It's been some time, and now I want a deconstructed/reconstructed 2012 Avengers fic. Only it's 2018, and they are living together in the Compound instead of the Tower, only no one is together and everyone is badly depressed.
Tony is back from space, he's devastated by everything, he never married Pepper, and he and Steve never really made up. Steve is dividing his time between the Compound and NY, trying to be useful, but he can't live with what happened. Maybe they are being very unhealthy fuck buddies that never talk. Natasha is trying to run the Avengers to keep her highly dysfunctional family together, but she's falling apart too. Perhaps they find Clint earlier. Perhaps they get Bruce to come over too, at least part time. He can't make his peace with (what happened with) Natasha and he can't come to terms with who he is now. Perhaps Thor spends some of his time there as well, chugging beer and playing video games and. Everyone is majorly fucked up, and they are barely talking to each other, and when they try, they fight.
They still have movie nights.
They still have movie nights.
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stfu this is amazing and i love it and i made me tear up bcuz i‘m so alone but also this is a adorable and goddamit this is cute
First off, hope the date went well 😉
Second, I'd love to see what you come up with for Stony and the prompt "What are you doing in my kitchen at 3am?". I feel like it could be very sweet and funny. No rush, and only if you feel like it. Zero pressure ❤
thank you, it did go pretty well! hope you like what i came up with for this one :)
Tony is used to not sleeping. Three hours a night, maybe four if he’s lucky and the insomnia and nightmares take it down a notch for a bit. He knows how to cover the dark circles under his eyes with just the right amount of concealer, and he’s trained his body not to yawn anymore. He uses the extra hours for work, which is actually convenient because it allows him to keep up the illusion during the day that he doesn’t do very much. The illusion is good for him, he’s learned. Always better to have people underestimate him.
Steve, however, is the early to bed and early to rise kind of guy. The kind that likes to pull Tony into his arms at the end of a date night and fall asleep together, and Tony doesn’t want to tell him that he never actually falls asleep on those nights. In the four months they’ve been together, Tony has become an expert of sneaking out and sneaking back in. He knows where all the creaky floorboards in Steve’s apartment are, and how the hinge on the bedroom door only makes a sound when it opens past 50 degrees. If he uses the lamp next to the couch instead of the overhead light, it’s enough to let him work without waking Steve.
Sneaking back in is a little trickier, but he’s starting to get the hang of that, too. There are a few different variables that factor into when Steve will wake up, and if he does the calculations wrong and Steve starts to wake right as he’s crawling back under the blankets, he can always say that he was coming back from the bathroom.
Tonight he figures he has at least until seven. Steve had two glasses of wine with his dinner, and they followed it with a failed experiment with edible body paint that turned into shower sex instead, which kept them up almost an hour later than usual. With those factors, Steve’s normal wake up with the sun routine is going to be thrown off a bit, and Tony plans on using that extra time to get even further ahead on his projects.
He slips out of bed with the usual care, gently putting Steve’s arm on the bed where his own body once was and muffling his laugh behind his hand when Steve pulls the pillow closer to cuddle it in his sleep. He lingers just a little longer to look at him, and he feels that familiar ache of longing to be able to stay here with him instead. But his tossing and turning would only annoy them both, so he tiptoes out of the room and heads for the coffee machine in the kitchen. Making coffee in the dark is a skill he’s had for years.
Leaning against the counter, he watches as the coffee starts to drop down into the pot and lets his mind drift off. He’s contemplating fixes for an overheating problem in the latest phone model when a voice makes him jump.
“Baby, what are you doing in my kitchen at three am?”
Tony presses his hand to his chest, feeling the rapid beating of his heart as he recovers from the scare. He turns to see Steve rubbing the sleep out of his eyes in the archway to the kitchen, still dressed in just the boxers he went to bed in, but now hanging lower on his hips.
“Um, nothing,” he tries, but it comes out sounding like a question.
Steve comes closer, looks over Tony’s shoulder at the filling coffee pot, and frowns. “You’re making coffee?”
“Yeah, I, uh, couldn’t sleep.”
Steve nods in understanding. His hands find Tony’s hips to pull him in, and he dips his head down to rest on Tony’s shoulder. Tony smiles and holds him right back. He loves the way Steve clings when he’s tired, even if it makes it harder to sneak away some nights.
“Come back to bed with me,” Steve murmurs, lips brushing against Tony’s neck. He starts to move back, taking Tony along with him, but Tony shakes his head.
“I’m not tired.”
“You only slept a couple hours. ‘s not enough.”
Tony shrugs and offers a small smile, aiming for casual, “I’ll come back later, okay? Try not to wake you up, either.”
He must not sell it well, because Steve’s frown deepens into concern. “What’s keeping you up? Is something wrong?”
“No, no,” Tony reassures. “Just, uh, had some ideas, and I don’t want to lose them.”
Steve must accept that, because he leans in to kiss Tony’s cheek. “Okay,” he says, leaving a second kiss on his lips. “Just come back when you’re done. Don’t care if you do wake me up.”
Tony nods, and he watches Steve walk back towards the bedroom. There’s a sour feeling in his stomach, though, and he hates the half-truths. Guilt makes him blurt out the rest of it before Steve can get too far.
“I don’t sleep well on any night,” Tony says, and Steve turns again. “I come out here every night, and then I sneak back in before you wake up. It’s not ideas. There’s insomnia, and even when I can sleep, I still get nightmares from Afghanistan sometimes, and I can’t sleep again after them. I make coffee and do some work, and then I come back so it looks like I never left.”
Steve’s face is so neutral that Tony can’t tell what he’s thinking, but he knows it can’t be good. He’s done this before, more than once. Pepper thought he could fall asleep if he just tried harder, and he couldn’t stand all those sleep apps she downloaded to try to help. Eventually it was easier to not even sleep in the same bed at all, and that was really the beginning of the end. Ty used to accuse him of not liking being in the same bed as him specifically. A lack of commitment to their relationship or something like that. Either way it’s always been a problem.
“Every night?” Steve asks.
“I’m sorry,” Tony sighs, deflating. “I promise it’s not because of you. I do the same at my place, just, you know, without the sneaking part. It’s just - it’s me.”
Steve’s expression softens as he comes back into the kitchen, and he pulls Tony back into his arms. “You could’ve said something before. You didn’t have to hide it.”
“You’re not upset?” Tony asks tentatively.
Steve lifts a hand to smooth away the furrow between Tony’s brows with his thumb. “Why would I be upset, sweetheart?”
“Because I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Well, it’s not like you’re off sleeping with someone else,” Steve laughs softly, and Tony smiles at the sound as much as the words themselves. Steve takes his cheek in his hand and gently strokes across his cheekbone. “I wish you were getting more sleep, but as long as you’re okay, I don’t see why I should be upset with you.”
Tony feels a rush of relief, muscles losing the tension he hadn’t realized had gotten so bad. “I can try to come back with you,” he starts to offer, but Steve shakes his head.
“Do whatever you need to, honey. I’ll be right in there whenever you want to come back,” Steve says, pressing another kiss to Tony’s cheek. He pulls back, and the fondness in his eyes is almost overwhelming. “Always.”
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