Y/N sits on her couch, reading over some papers she got from Pepper, carding her hand through Lady’s golden fur as she hears the familiar noise of Steve’s keys. She knows it must be Steve because his keys sound heavier than Bucky’s because of all the extra keys he got form all the others and from Fury. A smile creeps on her face and she puts the papers down to listen while Lady scrambles up and runs to the newcomer. It takes a few minutes until Steve steps inside the living room. He smiles at her as his eyes meet hers, Lady jumping up and down beside him in excitement and happiness. Y/N’s smile brightens. She stands up and walks over to him, hugs him tightly and kisses his cheek. “Hey, handsome.”
“Hey, doll.” Steve presses her tightly against him and presses his face into her hair, voice filled with exhaustion. “How was debriefing?”
“Okay, as always.” Y/N notes that his voice sounds tired, and she also notices the yawn that he tries to hide in her hair. She hums a little but then leans back and inspects his face. “Stevie, you look tired.” She frowns a little at him and places her right hand on his cheek. “Yeah. But I don’t have much time. I need to finish this paper for my class and then I have to write a report for Tony for this new thing he made, which I still can’t figure out what it is for.” He yawns again and rubs his eyes tiredly. “Steve, you need to rest.”
“I know. Later. Just need to finish it.” He makes a move to walk past her but Y/N reacts quickly and wraps her arms around his hips. “Tell you what. You go lie down on the couch and rest for half an hour. I make you tea and a sandwich and then you can do the paper for your class and finish the report. Deal?”
“Y/N…” Steve sighs and shakes his head, still looking pretty tired and stressed. “C’mon, Stevie. It’s half an hour. I promise you, if you don’t get to finish the report for Tony today, I’m going to make this noodle things he likes so much to let it slip and give you a week of more time. Okay? Please?” Y/N shows him her puppy eyes, which Bucky claims is worse than Steve’s. She knows she plays dirty. It’s obvious that Steve will fall asleep as soon as he lies down for longer than ten minutes, and she actually hopes for him to fall asleep and sleep through the night. It’s not really late by now, barely 4 pm but by his looks she figures he will sleep through until dawn. “Okay. Half an hour. You will wake me then.”
“’S all I’m asking for.” She shrugs knowingly and kisses his cheek again before she slowly makes her way to the kitchen. She sees Steve walk to the couch and flop over, face first into the cushions. He’s not moving his limbs and Y/N smiles as Lady jumps on him to squeeze herself between him and the back rest. She’s just about to start the kettle as the first snore reaches her ears. Relieve and happiness fill her. She smiles that she managed to get him to rest. Now she hopes that he actually sleeps for at least two hours to get some needed rest. Or more.
* * *
“Steve? Where are you? God dammit. It’s not funny! I’ve been waiting for half an hour now!” Bucky curses and suddenly has another face in his. “Shh, you wake him up.” Y/N places her finger on her lips and motions to the back of the couch. “Who?”
“Steve, obviously. He came back a while ago and fell asleep on the couch.” Bucky looks slightly shocked and raises his eyebrows at his girlfriend. “Just like that? He never naps.”
“I don’t think he naps, Bucky. This man is exhausted. He jumped from one mission to another, with meetings and public appearances in-between. He had barely any free time this whole month, barely even dropped. And now that he decided to study art in an online course, he has even less time.”
“I know.” Bucky frowns and rubs his neck. “He told me he meets me down at the entrance. He wanted to do some things in town.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“I- guess it can.” Bucky shrugs and walks with Y/N over to the blonde lump that’s originally their boyfriend. Steve lies still on his stomach, one arm falling down to the ground, feet poking out from under the blanket Y/N had covered him with. Lady is still nestled on the spot between his body and the backrest. She looks up briefly and thumbs her tail against Steve’s thigh as she sees Bucky. He rubs her ears with a fond smile. “Take good care of him, girl.” Y/N swiftly lifts Steve’s head from the pillow and slips under it, shushing him as he stirs with a groan. With a few strokes through his hair she manages to get him back to sleep. “He looks like shit.”
“Bucky!”
“It’s true. Look at him. He’s working too much. He shouldn’t have taken this classes.” Bucky huffs a frustrated sigh. Y/N knows he’s not really mad at Steve for taking them, but he isn’t pleased either.
“But this is what he wants to do. Even back then. You told me yourself that he always wanted to study art.” Y/N motions at the pencils that are strewn around the coffee table from the evening before and at the sketchbook on the floor. Bucky only sighs and nods. “I know.” He rubs a hand over his face and slips onto the couch, situating Steve’s legs on his lap while still running his hand through Lady’s fur. They sit in silence for a while until Bucky suddenly straightens up. “I have an idea.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say!” Bucky looks offended at Y/N. She shrugs but smiles. “It’s just provisional. Your ideas are usually bad ones.”
