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“What are you doing, Tony?” Steve said warmly from the doorway.
Tony looked up bleary-eyed from the datacrux and blinked a few minutes. He’d been awake for over 30 hours by now and had completely lost track of time. “What?” he managed to ask.
A ridiculously large mug of coffee landed next to his elbow. Tony narrowed his eyes to read the saying on the side of the mug: ‘I hate morning people and mornings and people.’ A holiday present from Clint. He probably won it at a carnival doing undercover work.
“Are you sending me a message?” Tony said.
“Nope. I thought you’d like one of the few clean mugs in the house. It was this one or the one with ‘my boyfriend is hotter than my coffee’.”
Tony shot up straight in his chair. “Wait — what? Where did you find that one?”
Steve chuckled in that deep, lovely way that set Tony’s heart racing. “In the back of the cabinet - I have no idea where it came from.”
He sat down on the edge of the datacrux desk. Tony couldn’t tell if Steve had just come in from his daily run or was on his way to his daily run. Actually, he couldn’t tell what time of day it was. It all was a blur. “Please tell me it’s not the afternoon.”
“No.” Steve checked his watch. “It’s about 11 am.”
Tony yawned and stretched like a cat. “That’s not all that bad.”
The corner of Steve’s lips quirked up. “Got carried away?”
“A little bit.”
“What are you working on?”
Tony took a deep breath, before he was lured into stupidity by Steve’s beatific smile. He opened his mouth, about to lie about working on new armor. But he caught Steve’s eye and couldn’t really lie directly to Steve’s face. He grabbed the coffee mug instead and downed a lot of coffee.
“Tony?”
He wasn’t going to be able to put off Steve’s questions. Besides, Steve had brought him coffee. “It’s the Stark Probability Engine — I’ve been poking at the code. I know, I know. But I’m not ready to give up on SPE yet — even with all the earlier failures.”
Surprisingly, Steve looked more thoughtful than annoyed. “There were drawbacks.”
“Yeah? From what I remember, you wanted to take a flamethrower to it.”
“That’s because you didn’t want to change up the plan. But, I can see some benefits. If we use it as a tool, and not as all the encompassing machine telling us what to do.”
Tony smiled back at Steve. “Really? After all the messes and Cabal hacks and corruption of the program?”
Steve had that faraway look that meant that he was running down training and strategic scenarios in his mind. “You can fix anything,” he said to Tony cheerfully. “I believe in you.”
“I’ve been poking at the code and running some scenarios. It’s working beautifully now.” Tony powered up the datacrux. “See, there.” He pointed at the code running across the screen. “And there — you have no idea how long it took me to hunt that bug down, but I zapped — and then there was that stupid stack overflow —”
“Tony,” Steve said gently as he tapped Tony’s shoulder. “You need some sleep, buddy.”
“I’m fine. Just need more coffee.” Tony took another swig from the mug and staggered to his feet, heading towards the coffee machine nearby. “We need to field test this.”
“The team tried this out in the Tower training room.”
“You’re not going to believe this, but I’m thinking baby steps here.”
Steve snorted. “I am shocked. Baby steps? Tony? We used the SPE against the Cabal after one test.”
Tony admitted, “Grant me a little humility here, Cap. The team likely still distrusts the SPE as much as you do.”
“Hulk holds grudges a long time.”
“Sure does.” The coffee machine beeped and Tony poured himself another large cup. “So how about you and Sam and I run some field tests.”
“When? Sam has finals and papers due for class.”
“Finals?” Tony looked perplexed.
“It’s mid-April,” Steve replied, as if that answered everything. “If you want Sam, we’ll need to wait a few weeks.”
“I”m not taking Clint.” Tony tapped the table as he thought about the options. “JARVIS can take video and collect data. Baby steps. So it’s you and me.”
“When were you thinking?”
“I’m not sure where we should try it out. The Savage Land?
Steve tipped his head back and forth as he considered the idea. “The Savage Land is a good option since it’s far from civilization. But is the SPE ready for dinosaurs?”
“No. Admittedly, not ready for dinosaurs. I could code —”
“When did you want to go?”
“I’ve been itching to take the new improved SPE out for a spin. Wait — there’s an old Stark Industries property north of Toronto. Lots of acreage bordering a national park, but private and not far from New York. Let’s try that.”
