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Steve and Tony sleep together almost everyday for three months without talking about it. Not sleeping together, just sleeping, not even usually touching. They share Steve’s king size bed and when one of them has nightmares, as they both often do, the other whispers away the fear.
They both dream about drowning, and they learn to recognise when the other is having a drowning nightmare. Tony always lets out a choking gasp when he wakes up from one of those, but when Steve has one, he inhales deeply and holds it until his body rebels and forces him to take another breath.
There are nightmares that they do not share. Steve dreams of walking through a barren graveyard alone, and those do not jolt him awake, so he whimpers softly through those nightmares. Tony wraps himself around Steve’s large back and says useless words like “it’ll be okay. you’re not alone,” but it’s really the warm weight of his body behind Steve’s that helps. Tony dreams of an empty hole in his chest and mumbles unintelligible, scared words, and when that happens, Steve covers the arc reactor protectively with a large hand, a reassuring weight on Tony’s chest, and Tony drifts off into a quiet sleep.
Sharing a bed is an unspoken comfort to both, and Steve’s panic attacks ease up, as do their nightmares, and they start to be able to sleep through the night without either one lunging out of bed, struggling for air in the throes of another bad one.
No one knows, because JARVIS keeps a secret, and Steve’s room is close enough to Tony’s penthouse that no one bats an eye if they both shuffle into the kitchen at the same time.
---
Steve gives Tony the first thing he makes in the wood shop. It is a small, simple box, with dovetail joints, and he leaves it in Tony’s workshop one day when he’s delivering a sandwich. He doesn’t think Tony notices, but it’s in a different place the next day. Tony doesn’t bring it up, and Steve doesn’t ask.
It’s the same with the bed they share. They don’t talk about it. They just go about their business, and at night, Tony watches movies on Steve’s couch, and he falls asleep there. Steve tucks him into bed and crawls in afterwards. It’s like that, almost every night, and they don’t talk about it.
---
They don’t talk about it, until Steve does. It starts out jokingly, when Tony is in Malibu for three days for a board meeting. When he returns, and they are sitting on Steve’s couch, watching Back to the Future, Steve says “Man, it was really nice having the whole bed to myself for so long.”
“Hey, my bed’s even bigger,” Tony retorts, and what he actually means is that he is inviting Steve up to share it, but Steve takes it the wrong way and says “Oh. Well, you can sleep in it, if you like.”
Tony stammers a response that he’s unsure of, although he hopes it was at least a smart ass remark, and flees the room.
---
Here’s the thing, Tony Stark thinks he is in love with Steve Rogers.
It’s killing him to fall asleep to Steve every night, watching the slow rise of his chest, listening to him hum old songs in his sleep, when he is dreaming dreams, not nightmares. When Steve wakes up in the morning, yawning - and he’s been sleeping so well lately - Tony feels so proud of bleary eyed, messy Steve, and he wants to nuzzle his neck and steal quick little morning kisses from him.
Tony doesn’t want to stop, but he has to, because he doesn’t want to ruin this thing they’ve got. He knows he can’t have Steve, because he’s read every single psychological profile done on the man, and there is no way that man is any less than straight. He tells himself that if he can salvage at least the friendship, salvage the way Steve smiles at him, and tosses popcorn into his mouth from across the room, and the way Steve runs his fingers through his hair in full view of the others, he’ll give up the small pieces of peace he finds sleeping next to Steve Rogers.
It’s just that it’s never going to work.
---
Here’s the thing, Steve Rogers is definitely in love with Tony Stark.
It’s killing him to fall asleep next to Tony every night, lulled to sleep by his (mostly) quiet snores and the occasional jab from a cold foot(Steve doesn’t like those, but he still likes Tony). He wants to wrap himself around Tony, and touch the stubble of his face in the morning, and whisper breakfast plans and silly, sweet words to him. The feeling scares him a bit - he’s never felt this way about a man - well, about anyone - before, but he tells himself that it is just a stupid crush(a really, really, really stupid crush) and it’ll pass.
He appreciates the time that Tony had been spending with him, but he really does understand. Tony was just helping him get used to this world, soothing him through his panic attacks, and making him feel comfortable in his own skin. Tony is a busy man, and he has things to do that do not involve orbiting Steve and sleeping in his bed. Steve is well aware that men in this decade do not tend to share sleeping arrangements, and he decides that he won’t insist on talking to Tony about it, in case he feels awkward. He has shared a cot with his soldiers before, and sharing warmth on cold nights was a perfectly dignified reason to bunk together, but Tony isn’t a soldier.
They’ll both just move on then, Steve thinks, and he hopes that Tony’s nightmares do not run ragged over nights when he is not there to calm them.
It’s just that it’s never going to work.
