Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There's nothing else in the world like the feeling of founding an Avengers team.

Steve would know. He's been here often enough. For all that the team retroactively named him an official founder, he hadn't been there at the very beginning—but he'll never forget the day a decade ago that the team woke him from the ice and the very next day offered him... everything. Happiness. Camaraderie. Friendship. The Avengers were there before him, and they'll be there after him. He likes that. There's a sense of permanence, of belonging to something bigger than himself, of being a force for good in the universe.

He's doing something right, he thinks, as he stands outside the mansion, with his friends at his side, facing the sea of reporters. The familiar elation, a bright and shining joy, gathers within him, somewhere deep and solid under his breastbone. He glances to either side of him. Hawkeye, Thor, and Scarlet Witch are on his right. On his left are Warbird, Iron Man, Vision, and then Justice and Firestar. They're all here. They've faced Onslaught and come home. They're where they're supposed to be.

As he finishes announcing the team, he can hear them whispering to each other. He knows what they're waiting for him to say. It's tradition.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Carol grin and nudge Tony. "Iron Man," she says, "do something about this, will you?"

Almost theatrically, Tony steps up past Carol to stand at Steve's side. He leans forward to whisper into Steve's ear.

"Aren't you forgetting something, Mr. Living Legend?"

Tony's voice is low, slightly distorted by the vocal filters that hide his identity from the rest of the world. But his tone is full of warmth, and his eyes behind the golden mask are bright. Steve would bet anything that he's smiling underneath it.

Steve breathes in sharply, and the thought occurs to him—not for the first time—that there could be something else there under that teasing affection, the same thing he's felt for Tony for years. He's never wanted to say anything. He's never wanted to chance what they have together, his first and best friendship since he woke up in this strange world. But today... today feels like a day when anything could be possible. A day for joy.

"All right," he says, starting to laugh in sheer delight. "All right. I'll say it."

Steve steps forward and raises his fist in the air.

"Avengers, assemble!"

A thousand flashbulbs go off at once, like staring into the sun, and Steve stands there and smiles and smiles.

Everything is going to be perfect.

Of course, they're not done dealing with the press. The gathering moves inside. The huge room that had so recently held thirty-nine Avengers, their teammates over these many years, now hosts chattering, inquisitive reporters. They sprawl on the couches and gather next to the tables. Even the journalists who have been here before find their attention caught by the team portrait that hangs over the mantel. The mansion's an impressive place.

So Steve talks, of course, the way he's done for years. He fields questions about the suitability of Justice and Firestar—Vance and Angel—that he privately wishes Clint were answering, because Clint was the one pushing for their inclusion. He meets Carol's eye—she's entertaining a crowd of reporters over by the bar—as he tells them about how she's Warbird now. He manages to talk about Wanda and Vision without divulging any more personal details. He mentions how glad he is that Thor's back.

"And Iron Man?" one of the reporters asks. The name alone makes Steve's heart beat just a little faster. The reporter is Megan McLaren, he thinks, from WJBP, the name dropping into his mind in an instant. She looks up at Steve eagerly. "What about him? Surely you are aware that Tony Stark has been in some trouble—financial and otherwise—since his recent return from the dead." Uh-oh. Steve can tell where this going. "And Iron Man is his bodyguard. Do you ever wonder, with the trouble his employer finds himself in, about Iron Man's reliability or loyalty—"

Steve holds up a hand. "I'm going to stop you right there, Ms. McLaren," he says, and he doesn't exactly mean to say it in full-on commanding, Captain America tones but he thinks a few heads turn his way. "Tony Stark is a good man, who has been nothing but decent, kind, and generous—to me, and to everyone else—since the day I met him. I am eternally grateful for his continued financial support of the team, and—on a personal level—for his friendship." He feels a little awkward, as he always does, keeping Tony's identity secret for him, but he presses on anyway. "And as for his bodyguard, I have never once doubted Iron Man's commitment to the Avengers. He's an excellent teammate, and it is my honor and privilege to serve alongside him." The words catch in his throat. "He— he means the world to me."

McLaren nods, a thoughtful movement. "Thank you, Captain."

