of stars going out. He’s falling and there’s no air, no sound, nothing below him but miles of empty sky and he closes his eyes and thinks, This is how it’s going to end. This is how I’m going to die.
But this time there is sound, a muted thumping in his ears that might be his own heartbeat and a voice stuck on repeat, “Tony, Tony, let me in. Tony. Tony, let me in—”
He’s accelerating, speeding toward the ground and there is nothing to stop him, soon he’ll be a smear of blood and bone on the New York City streetway, he’s panicking, he’s panicking, he’s never been this close to death—
Tony wakes before he hits the ground, sits up in bed with his heartbeat still in his ears and the sweat cooling in the small of his back, that voice speaking from somewhere that sounds too far away. “Tony? Tony, are you okay?”
“Bruce?” he croaks, and then, weakly, “Where are you?”
“I’m in the hallway. The door’s locked.”
Tony blinks in the darkness and sits up a little more, scrubs at his eyes with the heel of one hand. “JARVIS, open the door.”
“Yes, sir.”
The lock pops open and Bruce appears, wearing sweatpants and a fraying t-shirt and a look that says Tony must have been screaming again. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Tony manages, voice wavering. “Just—”
“Was it that nightmare again?” Tony nods and Bruce comes to stand beside him, close enough to feel the heat of his skin. “Is it alright if I touch you?”
He nods again and Bruce sits down on the very edge of the bed and runs a hand through Tony’s hair, rubs quiet circles into the coiled muscles of shoulders that have been holding the world up for far too long. “I just,” Tony starts, and there are stars behind his eyelids, explosions, the light of nuclear disaster that he almost didn’t know how to stop. “I keep seeing it. Over and over and over and over, and every time it gets worse and I can’t stop it and I just keep falling…”
Bruce pulls Tony up so they’re hip to hip and goes on rubbing his shoulders, fingers dipping in under the fabric of his tank top. Tony takes a deep, shuddery breath and starts to cry.
“I don’t,” he says. “I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to make it stop.”
“Sometimes you can’t,” Bruce breathes, and his hands stop moving and just hold on. “Sometimes you have to make friends with the demons in your head. Here.” He stands up and Tony grabs at the hem of his t-shirt with all the strength in his trembling fist, eyes squeezed shut like he might be in pain.
“Don’t leave. Please, I’ll—”
I’ll be good, he almost says. I’ll be quiet, just please, please don’t leave me alone right now. I don’t think that I could stand it. But Bruce’s hands are on his arms again and Bruce’s voice is in his ears, soft and steady and good. “I’m not going anywhere, Tony. Just scoot over so I can sit down.”
Tony shuffles to the other side of the bed and Bruce lies down beside him, pulls the sheets up over his legs and opens his arms wide. “Come here,” he says, and Tony does. He moves into the circle of Bruce’s body, and it’s warm, there, when he tucks his nose up against the t-shirt, and it smells like chemicals and coffee and day-old cologne.
It smells like someplace he’s never really believed in. It smells like someplace that might be home.
“Talk to me,” Tony whispers, putting his head down on the pillow.
“About what?” The muted light of the arc reactor plays across Bruce’s face, making shadows and planes as he moves, and Tony tucks in a little tighter.
“Anything.”
“You know, it wasn’t just the other guy that saved you.” Bruce is whispering too, sleep-soft and rumbling, and he moves one hand to lie pressed against Tony’s stubbled cheek. “It was strange. Like—I knew what was happening, and he did too. We could both see that you were free falling and we agreed to save you. We agreed to catch you out of the sky, and I had my brain and his body and it was the closest thing I’ve ever been to whole in a long time. It was amazing. You made us amazing.”
“Why?” Tony asks before he can stop himself, and he watches the way the frown deepens the creases beneath Bruce’s brown eyes. “Why did you save me? Why not just let me die?”
“Because I care about you.”
“I know that, but I don’t… I don’t know why.” Tony blinks and tears cascade down his cheeks, cold and stinging even as he tries to wipe them away. “Sorry, I’m just—tired. I get weird when I’m tired. Pepper could tell you, she always has to deal with this shit.”
Bruce doesn’t answer at first, just swipes his thumb across Tony’s cheek as more tears come unbidden, Tony too tired and too lonely to keep them at bay. “I care about you,” he says, slowly, “because you were the first person in ten years to not look at me like I was a monster.”
“You’re not a monster.”
“No,” Bruce breathes. “And neither are you.”