The Battle Is Over
“And then the prince began his journey. He had to fight a lot of monsters in order to get to his princess. But his bold stallion Jarvis helped him. He never left him in trouble and together they saved the princess out of the tower.”
Tony let out an exaggerated sigh.
“But the princess wasn’t really nice. The prince found out that they didn’t really match. Saddened and with a broken heart he decided to return to his own kingdom when suddenly…”
The pair of wide excited eyes was glued to his lips and a little suppressed gasp interrupted his storytelling.
“Suddenly,” Tony continued with a bright smile, “the prince spotted a lonely knight in the courtyard. He was training with his sword and the prince couldn’t stop looking at him. He was soooooo beautiful.”
A sweet delighted chuckle made Tony look down at the little one tucked in the bed and smiling at him.
“What happened then, Daddy?”
Tony shrugged. “That we might find out tomorrow.”
“Oh,” the little girl sighed disappointedly, but she was already well used to her Daddy not finishing his tales all in one night, and her disappointment didn’t last long.
“Is your story over?” Another voice carried itself from the doors, and Tony looked back to give his husband a fond smile.
“You’ve just missed it.”
“Oh, no… What will I do?”
Steve walked in the room with a teasing grin and sat on the bed next to Tony. He reached down to caress their daughter’s hair lovingly.
“You will tell me tomorrow, okay, darling?”
Morgan nodded quickly.
“Papa! The prince fell in love with the knight!”
Steve glanced at Tony, amused. “Really? Why that doesn’t surprise me?”
Tony just shrugged again.
“My story, my plot.”
Morgan giggled before her eyelids dropped few times quickly in the row. She yawned.
“Will you sometimes tell me some story you tell Papa before the bed, Daddy?”
Tony looked at Morgan with a surprise.
“What do you mean, sweetie? What story?”
Morgan looked at Steve and then back at Tony.
“You tell Papa, right? When I go to pee, I can hear you sometimes telling him stories.”
“Ah,” Tony nodded, dots connecting in his mind rather quickly, “but those aren’t really stories, dear,” he tried to explain.
“What are they then?” Morgan asked, curious.
Tony and Steve exchanged a look.
“Well, they are… memories. Of a sort. It’s difficult to explain,” Tony turned to Steve for help.
“They are the memories of Daddy and me that I, unfortunately, forgot,” he explained slowly, “Daddy tells me every night something new so I could have the memories back.”
“But… how could you forget, Papa? Just like that?” Morgan asked puzzled. “Was it like… a spell?”
Steve nodded.
“Yes, we could say it was like a spell. Bad spell which made me forget some very happy moments with your Daddy.”
Morgan beamed at them. “Could I hear them sometimes?”
Tony smiled at her softly lowering himself down to kiss her forehead.
“Maybe when you’re older, okay?”
Morgan nodded, pleased by the offer.
“Okay, Daddy.”
Steve kissed Tony’s cheek before giving one kiss also to their girl.
“Sleep well, darling. We’re going to have a lot of fun tomorrow. You need to gather a lot of strength.”
Morgan nodded again, her eyelids closing the first thing the light was switched off.
“Good night, Morgan,” Tony whispered while both of them moved toward the doors.
“Sweet dreams,” Steve added.
They didn’t wait for an answer knowing too well that Morgan was already asleep. She was a fast sleeper just like her Papa.
Tony and Steve departed to their own bedroom where they shed their clothes off and cuddled together under the warm blanket. Tony purred when Steve snuggled to him and put a hand over his hips.
“So… now my story?”
Tony laughed.
“Sure.”
They’d been doing this for such a long time that it had become their habit. Tony looking in the ceiling and talking and Steve listening quietly, sometimes smiling, sometimes holding his breath, sometimes outwardly laughing. There were few times when he’d cried and wiped Tony’s own tears while the other man had continued to speak in quiet, pained tone.
Today Tony was finished sooner than usually. Steve waited patiently despite that no continuation came, not even after a few minutes long pause.
“Tony, you’re okay?” he asked, worried.
“Uhm,” the engineer hummed, “I think that’s all.”
“What?”
A pause.
“I told you everything. This… this was the last bit I can recall.”
Steve tightened his hug on his husband.
“What is your decision then?” he breathed out nervously.
Even though that it had been almost three years since that one night on the roof, Steve very well remembered their deal. He also remembered the trick he’d used continuously up to this night – always making Tony to finish before the end. At the beginning he’d been buying more days like that. More time. Now, it was just a habit. Steve hadn’t even realized that today Tony indeed finished his story. All of it. No continuation required.
“What would you say?” Tony smirked turning his head to face his husband.
“I married you, we adopted our little angel. You know the answer to that question. You know that you didn’t even have to listen to me anymore.”
“But I wanted to,” Steve disagreed. “When someone asks how long we are together, you say six years, I say three… now when I know all what you remember I can say six as well,” Steve chuckled.
Tony smirked fondly.
“Thank you for saving me, Steve,” he whispered into his partner’s mouth after a long moment of the two of them just starring at each other. Tony pressed their lips together in a brief, loving kiss.
“Thank you for saving me first,” Steve murmured smiling into the next kiss, and then the next one and then one more.
They fell asleep in each other’s arms both of them remembering all the memories Tony had shared with Steve until now. The life they had here was even more magic than the one Tony had lived through.
All in all, Steve didn’t need to have any memories to know that he would have fallen in love with Tony Stark in each and every future there is.