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The invasion started with Clint who, after three weeks in the Tower, was still wandering around drawn and hollow-eyed, at least in private.
As far as the public knew, Clint was the happy-go-lucky, bounce back from anything Avenger. He was the one who confounded the security team and amused JARVIS with his increasingly creative methods of avoiding the Tower’s residents and workers (though Pepper Potts had quite vocally drawn the line at using the Avengers “A” as anything other than signage). In private, the scars that the scepter had left on Clint were much easier to see; when Clint let himself be seen, anyway.
Tony wasn’t sure how the man had found his way to the workshop, but one second the genius was revolutionizing the robotics industry (again), and the next, a bird was tumbling out of his vents and onto his sofa.
Tony probably should have said...something, at that point, but he couldn’t fault the guy for getting sleep wherever he could, and blanket duty let DUM-E feel useful. Two more weeks and five additional workshop naps later, Tony decided that if Clint was going to keep sleeping in his space, he might as well sleep comfortably, and shepherded an unsuspecting archer to the penthouse where they both could get some decent rest.
Granted, at the time, Tony was also fairly sleep-deprived, so he didn’t really stop to consider the potential long-term consequences of that invitation.
(Namely, that Tony’s bed was impressively large, ridiculously expensive, and worth every penny. Clint was spoiled for other beds very quickly.)
They didn’t talk much about Loki or the wormhole, or anything else that might have been bothering them; just knowing that they could, maybe, if they felt like it, was enough.
Of course, if Tony chose to accidentally-on-purpose lay on top of the archer and declare it the most comfortable position for the arc reactor, well, it kept Clint coming back, didn't it?
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It made sense that Thor had mixed feelings about his brother—on one hand, Loki was his younger brother; on the other, the guy was a few crayons short of a box—but none of that explained why the Asgardian had chosen Tony’s bed as the best spot to ward off nightmares.
(Who was he kidding? Everyone had noticed how much better Clint looked, and the archer had totally shared the secret.)
Still, Tony almost had a heart attack when he climbed into his bed in the middle of the night after a long overseas trip only to find a large, blonde lump hiding under the covers. Tony, who was mostly asleep at the time, may have screamed a little, which surprised Thor enough that he accidentally smacked Tony right off the bed. A half an hour, multiple apologies, and one hell of a headache later, the two men were laying side-by-side in Tony's god-approved bed while Thor poured his heart out to the genius and Tony fought to keep his eyes open.
Tony should have asked his new bedmate how long he’d been coming into Tony’s room, or directed Thor to a good psychologist, but after sixteen plus hours on a plane Tony didn’t care where Thor slept as long as he didn’t steal the blankets. He valiantly made it through half a dozen surprisingly compelling “Loki & Me” stories before he drifted off to the low timbre of Thor's voice.
The next morning, Thor waved off Tony's apologies for falling asleep (“You are a prince among your people, Anthony, and friend JARVIS tells me that you are often too busy and do not get enough rest.”), thanked him for his company, extolled the many virtues of Tony's bed, and asked if they could share sleeping quarters again soon.
(What else could Tony say but, yes?)
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The first time was an accident, sure. Tony could buy that.
The genius knew what a science fugue did to a person, so he could totally see Bruce winding up in his bedroom by accident. Tony himself had wound up in plenty of unexpected and unlikely places (with apologies to the cafeteria workers on the fourteenth floor) while lost in thought. He could even accept incidents two and three. What was less explicable was the way Bruce climbed into Tony's bed every night for a week and latched onto the engineer like a life-sized teddy bear.
(Almost as amazing was the way Tony himself actually made it to bed every night for a week.)
It really was an insult to JARVIS, though, for Bruce to imply that the AI couldn’t guide the scientist from his lab to the proper floor; after all, they both knew that JARVIS had no problem ignoring Tony’s 4:00 a.m. requests for coffee and stopping the elevator on the penthouse floor instead.
(Of course, JARVIS was also the one who had let an unassuming Tony wander into the fourteenth floor cafeteria freezer, in the name of “collecting data on Sir's habits relative to the rest of the Tower's occupants”. On another note, how his AI had become such a smart aleck, Tony would never know.)
The point was that Bruce was deliberately coming to Tony’s bedroom at night. To cuddle. And he had done so on multiple occasions.
It wasn’t that Tony minded, really, it was just...weird, especially for please-don't-touch-me Bruce.
At first, Tony thought that maybe the visits were the Hulk’s doing, that he was somehow taking control of Bruce's body at night and coming to visit his favorite Tin Man. But the few times Tony had poked Bruce awake, the other man's eyes were their normal brown and his half-hearted slaps in Tony's direction were definitely human strength.
The only other conclusion that Tony could come up with was that Clint had once again blabbed about the awesomeness of Tony's bed and Bruce—dedicated scientist that he was—was simply doing his duty in verifying that information.
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Clint, Thor, and Bruce had been taking turns in their resident genius’ bed for months before anyone realized that Steve was a sleepwalker.
