"I want you to know that I'm very, very angry with you right now," a voice says softly, with a pretence of firmness, but the underlying tone of anxiety undermines it. "You should have called us. Or even just me."

There's a faint noise of rustling fabric, like someone shifting to find a more comfortable position.

"You've been... I don't think I was supposed to hear it, but they're saying that you should have woken up by now." A long, deep breath. "Why did you take him on by yourself?" Angry, now; a harsh whisper. "Why the hell didn't you call for help?"

There is a long silence.

When it drags on, the voice continues, soft and somehow a little bit pleading, "You have to wake up soon." A quiet, pained laugh. "Or else I'm going to forget to be mad at you because I'll be too relieved to tell you how stupid of you that was."

Another long silence, this one somehow heavier than the one before.

"You have to wake up soon," the voice repeats, so soft as to be nearly inaudible; all the same, it's almost an order. "You have to."

*

When Tony wakes up, he knows exactly where he is. He's been in a hospital enough times that he identifies his location before he manages to figure out why he's here again. The ache that pervades his entire body quickly reminds him: Titanium Man and two brick walls, and a collapsed roof, and a dumpster that decided to emulate a football. Tony has never particularly liked football.

Tony does clearly remember frying Titanium Man's systems before presumably passing out, so he isn't overly concerned with the details regarding why he needed to end up in a hospital instead of simply in bed with an ice pack or five and some extra-strength painkillers.

He doesn't, however, remember calling any of the Avengers, which is why he's surprised to find that Steve is present, if not awake. He's slumped in the hard plastic chair beside Tony's bed, one hand in his lap and the other resting palm-down on the austere white hospital sheets near Tony's hip.

Tony gives himself a quick once-over, and decides that he's not dying, as far as physical injuries would indicate, though exhaustion is weighing heavily on him despite having just woken up. As for the way his head feels like someone is trying to smash it open with a sledgehammer, he's had enough headaches to know that they're not particularly fatal, even if some of them have been bad enough in the past that he'd almost wished they were. Tony can only imagine that he must look like someone hit him with a truck (or a few hundred pounds of brick, come to think of it) for someone—specifically Steve—to feel the need to apparently keep a vigil by his bedside.

Then again, maybe Steve had just showed up to give a reason as to why Tony Stark ended up looking like he'd been in a fistfight. Tony Stark has gained infamy for a lot of problematic things, but getting into fistfights isn't one of them.

Still, Steve didn't have to stay. Steve's devotion to his friends never ceases to amaze Tony at times.

Tony doesn't want to wake him, if only because Steve looks tired even while sleeping, but he also wants to reassure Steve that everything's fine. God knows that if Steve is concerned enough about a friend to fall asleep in an uncomfortable plastic chair, he'll continue to be concerned until he has some kind of confirmation that Tony isn't comatose or something equally worrisome.

After a moment's hesitation, Tony reaches out and places his hand on top of Steve's. If it bothers Steve, though he seriously doubts that it will, Tony can play it off as shifting in his sleep. If nothing else, if Steve wakes up before Tony does, it'll assure Steve that Tony was aware enough to move at some point.

The warmth of Steve's hand is comforting, and, against all logic, feels like it eases the ache in the rest of Tony's body. And it lets him pretend, at least for a minute, that Steve wouldn't do this for just anyone.

He closes his eyes, shifting his hold slightly and concentrating on the sound of Steve's steady, even breathing as well as the warmth of his skin under Tony's hand. It's comforting, soothing, and it isn't long before Tony's fallen asleep again, fingers twined loosely with Steve's.

And later, when Steve wakes, he doesn't mind.