“That’s not true and you know it. At least they’re not as bad as Steve’s. Do you want to hear what I wanted to say or not?”
“Okay, okay, spill. But a little quitter. You’re waking him up.”
* * *
Y/N slips into the bed, throwing the blanket a little down so Bucky can put Steve down. She had listened to Bucky’s idea and actually found it good. Bucky had called Tony and told him he has to wait for his report, which Tony agreed to. The engineer hadn’t even really thought that Steve would manage to write one because he knew he wouldn’t understand what Tony gave him for the last mission. Y/N had taken it as her task to call his professor about the paper. The man wasn’t pleased but agreed to give Steve a week longer to write his paper. He even told her that he’s somewhat surprised that Captain America takes his classes and finds time to write, and often even submit his papers before the time ends, between all the duties he has.
Y/N is silently glad that they all agreed, and she even pushed her luck by calling Fury and telling him that Steve would take a needed break for the rest of a week.
Now she waits as Bucky shuffles into the room, a still sleeping Steve in his arms, cradled to his chest as if he were a small child. “He didn’t even stir but Lady wasn’t pleased. She growled at me.” He whispers sadly as he slowly lies the blonde down in the middle. Steve lets out a small sigh and rolls a little to the side, so he’s facing Y/N. She smiles up at Bucky and starts caressing Steve’s cheek. “I’m not surprised. Of both.” She leans in and kisses Steve’s forehead before she wraps him up into her arms and watches as Bucky gets settled in behind the blonde. He wraps his arms around him, too, resting his hand on Y/N’s hips and places a little, fond kiss on Steve’s shoulder blade. “You know he’s going to freak out when he wakes up, right?”
“Yeah.” Bucky nods and snuggles closer to Steve’s back. “But I don’t care. ‘M going to force him to get small and pamper him until he doesn’t want to get big ever again.” Y/N groans and leans her forehead softly against Steve’s. “Nooo. I miss my big Stevie then.” Bucky laughs shortly and caresses her waist with his metal thumb.
They lie in silence for a while. Y/N feels Bucky’s hand go heavy against her hip as he slowly falls into a light slumber, and she smiles. She starts giggling as Lady gets her revenge on him. She jumps on the bed, close enough to Bucky to startle him awake with a snort and licks his cheek before she settles on the end of the bed. Bucky glares at the dog but quickly goes back to falling asleep in seconds.
Y/N looks into Steve’s face and runs her fingers through his hair. Now and then she strokes his cheek or follows his cheekbone and nose softly with her fingers. “FRIDAY, can you dim the lights a little? And wake me in an hour please?”
“Of course, Y/N.” So, Y/N lets her eyes fall shut and kisses Steve’s nose before she falls into a doze as well.
* * *
She’s woken by a sudden movement. Steve is panting a little, trashing and turning in her arms and sweating cold. Bucky is wide awake as well, sitting up to have a better look. Y/N locks eyes with Bucky and curses before she slips out of bed, taking a whining Lady by the color and dragging her out.
These nights are the ones Y/N hates the most. Exhaustion is the worst for Bucky’s and Steve’s mind. They have so many things that made them suffer, still does, and each day adds more pressure to it that even their therapists can’t get rid of them fast enough. Exhaustion means bad nights. Which means that the worst nightmares come to the surface. After them the boys stay awake for the rest of the night, silent, nervous, fidgeting and, almost every time, sad or even some sort of depressed. Apparently, this night is one of them.
She hears his horrific scream as she’s in the kids’ bedroom, collecting Steve’s pacifier, pj’s and a diaper. Lady starts barking at Y/N to open the door. She wants to comfort her owner. Y/N feels with her dog. She hurries to get everything, throwing the sheep to Lady. The dog catches’ it carefully and whines at the door once more before Y/N opens it, then she dashes through the hall and into Steve’s room. Y/N runs after her. Steve is still lying, breathing heavily with Bucky whispering calmly to him. He’s pale and sweating, looking even a bit green. Y/N throws the stuff she carries to the foot of the bed where Lady sits with watchful eyes, sheep between her teeth. She crouches in front of the bed and softly wipes a tear from Steve’s face. “Sweetie, hey. It’s okay, you’re with Buck and me. You’re fine.” Her whispering seems to help but then Steve whines once and leans over the edge of the mattress and vomits. Right onto Y/N’s lap. She ignores it, though, and rubs Steve’s back in comfort. “It’s okay, baby boy. Let it out, that’s good.” Y/N notices barely as Bucky gets up and vanishes behind her. She does notice that Lady comes up to lie beside Steve, head on his lap, whining. Y/N helps him to sit up a bit, Still ignoring the vomit on her clothes, instead running her hand through Steve’s hair while holding his hand with her other and running the thumb over his knuckles. “It’s okay, Stevie. Take a deep breath with me, yeah? Nice deep breathes.”