“A weekend trip?”
“Why not tonight?”
“Because you need sleep. I’m not testing anything in the field when you’re barely able to keep your eyes open.”
Tony shook himself awake. “I was just thinking.”
“Sure you were,” Steve replied fondly. He stood up and put his hands on the back of the seat as he thought. “I’ll get the gear together while you sleep. We can go up tonight, stay at a hotel, and we can try out the SPE for the next two days.”
“I love how you put plans together.”
“You — go to bed or I’ll carry you up there.”
Thank the universe Tony had lost the ability to blush years ago or else Steve’s innocent offer to act out one of Tony’s long secret fantasies would’ve played across Tony’s face like a movie. “Fine, fine. You win. I’m on my way.”
~~~~~
True to his word, Steve had loaded up the smaller Avengejet with all the gear, including a couple of spare soon-to-be-scrapped skycycles and crates of training drones, while Tony took a nap. “We can park the Avengejet and a car is waiting so we can drive to the hotel.”
“You made reservations?” Tony wheeled his luggage into the Avengers loading bay.
Steve thumped Tony’s shoulder and grinned. “I know how you feel about camping. It’s not a five-star luxury resort, but it’s clean and there’s a diner attached.”
Tony fiddled with one of the drones as Steve flew. He couldn’t believe his luck — he barely had to talk Steve into a few days away from the Tower to help Tony try out the SPE. He was going to have the best time ever. Just him and Steve and blowing up a whole bunch of training drones.
It’d even be better, though, if it was a romantic getaway. Tony snuck a glance at Steve humming along to the song on the radio. He’d had the largest crush on Steve ever since they found him in the ice. It was okay that Steve didn’t feel the same way, Tony was living with that. But, boy, would it be nice if they were together.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Steve asked.
Uh oh, not now. “It’s five bucks for my thoughts, thank you very much. As one of the smartest humans on the planet, my thoughts are worth more.”
“Hahaha,” Steve replied.
“I’ve been planning how to reprogram the drones to give you more of a challenge.” Nope, he wasn’t going to mention how he’d also been thinking about how nice it would be to be sitting here, singing along with Steve, and holding his hand, one of those amazing, large hands that could be surprisingly gentle. Tony knew from experience, like that time when Steve had to spring him from the damaged armor.
Smiling, Steve nudged him with his broad shoulder, which drew a laugh from Tony. “We’ve got about an hour to go.”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Sure does.”
“What could be more fun than blowing up drones as they hunt you down?”
“That’s the plan?”
“I’m working the spontaneous angle.”
Honestly, so far this whole trip was the best combination of Steve’s planning and Tony’s spontaneity. They landed in a field on the property, found the car that Steve had arranged, and headed to the hotel a few miles away.
“You snore,” Steve teased in the morning as they waited for their breakfast.
Tony nearly spit out his coffee. “What?”
“I could hear you through the wall.”
“I don’t snore.”
“You wouldn’t know — you were asleep.”
Steve had that bright, shit-eating grin that he used when he wanted to get a rise out of Tony. Leaning against the back of the booth with his arm across the top, Tony grinned right back at him. He loved it when Steve’s face was lit up with smiles and laughing. New York, Avengers, work and all the mess of day-to-day life felt a long, long distance away. Like he and Steve were escaping. Or on vacation.
Brilliant start to the day.
The waitress, an older woman who had shown them pictures of her grandkids, asked about their plans. She hadn’t recognized them as Avengers, which helped with the escapist vibe. Tony replied with an extra dose of charm that they were mapping out the old Stark property. She nodded and then warned them. “Be careful, boys, it’s cold out there. Might get a spring snow — it’s in the forecast.”
“We’ll be careful,” Steve agreed.
Stark Industries had bought an old sawmill and logging site for factory development, but ended up using the place for surplus equipment. Tony thought they had cleared it out a few years back. But there was a lot of rusting equipment still on the ground and in the edges of the forests, along with a large, cracked concrete parking lot and a couple of dilapidated buildings near a lake.
Steve had changed into the Captain America uniform and was throwing the shield around an ancient tractor. Tony finished setting up the cameras. “Ready?” he asked.
“When you are,” Steve replied.