When Steve looks up over her head, he's surprised that the first pair of eyes he sees is Tony's, bright and dazzlingly blue behind the mask. He's still in armor, of course, with a glass of sparkling water balanced delicately in one gauntleted hand, drinking straw askew. Tony's eyes are wide, and he knows Tony heard him. Every word of it.

"No problem," he says, and when he smiles, it's Tony he's smiling for. "It's the truth."

The gathering winds down after that; they bid the guests farewell, the rest of the team wanders off, and eventually it's only him and Tony left in the huge, echoing room, standing in the doorway, on their way out. Tony laughs, all fuzzy static, and then he reaches up and pushes the suit faceplate back, now that it's just the two of them. Most of the team knows anyway, Steve thinks, absently. The old team, at least, because the new kids definitely don't. Maybe Carol doesn't either.

And then Tony looks at him and Steve forgets everything else he was thinking about because, good God, the way Tony's looking at him—there are no words for it. Tony is still bright-eyed. His face is a little flushed. And he's smiling at him like he hasn't stopped smiling all day. He's not drunk; Steve doesn't have to worry about that, because he knows Tony wouldn't, not anymore. Tony's just... happy. It feels like he hasn't seen Tony like this, not in a long time, and he'd give anything to have him stay like this. It's better than founding a team, maybe better than anything, because it's Tony and—well, Steve hadn't been lying when he'd said Tony meant the world to him.

"I heard what you told that reporter," Tony says. And then the grin turns a little self-effacing. "Good job, promoting the team. Making me look good. Your bonus will be in your next Avengers paycheck."

"Tony," Steve chides, because, sure, it's a joke, but it's the kind of joke you don't make unless there's something real underneath it, some fundamental insecurity. "It's not making you anything you aren't already. You're good. End of story. You're the best," he adds.

Tony smiles again. "Pretty sure that's you, Cap."

"I mean it," he says, and he lays a hand on Tony's shoulder, even though he knows Tony won't be able to feel it under the metal; it's not like Steve can really feel it under the gloves either. But Tony's eyes track the movement and widen a little. "I've always meant it. I care about you. So much."

Now, he thinks, now is surely when Tony will back away, when the intimacy building between them will shatter. Steve's always been earnest and he knows it; he wears his heart on his sleeve. He can't not. But Tony—he thinks Tony feels everything more keenly than anyone else he's ever met. The highs lift him higher, and the lows cut him deeper. And he covers it all, hides behind masks and practiced smiles, looks at the people around him with a yearning that it's taken Steve years to read, a longing, a desperate need for friendship, for affection.

He's seen Tony look at him like that. Of course he has. He's always told himself it couldn't be more than friendship. But the way Tony's looking at him now—it seems like it might run deeper than that.

"I care about you too," Tony says. His eyes are even wider. His voice is low, a little shaky. It feels like there could be no one in the world but the two of them right now. They're on the edge of something new and wonderful. "I— I don't think you even know how much."

Steve smiles. "We're friends."

He watches Tony's face fall when he says it, an instant of disappointment quickly covered before Tony is smiling again, and he knows—he knows—it's something more.

"Of course," Tony agrees, and if Steve weren't listening for the hollowness he wouldn't have been able to hear it. "Friends. Always."

Slowly, slowly, Steve slides his hand over Tony's shoulder and neck, up to the edge of the faceplate. His gloved thumb just barely brushes Tony's cheek.

Tony blinks a few times and licks his lips, nervously. "Steve?" His voice is a little too high.

"Maybe more than friends?" Steve offers, very quietly.

Tony's eyes are wide. Steve hasn't heard him take another breath. It feels like the day he found out Tony was Iron Man, the way Tony's looking at him now—like Steve knows every last one of his secrets.

"I," Tony stammers. "I. Oh, God. Steve. You— you can't possibly—"

He doesn't want to hear you can't like men or, worse, you can't like me. He doesn't want Tony to deny himself this. He doesn't want Tony to believe himself unworthy, or undeserving, as if Steve is better than him. Steve's just a man. Steve's only human, and he's loved Tony for so long now. They can have this. They can be happy together. It's a day for happiness. For new beginnings.

"You just tell me if I'm wrong," Steve says. Summoning up all the courage in his heart, he steps close and goes up on his toes. Tony in armor is a familiar few inches taller than he is.