---
They tiptoe around each other for a few days, but when Natasha asks what’s wrong, Steve and Tony launch right back into the motions of their friendship. Steve starts to bring sandwiches to Tony’s workshop again and they make fun of each other when standing in the common areas of the tower.
If they start to watch movies in the main living room instead of in Steve’s room, and now Steve makes breakfast for the entire crew, and not just him and Tony, no one notices.
Steve spends more time in the wood shop and he makes fourteen salad bowls in one day, because the droning of the lathe is calming and helps think about something that is not Tony.
---
A building falls on Captain America, and Tony waits in the hospital for two days, but when Steve wakes up, he ushers Bruce in first.
Oh god, I was so worried, Tony thinks. I thought you were gone, Tony thinks. I don’t know how you got so ingrained in my life, but I don’t know what I’ll do without you, and I want you near and safe and with me, Tony thinks. I need you, Tony thinks.
“Get well soon, Cap.” Tony says.
He pretends he can only stay a little while because Clint and Natasha want to see Steve too and Clint brought an obnoxiously large teddy bear and they all couldn’t possibly fit in the same room.
Tony locks himself in his workshop and drowns himself in half a bottle of dreadfully expensive scotch. It mostly wipes away the strangled feelings borne of not knowing if Steve would be alright, but it also makes him sick to his stomach. He falls asleep in the bathroom.
When he wakes up, he is in his bed, and he doesn’t know how he got there, so JARVIS helpfully replays the footage.
---
Steve gets home from the hospital alone, because Natasha and Clint went out drinking, and Bruce has flown to a conference in DC. He is greeted by JARVIS - the traitor, Tony thinks - who gently suggests that perhaps Tony might need some help getting to bed. Steve barges into the workshop, flushed and worried, and for a moment, Tony feels delighted because Steve is worried about him. But Steve only sighs, and Tony’s heart drops seeing the frown on his face, captured in high resolution by the building’s cameras.
Then, Tony is picked up off the cold floor of the workshop bathroom, and carried to his penthouse, JARVIS helpfully opening all the right doors. Tony is embarrassed to see his own hands reaching for Steve as he is tucked into bed, and he is mortified to see how he holds on to Steve’s wrists, begging him to stay, just tonight, just one night.
And Steve - well, Steve holds him in bed firmly, and says “I can’t, Tony” and Tony tells JARVIS to stop the replay.
His blankets are warm, and comforting, but the words “I can’t, Tony” rings in his ears, and they hurt more than the massive throbbing pain in his head.
---
The next day, Steve decides he wants to talk about it, so Tony retreats to Malibu and doesn’t return his phone calls.
---
When Iron Man doesn’t show up for an “Assemble!” call in Manhattan(It’s a mid sized gelatinous cube, and Captain America and the Black Widow handle it just fine and Iron Man isn’t actually needed), Captain America loses his shit(privately) and decides that this needs to be fixed right now.
Captain America puts on slacks and a button down shirt, grabs his gym bag, gets in a cab and goes to JFK, and it is not until he is sitting on United Airways Flight 1252 that Steve Rogers sets in and he realizes that this is the first time he’s been out alone for this long in more than 70 years. He breathes steadily into the barf bag and shivers in his seat. The stewardess gives him a blanket.
It is only 40 miles from LAX to Malibu, so Steve runs, forcing his demons down. He calls JARVIS and JARVIS talks to him. JARVIS gives him directions to Tony’s home, and looks up facts about Los Angeles and fills Steve’s brain with movie trivia and most of the Wikipedia article about palm trees, and Steve runs, and shoves the threads of panic away and focuses on the bright sun beating on his skin and the smell of saltwater as he runs up the Pacific Coast Highway.
---
It still takes him three hours to get to Malibu, and it is dark when he arrives. Steve is actually tired from the run, and fairly sweaty, but the red in his cheeks comes from seeing the terror in Tony’s eyes when JARVIS opens the doors and Steve marches right in and gets far closer to Tony than Tony wants right now.
Tony backs up against the glass windowed wall, the Pacific Ocean behind him, and he debates whether he’ll have enough time to call the suit, and flee over the ocean, maybe not back to New York, but somewhere where he can successfully hide for a while and not talk about feelings. Tony does not want to talk about feelings. He does not want to have emotions. He does not want to have Steve, even for a little bit, because Steve could not possibly really want him, not for the long run anyway, and -
“We need to talk.” Steve demands.
“I don’t want to fucking talk.” says Tony.
Steve’s face morphs into a concentrated frown, and Tony tenses up because Steve is either going to punch him in the face now or kiss him, and he’s not entirely sure which one will be worse.
It’s the latter.
Steve kisses him, and it is actually not worse than getting punched in the face.