“Okay — first test will be with the drones. I’ll suit up later.”
“Warning, those drones pack a mean sting.”
“That’s your problem right now.”
In a dark fleece jacket, Tony sat in a chair watching Steve dodging the drones on the skycycle while monitoring the test on his laptop. On the ground next to him was a cooler full of the sandwiches, chips, gatorade and water Steve had picked up from the gas station on the way out of town.
A perfect, beautiful, crisp, sunny day. Even better since Steve was losing to the drones. What’s a few near-miss explosions between friends? The drones were outfitted with tiny repulsors to set off any explosives they were carrying.
Though Tony felt a touch guilty — he knew he wasn’t snoring last night because he’d been up all night programming the drones and cameras, fixing things as he went. He purposefully picked the room where his bed wouldn’t be sharing a wall with the world’s lightest super-sleeper. It was the hotel guest on the other side of Steve’s wall that Steve heard snoring.
Come to think of it, it probably wasn’t a good idea to be functioning on maybe two hours of sleep. Eh, Tony was used to it by now. At any rate, he was having too much fun with one of his best friends to notice any sleep deprivation.
Steve pulled up in the skycycle. “Want to put on the armor and go a few rounds?”
“Maybe after lunch.”
Once in the armor, Tony lost track of time as he chased Steve around the old equipment all afternoon. The SPE was working perfectly, anticipating Steve’s moves and suggesting combinations of drone attacks. They stopped for a snack and Steve ate the last of the chips. He looked mournfully through the gas station bag in the car, in case they had left a snack behind.
It was getting dark and clouds were moving in. Steve rocked back and forth on his skycycle as Tony checked his data. He yawned as the laptop churned out strings of numbers.
“Maybe we should call it a day if you’re tired?”
“No,” Tony replied. “Sometimes data isn’t all that sexy, no matter what the data people say.”
He wasn’t ready to call it a day. Having all of Steve’s attention was heady and exciting, and, boy, did Tony want the day to go on forever. They had already talked about spending the next morning working more with the SPE and then heading down to Toronto for an early dinner before going back home.
“Hey, I’d like to see how the SPE performs at night. It’s nearly dusk now. We can try a few test runs, then we can get back to the hotel.”
Steve looked up at the sky. “Yeah — I like the idea of night training. But those clouds look like snow.”
Tony checked with JARVIS. “It’s a 30 percent chance of snow after midnight with the possibility of a couple of inches. We’ll be long gone before then.”
“Great!” Steve kicked the skycycle back to life and hovered above the field.
They ran a few more tests as the sky grew dark, then regrouped on the ground so that Tony could recalibrate the cameras. Steve walked around his skycycle with a flashlight. “Anything wrong?” Tony asked, ready to attack the problem with a wrench.
“I can’t tell -- it’s one of those older models you were going to scrap. I had a couple of problems here and there — pulling to the side, loss of altitude. Nothing I can’t handle.”
Tony checked over the beaten-up skycycle and couldn’t find anything on the surface. “Why don’t you grab the other skycycle from the Avengejet for the final run? I want to see if you can outrun the drones at night.”
“Sure. I’ll leave the shield back there too.”
“Good. We’ll do the run, and then it’s dinner time.”
After Steve returned and launched into the sky, Tony noticed that the drones looked like a swarm of fireflies attacking Steve. He checked the SPE to see why that was, if there was some tactical advantage for the lights being on. Tony hovered in the armor near the lake, absorbed in the coding problem.
Maybe it was because he was tired, and he overlooked a few details, like Steve not having his shield, or a few of the drones still having explosives strapped to them. Maybe because he was distracted with the code problem. Maybe because the SPE was designed to take out the enemy any way possible.
It didn’t matter because what happened to Steve was. All. His. Fault.
Still unable to fix the code, Tony looked up to see Steve turn above the lake to take on the drones. He watched in slow motion as Steve revved up the engine. The drones buzzed louder as they formed a circle around Steve. Steve batted a few away.
“Hey, Tony! Did you—”
One by one, the drones whirred louder as they set off their repulsors, hitting Steve and the skycycle with the explosion. Tony watched in slow, unfolding horror as tiny fireballs flashed around Steve. He heard the sharp metal tang of a repulsor beam tearing through the skycycle engine.