He moves slowly enough that Tony could stop him or move away. Tony doesn't. Tony tilts his head down and for an instant they're breathing each other's air before their lips meet. Tony's arms go around him. The armor is unyielding but it's very possibly the sweetest kiss Steve has ever had. Tony's lips against his are warm and soft. He thinks Tony's smiling. Tony's beard is surprisingly gentle against Steve's skin. Steve's never kissed anyone with a beard before.

When Steve pulls away, Tony's eyes, fallen shut during the kiss, flutter open. He has beautiful eyes, Steve thinks, Steve has always thought—a stunning dark blue, as deep as the night, now almost as dark as it, framed by such delicate long lashes. He can tell Tony that he has beautiful eyes now, if he wants. He can compliment him. He can try to make him smile more. He can give voice to so many of the things he's saved up, so many of the idle thoughts and fantasies that have taken shape in his head over the years.

Tony's eyes are half-lidded now in lazy bliss, and the smile that lifts the corners of his mouth is full of promise. Tony has never looked at him like this before, not in the ten years they've known each other. Steve wants Tony to look at him like this for the next ten years. For the rest of his life.

"Well," Tony breathes, and the sound is all amazement. "You're definitely not wrong." He smiles again. "Steve," he says, wondering, still amazed, like he can't think of anything else to say. But that's fine. Steve will be happy to hear Tony say his name like that as much as he wants.

Steve can't think of anything to say either, and he just smiles back.

"Can we do that again?" Tony asks, voice tremulous, as if the answer might be no. It's sweet that he's asking, so achingly sweet, but at the same time a little sad, to think that even with this Tony needs more reassurance, more proof that Steve loves him, that this is no mistake or error.

Steve smiles again.

Tony leans in—and then pauses, his face inches from Steve's parted lips. Steve realizes belatedly that Tony is waiting for agreement. Consent. A yes.

"Don't stop," Steve murmurs. "Please." And only then does Tony kiss him again.

And now, now everything is truly perfect.

They don't sleep together right away.

Privately Steve thinks that anyone who only knew Tony from his public image would laugh. Somehow people expect him to be—well, there are a variety of words they generally use. They're all mean-spirited, and in Tony's case, untrue. He's seen Tony in relationships. Tony falls fast and hard, the same way he dives through the skies. He doesn't do shallow. It all means something to him.

Still, Steve already meant something to him. Steve's certain of that. And he's a little surprised when Tony doesn't suggest it, that first day. He almost does, himself. Whatever anyone may believe about Captain America, Steve Rogers isn't made of stone and he— he wants Tony. Very badly.

But he wants to do this right. Begin as you mean to go on, they say. And he wants Tony to know he cares for him, that he wants more than Tony's body or Tony's money or anything a lot of people would want from Tony. He wants Tony to be happy. And that means waiting until Tony comes to accept that Steve's here for good.

It doesn't mean they can't neck like teenagers, though.

And Tony, Steve discovers, is really, really good at kissing.

Tony is a little hesitant at first, like he doesn't know what's allowed, or like maybe it surprises him to find this new side of Steve. They've been friends for so long, after all, and they haven't ever been like this. Tony's had to go from Captain America, a long-dead war hero, untouchable and unknowable, to Steve Rogers, friend and comrade, and now to Steve, the man in his arms whispering at him yes, Tony, just like that, please, yes.

By wordless agreement, their own bedrooms are off-limits for the time being, and so Tony will press Steve up against the kitchen counter and kiss him. Wherever they are, if they're alone. The briefing room. The gym. The Quinjet hangar. Tony's hands stay above Steve's waist the whole time, but his mouth is hot and clever and knowing. And then they pull apart, and Tony smiles at him, his lips red and wet, and Steve heads back to his room to jerk off, because he is definitely not that noble. He leans against the door—no points for finesse here—and fumbles with his pants, barely able to get his cock out, stroking himself roughly. He comes embarrassingly fast, faster every time, especially when he thinks of the fact that Tony is probably one wall away doing the exact same thing.

Whenever they're around the rest of the team, Steve is acutely conscious of the fact that they don't know. He feels like they must be able to tell, even as Tony's helmet hides the beard burn from Steve's stubble and the neck of Steve's cowl hides the all-too-brief marks of Tony's more enthusiastic kisses. He feels like there must be a neon sign: he and Tony are together. But the team doesn't know. Though surely, surely, they're going to find out, because he and Tony are hardly subtle. If nothing else, someone's going to walk in on them eventually. There are seven other Avengers, plus Jarvis, and the mansion's not that big.