Steve managed to hide it for as long as he did, both because JARVIS was the best at keeping secrets, and because the AI was exceptionally skilled at gently herding the mostly-asleep (see Tony and Bruce) to their appropriate resting places. It took only one waffle-related incident in the common floor kitchen in the dead of night for Steve to make JARVIS promise to never, ever mention to the others; after that, the super soldier starting putting a lot more effort into never falling asleep anywhere other than his floor.
Considering Steve's ability to fall asleep absolutely anywhere, however, the news was bound to come out eventually.
The first time Tony came across sleepwalking Steve, he didn't even see him for the tablet in his hand. The second time, however, it was impossible not to notice, because it turned out that Sleepytime Steve was a world-class lurker and Tony may have lost a few years off of his life when he woke up from an otherwise nice nap on the common room couch to a certain blonde standing over him. Tony didn't scream, but he did roll off the couch and bust the coffee table.
(Funnily enough, when Tony was younger and Howard was off searching for Captain America, he used to dream that he'd wake up and Steve would be standing over his bed. The reality was much more traumatizing.)
“He keeps me on whichever floor I fall asleep on,” the super soldier explained later, once they’d both calmed down, “and I accidentally drifted off while I was drawing in the library. I'd hate to think about what would happen if I went out into the city like this.”
As if J would let that happen. “Look Cap, even if you got out, you'd probably just go find a kitten to save or something. I think New York is safe from your evil clutches.” When Steve didn't look reassured, Tony found himself adding, “if it makes you feel better, you can sleep on my floor, too. Everyone seems to wind up in my bed, anyway.”
(Steve hadn't taken him up on the offer yet, but they both knew it was only a matter of time.)
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Nothing much changed for Tony over the next few months, save that he was getting so much more sleep than usual. He wasn't even doing it on purpose. Most of the time, he fully intended to keep going after a long day in the workshop, but the mystery of “who will be hiding in Tony's bed tonight?” was usually too tantalizing to ignore. On nights when he didn’t have a surprise guest, he was actually sort of disappointed.
One thing he knew for sure, though, was that Natasha would never willingly sleep in his bed, if for no other reason than that she’d heard the others waxing poetic about it and refused to encourage their behavior.
Not long after Tony caught Sleepytime Steve in his room for the first time (“C’mere, Cap; once you sleep on this mattress, you’ll never wander again”), the team went on a routine mission that ended up with their resident redhead in medical with a broken foot and out of action for a while. Afterwards, Tony expected Clint and Natasha to disappear a few days like they had after the thing with Loki, which is why he was shocked when Clint told him that Natasha would be his sleeping with him later that night.
She won’t take anything for the pain, so I thought maybe your bed would make her feel better. Just for a day or two. Please?
He gave the okay, of course, because what else was he going to do? Besides, the bed was big enough that Natasha would have to work at it if she wanted to kill him in his sleep, especially with the broken foot.
(And, really, everyone knew that Tony’s bed was by far the best within a hundred mile radius.)
After three nights in his bedroom, Natasha went back to her normal routine and never said anything else about it, and Tony pretended that he did not, on occasion, find red hairs on his pillows in the morning.
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No matter how much people joked that Tony had an “orgy-sized” bed, the genius had yet to test that claim.
Enter the villain-of-the-week and his weird touchy-feely fairy dust.
Not thirty seconds after getting dosed, Thor and Bruce were hugging, Clint and Natasha were holding hands like a schoolyard romance, and Steve was valiantly trying to peel Tony out of his suit. As soon as skin was visible, the genius had his arms full of super soldier. After letting himself enjoy it for a few seconds (so, sue him), Tony turned them all to the task of getting home as soon as possible.
“Steve, why don't you grab Natasha's hand. Tasha, you grab Bruce. Bruce, reach for Clint, and Thor, if you'll take Clint's hand, we're getting out of here.”
(JARVIS was going to be working overtime for the next few days deleting all of the “OMG: Avenger ducklings” and “Avengers: coolest daisy-chain ever?” videos off of the internet.)
Thankfully, the team made it home without incident, and a bit of experimentation revealed that not touching, while not exactly painful, was distinctly unpleasant, and the more Avengers participating in the human chain, the better. Which was when Natasha, naturally, suggested that they should all sleep it off in Tony's bed, because it was the biggest, and would let them stay in contact indefinitely.
(Sure. And everyone else agreed, of course, because it was the most practical solution.)
Showering was a bit challenging, what with the mandatory touching, but they managed, because there was no way that Tony was going to let all of them into his bed while covered in grime and questionable fairy dust. Soon enough, the six of them were jockeying for bed positions that were both practical and comfortable.
...I’m not sure whose elbow that is, but it’s squishing my spleen.
This reminds me of a quest I once took with my brother...
That is not a pillow, Clint.
Tony—who had long gotten used to his random rotation of bedmates—was content to let the rest of them figure it out for themselves and had almost dropped off to sleep when he felt the arm around his shoulders pull him closer and a smaller pair of feet tuck themselves underneath his calves.
For a moment, he considered pointing out that there was more than enough room to not lay on top of each other, but it really wasn’t worth the effort. “You know that I could just buy all of you better beds, right?” he muttered sleepily.
Tony missed the looks his teammates shared over his head, but he was just awake enough to hear the but it wouldn’t be yours whispered against his hair.