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Tony is already in bed by the time Steve comes up. Their room is dark, even the windows shaded to block out most of the light coming in from the city, and it takes Steve a moment to realize that the dark mass huddled under the blankets is, in fact, his wayward husband. He sighs softly and runs his hand through his hair, thinking of the dinner he’d prepared for the two of them that had sat out for an hour before he’d finally decided Tony wasn’t going to join him. He doesn’t know why he’d expected otherwise. He knows how Tony gets the night before something big and Tony’s been withdrawing from him for the last couple of days; he should have seen this coming.
“So this is where you’ve been all day,” he says quietly. Tony shifts but doesn’t move out from under the blankets. “JARVIS, lights to 15%.”
JARVIS obligingly turns the lights up, raising them just enough that Steve doesn’t have to strain his eyes in the dark. Tony doesn’t protest the change, which is a good sign. It means that he’s stressed and anxious but he’s not actively trying to hide away.
Steve crosses the room, shedding clothes as he goes so that he’s down to only his boxers by the time he reaches the bed. He climbs up and stretches out over Tony’s body, hovering above him on his hands and knees. From his vantage point, he can see the tiny tuft of hair that’s sticking out from the blankets but that’s it.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “You wanna talk about it?”
Tony makes a dissenting noise and the blankets shift, like he’s shaking his head.
“Can I at least see you?”
Another dissenting noise.
“Come on,” he cajoles. “Can’t I see those beautiful brown eyes?”
“No,” comes the grumbled reply.
He bites back a smile. Wouldn’t do to look amused when Tony’s clearly so distressed. “Are you sure? I haven’t gotten to see them all day,” he asks instead, voice low and teasing, devoid of anything that Tony might take as disapproval. If Steve is right about what’s going through Tony’s head right now—and he’s pretty sure he is—he needs to be very careful about what he says.
It takes a moment but Tony eventually shifts enough that his entire head is poking out from under the blankets. He looks exhausted, worn out from stress and worry, and there are deep shadows under those brown eyes he loves so much, but he’s still the most beautiful thing Steve has ever seen.
“There they are.” He smiles fondly at his husband and leans down to kiss him. It’s meant to be a quick, reassuring thing, but as so often happens, he gets caught up in the feel of Tony’s lips against his, how he tastes, how perfect he looks in that single moment before his eyes flutter closed, and Steve finds himself drawing the kiss out into something slow and lingering.
When he eventually pulls away, Tony’s eyes are dazed and slightly out of focus. Steve can’t resist leaning back down again and brushing a kiss over Tony’s right eyebrow. Tony’s eyes slip closed again as he sighs and Steve kisses each trembling eyelid before pulling back.
“What’s got you so worked up, hmm, sweetheart?” Steve asks.
Tony wiggles out from under the sheets just a little more, enough so that his whole head and the tops of his shoulders are uncovered. “I—” he begins and then bites his lip.
Steve thinks he knows what this is all about and he thinks Tony might be feeling too seen already to admit what’s going on in that big brain of his. He rolls off of Tony, onto his side, and slides under the covers, tucking himself up against his husband’s side, who rolls over to face him. Steve shifts them so that Tony’s leg is thrown over his hip, his head tucked under Steve’s chin, into his chest. He can’t see Tony’s face like this—he’s already missing the sight—but he thinks Tony feels like he needs to hide so he can be open as he should be.
“Better?” he asks.
Tony nods, his beard scratching on Steve’s naked chest.
“So is this about tomorrow then?”
Tony nods again, voice muffled when he says, “I’m going to be a horrible father.”
“You’re not,” Steve says, even though he knows it’s a platitude that barely even makes a dent in Tony’s lack of self-worth. He just can’t stop himself. He hates hearing Tony put himself down like this.
“I am,” Tony says matter-of-factly. “I’m going to be just like Howard and I’m going to ruin this child.”
