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Tony had been pulling away. It was subtle — slipping away from the kitchens if there were too many people, going straight to his lab after returning from a mission, or straight up ignoring Steve whenever he tried to talk to him. Maybe Steve wouldn’t have noticed if Tony wasn’t actively avoiding him, but the fact that he was sent blaring warning lights in Steve’s mind. He knew that Tony had a tendency of isolating himself whenever he got overwhelmed, letting himself stew in his own thoughts until he broke down and picked himself up right after.
Steve wasn’t as dumb as some people usually assumed; he had a solid grasp over why Tony was drawing back. Things hadn’t exactly been the same between them ever since Tony’s scare, when MODOK had stripped the Arc Reactor from him and left him vulnerable. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Tony Stark was, for all intents and purposes, scared. Of what, Steve didn’t know, but he was hellbent on finding out.
Tony was in the very last place Steve looked: his bedroom. Buried underneath his thick duvet with the lights still off, it seemed like he hadn’t even gotten up all morning. However, Steve was surprised to find him wide awake, laying on his side while watching mind-numbing engineer theory videos on his phone. The brunet barely raised his head over his shoulder to see who’d entered his room, muttering out a monotonous, “Oh, hey,” when he spotted Steve.
“Are you… doing okay?” Steve inquired hesitantly, hovering beside his bed.
“Even if I said ‘yes’, you’d stay worried,” Tony responded sullenly, muting his phone as he sighed. “I’ll… be fine. Eventually.” Tony rarely revealed this level of openness with anyone; the honesty nearly threw Steve for a loop.
“You don’t want to talk about it.” The words had left Steve’s mouth as a statement rather than a question, resolute in Tony’s decision. Their eyes met when Tony rolled onto his back, blinking up quietly in Steve’s direction. With his heart thumping loudly in his chest, Steve asked him, “Do you mind if I stayed? Just… I want to make sure you’re not alone.”
“Why?” Tony asked, raising a brow. It wasn’t a no, but it was hesitant, unsure. Tony’s eyes followed Steve as he sat gingerly on the edge of the mattress, training on Steve’s hand when he placed it on his knees.
Steve pressed his lips into a thin line, looking around Tony’s room for a moment before turning his head to look at him again. He smiled. “You’d done it once, saved me from myself, so I thought I’d save you, too.”
Tony held Steve’s gaze, steady and intense, and Steve noticed them glisten with wetness as tears appeared in them. Without another word, Tony shifted, tugging his blanket out from under him. He raised his arm to lift the blanket, and Steve climbed into bed beside him unprompted. Tony wrapped his arms around Steve’s shoulders, immediately burying his face against Steve’s neck. As Steve began to rub random patterns into the back of Tony’s shirt, he heard the slightest change in Tony’s breathing as he attempted to match Steve’s steady, slow breaths.
Soon enough, Steve felt Tony go lax in his arms, breathing shallowly when he fell asleep. Steve smiled to himself, letting his eyes slide closed as he continued his comforting ministrations, placing a soft kiss to the crown of Tony’s head.
