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Steve can’t fall apart.
He needs to hold it together, and he does, absolutely, at least for the first 22 days after the tragedy Thanos brings upon the universe— despite the thrumming pain in his joints he wakes up to every single morning, that he brushes off to the extra miles he’d run the day before; despite the way the pain spreads in his body as the day goes on.
Mornings are spent on bringing some order back to the city: clearing the abandoned cars from the roads, organizing volunteers for hospitals, planning for security measures, and dealing with unaccompanied children wandering around in every unexpected corner. In the afternoons, Steve just walks in the streets. He goes from one street to another and listens to people. Some cry on his shoulders. Some yell. Some even throw a punch at him, which he takes without a blink. He needs to be there for the people he has let down so fucking spectacularly— not that he can undo any of the harm, not that it makes him feel better the slightest bit, but he’s at least doing what needs to be done; he is at least doing something.
Later in the evening, back at the compound, Steve chairs debrief meetings— pointless arguments between the broken superheroes who fight each other instead of an enemy whose whereabouts they have no clue of. He makes sure that everyone has something to eat, some hours of sleep, and a shower every once in a while. He cleans up the bathrooms. He cleans up the kitchen. He clears out the mess of take-out food boxes and ice cream tubs. He then walks up and down the long hallway listening to muffled sounds from behind closed bedroom doors until everything goes quiet and he can’t feel his feet anymore.
It’s after midnight when Steve finally opens the door to his old office. He imagines Tony, sitting in this chair, leaning his head against the window, tapping on his StarkPad, mumbling to FRIDAY from time to time. The moon reflecting on the silver in his hair. The dim light of the screen dancing in his eyes. Like a couple of years ago when life was simple. Like the time Steve remembered what happiness was.
He opens the top drawer of the desk and stares at a framed piece of sandwich wrapping paper with Steve’s first ‘I love you’ note written on it, right next to the fluffy Iron Man socks that used to keep Steve’s toes warm on cold winter nights. Grabbing a sketchbook from the neat stack in the second drawer, Steve browses through the pages and runs his fingers on the wrinkled lines here and there. Something’s spilled on them, perhaps, like the golden liquid in the half-empty Macallan 18 bottle that Steve had found in the bottom drawer. Or tears. Tony’s tears. Not that Steve deserves a single drop. Not that he doesn’t wish every second of every hour to be able to go back in time and uncry those tears.
Steve falls asleep as the first rays of dawn paint the sky, slouched in the chair by the window with his head on the desk, and wakes up to the first footsteps that echo in the hallway, excruciating pain racking through his body that he brushes off to the extra miles he’d run the day before.
***
The twenty-third day is different; there is this tingle in Steve’s spine when he wakes up. He feels giddy somehow as if it hasn’t been less than a month since half of the universe got wiped out of existence. As if he is not mourning his teammates and friends, as if the visions of Tony turning into dust somewhere unknown in outer space don’t make his blood freeze every time he closes his eyes.
He is just... happy.
He even smiles at himself in the mirror.
There are new flowers along the side of the road, so he picks some as he comes back from his morning run. He yells at everyone to do laundry because the whole compound smells like sweat and spit after so many days of non-stop running around. He finds clean sheets in the linen closet at the back of the main living room, the same place they used to be two years ago, and changes everyone’s sheets, even if it means that he has to drag Thor off of his bed with the dirty beddings. He cooks a pot of spaghetti bolognese because too much take-away food might finally do what Thanos had failed at, and insists on helping to wash the dishes, even if Colonel Rhodes glowers at him the whole time.
He’s just finished shaving for the first time in two years when the ground under his feet starts to shake. He throws the towel right next to the hamper as the whole compound is rocking in place and he runs, or flies, or does both somehow, the distance to the front door stretching before him to infinity. His jaw falls open at the sight of a spaceship landing right outside the main building and he can’t believe his own eyes as the doors open.
Steve runs, in agony and hope, because it’s him, sliding down the steps, holding on to a blue-faced person Steve doesn’t recognize, his beard untidy and his hair mussed, eyes glossy as if empty of life. But it’s Tony, in the flesh, half the size Steve remembers, hissing in pain as he slumps into Steve’s arms, but he’s alive, breathing, saying words Steve can’t gather the mental ability to understand but is grateful to hear nevertheless. Steve has to pause in the middle of the steps, to take a deep breath and steady himself. He has Tony in his arms so he can’t shatter into pieces; he has to keep it together.
He can’t fall apart.
Not yet.