They're about a week into this... new phase... of their relationship, and they're in the library, on the couch. Tony had been reading, and Steve had been sitting doing team paperwork and threatening to foist it all off on Tony on the grounds that the deputy chair ought to have some kind of duties. And Tony had looked at him, dark-eyed, murmured something positively filthy about other possible duties, shoved the paperwork aside, and climbed into Steve's lap. And now they're kissing.

Tony pushed the cowl off of Steve's head about ten minutes ago, and he's been using the intervening time to suck little bruises into Steve's throat, into the delicate skin under his jaw. It didn't take Tony long to figure out where Steve's favorite spots are, and he's been making full use of the information. Because of the serum, the marks won't stay long, even though Steve really wishes they would. Steve gasps and throws his head back and bares his neck and just lets Tony do whatever he wants, God, yes, please, Tony can do anything he wants to him.

Tony laughs quietly, exhaling hard. His breath is hot against the deliciously exposed skin of his throat. "You like that a lot, don't you?"

Steve can only manage an inarticulate moan. He hopes that's encouraging enough to make Tony keep doing that. He could probably come from that and nothing else. The serum made him awfully sensitive.

"So unfair," Tony says, and he nips at the side of Steve's neck once more. "Even your damn cowl is armored here. You're keeping yourself all buttoned-up. Denying yourself this." He's still smiling. Steve thinks maybe Tony has smiled more this week than he's seen him smile in a year. "Why the hell do you have neck armor, anyway?"

"Mmm." Steve tries to remember how to form sentences. "Vampires, actually. Their fangs just bounce right off. Fought a heck of a lot of them in the war."

Tony raises his head and starts to laugh in earnest and Steve thinks maybe he's completely destroyed the mood.

"Jesus Christ," Tony says. "Our lives, Steve. What the hell are they?"

Still laughing, Tony shakes against him and starts to lose his balance, at which point Steve helpfully makes a grab for the nearest part of him to try to stabilize him before he falls. Steve's hand lands firmly on Tony's ass, territory that they have both carefully avoided until now.

Tony's eyes go wide. "Steve," he rasps, low and urgent. "Oh, God, yes."

Steve's hand is curved around Tony's ass. Tony rocks back into Steve's palm, muscles flexing, and then, like it's almost involuntary, thrusts forward, rubbing his cock up against Steve's, and God, Tony's hard for him, as hard as he is, and then something in Steve's brain whites out, lost to the pleasure. All he knows is that he wants more, more, more—

The next thing he knows, he's toppled over on the couch, and Tony is above him, grinding against him, hard and hot and heavy. Tony's tongue is in his mouth, and Tony's pinning him down exactly where he needs to be. If Tony keeps doing this Steve's going to come sometime in the next ten seconds, and he has the vague and distant idea that he hadn't been planning this but right now he can't really remember why.

And then Tony sits up and moves back, so that he's safely straddling Steve's thighs, bracing himself with one hand on the side of the couch and one on Steve's still-heaving torso.

"Wow," Tony breathes. His eyes are still dark, his mouth bruised. His hair is mussed, and his chest rises and falls in huge breaths. "Okay. Yeah. That got a little bit. Uh." He's clearly at a loss for words.

"Yeah," Steve agrees.

Tony's smile is a little rueful. "Having everyone come in their pants while making out in the library, not really how I was envisioning the first time would play out." He licks his lips once, nervously, and his jaw tightens. "Uh. Do you want to take this upstairs? Somewhere more private?" He barrels on, not even giving Steve time to answer. "If you don't want to, if you think it's too soon or if you just don't want to, I mean, that's all right too, definitely, it's your choice and I don't mean to—"

Steve reaches up and puts a finger to Tony's lips, and Tony falls silent. "Tony," he says, softly. "Yes."

"Yes?" Tony repeats, questioningly, like he's not sure what the word means.

"Yes," Steve says. "Please."

He thinks maybe Tony likes when he says please. Which is good, because he really enjoys saying it.

