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The sun had set over New York City hours ago and the normally busy and bustling Watchtower had fallen quiet and still. John was, of course, still awake, pacing the floor of his room while tossing a baseball in the air and catching it. Sleep had been unbearably elusive lately and he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. All he knew is that every time he attempted to lay down and rest, he could close his eyes but he couldn’t settle. His mind raced and his body ached like it needed to be up and moving, so that’s what he did.
Tossing the baseball to himself only worked for so long before John got bored. His stomach growled and he decided to sneak out to the kitchen for a two in the morning snack. Maybe a full stomach would help him fall asleep, and if not at least eating would give him something to do.
The hallway was dark as John opened his door and carefully tiptoed out. This tower was full of super soldiers with super hearing and the last thing he wanted to do was step on a loose floorboard and wake someone up. He made it to the kitchen without making a sound and started digging in the fridge for anything that looked good.
“John?”
The voice startled him so badly he jumped and almost dropped the jar of pickles he was holding. He turned around to see Bob standing in the doorway, arms wrapped around himself, brunette curls sticking out every which way.
“Hey, Bobby, did I wake you?”
“No, I wasn’t asleep. I heard you leave your room and thought that I would make sure you’re okay.”
“Yeah, I’m fine, just can’t sleep. Figured I’d get a snack, maybe watch a show.”
“A snack does sound good,” Bob said, coming to join him digging in the fridge.
“You know what,” John said, opening the freezer. “There’s a pint of ice cream in here. Do you want to split that and watch tv with me?”
Bob smiled, his face illuminated by the fridge light, and John couldn’t help but notice the dark circles and heavy bags under his eyes. Clearly he wasn’t the only one who had been struggling to sleep.
“That sounds great.”
John grabbed the ice cream and a spoon and Bob followed him back to his room. They settled in to John’s bed and turned on the tv, quickly finding an old sitcom from the 90s to put on.
“So,” John said before shoving a spoonful of cookie dough ice cream into his mouth. “What’s keeping you up?”
Bob took the ice cream from him, shoving a heaping spoonful into his own mouth and handing it back before responding. “I don’t know, I just feel so restless any time I try to lay down.”
“Me too, it’s like I can’t turn my brain off.”
“Exactly,” Bob said, digging the spoon into the ice cream, fishing for a large piece of cookie dough. “My mind just starts racing any time I close my eyes.”
“About the dumbest stuff, too,” John exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Nothing works to make it stop, either.”
“Nothing!” Bob agreed, equally frustrated, handing the ice cream back. “I’ve tried everything. Sleeping medicine, meditation, reading, no tech past a certain time. I took a triple dose of NyQuil the other night and still couldn’t sleep.”
“Is that what happened to all the NyQuil?” John joked, pushing Bob’s shoulder. “I tried the some of the same things and none of it worked for me either.”
Bob laughed at his playfulness, but his eyes held the weight of his pure exhaustion. “It’s like my body is fighting against the need to rest, you know?”
John nodded, handing the almost empty ice cream pint back to Bob to finish. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. I know I need to rest, but it’s like my body won’t allow it.”
Bob sat the empty pint on the nightstand and laid back against the pillow. “I’m worried about what happens if I just, sort of, crack, you know?”
His voice was quiet, almost apprehensive, and John knew exactly what he was referring to. He rested his hand comfortingly on Bob’s leg, fingers wrapping around the meat of his thigh. “Hey, we won’t let that happen, okay? We’re going to figure this out together.”
Bob smiled warmly at him, stretching out on the bed. “Thanks John.”
John turned off his lamp and laid back on the bed next to Bob, resting his head on the pillow as another episode of the show started.
—
The sound of his bedroom door swinging open and a cacophony of voices barging into the room startled John awake. He aggressively rubbed sleep from his eyes as his brain slowly rebooted and came back online. He didn’t remember falling asleep and he had no idea how long he’d been asleep, all he knew is there was sunlight shining in through his window and his room was full of people.
“They’re alive,” Yelena exclaimed, standing in his doorway with Ava, Bucky, and Alexei.
“What? What time is it?” John mumbled, his heavy eyelids still threatening to close.
“It’s three in the afternoon, we were getting worried,” Ava said, eyeing him and Bob curiously. “Did you two sleep in here together?”
Bob, looking about as awake as John felt, glanced around the room. At John, at the bed, at their teammates snickering in the doorway. “Uh, yeah I guess we did. I don’t even remember falling asleep.”