And he doesn’t fall apart, as Nat goes through the pictures of the lost ones, when tears fill Tony’s eyes seeing Peter’s face among the rest. He doesn’t lose his composure when Tony reminds him that he needed Steve in past tense. He breathes through the pain as Tony declares to the world that he has no trust for Steve. He takes each of Tony’s words, one stab after the other right into his heart, and doesn’t break into tears when Tony passes out and crumbles onto the floor, even if he fails to catch Tony, one more time.
Pepper sits by Tony’s bed and holds his hand. Steve doesn’t need to look at the deep wrinkle between her brows to know that he’s not welcome to stay. Holding Tony in his arms, carrying him to bed, and tucking him under the blankets they used to cuddle under, is more than enough. Knowing that he’s not gone; that there is a shred of hope left in the world to keep going for.
And Steve holds on to that shred when they go to Thanos’s garden. He digs his fingers into its invisible tiny threads, refusing to believe that the stones are gone for good, and ties it into little imaginary butterfly knots to keep from bending in half when the splash of Thanos's blood paints a red line on the wall.
Steve takes Thor to bed after the 15th beer and sits with Natasha in silence for as long as it takes her to fall asleep, everything already quiet when he steps out of her room. Everyone’s asleep. All of the doors are closed.
Steve follows the patch of light that’s extending into the hallway from an invisible source, every step heavier to take, every breath harder to let in, a pain to push out. He just keeps going, holding onto the wall with a parched mouth and spinning head and it’s the last bit of his strength—the last bit of his soul—that leads him finally to this room, that makes him take the half-open door as permission to slip inside.
Tony looks up from his StarkPad and his eyes find Steve’s face.
Steve leans back against the door and his weight shuts the door with a click. Tony stretches out a shaky arm and nods. Steve staggers to Tony’s side and his fingers wrap around Tony’s.
That’s when his knees buckle.
He bends.
He breaks.
He falls apart.
The words spill out like the magnitude of water rushing through a broken dam. Tears he didn’t know he was holding back for years, well up and overflow.
And they don’t stop.
Tony lays Steve’s head on his thin chest. He runs his fingers through Steve’s hair, kisses the back of his neck, and wipes Steve’s tears away, so many times, as Steve apologizes, and apologizes again, and again and again.
Tony’s touch is soft on Steve’s skin. His words are gentle in Steve’s ears. His mercy, however, hurts more than his disappointment. His tenderness cuts through Steve’s wounds, precise like a sharp blade, and Steve’s bleeding all over himself in tears and useless explanations. That he never meant to hurt Tony. That he never meant to leave Tony behind. That he meant to call, to come back, to keep Tony in his arms and never let go. That he’s made a mistake, a million of them back to back, and he is a failure who doesn’t deserve Tony’s forgiveness, even if it’s the only thing in the world left for him to fight for.
Tony lifts Steve’s head from his chest and looks into his eyes as he pushes a strand of hair behind Steve’s ear. A jolt of electricity runs through Steve’s body and his heart rattles in his chest. This is not right. Instead of caressing Steve’s cheek, Tony should slap Steve’s face, he should punch Steve’s nose. He was stranded in the dark, out of food, out of air, and yet, he is stronger than Steve who’s crumbling in his arms. He can hold Steve together, literally, and he can even smile, and God, oh God, Tony’s smile is all Steve’s wanted to see every time he’s let himself think about Tony in the past two years. It warms Steve’s skin. It warms Steve’s heart—little by little, slowly but surely.
Tony’s lips brush against the side of Steve’s face and the tears stop running down. He kisses the line of Steve’s jaw and Steve’s shoulders stop shaking. His lips find Steve’s and the choked sobs disappear. Steve tastes Tony’s mouth as Tony parts his lips. It’s sweet and so painfully familiar. Steve’s suddenly dizzy with the flood of sensations washing over his skin, a knot coming undone, deep in Steve’s core, that he had kept so tightly tied.
Tony is the sun.
He's life itself.
And he belongs between Steve’s arms, he just fits across Steve’s chest. Steve doesn’t know how he has survived without Tony these past years—he doesn’t want to know if he can put a foot in front of the other without Tony from now on. He tightens his hold around Tony’s too narrow shoulders and breathes him in, kissing his lips, his hair, his neck, the discolored patch of skin where the arc reactor used to be, thrilled that it still makes Tony’s breath hitch and his eyes flutter shut. He wants more, much more, but Tony is too weak, even for sitting upright.
Steve lowers them both on the bed and pulls the covers up. It smells like heaven under Tony’s blanket and Steve can’t help but smile as Tony lays his head on Steve’s chest and reaches over Steve’s body to draw soothing circles on his back.
Steve’s home.
The lies are outside this room. The pain is somewhere in the distance.
Tony’s alive and is nibbling at Steve’s skin and maybe, just maybe, there is still a chance to make things right.
To at least try.
Together.