“Steve!” Tony called.
Whoosh, and the skycycle exploded into a huge, roiling red and orange ball of fire.
“STEVE!” Tony shouted even louder.
The concussive blast from the explosion threw Tony backwards. When he got control of the suit, he couldn’t tell where Steve was. The explosion burned up all the drones and the skycycle, strewing burned, twisted metal shards and debris all over the lake and lakeshore while Tony watched, shell-shocked.
He should have been able to see Steve or Steve’s body being flung from the explosion. The last bits of fire burned out fast, leaving only darkness behind. Tony flew back and forth over the explosion site and saw nothing.
Wait! What if Steve was in the lake? He shone a light over the water and saw no sign of Steve. Steve’s uniform did have reflective parts on it. Unless the uniform had been shredded by the explosion….
Steve had been there, right there on that skycycle one minute ago. Now he was missing. And definitely, completely hurt. If not dead.
He couldn’t be dead.
They’d had a great time together, horsing around with the drones and the skycycle. They were going to have dinner that night. Tony already had designs on Steve’s french fries.
Not Steve.
Every monitor on the suit was working overtime to find any sign of Steve. The transmitters woven into the ballistic nylon of Steve’s uniform weren’t responding. No signs of life or a body.
Get a grip, Stark. Work the problem. You’re no use to Steve if you panic.
He landed on the shore and turned the armor systems to analyzing the explosion. Swallowing down his panic as best he could, Tony went over the facts. Steve was on a skycycle. He was attacked by the drones. Something went wrong with the drones and the skycycle. It looked like the skycycle gas tank exploded, and the drones exploded, and everything exploded.
Including Steve.
Tony knew physics backward and forwards. Steve would have been thrown a long distance from the blast of the explosion. There was a hell of a lot of energy in that blast.
One problem solved. Steve was not in the lake.
Next problem. Where was Steve? Tony thought of the area in sections. Steve was not in the lake, so he could check that off his list. What was left was the Avengejet and parking lot area. The Avengejet flood lights turned up nothing, nor did the monitors. Tony slowly chipped away at all possible locations until all he had was the edge of the forest in front of him.
He turned the Avengejet flood lights on the line of the forest. All he could see were trees and brush, and brush and trees. Except for a couple of pines snapped right in two. Like someone or something had been hurled at them at a high rate of speed.
Bingo.
Steve had to be there. That was Tony’s best option. He had to find Steve alive. If Steve was badly injured — he could still be in a heap of trouble even with his healing factor.
He had let Steve down. He hadn’t protected him and didn’t know — he had to stop. This wasn’t helping at all.
Tony landed in front of the broken trees. Walking into the forest was not hard, but he had to navigate through the tangle of trees and branches first. Then the forest grew thick and even darker.
Steve had to be nearby. Basic physics said that his momentum would have stopped when he hit the trees. Tony lifted his flashlight, only to see the light from the bulb start to dim.
Could anything else possibly go wrong today? He’d have to use the arc reactor, but that also meant arming the unibeam. Great, all he needed was to trip and fall and set the whole damn forest on fire. Which was not going to help Steve one tiny bit.
He moved slower through the tangle until it was impossible to move further because of a huge pile of broken trees. He checked for Steve.
“Cap? Are you there? Steve!” he called out.
Nothing.
He kicked at the pile. He could tell under the reactor light that the damage was recent because of the white, unseasoned wood at the ends of the broken trunks and limbs. He explored around the edges.
The only conclusion was that Steve was indeed under that pile of fallen trees. No tree beyond the pile was damaged and none to the side. Tony carefully removed each branch and tree limb, hoping that Steve had not been impaled in the crash. Assuming that Steve was alive.
Steve had to be alive. He’d survived over seventy years in the ice, being blown out of the Avengejet in space, all sorts of explosions and fights. They were going to walk out of this, Steve laughing at Tony’s worry, and they’d get steak and watch a movie, and this would all just be a silly story they’d tell the team in a year or more.
It took about an hour to remove all the debris to finally find Steve’s crumpled body at the bottom of the pile. Tony rushed over, took off a gauntlet and felt for Steve’s pulse. A rush of gratitude swept over Tony as he realized that Steve was alive.