Tony clambers off him, holds out a hand, and wordlessly helps him up. As soon as they're out of the library, Tony drops his hand again and Steve knows why he did it—they haven't told anyone, they haven't even talked about telling anyone, and the Avengers are notorious gossipmongers so telling even one person is more or less an irrevocable outing to the superhero world—but he wishes Tony hadn't had to. He wants people to know about them. He wants them to be together. There will be time, he knows. They have their whole lives ahead of them.

As they head up the stairs, Tony's body language is tight, closed-in, tense, and Steve realizes that Tony is nervous as hell. It's not like Steve isn't nervous too, but—Tony looks more nervous than really anything else, and that's not good.

Tony has stopped in the hallway. "Your room or mine?"

"Your bed's bigger," Steve tells him, and that gets a real smile, at last.

"Spoken like a man who's been thinking about my bed," Tony murmurs, as he opens his door and gestures Steve inside.

Steve smiled. "I might have been having a lot of thoughts about it. You in it. With me. Especially lately."

And then Tony steps in behind him, shutting the door, and Steve turns back and catches his arm. Tony raises his eyebrows, a wordless question.

"Hey," Steve says. "We don't— if you're that nervous, we don't have to do anything else now. You know that, right? This is supposed to be fun. We can just kiss more if you want. I liked what we were doing just fine."

"It's not that." Tony smiles weakly. "It's just that— I was going to treat you right. Do this properly. Take you on a real date first."

"A real date," Steve echoes, and he's touched by the idea of it. And then he knows exactly what Tony would do, and he realizes it would definitely make Tony feel worse. "You'd want to spoil the hell out of me, as you'd call it. You'd probably take me to the fanciest restaurant you can find, the kind of place where you'd make sure they'd give me a menu without prices, and you'd sit there the entire night with an exquisite meal in front of you, and you'd try not to stare at my mouth while I ate, and the whole time you'd be thinking about this, what we'd do afterwards, worrying about how it was going to go, and you wouldn't really enjoy your fancy thousand-dollar dinner at all."

"That wouldn't have happened." Tony frowns indignantly and Steve just raises an eyebrow until Tony breaks into a grin. "All right, maybe. Since when are you the futurist?"

"Don't have to be one," Steve replies. "I just know you. You can take me out later. It'll still be good. Better, even. Less pressure."

"Okay," Tony says, but he doesn't look relaxed, and whatever's been eating at him, that can't have been all of it. Still, he smiles again, and he steps in, and he kisses Steve, so gently, as gently as that first kiss a week ago. His arms go around Steve, his hands sliding up Steve's spine. Steve's still in uniform, and he knows it can't be comfortable when Tony's fingers brush over the scale mail.

"Maybe I should take the uniform off?" Steve suggests, when Tony hasn't moved. He smiles. "Unless you want me to keep it on..." He lets the sentence trail off and lifts an eyebrow meaningfully; he is nowhere near as good at innuendo as Tony is, he knows, but even he can't ruin that one.

Tony smiles. "No, no," he says. "Off is good. Can I...?"

"Of course," Steve says, and he watches Tony's hands go to the fastening of the mail. Tony's worked on the design for his uniform. Tony has watched him dress and undress. Tony knows his way around all of Steve's gear. But at the same time, Steve is very conscious that Tony has never done this, as he holds his arms up and lets Tony lift the uniform shirt and the undershirt off.

Tony steps back and stares at Steve's chest. Steve is positive Tony's seen him shirtless a thousand times, but Tony's looking at him half-dazed and wide-eyed, like he's not quite sure this is actually happening. One hand is raised, arm half-extended toward him, like he wants to touch him but doesn't dare.

"You can touch me," Steve says. "Go on." He smiles. "Please."

Tony gives a jerky nod, and then reaches out and lays his palm flat on Steve's chest, high on his ribs, hand splayed out just under his pectoral muscle. He doesn't move. His fingers are warm, but Steve shivers anyway, just a little.

And then Tony tilts his head and grins, not quite meeting Steve's eyes. "Sorry," he says, and there's something abashed in his gaze. "I've just spent so long telling myself not to have fantasies about Captain America, you know? And now you're here." He smiles again. "It's... an adjustment."

"You can have fantasies about Captain America," Steve says, as softly as he can. "It's all right. Encouraged, actually. Anything you want to dream about. Anything you can think up. It's all good. I promise."

