ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴏᴡᴇʀ ᴏғ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍs

[ tony's face-plate comes up, all but dragging steve over the threshold. he just has to focus on keeping the super soldier awake so they can get to bruce and get patched up. and then everything will be fine - it'll all be fine. nevermind that cap's best friend is now a psycho killer and is totally on the loose and natasha blew up s.h.i.e.l.d. via the interwebs and put a huge target on all of their heads.

at least he's not panicking.

he has no actual way of knowing how injured he personally is under the suit, either. he's in so much shock and so jacked up on adrenaline that anything is possible. he just hopes it isn't beyond the doctor's scope. JARVIS puts in the passcode wirelessly so tony can carry steve through the door, princess-style. ]

Medic? We need a medic... [ the joke dies on his lips, meeting bruce's gaze across the room. god is he a sight for sore eyes. ]

[ once tony and steve are cleaned up and back in their street clothes, they may as well get ready for the q&a that's coming. there are a lot of things he's still not willing to discuss - peggy and her husband; his father; bucky... but neither of them are going to get a choice. he loves pepper and bruce with all (both) his heart(s) but this is some heavy shit, so instead he just blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind.

it's also the dumbest. ] Widow will be happy you finally got yourself a date, huh, Cap? [ he nudges the other man's shoulder and looks to everyone else, sorry. that's the best he's got. ]

[ tony wanders out to the living room, finding steve out on the couch where he'd left him. he knows just by the unsteady rise and fall of his chest that he's not sleeping. how could either of them after that? without saying a word, he slots his slighter frame in next to him, carefully avoiding both of their injuries and pulling out his phone. ]

I wasn't kidding about that like page, you know. [ he shows cap the facebook fan page that allegedly phil set up. it has a much more flattering image than the twitter. also 14 million something likes. ] You have almost as many fans as me.

[ he's not even being cheeky (much), he has over 19 million. ]

[ pepper's not up yet and tony hasn't slept yet, which really, if it weren't so commonplace by now might be more traumatic. as it is, he eyes her heels at the base of the bed; she had fallen asleep in her clothes. poor pepper, he'd probably exhausted her and worried her sick with all of this. again, par for their course, but still.

before he can talk himself out of it, he sits on a corner of the bed and goes about trying to get his feet into her shoes. she would totally kill him if she woke up right now, but as they'd established that day they went to the park, it was really hard being short. ] What does she have, elf feet...?

[ he asks the open air, wobbling to his feet and immediately falling to the ground. this wasn't his best laid plan by far. he's just going to lay here for a while. this carpet is soft and his entire body is a bruise. ]