“Me either. God, I needed it, though.”
“Me too,” Bob said, pushing himself to sit up.
Yelena and Ava exchanged a look and then burst out laughing, both nearly doubled over as Bucky and Alexei wandered off, satisfied that John and Bob were alive.
“What? What’s so funny?” John asked, reaching his arms up in the air to stretch his back.
“You two just look ridiculous,” Ava said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
John looked at Bob and couldn’t help but chuckle. Bob’s clothes were twisted and wrinkled, his brown curls were a tangled mop on his head, and his face was coated in drool. He did look ridiculous, ridiculously cute.
“Alright, that’s enough from the peanut gallery,” John said, throwing the blankets off and getting up. “Come on, Bob, I need some coffee.”
John followed Yelena and Ava out of his room, with Bob bringing up the rear. They walked in the kitchen and John sighed when he saw the coffee pot was empty. He knew that he and Bob were the only ones who drank coffee all day long, but he was hoping to get lucky and come in to a full pot waiting for him.
Bob plopped down at the table with his head in his hands and John felt the exact same way. Twelve hours of sleep was great, but it was barely scraping the surface of what they needed. If Yelena and Ava hadn’t have barged in and woke them up, he and Bob might have slept the rest of the day.
John poured water into the coffee pot and sighed heavily, letting his head fall back as the brew started.
“Is it ready yet,” Bob mumbled from the table.
“Almost,” John yawned. He got two mugs down from the cabinet and started pouring as soon as the coffee finished brewing. He brought both mugs to the table and sat down in the chair next to Bob.
“God, thank you,” Bob said, bringing the mug to his lips and blowing the steam away. “I needed this.”
“Me too.”
They were quiet for a moment while they sipped their coffee. John’s whole body felt heavy, his brain foggy, begging for more sleep. He decided he should try to stay up until at least 8pm before going back to bed, maybe if he did, he could reset his sleeping schedule now that he’d finally been able to fall asleep.
“So,” Bob said, putting his mug down. “Sorry for crashing in your room last night, but I slept so good.”
John laughed. “It’s fine, obviously I didn’t mind since I completely crashed too. I really can’t remember the last time I slept that hard.”
“Well, now I know where to go next time I can’t sleep,” Bob said, bringing his mug back up to his smiling lips.
—
John had hoped to be asleep already, but 11pm rolled around and he was still wide awake. His plan to reset his sleeping schedule was a failure and really, he should have known. It was going to be another long night.
He was flipping channels on his tv come midnight when he heard a light knock at his door. The knob turned and Bob stuck his head in with a cute, sheepish smile on his face.
“You still up, too?” Bob asked, hanging on to the door.
“Yep, come on in, I’m trying to find something to watch,” John said, waving him over.
Bob closed the door behind him and hopped right into bed, settling under the covers like it was his new spot. John didn’t mind, he liked having Bob there. He found the same show they had been watching the night before and settled under the blankets himself, putting the remote on his nightstand and turning off his lamp.
—
John’s eyelids fluttered open slowly, a warm, comforting weight holding him down on the bed. The early morning sun was shining in through his blinds and the tv was still on from the night before, now playing an old medical drama from years ago. Bob, at some point in the night, had moved from his spot on the other side of the bed to now resting on John’s chest. Their legs were tangled under the blanket and John’s hand was laid on his bare back, holding him in place.
Maybe he was still too exhausted to comprehend what was going on, but he didn’t move to push Bob off of him. His brown curls had fallen into his face and John could tell he was still sleeping hard, the faintest snore occasionally heard over the tv. He looked so cute and cozy that John couldn’t fathom waking him up to move him, so he let him sleep and closed his eyes to go back to sleep as well.
They were both jolted awake some time later by the familiar sound of intruders in John’s bedroom. Ava and Yelena had come looking for them again, without Alexei and Bucky this time, and were stood in the doorway giggling.
“You two slept together again?” Yelena asked.
Bob lifted his head off John’s chest and suddenly looked mortified. “Shit, John, I’m so sorry, I don’t know when I did that.”
John ignored the ladies in his doorway laughing at them, instead he brushed a lock of curls out of Bob’s eyes and cupped his blushing cheek. “It’s fine. I woke up a little while ago and found you like that. Didn’t feel like moving you.”
“Really?” Bob’s deep blue eyes suddenly lit up, like the sun shimmering off the ocean.
John shrugged and felt his own cheeks heating up. “Yeah, you were sleeping pretty hard. We both were. I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“God, just kiss already,” Ava teased, hooking her arm through Yelena’s and leading her out of the room.