He hopes maybe Tony will tell him one, will give him somewhere to start.

"I think you'd be surprised what I can think up," Tony says. Something unreadable flickers in his eyes and is gone. Steve doesn't want to push him.

Then Tony smiles again, and, in a slow, deliberate motion, slides a thumb over Steve's nipple. It's the smallest of touches, so delicate, but pleasure courses through Steve's body, a straight line to his aching cock, and he groans. Tony's smile gets wider.

"Tony," Steve breathes.

"You're so beautiful," Tony whispers, sounding overwhelmed. "I almost can't believe this is real."

"This is real," Steve says. He knows he's nervous too; the words seem to echo around his head as he says them. "Can we—? Can you—?" He can't seem to get a sentence out. "I want to see you, too."

He reaches out to the buttons of Tony's shirt, but Tony must see something in his eyes, some hesitation that gives him away, because Tony tilts his head to the side before Steve can even undo one button.

"You've never been with a man before, have you?" Tony asks.

They haven't talked about this, because they've spent their precious time alone kissing and kissing. Steve has no idea what Tony's experience with men is like; he suspects Tony has more than he does, which would be easy enough because his is nonexistent.

Steve shakes his head, and Tony's eyes are wider now. "First time," Steve says. "But I've, uh. Seen a lot of pictures." He can feel his skin heating up, and he knows it's ridiculous, but he can't help it. "Pretty sure I have the general idea down."

He waits for Tony to express some surprise about Captain America having a gay pornography collection—he thinks Tony would be even more surprised if he actually saw it—but Tony's eyes just grow wider. Steve knows Tony's worrying now about making him panic, because that's exactly the sort of thing Tony would worry about. Even though they've loved each other for years. Even though they've been Avengers together for years and at this point Steve is very, very familiar with Tony's body. Steve isn't going to panic. Tony's had a starring role in Steve's own fantasies for years. Though, much like Tony, it seems, he's tried to refrain, when he hadn't thought it could happen. But now they're really, finally here.

"Steve—"

"I want this," Steve says. "I want you. I care about you. And I know you, Tony." His hand is on Tony's chest. He can feel Tony's heart pounding under his fingertips. "Nothing you can do is going to frighten me, okay?"

Tony looks like he very much wants to raise an objection, but he smiles now, a small, tentative smile. "Okay. Okay. But we'll take it slow."

"All right." Steve suspects that's what Tony needs, anyway. "Slow it is."

Tony smiles again, and he reaches up and brushes his hand across Steve's before undoing the buttons of his own shirt, one after the other. Steve pushes the shirt off Tony's shoulders and lets it fall to the floor. Tony is strong, muscled—more than most people would think he is—and he's always been handsome. Steve has always loved to look at him. He can feel heat well up in him, slide down his spine, pool low and tight in his belly.

The soft light from the bedside lamp casts odd patterns of light and shadow over Tony's skin; his eyes seem even bluer in the dimness. Steve wants to draw him, he thinks, and then he stops thinking about anything for a bit as Tony takes his hand and leads him to bed.

It's no perfectly-orchestrated seduction—for one thing, Steve has to stop and perch on the edge of Tony's bed to wrench his boots off, and then, when Tony encourages him, his uniform trousers. Tony never takes his eyes off Steve, and somehow Steve suspects it's not just because Tony's never had a fella squirming around his mattress trying to peel off leather pants before. Tony's smile is broader now, less nervous, but the tension comes back into his face when they're both finally naked in Tony's bed.

Steve looks up and down Tony's body, enjoying the lines of him in a way he's never really been allowed to appreciate, the elegant lines of his torso, the way his muscles trace furrows down to his hard cock. His desire is obvious. Steve's wanted this for years—to touch him, to taste him, to make him happy.

When he looks back up Tony's body, Tony's face is tight with concern, taut around the eyes, smile gone fainter.

"Hey," Tony says. "Not freaking out?"

"Not freaking out," Steve confirms, and God, he wants— he wants—

"Okay," Tony says, and he breathes out like he's had to remind himself to breathe. "Good. Is there something you'd like to do?"

Steve—because he's no saint—finds his gaze traveling back down Tony's body, and half a dozen fantasies collide in his head at once.

