"Couldn't," he mumbled, half asleep already. "Couldn't let you get hurt, it was like gettin' hurt myself. But worse."

Somehow it had always been more acceptable to him to have a bunch of bloodied wounds himself than to see Steve with even a single bruise. Ever since he met that scrappy little skinny bastard, he had been in love even if he hadn't known it. Nobody would ever come close to meaning to him what Steve meant to him.

He meant to say something else, but all of a sudden he was asleep. Not curled up tight in the closet with one eye half open and his hand on a weapon, but sprawled out with his head pillowed on his husband.