John’s eyes lingered on Bob’s and they both chuckled nervously, Ava’s words hanging awkwardly in the air between them. John just wanted to get some sleep, he didn’t want to kiss Bob or anything like that.
Right?
Right. Of course not.
It was just that he’d been noticing over the last few days how unbelievably cute he found Bob. And when he woke up with Bob laying on his chest, he’d felt comforted instead of weirded out. But that wasn’t that strange, was it? Just two guys sleeping in each other’s arms. Like guys do. Guys do that.
Right?
Right. Of course.
“Well, I, uh, I better go make us some coffee,” John said, his hand dropping away from Bob’s cheek.
He could hear Bob’s feet padding softly across the floor behind him as he walked to the kitchen. He poured out the old, cold coffee that was left in the pot from that morning and started a fresh brew. He turned to lean against the counter to wait and saw Bob standing by the table, his fingers threaded together, arms in the air stretching his back. He didn’t have a shirt on and his abs were so perfectly defined, it was…a little mesmerizing. So mesmerizing, in fact, that John got a little lost, tracing those ridges in Bob’s skin with his eyes.
“John?”
“Yeah?” John said with a shake of his head.
“You okay? You were staring at me.”
John’s cheeks started to burn and he quickly spun on his heels to get coffee mugs out of the cabinet. “Sorry, still trying to wake up, I guess.”
John brought their coffee to the table where Bob sat waiting for him. Bob took the mug and held it up to his face, breathing it in while he waited for it to cool to a drinkable temperature.
“I feel a lot better today,” he finally said, putting the mug down but keeping his fingers wrapped around the handle.
“Two full nights of sleep in a row will do that to you,” John said. “It’s been nice.”
“I’m trying to figure out why I sleep so much better in your room. Did Mel get you a nicer bed than me?” Bob asked and John could tell he was only half serious.
“I don’t think it’s the bed, because I wasn’t sleeping until you got in there.”
“Well, maybe that’s it, then.”
“What’s it?”
“Us. Together. We both sleep better when we’re in the same bed.”
John felt the heat in his cheeks again, except this time there was nowhere to hide. “Maybe.”
“Well, why don’t we test my theory tonight? You sleep in my room and we’ll see if anything changes.”
John’s stomach churned and he thought it might be…excitement? Bob was asking him to sleep in bed together and he was excited. This was different than them accidentally falling asleep while watching tv, Bob wanted to sleep with him on purpose. Would they cuddle again? Did John want that?
He thought…he thought that he might.
But did Bob? Or did he just want to get another decent night’s sleep? John supposed he would find out tonight.
“Sounds great.”
—
John tried to think about anything other than his invite to sleep in Bob’s room that night. He was finally rested enough to get in a solid work out in the tower’s gym, even sparring with Alexei and Bucky while Bob watched.
Bob had watched him spar plenty of times, but for some reason John was hyper aware of Bob’s eyes being on him today. He slipped up a few times, made uncharacteristic mistakes that he blamed on having not sparred in a while due to his persistent insomnia. He knew that wasn’t really it, though. He was going to be rusty, sure, but he shouldn’t be that rusty. His mind was elsewhere, already in Bob’s bed, with Bob already lying on his chest.
Having Bob on his chest, feeling his weight and warmth, the comfort of skin on skin, had consumed his every thought since he woke up. He wasn’t sure what was happening to him, but suddenly his heart fluttered at the mere sight of Bob. John hadn’t felt butterflies for someone in so long, and he’d never felt them for a man. It was all so new, so strange, but so…exhilarating at the same time.
John cooked dinner for everyone that night, a heavy and filling Southern comfort meal of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans. Bob sat next to him at the table and raved about how good it was and how much he’d missed John’s cooking, his bout of insomnia had sapped any energy he had for the kitchen for a good while. John wouldn’t admit it to anyone, even to himself, but he hoped a heavy comfort meal would make Bob tired faster. All he could think about was getting to the end of the day and getting into Bob’s bed.
Yelena and Alexei handled the dishes while Ava and Bucky put away the leftovers. Bob grabbed a rag and wiped down the table, the counters and stove while John excused himself to shower and get ready for bed. He came out of his bathroom with his towel wrapped around his waist and stood in front of his dresser, the drawer containing his boxers and pajama pants hanging half opened. His mind was racing with thoughts of Bob, of Bob’s room and Bob’s bed and he’d lost focus on the task at hand: putting clothes on.