“N-no. I-I…” His eyes wander through the room, still haunted with the horrors of his nightmare until they stop at the watch on the wall. He pales even more and somehow tries to scramble up. “I-I have work!”
“Hey, hey. No. Stevie, it’s alright. Sit back down, it’s okay.” Y/N pushes him gently back down into a sitting position. “We talked to Tony and your professor. They gave you some more time. It’s okay. Come here.” She leans in and wraps her arms around him. She feels his fast breath against her neck, feels his hard and fast hammering heart in his chest. “Shh. Breathe with me some more.” She rocks a little, with him in her arms, as they take some deep, in Steve’s case stuttering breaths. Lady whines a little more but looks up and alerts Y/N to Bucky’s presence. “I got some towels and new clothes for you.” He throws her clothes on the bed and the towels on the ground, right on the vomit, leaving the cleaning for later as he crawls back onto the bad only to slip in behind Steve so that the taller man can lean against his chest. “Fuck, you’re all sweated through, Stevie.” Y/N can see the moment the mother hen comes through and Bucky has pictures of a sick, scrawny kid in his mind. “I-I n-need… I have t-to…”
“No, Stevie. You have nothing to do. Just stay with us here. Calm down. Breathe.” Y/N kisses his forehead and takes both his hand into hers to run her thumbs over his knuckles. It takes way longer than Y/N likes to calm him down. He vomits two more times and startles as his eyes close for longer than a few second. Whatever it was that he had seen, it was bad. Y/N manages to change herself and quickly get rid of the vomit but Steve whines as she leaves and starts actually crying. She comes back to him clinging to Bucky, sheep in his arms and Lady tightly cuddled to his side. He’s still big but it’s just a matter of seconds. “Come on, baby boy. See, mommy is back.” Bucky kisses Steve’s head and Steve actually stops sobbing and relaxes a tiny bit into Bucky. He stretches his arms out for Y/N, so she sits down next to her boyfriends, strokes Steve’s blonde hair out of his forehead and kisses it. “Let loose, sweetie. Where is my brave boy, hm?” Apparently, that’s enough for him. He whimpers again and hides his face in Bucky’s chest while he drops smaller and smaller. He starts sobbing again and Y/N reaches out for him. Bucky passes him over which proofs to be difficult. Steve has a very tight grip on Bucky’s shirt. “I’ll take Lady out for a quick walk and go to the common room.” He whispers and kisses hers and Steve’s head. Lady only goes reluctantly with him. Y/N rocks Steve for a little while. The small boy is still drowning in the big clothes but Y/N isn’t ready to let go of him just yet. She stands up, takes the clothes and diaper and carries everything and Steve into the kids’ bathroom to put it all on the changing table. “Hey, baby boy. How about we get you out of these yucky, big clothes, hm? We get you all cleaned up and into some comfier clothes.” She smiles at the boy but Steve sniffles and shakes his head. “Oh, sweetie. Doesn’t it itch?” Steve sniffles some more, rubs his wet and red eyes but nods shyly. “See. Let’s get you all cleaned up.” She kisses Steve’s head and carefully takes Cloudy out of Steve’s grip. “Shh, sweetie. Cloudy is watching you from here and as soon as you’re in new clothes you get it back.” She rubs Steve’s cheeks and kisses his forehead. “D-daddy?” Steve’s voice is small and tired. “Daddy is walking with Lady for a bit. It’s just you and me. We have some quality tome now.” She smiles some more before she grasps the hem of his shirt and lifts it over his head to throw in the hamper. She strips Steve naked and rubs his back as he shivers against the cold. She helps him to lie down and set a row of tiny kisses on his stomach. Steve still sniffles, but he smiles shortly as Y/N looks at him. She makes quick work of smearing some cream on Steve’s butt and powders it a bit before she gets him into the diaper and his pants. Then she kisses his stomach and help him sit up again. “Cold.” Steve whines and rubs his eyes again. “I know, sweetie. We only need the shirt now, right?” Steve nods a tiny nod and lifts his arms for Y/N. She gets the shirt over his head and kisses his nose as it pops free. Steve giggles a little and stretches his arms up. “Up, mommy?”
