Chapter Text
It was a normal day. Steve had left the apartment early in the morning, while his boyfriend was still sleeping. He had grumbled quietly to himself when he realized there was no milk left in the fridge and had to drink his coffee black. That stupid cup of coffee had left him distracted enough that he forgot to kiss Tony goodbye like he usually did before he left. But it didn’t really matter, right? Because it was just a normal day.
He wasn’t even going out on a mission that day. It was just another day of prep work with some mid-level agents at SHIELD headquarters. They were planning a sting on a newly discovered HYDRA base in Canada and every step had to be meticulously thought out. But sitting in an office all day for the past few weeks had made him irritable as hell, which was probably why he had gotten so grumpy over a stupid cup of coffee.
Tony was supposed to be working in his lab all day, trying to fix some problem with his helmet that was far too scientific for Steve to understand. He probably would have stayed in the lab all day if Steve hadn’t texted him and told him to go buy some milk. Of course, Tony Stark was not usually the type of person to go out and buy his own milk. He had people the world over for that kind of thing. But it was a reason to be outside and take a break from his project, even if it was only for the few minutes it took to walk to the shop at the end of the block. Steve wanted him to get outside more, he always thought being cooped up in the lab all the time was bad for him.
When Steve returned home that evening, he paused when he saw that the door to the penthouse had been left open just a crack. Weird. Tony’s always so paranoid about keeping it locked. He walked in, expecting to see his boyfriend on the couch or in the study.
“Tony, I’m home,” he called out when he didn’t see him anywhere. “You here, babe?”
Nothing.
Must still be in the lab, Steve thought. But Tony wouldn’t leave the door to the apartment open if he was down in his lab, right? “Tony?” He called out again, still no response.
Then Steve walked into the kitchen, and he could have sworn his heart stopped dead in his chest. The fridge was wide open. A carton of milk was on the floor, spilled all over the tiles. And there was blood splattered on the countertop.
Steve’s head was spinning. He tried calling Tony’s cell phone but it went straight to voicemail. He bent down and discovered that milk on the floor was still cold. And the blood on the counter was still warm.
A thousand possibilities were flashing through his mind. He saw a faceless man slamming Tony’s head against the counter. Punching him square in the jaw. Body slamming him to the ground. Stabbing a knife into his side. Putting a bullet in his brain...
No. Steve snapped himself back to reality. Tony couldn’t have been shot, there wasn’t nearly enough blood for that. Besides, standing there freaking out was obviously not going to help anything. He closed his eyes and took a few concentrated breaths, trying to focus. The milk was still cold, so whatever happened couldn’t have been too long ago. If someone kidnapped Tony, they couldn’t have gotten far. He just needed to stop wasting time.
Natasha was still at the SHIELD office, but she wasn’t answering her goddamn cell phone. Steve thought he might lose it if she didn’t pick up, but she finally answered on the last ring.
“Hey, Steve. What’s —“ Steve cut her off before she could finish.
“Tony’s gone,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Gone? What do you mean gone ?”
“He wasn’t here when I came home, his phone is either dead or broken, and there’s blood all over the counter. Something happened to him, Nat. Someone must have taken him.”
Steve heard Natasha take a short breath on the other end of the line. If anyone could compartmentalize feelings and focus on the task at hand, it was her.
“Then we’re just going to have to find him,” she replied, her voice flat. “I’ll send some agents to your apartment and put together a search team here. Whoever took him won’t know what hit them.”
“I want every agent available working on this. We have to find him now, Nat.”
“We’ll find him, and he’ll be okay,” Natasha said, sounding much more calm and confident than Steve. “I promise.”
Within minutes, a small group of SHIELD agents were scanning the apartment, looking for clues. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to go on. All of the home security cameras (and there were a lot of them, as Tony had always insisted) were just showing static for the entire afternoon’s recordings. Which meant that whoever did this must have been planning it out long enough to figure out how to disable Tony Stark’s high tech security cameras.
The whole process was going far too slow for Steve’s liking. Tony was out there somewhere, probably injured, possibly dying, and all of these people were just standing around his apartment, staring at spilled milk and getting absolutely nowhere with the security footage. It was driving him crazy, especially because he knew there was nothing he could do if he didn’t have any idea where Tony was. He was feeling more and more helpless by the second, and more and more worried about his boyfriend. The one thing he couldn’t stop thinking about was the stupid milk. It was still cold when he got home, which meant that if he had just arrived a little earlier he could have stopped all this from happening. Tony would be safe and he could forgive himself for not kissing him goodbye in the morning.
A young SHIELD agent tapped Steve on the shoulder and pulled him out of his trance. “Um, Captain, sir? We’ve just analyzed the blood from the counter and we can confirm that it was Mr. Stark’s,” he said nervously.
Steve nodded and turned away from the agent. The information shouldn’t have been surprising. He had assumed it was Tony’s since he had first seen it, but some small part of him had been hoping that the blood belonged to the assailant. That Tony had been able to fight back. Not for the first time that day, he wanted to scream.
***to be continued***