He doesn't know how to mention it. He doesn't know how to begin with it. It's been a long time since he's slept with someone new, someone who didn't already know about him, and he's pretty sure that if he meets someone outside of certain very specific contexts he shouldn't lead with some of the ideas he has. Not for a first time. Tony already thinks he's going to run, just because he's never actually slept with a man. And it's their first time. He can't just say it if it's their first time. And Tony's been so sweet with him, and so obviously hesitant, that Steve can't just come right out with his actual fantasies.

Some other time, he tells himself. They'll have plenty of time.

So he raises his head, meets Tony's eyes, and smiles. He doesn't say I want to choke on your cock. He doesn't say I want you to grab my head and hold me down. He doesn't say I want you to fuck my face until I cry, and then I want you to come down my throat. I want you to use me and mark me and make me yours because you love me.

Steve's not ashamed of his desires. He doesn't think they're wrong. But he's certain it's not what anyone expects of him. Captain America: soldier, Avenger, stalwart champion of liberty and justice. Submissive and masochist.

He's had this particular daydream for years, about Tony. It's one of his easy, go-to fantasies, the one that gets him off hard when he lets himself think about Tony at all. And it's more than idle theorizing; it's been good enough for him with strap-ons that he's sure he'd love to do it with Tony, he thinks, and then he realizes that he really shouldn't be pondering his exes in bed.

He can't just spring this on Tony. Tony will take it the wrong way, Tony will see it as cruelty or objectification—and it sort of is, of course, but for the best of reasons. God, maybe Tony will think less of him. He'd never worried about that with Sharon or Rachel.

But maybe the tamest part would be okay, he thinks. Maybe that would be nice. There's nothing unusual about fellatio in general.

So he smiles. "I'd really like to go down on you, if you'd like me to."

And Tony stares at him, wide-eyed, like even that was more than he expected Steve to say, and Steve feels a pang of regret as he pushes the fantasy farther from his mind. It's definitely going to take him some time to figure out how—or if—he can even tell Tony.

"Are you sure?" Tony asks. He bites his lip. "I mean, I thought you'd want me to— I thought maybe we'd work up to that—"

Steve smiles again. He hopes Tony won't think he looks disappointed. "I'm sure. If you want me to, that is."

"I want you to," Tony says, almost guiltily. "But you'll tell me if it's too much—"

"I promise," Steve assures him, and then he slides down Tony's body and takes Tony's cock into his mouth.

Tony's big, bigger than all but a few of the dildos Steve has ever tried this on, and so much better, he thinks, as Tony moans his name. The heft and size of him is pleasing, fitting just right, Steve thinks. He stretches his lips around the shaft of Tony's cock and then dares to go a little deeper, just to see what it feels like, to see if he likes it as much as he thinks he will, to see how Tony will like it.

He slides his mouth down Tony's cock, and then all at once Tony arches up, thrusting in with a snap of his hips until his cock bumps the back of Steve's throat. Tony's hand lands on the back of Steve's head, twisting into his hair for purchase, not quite as hard as he likes, not even hurting yet, but God, yes, he'll take it, just like this, this is exactly what he wants, and maybe Tony guessed after all, maybe Tony knows exactly what he wants because he knows him—

"Oh, God, Steve," Tony gasps out. His voice is low and urgent and he sounds—

He sounds horrified.

Tony's hand gently tugs Steve's head up, off his cock.

Oh.

"Oh, my God," Tony says. His words are running together, fast and panicked. "I'm so sorry. I just— it felt so— I got carried away— I shouldn't have— Christ. I didn't mean to hurt you. Did I hurt you?"

Steve looks up into Tony's wide, concerned eyes, at Tony's too-pale face. "No," he says. "Don't worry. You didn't hurt me."

It's the truth.

I want you to hurt me, he doesn't say.

He doesn't need it to survive, he tells himself. It'll be okay. It'll still be good. It'll be nice. He loves Tony. It's better this way.

So he gets back down, settles one hand onto Tony's hip, and rubs circles over Tony's hipbone until Tony breathes out and relaxes. He can practically feel Tony melting into the mattress, and it's... nice. It is nice. It's Tony, and Steve is so very glad to finally be here with Tony, and he is enjoying himself, he is, and he wants to make sure Tony has a good time too. Tony deserves it.