Good news, Steve was alive. Even better, he wasn’t impaled. But there was a hell of lot of bad news. Tony couldn’t begin to assess the amount of damage Steve had sustained. Steve had definitely been knocked out.
It was getting very cold too. He quickly put the gauntlet back on.
Tony checked the HUD. It was nine o’clock, and the temperature was dropping. At this time of year, the temperature hovered just above freezing. But it was unusually cold.
He had to get Steve out of the forest and back to the Avengejet.
“Steve, can you hear me?” Tony asked.
In all previous concussion situations, Steve had usually snapped out of it within an hour. It had been more than an hour since the accident. And Steve’s uniform had indeed been ripped to shreds.
“Steve?”
He heard Steve groan, then go still. Oh, this was bad, very bad. He didn’t know if he could move Steve or if Steve could even walk. If he moved Steve, he could do a lot more harm. But they could freeze out here.
What if Steve fell into that weird, freaky, hibernation thing he did in cold temperatures? Was it even cold enough for Steve to go into suspended animation?
“Sir, according to SHIELD databases and Captain Rogers’ medical records, the temperature would need to fall considerably lower than zero for the Captain to go into suspended animation.”
Right, he had JARVIS. Things were suddenly better. “JARVIS, contact the team. Arrange for rescue.”
“SIr, the local paramedics are responding to a major roadway accident involving several cars. Their resources are stretched to the limit and they are unable to respond. In the best of cases, you are sufficiently remote enough that any response would take hours.”
“The team?”
“Ms. Romanova is gathering the team as we speak. Her best ETA is at least three hours. And that is only to reach you.”
“Can you scan Cap?” Tony aimed the HUD towards Steve so that JARVIS could get a good look.
“It appears Captain Rogers has received significant damage. His internal temperature is low, he likely broke his arm, he may have received additional injuries from being trapped under the trees. I do not have any further information, as I do not have the optimal resources for evaluating him.”
Fire, they needed fire for heat.
Tony took off the helmet and set it down. Thanks to Steve’s little Christmas stocking stuffer from a couple of years ago, Tony had a magnesium stick stored away in the suit. He gathered as much dry wood as he could find and used the stick to start a small fire.
He was never, ever going to tease Steve when he watched Survivorman or any of the other wilderness survival shows that Steve was addicted to. He’d give anything to be sitting on the couch with Steve right now, under warm blankets with plenty of popcorn. Actually, he would settle for an alive and healthy Steve watching that tiny television back at the hotel with him right now instead.
He sat down next to Steve, angling his body so that Steve would have warmth from the fire. Maybe he should work out the thermodynamics of cradling Steve while wearing the armor.
Glancing over at Steve as he calculated the heat of the fire and how warm it would make him, Tony noticed that Steve’s eyes were open. “Steve? Are you awake?”
No response.
Steve looked sickly pale in the firelight. Tony took a risk and removed the gauntlet again, only to feel how clammy Steve’s skin was. “JARVIS?” he asked in alarm.
“Captain Rogers appears to be in shock.”
Tony moved Steve slowly and gently so that his legs and feet were elevated and arranged branches to keep Steve immobilized in place. At least Steve didn’t appear to be bleeding — Tony couldn’t feel anything. He could be bleeding internally.
“There you go, Steve. Nice and comfy. Not a five star-resort but at least we’re alive.”
His stomach rumbled. It had been hours since either of them had eaten. Steve had to be in pain, not just from injuries, but from being hungry.
It would take about twenty minutes to walk and fly to the Avengejet, and twenty minutes back, a forty-minute round trip. There were snacks in one of the hatches for him, since Steve shouldn’t eat yet, and blankets. Wait, this was the spare Avengejet -- the one they didn’t use all that often. There wasn’t food in it, but there was a first aid kit.
Then he heard the coyote calls. They wouldn’t care — Steve would be just another wounded animal to them. But he couldn’t leave Steve alone. “Okay, Steve. I’m watching over you as best I can. I should have taken you up on the survival lessons after that trip to the Savage Land.”
“Ms. Romanova wants you to know that they are close to the United States border,” JARVIS announced from the helmet.
“Good to know, J.”
Then he felt a few flakes of snow on his face. A heavy, wet, late spring snow was starting to fall. He nearly started laughing hysterically. How much worse could it get?