Steve bites back a sigh—Tony would take it the wrong way right now—and instead presses a kiss to Tony’s hair. “You’re not going to ruin them.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Because for one thing, I’ll be right here to help you raise them, which puts me ahead of Maria for one, he thinks. But he knows better than to voice that opinion out loud. He doesn’t know why Tony is so insistent on idolizing his mother, who was so frequently absentee, except that she was slightly more loving than Howard had been. And to Tony, so very attention-starved as a child, even slightly was better than nothing.
“Because you’re already thinking about them,” he says. “You’re already worried about how you’re going to take care of them, planning contingencies for every little thing that could possibly go wrong. Parents like Howard don’t do that.”
Tony is quiet for long enough that Steve lifts his chin up and kisses him again, trying to soothe away Tony’s anxieties with every sweep of his tongue. Tony’s arms slide around his waist, clinging to him as he kisses back. Time slides by as they kiss, minutes, hours, who knows? All that matters is the feeling of Tony’s body against his, the taste of his tongue in his mouth.
“This could go so badly wrong,” Tony whispers when he finally pulls away.
Steve tells himself it’s pointless to mourn the loss of Tony’s kiss and points out, “Sweetheart, that would be true even if we were the best parents in the world and had successfully raised five other kids.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Steve interrupts firmly. “You’re not alone. I’m here right by your side. Pepper and Rhodey are here with you. Nat, Bucky and Clint—oh wait, maybe we shouldn’t count Clint.”
To his relief, Tony laughs, tucking his head back under Steve’s chin as he shakes. Steve smiles and brushes another kiss over Tony’s hair, holding him as close as he can. He wishes they could be like this forever, but at the same time, he’s so excited for what tomorrow will bring.
“I just don’t want to mess this up,” Tony admits once he’s stopped laughing.
“That’s what parenting is,” Steve says softly. He’s just as terrified of getting it wrong as Tony is, but he knows that there’s no one way to get it right. “We’ll make mistakes, but we’ll do it together and hey, I think between the two of us, we’ll manage to raise a pretty decent kid. If they’re even a tiny bit like you, I know we’ll have done a great job.”
“Or like you.”
“Oh no, definitely not. I pick way too many fights.”
“But for all the right reasons.”
“That’s not what Bucky says.”
“That’s because you keep dragging Bucky into your fights.”
“That sounds like a him problem.”
“It wouldn’t be if you would just pick your battles.”
“I have picked them,” Steve argues. “I’ve picked all of them.”
Tony laughs again and raises his head to peck Steve on the lips. “Okay you’re right. I hope mini-Stark doesn’t turn out anything like you.”
“I hope they’re just like you,” Steve says, smiling down at him. He’s so lucky. Not everyone gets to spend their life with the person they love more than anything, but Steve not only gets to have Tony but their child as well. “Beautiful and generous and too smart for their own good.” He can see the argument forming on Tony’s face so he quickly adds, “Did Pepper ever decide what she wanted for her present for being our surrogate?”
Tony groans. “Jimmy Choo’s entire spring line.”
Steve winces. “Sounds expensive.”
“Good thing you married a billionaire then, isn’t it?”
He shakes his head. “Good thing I married you.”
Tony’s smile is soft and sweet. “Everything changes tomorrow, doesn’t it?”
“For the better,” Steve promises.
This time, Tony just nods and says, “Yeah,” instead of arguing. Then his smile turns a little coy. “Last night we’ll have to ourselves for a very long time. We should make the most of it.”
Steve grins and takes the hint, leaning in to kiss him again.
He comes home from his run a week later to find Tony asleep on the couch, a newborn Morgan Stark-Rogers also asleep on his chest. Tony’s hand rests on her back, keeping her safe against him. Steve smiles at the sight, a wave of affection for the two most important people in his life washing over him. He pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of the two of them together, setting it as his new lockscreen. Tony will have another anxiety attack eventually and when that happens, he’ll pull this picture out and show it to him.
Tony thinks he won’t be a good parent.
Steve looks at him and knows he already is.
They’re going to be just fine.