A knock at his door brought him back to reality. He opened it to see Bob, completely oblivious that he was still wearing nothing but a towel until he noticed that Bob was looking him up and down, eyebrow raised and the corner of his lips turned up into a smile.
“Hey, came to see if you were ready for bed,” Bob said, leaning against the door frame.
John looked down, seeing himself still in nothing but a towel, and felt himself blush from his cheeks to his chest. “Uh, give me like, two minutes.”
“I think you look great just like that.” Bob winked at him and John thought he might pass out. “Just come on in when you’re ready.”
John closed the door and ran back to his dresser, grabbing the first pair of pajama pants he saw and pulling them on, opting to go without a shirt, hoping that Bob would do the same. His hand shook as he closed his bedroom door behind him and was faced with Bob’s door in front of him.
“Are you two sleeping together again tonight?” Ava asked, walking past him down the hallway towards her own room.
“Maybe. We’re testing Bob’s theory,” John replied.
“Theory of what?”
“That we sleep better when we’re in the same bed, that it helps our insomnia.”
“Uh huh,” Ava said, skeptically. “So, when are you going to tell him?”
“Tell him what?”
“That you like him.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ava rolled her eyes and scoffed at him. “Oh come on, John, you could not be more obvious.”
John just stared at her, unsure of how to respond. He didn’t even know that he liked Bob like that until today. Had everyone else figured it out before him?
“Uh, I-“ John stuttered and Ava just laughed at him, shaking her head. She opened the door to her room and started to step inside, but leaned out to make sure she had the last word.
“Don’t worry, the feeling is mutual.” She winked and closed her bedroom door.
Why was everyone winking at him all of a sudden? John stood in the hallway between his door and Bob’s stewing over Ava’s words for a moment. The feeling is mutual. How would Ava know that? Did Bob say something to her or was she just assuming because they were sleeping in the same bed?
He supposed there was only one way to find out.
He turned the knob on Bob’s door and slowly pushed it open, stepping just inside. Bob was sprawled out on his bed in nothing but a pair of pajama pants, one arm behind his head and the other resting on his stomach.
“Hey, I was starting to think you weren’t coming.” Bob smiled and waved him over and John hesitantly stepped closer to the bed.
He wasn’t sure what to do or how close he should immediately sit, if he should put space between them to start or if he should just go for what he wanted. He wanted to climb into that bed and pull Bob right to his chest, just like he’d had him the night before, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he laid down next to him, close enough that their arms touched when John stretched to put his arm behind his head.
“So, what are we watching?” John asked, trying to sound casual while his heart raced.
Bob sat up and shuffled closer, placing the tv remote on John’s stomach and resting his head against John’s chest. “Whatever you want is fine with me.”
Bob moved like it was nothing, no big deal, while John was internally freaking out. John wrapped his arm around him and pulled him closer until every part of Bob touched every part of him, melding their bodies together. He buried his nose into Bob’s hair and smelled his mint shampoo, and suddenly he wasn’t freaking out anymore. This was right. This is exactly where he wanted to be, safe and comfortable, with this beautiful man like a weighted blanket settling everything inside him that had been unsettled for so long.
John flipped channels until he found an old buddy comedy film just starting and tossed the remote aside. Bob breathed out a soft sigh and John thought he might already be asleep. He threaded his fingers into Bob’s curls and wondered if he felt the same sense of calm and comfort that John felt when they were together like this, if being close to John settled his soul too. He heard a light snore and chuckled to himself, he would have to wait until tomorrow to find out.
—
For once, Bob and John were able to wake up on their own and not because Yelena and Ava had come to gawk at them like zoo animals. They hadn’t moved since they laid down the night before and John’s back was feeling tight, though his heart felt better than it had in a long time. He stretched his arms and legs out, arching his back until he heard several pops, before settling back into the bed. Bob, still half asleep, reacted to all the movement by holding John tighter, cuddling in closer.
John peppered the top of his head with kisses, and Bob responded by planting a kiss right against John’s pec. He turned his head up and his sleepy blue eyes found John’s, and they both moved at the same time until their lips met in the middle. The kiss lingered, neither wanting to be the first to break it.
When they finally did, it was only to nuzzle their faces together.
“So, this arrangement is working out okay for you?” John finally asked before kissing Bob’s smiling lips again.
“It’s working out so well that I think we should make it permanent,” Bob replied, nuzzling his nose into John’s beard.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
They didn’t get out of bed at all that day.