#anyway steve wakes up to tony weakly slapping wherever he can reach because he is BOILING

[aurumacadicus]

My birthday was just on the twelfth so how about 12 for the ficlet challenge?

Happy birthday! 🥳 This will round the prompts out to an even thirty so I'm going to go ahead and close the meme after this. Sorry if I didn't use yours!

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Steve reached out to put his hand on Tony's ankle, hesitating just as his fingertips met the blanket covering him. He drew his hand back slowly. He wasn't sure what to do. If he was allowed. Catastrophically grounded, Strange had called it when he'd come to examine Tony. He'd abstained from using magic so long that his body had purged all of it.

It had been terrifying to watch. It still played in Steve's mind every time he closed his eyes. Tony's armor had dropped around his feet, sloughing off his body in lines of melting gold. The battlefield had gone silent. Even the Doom bots, which should have had no fear and thus no hesitation, had frozen where they were. Tony had sucked in a breath. Lifted a hand toward the glowing arc reactor in his chest. But he hadn't made it in time. His magic had pulsed, bursting out of him with such force that it had burst the glass in every building and car for a ten mile radius.

He'd nearly burned himself out. And there was no telling if he'd ever be able to make more magic.

Steve had never realized how much of Tony was magic. He looked so small in his bed, eyes wide and sightless. Even the reactor's glow seemed dimmer now.

"I didn't know you were a witch," Steve offered. He'd been told talking might help. He'd never known what to say, before. He figured anything would be better than nothing at this point, though. Even Rhodey hadn't been able to get a response the few times he'd gotten leave to come visit. "Was it a secret? Or was I just oblivious?"

Tony said nothing. Steve hadn't really expected him to. He waited a beat, then reached out again, taking Tony's hand in his. It was cold. He brought his other hand up and clasped Tony's hand between both of his own.

"Techno-mage?" he murmured thoughtfully. "Or. Electricity maybe." He remembered how Tony's magic had pulsed, a deep, echoing thing he felt more in his chest than heard with his ears. "Sound?"

Tony's hand twitched in his grip. Steve fought the urge to lunge to his feet, bellow that there had been a change so everyone could pile in to see him. No need to get worked up, he told himself, casually sliding his gaze up to Tony's face. Tony's gaze was just as blank as before. The corners of his lips had turned down into a frown though.

"Tony?" Steve asked gently. "Can you hear me?"

Tony said nothing. His hand didn't twitch again. Steve sighed, shoulders sagging. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the back of Tony's wrist. He'd heard that sometimes, being cut off from their magic could kill a witch. Tony hadn't died, but it had been a near thing. He wondered if maybe that wouldn't have been better. How happy could Tony be, a shell of himself like this?

Steve lifted his head again, looking up at Tony's face. "It's getting late." He ran his thumb over Tony's knuckles gently. "I should go." He hadn't, at the beginning. He and the others had decided, in a tense emergency meeting, that Steve having the wherewithal to leave himself was less traumatizing than him being dragged out to shower and eat under duress. He brushed his lips over the back of Tony's hand, then patted it gently as he stood. "I'll come back in the morning."

He was almost out the door when his sharp ears caught a breathy, weak, "...tay..."

Steve turned on his heel, stunned. He reached out to grab the doorway to brace himself. Tony looked just as unaware as he had a moment ago--as he had the entire time he'd been laid out in bed. "Tony?" he asked, hope nearly choking the word back down.

"...Stay," Tony said, more air than sound.

Steve crossed back over to him in several long steps, snatching his hand back up as he bent closer to him. "You want me to stay the night?"

Finally, miraculously, Tony's gaze drifted up to his face. His eyes were damp as he whispered, "Please."

"Anything you want," Steve answered, relief sinking down to his bones as he sagged back into his chair.

"...Here," Tony offered, his other hand twitching at his side.

"On the bed? Yeah," he answered, standing back up. "I can help you warm up. Can I be a wolf? I. I'll be. Like a weighted blanket then. And I'm. Softer. That way."

"'kay," Tony answered softly.

Steve worried he was just being agreeable because he was too exhausted to be anything else, but he decided he wasn't going to be sorry. Tony's core temperature had dropped. 'His inner spark unable to maintain its temperature,' Strange had said, and 'prescribed' keeping him as warm as possible. Steve's lupine body would work in place of the hot water bottles tucked at Tony's feet, the electric blanket covering him. Besides, Tony had always liked burying his fingers in Steve's coarse fur when he could. He could warm his hands with skin contact.

Maybe he couldn't do anything about Tony's magic. But he could help try and get his temperature regulated. That Tony was aware and could speak was an improvement, after all.

If nothing else, Steve would at least have more information to give Bruce and Strange when they came in to check on him in the morning.