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"What… Is that?"
"It's a house."
"I know that but why is it here?"
Steve sighed and pushed his hands back through his hair as he stared at the monstrosity on the kitchen island.
"How should I know, Tony? It's your place. You let all sorts of cleaning staff and delivery people in here. It's not exactly a fortress."
Tony leant in to scrape some of the frosting off the awning of the fifteen inch gingerbread house that they'd woken to find in their kitchen. To be more specific, Steve had woken, Tony had shuffled in through the elevator about ten minutes later, probably fresh from flirting with one of the administration girls after an all-nighter in R&D.
“Everything is monitored, you know. It might not be an inaccessible cave, but it’s a fortress of data. JARVIS, who’s responsible for this mound of sugar?” Tony glanced at Steve, cocky as ever for having the answers, or at least access to them.
“I would assume you are referring to the gingerbread house, sir, and not Captain Rogers. Mound and sugar are two descriptives you’ve had me recognise before. The item was delivered at seven am this morning, brought in by one of the receptionists. Might I recommend reading the card?”
Tony’s face was red as he snatched the card from under the edge of the platter holding the house, mumbling about Jarvis being a smart ass. Steve found it slightly embarrassing, but Tony had always been prolific in giving him a number of identifiers in a near constant attempt to make him blush. It rarely worked, but it did ruffle his feathers.
“What’s it say?” He asked as he slid his arms around Tony’s waist from behind, tucking his chin over the man’s shoulder to get a peek at the card.
“Dear Tony & Steve,” Tony began, reading it out.
“Merry Christmas, try not to kill each other and be sure not to let Tony spend more than a few thousand on your gift. Love to you both, Pepper & Happy.”
Steve could see the card and the swirled, perfect handwriting had to be that of Pepper’s. He smiled and gave Tony a squeeze around the middle.
“How do you even go about eating a candy house?” Tony asked, setting the card down and giving one of the walls a prod.
“Terrible structural integrity. Where did she get this? And WHY?”
Steve laughed as Tony kept muttering about it, obviously having hit over-tired a long time ago. He gave him a tug, a step back from the house, before turning him to have an arm around the man’s shoulders.
“We can ponder those things later. You need to rest.” He nudged his nose against Tony’s forehead as he led him back towards the bedroom. He was shot a glare for his trouble, but Steve had some practice getting Tony to rest.
“Give me an hour. Nap for an hour and I won’t give you any trouble for another twelve,” he promised, offering a big smile until he got Tony’s slight nod of acceptance.
As they often did, Steve sat down on Tony’s side of the bed and slid over, resting somewhere in the middle before Tony followed, under the covers unlike his partner, dropping down to rest his head heavily on Steve’s bicep, body splayed out and yet still fitting nicely against Steve’s side.
“I wonder if I could set up a couple of supports and then take it down wall by wall. I suppose you could take the roof off first but it seems more like a good place to finish.”
Steve rolled his eyes as he listened to Tony.
“I don’t think there are rules to how you eat a gingerbread house, Tony. But it’s big, so we should have Pepper and Happy over to help us with it, don’t you think? They did organise it.”
Steve brushed his fingers through Tony’s hair as he spoke, watching the man’s body start to relax, from his shoulders sinking heavily into him, down to his fingers going from their usual tapping to still, on top of the sheets.
“Yeah, I suppose. Probably should share some of it out. I’m not big on gingerbread. I’m more an icing type of guy,” he replied, blinking a few times and Steve just knew he was trying not to conk out on him.
“I bet you are,” he chuckled, voice warm with affection. “Oh, Tony? You weren’t really going to spend thousands on my gift, were you? Tony?”
He looked down again, only to find Tony’s eyes had finally shut and his breathing had gotten deeper. He had the most impeccable timing. Steve just smiled.