He’d been selfish, wanting to spend more time with Steve alone, and now he’d killed him. All because he loved Steve and didn’t want to lose him.
Steve stirred, groaning. Tony sprang to action. He checked on Steve. But he might have imagined that the heartbeat was steadier. He loosened the collar of the uniform some more, to help with the breathing.
Even in the dim light of the fire, Steve was beautiful. Tony rarely ever saw such peace and quiet in his face. Damn it, he loved Steve so much. Now his very survival was in Tony’s clearly inept hands.
He could send a gauntlet to the Avengejet to drag a blanket back. Or he could put parts of the armor on Steve to keep him warm. No, the best thing right now would be to feed the fire and keep the snow off them.
He checked on Steve again, leaning in close to hear his breathing. “Steve, look, I don’t know how this is going to turn out. I love you, Steve. I don’t know if you can hear me. We’re going to make it — the team is on the way. You have to hang in there. Just a little while longer.”
Steve opened his eyes and grabbed Tony’s hand. His voice was raspy and his breath rattled. “I love you....” He passed out again.
Tony didn’t have the bandwidth to process what Steve said, but he had to do everything he could to protect and save Steve. He carefully fed the fire and tried to rig up a few branches as a makeshift shelter.
“Sir, the Avengejet will be landing in a few minutes. Perhaps it would be good to clear the area for the team to extract Captain Rogers.”
“Right.” He frantically set about moving branches out of the way, not stopping until he saw the bright lights of the team.
Natasha had been sensible and brought only Clint and Sam. They had basic SHIELD field-medic training. Tony stood by helplessly as Clint and Sam quickly but carefully loaded Steve on the stretcher. Natasha issued directions for the whole operation, all the while reassuring Tony.
“Cap will be fine. Okay, ready to load?”
“Ready to load,” Cint and Sam agreed.
The trip and the arrival at the hospital were a blur. All Tony focused on was Steve’s pale face and his shallow breathing. Natasha had to remind him about getting out of the armor while they waited. The ER doctors were hopeful, but needed to examine Steve before they could give more news.
“They need to know he can’t use anaesthesia like ordinary people,” Tony said to Natasha.
They were sitting in the nearly empty hospital cafeteria. Sam had been left behind to take the second Avengejet back to the Tower, while Clint babysat the main Avengejet at the local airport. Tony was a complete mess. If Natasha had told him that Sam and Clint were playing video games in the waiting room with Hulk, he’d believe her.
“You need to eat. You’re no good to anyone if you don’t.”
“I killed him. I killed him and it’s all my fault. I bet Steve will get up from the dead just to kill me over the SPE all over again. I’ll deserve it. I never wanted anything bad to happen to him.” Tony had tears in his eyes, thinking he was close to losing Steve.
“Tony, it’s going to be alright.” Natasha patted his hand. “Wait — the SPE was involved?”
“Yeah, Steve and I were experimenting, seeing if I’d worked the kinks out. Kicking the tires, so to speak. His skycycle blew up because I —”
“We all thought it was a romantic getaway for you and Steve. Guess that’s as good a reason as any to take a few days off.”
“But we — no — what?” Tony was still disorientated from his night in the forest.
“You and Steve went away for a couple of days to blow stuff up — what could be more romantic?”
“Rome, Paris, for starters.”
“Depends on your definition of romance.”
Before Tony could ask more questions, a nurse came up to them. “Mr. Stark? Mr. Rogers is asking for you.”
Tony raced up to the ICU. He looked through the window at Steve hooked up to an IV and plenty of machines. But Steve was smiling weakly and appeared glad to see Tony.
“You can go in,” the nurse said.
He hesitated until Natasha pushed him forward. “Steve —”
“I meant what I said,” Steve interrupted. “I love you.”
“I love you too — but —”
Natasha kicked him. “Go sit next to your boyfriend. We’ll sort this all out later.”
Tony didn’t need to be told twice.
~~~~~
Steve had insisted on being discharged as soon as possible. The doctors in Canada were just like the doctors everywhere else, doubtful of the wisdom of discharging Steve, but equally stymied by Steve’s rapid healing. The best they could offer was to do another MRI, re-break and re-set Steve’s arm, and make sure his wounds were cleaned out. He went grudgingly along with all of it once he was out of ICU.