It is quite nice, and an exceedingly polite, but forceful, kiss. It is not an “I love you” sort of kiss. It is probably more of a “You are a goddamn idiot, Tony Stark” sort of kiss with undertones of “Stop running from me” and “You are still a goddamn idiot.”
“Aren’t you straight?” Like - very, very straight?” Tony stammers.
“I am,” Steve says.
“You have noticed that I’m a man, right?”
“Yes, I actually have very, very enhanced eyesight.” Steve confirms with a wry smile.
“I’m really confused.”
“I like you.” Steve sighs. “I like you, and I want you.”
“But your sexual preference is women, right?”
“Right now, my sexual preference is you, Tony.”
“Is this going to get complicated?”
“Stop making it complicated.” Steve commands.
Steve starts the second kiss too, and that kiss does not call Tony Stark a goddamn idiot. That kiss makes Tony’s face hot and his eyes glaze over and his brain is just so tired of thinking of ways to deprive himself of happiness, so it just shuts down instead and Tony Stark lets himself be carried away by Steve’s warm skin and his perfect lips and his steady arms.
---
Steve makes breakfast, and Tony makes coffee, and they call in to SHIELD and tell Agent Hill that Steve’s in Malibu and will be for a couple more days.
They sit on the beach together and go to a little place with long lines that makes fantastic fried fish up the road. Steve eats two baskets of fries and 8 pieces of fried fish and Tony peels a pound of fresh steamed shrimp and eats it with melted butter. They share a bottle of wine.
When Tony’s face gets that closed off expression and he looks at Steve and says “This isn’t going to last, you know that, right?”, Steve grabs his hands and says “Let’s just take this one day at the time.” Then Steve reaches over for some napkins because now he's got butter and shrimp all over his hands too, and Tony giggles and plants a buttery kiss on his cheek.
The next day, they go to the Santa Monica Pier and buy funnel cake and scowl at the seagulls and behave like a pair of teenagers when their ferris wheel car reaches the top.
---
Tony wants to stay in Malibu forever and ever with Steve, but Steve says they have to go back to New York, so a Stark Industries jet meets them at the airport because Tony will absolutely not let Steve travel via United Air again.
They tell the other members of the team back at the tower, and Natasha says “Finally” and Clint looks baffled but happy, and Bruce shrugs and smiles. Thor finds out somehow, and they receive a giant bouquet of flowers from Jane Foster with a note that reads “Thor wants to congratulate you something something about consummating the warrior’s bond and something something about touching dicks. Congrats!” Tony thinks he likes Jane Foster, and Steve still blushes when women swear.
---
JARVIS replays the footage for Tony of that night a few weeks ago. The camera picks up Steve picking up Tony, and tucking him into bed. Tony cringes when he hears Steve say “I can’t, Tony,” but he makes himself let the recording play on.
He hears his drunken voice whine at Steve - “But whyyy? Why can’t you stay, Steeeven?”
And Steve says sadly “Because I adore you. If I stay now, I’ll never leave.”
And Tony says, suddenly sounding more sober than he thought he was - “Then stay.”
Steve does, that night. He wraps himself around the stinky, drooling, drunken Tony, and he holds him all night and leaves in the morning, before Tony wakes up. “We’ll talk about it when you wake up and feel better,” Steve whispers, before he leaves, and Tony remembers running away from Steve, running to Malibu, away from Steve’s feelings, and away from his own.
The shower stops, and Steve steps out, wet and beautiful, and Tony tries out the thought of it being Steve, his Steve. It’s a nice thought, and Tony still doesn’t think he quite deserves it, but he’ll take every day of it that he can get, and guard it as selfishly as he can.
And then Steve tosses his wet towel in Tony’s face and Tony cries “Cameras off, JARVIS!”
---
This is how it works, then.
Sometimes they sleep in Steve’s bed, and sometimes they sleep in Tony’s, and sometimes they sleep apart if their sleep schedules don’t match up. Steve sleeps on the right, and Tony always takes three pillows.
Every now and then Tony looks at Steve and asks him if he’s really, really sure that he likes men, because the psychological tests still definitely point to no and Steve always says “I like you, Tony.”
Steve rarely has panic attacks anymore. Tony drinks much less. They both still have nightmares, but with the other there, falling asleep afterwards becomes easier and easier.
Tony says “I love you” first, and he does it at the kitchen table, staring nervously down into his cup of coffee. Steve says “I know,” and Tony sputters at him, and insists that he is absolutely not going to be Princess Leia in this scenario. Steve smiles and says “I love you too, of course.”
Steve is in Tony’s workshop, delivering another sandwich, when he sees the simple wood box he made and gave Tony months ago. He picks it up and the lid slides open to reveal a spare arc reactor. Tony looks up from his work and says “Just so we’re clear, the arc reactor isn’t actually my heart, and I have an actual heart, but that’s supposed to be symbolic.”
Somehow, it works.