#{loverboy}

Mia shuffles into Steve’s arms without a second thought, pressing her face into the space just beneath his collarbone as she recounts her nightmare. It’s muffled, sleepy toddler gibberish, and even Steve who is an expert in Mia’s language, can hardly understand what she’s saying. Still, Steve listens intently, his hand rubbing up and down the length of her back slowly, comfortingly. Only when Mia mumbles something about monsters does Steve freeze. It’s just for a millisecond, barely even noticeable, but his heart stops for a moment.

How can it not? After everything he’s been through, everything he’s experienced; the fact that he knows monsters are — or can be — real. This… this is not that, but that protective instinct of his doesn’t know that. He doesn’t let it show, the momentary panic, and continues rubbing his daughter’s back, a gentle press of his hand over her pajama shirt.

When she’s finally done with her story, Steve presses a kiss to the top of her head, “I’m sorry, love bug, that sounds so scary. Do you want to come sleep with mommy and daddy? You can sleep between us, safe and sound.”

“Yeah. Mommy, too,” she whispers, tiny fingers grasping Steve’s shirt as he scoops her up, lifting her onto his hip. “Daddy… blankie?”

“‘Course, baby, I got it.”

He bends to grab her blanket and her stuffed animal off of her bed, and drapes the blanket over her head to make her laugh after passing her the teddy bear. It works, quiet giggles coming from underneath the blanket as she scrambles to pull it off, “Daddy!”

“Oh, there you are!” Steve exclaims when she reappears, setting off another round of giggles, which melts his heart.

You’re awake by the time Steve bumps the bedroom door open again, and you sit up quickly, blinking hard a few times to adjust to the darkness, “Steve?”

Mia answers instead, “Mommy, we snuggle? I had bad dream ‘bout monsters.”

Your face flickers with understanding and you scoot over in to make room for your small family, “Yeah, baby. Let’s snuggle.”

Steve deposits his little girl into bed next to you carefully, blanket and all, before getting underneath the covers with you. You’ll definitely need a bigger bed — it’s a tight fit with the three of you, but it’s perfect for now. You get Mia onto her back between the two of you, one of your extra pillows under her head, blankets pulled up high. Steve rolls onto his side and you follow suit, facing your little girl and each other.

“We’re safe in here, okay, love bug?” Steve says softly, barely above a whisper. His eyes meet yours, and even in the darkness and without saying anything more, he knows what you’re thinking. The times you’d repeated the something similar to each other after the upside down. Curled up in bed, underneath covers and wrapped in each other’s arms, willing yourselves to believe you were safe. That the horrors had finally ended, that you could sleep peacefully next to one another.

“Okay, daddy.”

Mia accepts it easily and closes her eyes. You’re not far behind, hand finding Steve’s under the blankets, eyes slipping closed when your fingers intertwine.

Something inside of Steve pieces itself back together at that. At how innately she trusts him, how easily she believes everything will be okay, just because he said so. It makes it all worth it. Everything. Every scar on his body, every monster he’s killed, every horror he’s seen.