He wakes up in an empty bed, and the world tightens into something razor sharp and brightly lit, fear setting off like timed explosions all down his nerve endings.
Tony was never a good sleeper, not since he was a kid.
There was a half memory of his mother stowed somewhere in the back of his mind, her voice soft with affection as she talked about how violently Tony always woke from sleep, even as a toddler.
You were always ready to fight the world, Anthony.
And what good had that fighting got him? Years of misery and pain. Addiction and loss and grief. Even the good things, the good people who lingered for awhile, they were tinged with regret and pain.
None more than James.
Tony had thrown himself at their relationship like it was a problem to fix, to obsess over. And in the end, he’d thought he’d still found himself alone.
(They always left. No matter how well meaning, no matter how many times they vehemently protested that they were different than the others. Everyone left in the end.)
James just happened to be the first one to come back.
Tony sits up, heel of his hand pressed against his chest like he can slow the erratic beating of his heart with sheer will alone. Breathes, even though his chest feels like a vice.
He sees the steady blinking of a blue light from his phone, picks it up to see a text from Barnes, relief flooding him. He was expecting something like going for a run.
Not so I love you, I guess.
“Jesus.”
The word is punched out of him, and Tony stares for so long that his vision blurs.
Panic still sits quiet behind his breast bone. He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know how to defuse this situation and not fuck it up. This is tight rope walking to the extreme, naked and without big toes.
[text] come home when you can
Jame completes an entire lap of the park, pacing himself with the other joggers to blend in, before he feels the buzz of the headset against his arm signaling the message. The tension in his shoulder is familiar enough that it’s noticed only in its absence; Tony was not the type to vanish on him, he’d never abandoned James.
Not the way he’d abandoned Tony, a deep simmering guilt he’d been doing so well to ignore.
Tony’s use of home is unconscious reassurance. There was no telling how James’ explanation was going to be received. He’d failed every time he’d tried before. But no matter what, Tony allowed him back. Wanted him back.
The new tangle of emotions constricts warm and comforting in his chest. Anxiety, but in a positive sense. Excitement. Anticipation. How long has it been since he’s actually wanted an outcome this way?
[text] On the way. Coffee first. Usual?
The sentence is grossly domestic, but James chooses to ignore that. They take care of each other, part and parcel with their... arrangement. God knows they need all the help the other can give.
It’s five minutes to the cart, another five to make it uptown-- and so maybe he’s rushing. Tony’s emotions, like his own, changed with the winds. He didn’t want to leave the man too long to fester with his own doubts. Neither of them needed that.
He asks JARVIS to drop him off on the floor Tony’s currently occupying, stepping out of the elevator with the coffee tray balancing on one hand.
“...Good morning,”
Of all the ways they’d greeted the other, this hardly breaks the top twenty most awkward. But tell that to his racing pulse.
