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Consciousness

It was about 12:00 am when natasha forced him to go to bed, and let's just say that she literally dragged him out of the room.

He showered, and laid in one of the hospital beds on steves floor for a few hours, but couldn't stand to not be with steve, to not know if he's crashing or waking up.

Besides, he made himself a promise, he'll be at steves side when he wakes up next time. He jumped off of the bed, pulled his clean sweatshirt over his head and marched towards steves room with a blanket in his arms.

He'll go to bed, just like Natasha ordered him to, he just won't do it outside of that room.

He pushed the recline chair closer to steves bedside and adjusted it until he was comfortable. Before laying down the sleep he just sat there and listened to the constants beeps and the even sounds of air flow. These would usually annoy someone, but when you hear those go offbeat or stop, it's the most terrifying thing in the world.

"Steve." Tony whispered and grabbed his still hand, "steve" he whispered a bit louder. He fought back the tears beginning to form in his eyes and continued. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, should've tracked you down sooner, I should've saved you." Tears flowed freely down his cheeks this time, but he continued to try to fight them off. "This shouldn't have happened to you... and I know, you're Captain America and it comes with the job." He paused again, "but I just found you... and you're the best thing that has happened to me in a long fucking time" he let go of steves hand to violently wipe away his tears and let his eyes dry out a bit, "but please... please... just wake up..." he grabbed his hand again with both of his and held as tightly as possible "shit steve, I only just met you and you made me love you."

•••

He'd spent the last week and a half in and out of consciousness, and was easy to say that it was the longest and most painful week and a half in his new life as a super soldier.

Since the serum, everything was mostly dulled, and the pain lasted much less longer than in his previous form.

But that week and a half, he felt as though he was right back where he started, that skinny, asthmatic, weak little kid from Brooklyn.

He was awake, he couldn't move and his eyelids were too heavy to open, but he was awake. He could feel the itch the stitches caused, and the fact his legs, left arm and right wrist were casted and moulded into place. The most prominent thing he noticed was someone grabbing his hand. He heard sniffles the he began talking.

Tony.

"Steve... steve... I'm so sorry, I'm sorry for not tracking you down sooner, I should've saved you..."

There wasn't anything you could have done.

"This shouldn't have happened to you... and I know, you're Captain America and it comes with the job"

Don't blame yourself.

"But I just found you... and you're the best thing that's happened to me in a long fucking time..."

I feel the same way, tony...

"But please... please, just wake up"

I'm doing my best...

"Shit steve... I only just met you and you made me love you"

What? Wait he loves me?

He felt tony grasp his hand as hard as possible and became so desperate just to squeeze back.

You love me? Tony? Tony!

All he could manage at first was a weak twitch in his index finger but tony didn't notice. He wanted to scream and yell at the top of his lungs, his own body wouldn't listen to him and that was one of the most frustrating things he's ever dealt with, the other being incapable of telling tony he loves him back.

The anger that was building up in his picked up his Heartrate ever so slightly, it wasn't alarming but tony noticed the change. But as he was looking up at the monitors he felt a tight squeeze back.

"Steve?" Tony asked in disbelief and his hand was squeezed tightly again but this time didn't relax, it instead gripped his as tightly as he possibly could.

Tony looked up to his face and noticed that his eyes were open and tony gasped, "holy fuck," tony breathed out and cupped his swollen cheek and brushed the bruised skin with his thumb.

"Language" Natasha said from the doorway. Tony turned around and steve adjusted his gaze. "That's what he's thinking right now. Isn't it?" A smile appeared at the corner of his mouth and Natasha walked to the opposite side of the bed from tony. "Good morning sleepyhead" she smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. He turned his gaze away from both of them and pulled his hand away from tony to slowly move up to where the tube hung out of his mouth, he grabbed it and started tugging gently.

"He wants the tube out, go get a doctor" tony told Natasha and pulled steves hand away from his current source of oxygen. "You're okay, just wait a doctors coming"

His eyes were still quite swollen, but he was able to open both of them to a certain extent which was progress. He tried talking, he tried telling him he loves him too, but tony hushed him and placed a hand in his chest. "Just wait the doctors here okay?"
Tony took a step back to allow the doctor to examine him.

"Captain please follow the light." Good.

He then snapped her fingers by his right then left ear, "can you hear that?" He nodded slightly. "Perfect" dr. Ashad examined the monitors and frowned. "Captain, were to remove the tube now, you have to relax."

A few nurses came in to assist, they took the tape off holding it is place and injected something, "okay captain, now cough"

As he did so, the tube was removed and he continued coughing, Natasha filled a cup of water with a straw and held it to his lips.

"Good morning old man" Natasha said with a big smile across her face.

Steve chuckled as she placed the cup on the table beside the bed, "nice to see you too" he smiled.