Color Coded (Gen)
It happens like this: they move into the Tower and it becomes the Mansion and they've all got their own rooms, but they spend most of their time in the living room—Bruce, Phil, and Natasha in chairs, Thor on the couch, Tony and Clint on the floor, and Steve in the recliner that Tony absolutely did not buy for him. They bond, they get close; it's not uncommon to find Clint's arm thrown over Tony as they nap or for Bruce to walk around in one of Steve's sweatshirts. The braids in Thor's hair are often courtesy of Natasha and Jane thinks they're adorable.
On some level, it feels like family and Tony doesn't want to do anything to harm that, so he never does mention the nightmares and JARVIS is informed, at the end of a screwdriver, that he's not to say anything. Even when Tony's sheets are too damaged from flailing and blood to be salvaged.
Even when he's screamed himself hoarse and his shouts were loud enough to be heard through the thick 1940's construction. (He tells Clint he'd been watching a horror movie. He's not entirely sure Clint believes him.)
But, anyway, he doesn't say anything and it happens like this: his twisting, his rolling, has the blanket wrapped around him tight and in the dream, he's suffocating. He's choking, choking, choking, and it's his arc reactor, thick wires bundling around him and squeezing the life out.
He dreams that he's ripping at the reactor, and in reality, he is, fingertips bloodied as he tries futility to yank the device out of his chest and he's crying and gasping. He can't hear JARVIS, nor the pounding feet, nor the way that Clint slams into his room and bounds onto the bed in a leap that's entirely too graceful to not be teased.
"Tony!" Clint shouts and then there's Bruce and someone says, "Water?"
"Not unless you want to see him in full panic." That's Phil, and he doesn't explain why—Natasha's smart enough to suss the reason out—and he sighs as he pulls Clint back, apologizes before landing a solid, perfect smack to Tony's cheek.
He blinks rapidly and crawls back against the headboard, pulling in air lungful after lungful.
It takes him a minute but he realizes quickly enough what's happened; he mutters, "Damn," and waits for everything to fall apart.
;;
They all get it. Really they do—there's enough shit in their daily lives that nightmares are kind of inevitable—but Tony'd been too close to actually catching the lip of the reactor and that scares the fuck out of all of them. (And every one of them would admit it.)
Nobody's sure how to deal with the knowledge that, without JARVIS, Tony could potentially be dead at that moment, so breakfast is a quiet and solemn affair that Tony is not present for.
No, he's down in his private workshop with a bottle of Glenlivet XXV and a dirty tumbler, back to the door and the room barely lit. He'd refused to leave for any of them and Steve thinks about that even as he finishes the last bite of oatmeal.
It's that thought that makes him break the silence at the table, asking them, "How are we going to handle this?"
There aren't any replies.
;;
The rest of the day is spent in a hush, too many thoughts to be spoken aloud. Too many fears. And as night falls, an anxiety fills the Tower that is felt and shared by all: even Thor flicks his eyes to Tony several times when the man finally emerges from his seclusion.
(He skips dinner, but sits with them at the table; when half the team meanders off to get changed, he follows the rest to the living room and fits himself between Clint and Steve on the couch. The movie they put on is one of his favorites, but Tony doesn't seem to pay any attention to it.
Their worry grows stronger and when Tony gets up, drags himself toward his bedroom, Steve follows.
"Not that I'm complaining, but the mind's not up to the demands of the flesh tonight," Tony tells him with a forced-waggle of eyebrows.
Steve gives him a look and Tony sighs, and Steve tells him, "You scared us last night," then, "Maybe having someone here will help—this doesn't seem to happen when Pepper is around."
Tony grumbles, but doesn't argue. Instead, he changes with his back to Steve, then slides into the bed with his back to Steve and he passes out shortly thereafter, the culmination of his exhaustion and intoxication, and Steve stays up for a while.
Watching.
Waiting.
Eventually, he too falls asleep, woken only when Tony shifts around midnight: there are no nightmares, no attempts to rip out the reactor, no flailing or cries. (When Steve wakes, Tony's still sleeping and one corner of his lips curves, half a smile born from an idea.)
;;
The next week, Steve is stuck on the helicarrier. Clint and Phil gladly take over for him and Tony sleeps with his face in a pillow, his hands under his belly.
He doesn't look at either of them in the morning, but he chows down at breakfast and he spends the day in the workshop, designing something Clint can't really understand and Phil doesn't try to.
;;
Phil makes a chart—a color-coded excel spreadsheet with columns and checkboxes—and emails it to everyone in the Tower. It's a rotating schedule of who is on cuddle duty on what night on any given month and no one actually mentions it because, yeah, there's really no need to upset Tony with this: they're just trying to take care of him.
There's contingencies built in for a cuddle-buddy being injured, sick, or on assignment, for someone (Pepper) being away on business, or for nights when Tony wants to be alone. (The latter is rare and always comes with the caveat that JARVIS is to alert someone the minute Tony starts going after the reactor. Those nights have also been getting rarer and rarer.)
In time, though, the chart begins to become moot—Tony starts following this person or that one when they retire to bed and curls up with Thor or with Bruce, and sometimes he'll nod at Natasha who'll trail after him and they'll be found passed out in his bed twenty minutes later.
Then it becomes obsolete.
"Tony, foot," Bruce mumbles and nuzzles into Thor's arm.
(This is Tony's room nowadays: the first futon has been joined by several others and there's blankets and pillows scattered all over. Bottles of water linger beside half-read books, a few small lamps poised over spots that minimize the glow. One of Phil's suit jackets hangs on the back of a chair, the bottom of Clint's empty practice quiver hanging underneath.)
"Sorry." Tony yawns. He's been up for two days, the hint of a nightmare curling around the edges of his mind and he'd tried to avoid saying anything, only for Clint to take one look at him and declare that either he comes to bed willingly or there was going to be an epic pile on Tony event.
And it's pretty damn epic. Granted they've been building toward this for a while, what with the changes to his bedroom and the slow migration of everyone's bedtime paraphernalia to the newly minted nest, but they hadn't yet fallen asleep in one great big pile of Avengers-and-Significant-Others before.
It's kind of awesome.
"Go to sleep," Pepper tells him, fingers rubbing through his hair.
He does, he dreams:
There's a cave and he's walking because there's light there, and he can hear Rhodey and Pepper.
He runs and runs and he slips free of the rock and he's home, in the Tower and someone's cooking pancakes—the griddle sizzles with each plop of batter—and Steve is there, with Phil.
"Hey," Rogers smiles and Tony smiles back, fingers touching the spot in his chest that's bloody and raw and he flinches.
"Easy, Tony. It's all right." That's Pepper and he blinks at her as she touches his chest with her own, perfect fingers over the spot and his reactor is there now.
Thor's hand covers it in the next second. "Come, Man of Iron. Let us watch this film you so adore."
And he breathes.