“Sure, sweetie.” She smiles and nuzzles her nose against his hair as she lifts him up. She kisses his face a little, startling new giggles out of him before she ventures to the common room with Steve, his stuffed toy and pacifier, of course. The moment she walks into the common room they have all eyes on them. Steve hides in Y/N’s neck and stays on her lap as she sits down beside Tony. She looks around because no one says anything, but she notices that everybody looks as relieved as she feels. Tony pats Steve’s back a little bit, trying to coax him out of his hiding with sweet words. Y/N is a little surprised that he can talk like that and doesn’t care that someone can hear him. Still, he’s a little frustrated that it doesn’t work, so he looks pouting at Y/N. “I’m glad he dropped but care to explain what happened?” Y/N sighs and rubs over Steve’s back as she feels his pacifier bob rapidly. “I made him sleep on the couch when he came back from debrief, so he would actually rest for a bit. Bucky and I made a plan, that we let him sleep as long as he can, calling his Professor, you and even Fury. Well, exhaustion makes his nights really worse. He had a terrible nightmare. He’s been like this since then.”
“And Barnes?” Y/N looks up at Sam and smiles. “He’s out with Lady. Should be back in a couple of minutes.”
“I already am. Lady! Stay! Stop!” Bucky struggles with the leash as Lady tries to dart over to Y/N and Steve, almost ripping Bucky’s hand off. “I told you to not wrap it around your hand like that.” Y/N scolds but laughs at Bucky’s annoyed face. He finally unleashes Lady and watches as the dog sprint to the couch, jumps on it and start sniffing Steve up and down before she starts licking his face making him giggle and laugh. Bucky shakes his head and shoves Lady a little to the side so that he can sit down next to Y/N. He runs his hand through Steve’s hair and kisses Y/N’s cheek. “How is he?”
“Better, I think.” She smiles back at the brunette and rests her head on his shoulder. “Barnes! Get your lazy ass up and help!” A pillow hits Bucky in the face, and he growls at Sam. “What are you even doing?”
“Pillow fort.” Peter answers and gets the pillow back from Bucky. Nat and Wanda sit amused on a couch and watch while Vision shakes his head and heads to the kitchen. Bruce looks skeptical and Tony shakes his head violently as Bucky gets up. “That’s so wrong. It won't even hold for two minutes like that. Here. Put it there, kid.” Suddenly Y/N finds herself alone on the couch, watching three men and a teenager build a pillow fort with an expression as if it will save the world. “Mommy.” Steve’s voice reaches her ears, and she looks down at him. “’M tired.” He leans his head against her chest and closes her eyes. “I know, sweetie. But I tell you what. Your daddy and uncles are building a pillow fort and I will throw them all out, so we both can snuggle in there and I read you a story, sounds good?” Steve nods and peeks over his shoulder. The fort is almost finished. Steve tugs on Y/N’s sleeve and points at the fort. Y/N nods and giggles. She shoves Lady gently from her lap where she dozed. She snaps her head up lazily and watches as Y/N walks over to Bucky and tips him on the shoulder. He turns around and is about to say something but Y/N is faster. “The chef wants to inspect.” Bucky raises an eyebrow but Tony nods. “Right, right. Go in, little boss.” Y/N laughs and sets Steve down. He looks inside and then grabs Peter’s hand. The boy looks at him and laughs. “Me too?”
“Uh-hu.” Steve nods and pulls on his hand again. Peter crouches down and crawls after Steve into the fort. It takes a moment before Steve’s head pops up again. “Mommy, come.” He waves her in and she laughs. “Okay. I just grab your book.” She pats Bucky on the shoulder kisses his cheeks and walks to the bookshelf where she stored some of Steve’s and Bucky’s books. Mainly the ones that didn’t fit in downstairs. She crawls into the fort and gets comfortable beside Steve who has cuddled up next to Peter. The teenager has him wrapped up in a blanket and it looks a little like he’s almost asleep. She reads two stories until she hears the first breath even out. She chuckles a little as she sees that it’s Peter who fell asleep. She reads one short story and Steve sleeps, too. She kisses him on the forehead and covers Peter with a blanket before she crawls out. She stretches up and walk to Bucky. She notices that almost everyone went out. Only Tony is snoring on the couch. Y/N laughs and lets herself flop on Bucky’s lap. “Hey, doll.”
“Hey yourself.” She smiles and runs her hand through Bucky’s hair. “He’s asleep?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” He chuckles and kisses her cheek before he turns her head a little more to kiss her properly. Y/N hums into the kiss. She leans more into him and cuddles closer as Bucky breaks the kiss. “Tired?”
“No. Just glad.” She takes his metal hand and fiddles a little with his fingers. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For the idea to let him sleep in. He needs that.” She kisses his cheek, and he hugs her close, normal hand running through her hair. “I like him better when he isn’t tired and has actually time for us.” Y/N giggles and rests her nose against Bucky’s neck. “Hm. I love you.”
“I love you, too, doll.”