The Avengejet trip home was mercifully short. Steve was in pain once they hit cruising altitude and everything ached. Not that anyone could tell, except Steve was very quiet and his lips were tightly pursed. Tony caressed his arm. “It’s going to be okay, Steve. Not much longer.”
“Gonna make it a smooth trip, Cap,” Clint promised from the pilot’s seat.
Despite Steve’s protests, they went straight to SHIELD medical, since they knew the most about Steve and his unusual biology. They treated their patient well and quickly released him into Tony’s care. “Don’t let him cut off his own cast. Bring him back in a couple of days and we’ll check the arm.”
“He’s your problem now,” Natasha declared once they got to the Tower.
Tony’s problem. He wasn’t going to complain about that. Especially not when he knew Steve’s special smile for Tony and could read the fondness in Steve’s eyes.
“I’m going to spoil you rotten,” Tony promised as he finally tucked Steve in for the night in his bedroom. Somehow Steve filled up his big, empty bed. And Steve was too tired from the rapid healing to protest at all.
Tony didn’t deserve Steve, he really didn’t. But he wasn’t going to complain. Especially not today as he watched Steve attempt to paint with one hand. Tony had taken the week off from Stark Industries and Natasha was going to run the team.
She told Tony that under no circumstances, unless Galactus returned, was she going to pull Tony or Steve from injured reserve. Steve thought it was all ridiculous. He was perfectly fine and could easily join the team for a fight.
That was until Steve collapsed on the ground because his body was burning through all his energy stores to heal him. So Steve had to give in and let Tony feed and take care of him. Not that Tony was peeling grapes and feeding them one by one to Steve. A man could dream though.
“We’ll go anywhere, if you want,” Tony offered. “Miami, Hilton Head, Malibu, big old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.”
Steve swirled his paintbrush in the watercolor glass and shook his head. “I’ll be right as rain in a week.”
Tony marveled at how organized Steve was, his watercolor supplies carefully laid out, his cups of water labeled perfectly. When Tony praised the organization, Steve made a disgusted face. “It’s from experience, Tony. I don’t need to drink paint water ever again.”
Tony drank his coffee, basking in the warm light streaming through the Tower windows. It felt nearly sinful to be so lazy and barely working on any project for the Avengers or for Stark Industries. But as Steve’s designated caretaker, babysitter, and watchdog, he had to focus only on Steve until Steve was better in a few days. He smiled at his Steve, painting away. “What are you working on?”
Steve still looked beaten up but was stable now and able to stand up. Tony had stocked the lounge with every snack Jarvis and he could find on a grocery, drugstore or bodega shelf in New York. He and Steve had had too much fun trying new snacks. “Hmm. Just painting my favorite subject.”
“Really? The left-handed painting is working out?”
He wasn’t likely to be wearing that cast in a day or two, so Steve was using the opportunity to use his left hand as much as possible. The serum had rendered him effectively ambidextrous. Steve stepped back from the easel to study his work. “It’s not the same. It’s freer, more abstract.”
Tony got up to see what Steve was working on. He gasped when he saw that Steve had sketched out the scene when Tony found him in the forest. Steve had drawn Tony like a knight in shining armor rescuing Steve from the snow. He had a habit of painting scenes from their adventures, but this one still felt too close and real and raw to Tony. “Wow, Steve.”
Looking into Steve’s eyes, he could see that Steve remembered that moment when Tony finally found him, that desperation and need and fear coursing through Tony’s veins as he discovered Steve going into shock from his injuries, the cold and snow.
“Thanks,” Steve replied.
Tony pulled Steve into his arms and kissed his forehead. “We’re never doing that again.”
Steve ran a hand through Tony’s hair. “No?”
“I’ve deleted the SPE. It’s been nothing but trouble for us since I designed it.”
“You can’t — you put so much work into it!”
Tony pressed his face into Steve’s muscled shoulder, taking in the scent of Steve’s soap and shampoo that said Steve to him, listening to the low rumble of his voice and the steady beat of his heart. “Not if it means losing you.”
Steve wrapped his arm around Tony. “You’ll have to do a lot worse to lose me,” he replied. “You’re stuck with me for good.”