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The family rule was that anybody who wanted to could come and sleep in the big bed, if they were scared. Or pretty much for any reason. Not just the kids, but Natasha, and now Bruce.
He'd never taken them up on that. Not because he didn't believe in the sincerity of their offer, but because, maybe... nights were a strange time, and he didn't want to test his own limits quite that much just yet.
And besides, the only time he'd really thought about it was the night after the Avengers had left after the Thanksgiving get-together, and the big bed wasn't quite big enough for him to squeeze in with Clint, Laura, Cooper and Natasha.
So he worked, called Tony if Tony was up, made tea, wandered around the quiet farmhouse. And that was the way bad nights were, until a bedraggled one-eyed dog found its way to the farm.
Cooper found him one morning while feeding the chickens and dragged the muddy mutt inside, asking, "Can we keep him?" and "Should we get the vet to come around?"
Laura sighed fondly, got out a few of her oldest towels, and called the vet while Clint gently toweled off the worst of the mud.
"Does he have tags?" Clint shook his head. "Not that we've found," she said into the phone. "We're hoping that if he's lost, you'll recognize him and be able to bring him home. You know most of the animals around here, right? But he looks as if he's seen a long road."
"Is he okay?" Lila asked, peeking around the doorway.
"Looks kinda beat up," her dad answered. "But he's breathin' okay. He'll be okay." He sounded more defiant than reassuring, and then he looked up at Laura. "When can the vet come?"
"He's up at the old dairy, has surgery on his hands there, but he says he should be able to make it by tonight," Laura answered after she'd hung up. "Says to keep him warm, hydrated and comfortable the best we can. Feed him if he'll eat."
Bruce poked his head in, too, from where he'd been working in the den. "How much veterinary medicine do you know?" he asked the two of them.
"I do all right with horses an' chickens," Clint answered. "Small mammals... not so much experience there."
Laura shook her head. "Less than him. I'm the plant gal. I know how to heal a grape vine. And I know what I'd do for the kids."
"Small mammals aren't so different from small humans," Bruce said. "There are differences, but... I've treated a few dogs, saved one back when I was in Brazil the first time. May I?"
Clint moved out of the way, leaving the dog wrapped in the dryest towel. Bruce knelt down and his careful hands moved across the animal, from head to tail and lingering on each paw.
"The eye's gone," he said. "It's started to heal, but it might be infected. Not badly. Still, it's a concern. If you have any amoxycillin from treating the horses, or one of you guys, we might want to give him that and then get your vet to prescribe the rest of the round." The dog whined and twitched as Bruce's hands moved across his furry torso. "Maybe cracked ribs. It doesn't look like he tangled with a car. Maybe with a horse... or something else that would kick him." There was a grim moment of silence where they pointedly didn't say in front of the kids what other kind of animal could kick a dog hard enough to crack ribs.
Bruce cleaned the dog's paws carefully. "No broken limbs," he said with relief. "A couple of torn nails, which is where a lot of the blood was coming from. But those should heal without a problem."
"Do you know everything?" Lila asked quietly from beside him.
"No, but between me and FRIDAY just a phone call away, we make a pretty good start." Bruce wrapped the dog up in the towel again, rubbing behind his ears. "I'll just bandage this paw," he said, taking the first aid kit from Laura's offering hand. "Cooper, will you get him a bowl of water?"
The dog wasn't one that the vet recognized, and wasn't chipped or on any lost dog listings that FRIDAY could find, so he settled in to stay, and became known as Lucky.
That first night, Bruce fell asleep on the couch with Lucky's head on his lap and a hand tangled in his fur, and Laura came down near midnight to see why the light was still on and gently nudged Bruce until he woke up.
"You're going to get a crick in your spine," she told him. "Come up and sleep in a bed. Doesn't really matter which one."
He nodded tiredly, standing and muttering something about just making sure Lucky was comfortable, and went up to his own bed.
The third time Bruce was found sleeping on the couch, Lucky curled up half on top of him, Natasha decided the phenomenon warranted further investigation.
"So it's not that you don't like physical contact while you're sleeping," she said. "So it must be us." She fiddled with the paper tag of her teabag as she spoke.
"No, it's not that," he said, but he wasn't sure how else to explain.
Her eyes finally came up to consider him, to consider other factors.
"It's not your space," she guessed. "But it isn't anyone else's in particular either. You're not invading, especially because Lucky's the one flopping his furry self over you."
He nodded. That sounded right.
"You're always propped up a little, so it feels less like you're letting down your guard." She sipped her tea as she thought further.
"Maybe," he replied to that. "But more the space thing, I think. He comes to me. And... he needs me. I'm not asking for anything, I'm giving something."
"Bruce," she said quietly. "We need you, too."
He breathed out heavily, then nodded. "I know that," he said. "I do. But it's still... not quite comfortable."
"Well, maybe there's something we can do to help you with that," she said, smiling.
The rest of what she was thinking was a mystery left unanswered for the next week.
The next week, an enormous package was delivered to the farm, and Bruce assumed it was farm equipment, until Clint and Natasha carted it inside and up the stairs to the master bedroom.
It proved to contain a gigantic beanbag chair, or more properly sofa, stuffed with bits of memory foam.
Clint camped out on it for a little while with a bag of pepperoni, and soon it was Lucky's favorite place in the entire world.
"That... is a very large dog bed," Bruce commented through the open door.
Clint's only reply was a grin.
It did help.
Bruce had intended to head for his own bed, as usual, but curiosity drew him to the master bedroom, to look in at the couple and Lila sprawled across the mattress, and Lucky curled up in the middle of the comically over-large cushion of the beanbag. The dog raised his head and thumped his tail. Bruce relented, curling up in the enveloping softness of the cushion. Lucky settled in on top of his feet, trapping him. He didn't mind at all.
He woke up with Laura curled against his chest, and Natasha's arm pressed against his back, and a ball of fur curled in the hollow of his bent knees, and he wondered why he'd stayed away so long.