When he dips his head back down to Tony's cock he doesn't try to take him all the way down. He keeps his mouth light, tentative, and he can tell that Tony is trembling with the effort to stay still.

Tony's hand brushes his head, fingers sliding through his hair. He's not pushing him. He's petting him, lightly, and eventually his hand drops to Steve's shoulder and stays there, a caress, a point of warmth. It's good.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tony is vocal, and he keeps up a running commentary, endearments and praise, so good and just like that and oh, Steve, yes. And Steve likes that, unreservedly. He likes hearing how he's doing, he likes tracking what Tony likes by the way his voice swoops breathlessly. It works for him, he thinks, and he rubs up a little against the bed, rolling his hips, as Tony whispers that he's wonderful. He does like to be praised.

He's just not going to think about the sort of praise he usually likes to hear from his lovers. Take it, he pictures Tony saying, his voice wonderfully cruel. Take it all. Choke on it. Look how pretty you are. You were meant for this.

When Tony's words have all turned to gasps, he lets Tony tug him away again, because he knows Tony's not going to want to come in his mouth. Tony clearly thinks that's too much for him. So he shifts his weight, frees a hand, and wraps his fingers around Tony's cock. He knows he's a little awkward—he's never done this to anyone else, after all, and it's a little different since Steve's uncut—and he's not exactly sure how Tony likes it, but he's getting the impression that Tony's close enough that it really doesn't matter what he does as long as he keeps touching him.

Now that Steve's mouth isn't on him, Tony is thrusting up into Steve's fist with abandon, hips arching off the bed, cock impossibly harder and slicker, sliding through Steve's fingers. His head is thrown back, his eyes shut, his fingers digging into the covers as he chases his pleasure. He's absolutely beautiful.

"Oh," Tony breathes, low and hoarse and almost surprised. "You're perfect."

And then Tony gasps and he's coming, pulsing over Steve's hand, over his chest, and he's smiling. He looks so happy, Steve thinks. This is what he wants. He wants Tony to be this happy. He can do this.

Steve finds the tissues and wipes Tony off—even though he'd really like to lick it off—and then lets Tony pull him into an embrace. Tony is really good at cuddling, wrapping himself around Steve in satiated affection.

Tony presses lazy kisses to Steve's temple.

"Not too much, was it?" Tony asks.

"No," Steve says, and he kisses Tony back. "Not too much at all. I'd do it again." He smiles. "And again."

He liked it. He did. That's not a lie. He can live like this.

"Only twice more?" Tony pretends to pout, and then he chuckles. "Maybe I can talk you into a third time, huh?"

He lets Tony roll him over; Tony's strong enough that Steve could push back, a little, and still be held down, but he doesn't. They're not— that's not what they're doing.

Tony kisses a path down Steve's chest, over his stomach, and then pauses, looking up to Steve for permission again.

Make me beg for it, he almost says, but he cuts himself off in time. You can do anything to me.

"Yes," Steve tells him, and Tony smiles.

Tony is... well, Tony is enthusiastic. And really, really good at giving head. There's no doubt in Steve's mind that Tony is enjoying this, that Tony is bringing every trick he knows. He kisses his way up Steve's thighs, kisses his balls, and then sucks his cock like he's spent his whole life practicing for this moment. He's stroking Steve with his hands as he sucks him, fondling him, caressing him, every touch soft and loving. His mouth is warm and wet, and his fingers unerringly find the perfect rhythm, and it's good, it's good, it really is. God, Tony's ruining him for anyone else.

He can feel the pleasure build, begin to crest. Familiar fantasies flash before his eyes, and he imagines for an instant that Tony's ordering him to come now or he doesn't get to— or ordering him not to come, tying him up and teasing him and tormenting him and then stepping away and getting himself off, gaze fixed on Steve as he works his own cock furiously, oh God, yes, that's the one—

"Tony," he gasps. "I'm going to come—"

Tony doesn't stop, and Steve shuts his eyes and comes and comes.

When he opens his eyes again, Tony is cuddling him, and he tells himself it doesn't matter what he was thinking about. Everyone has fantasies. It's all right.

"That was wonderful," he says, and he kisses Tony, and it's not a lie. It was wonderful. It was. And if this is how it will be, if Tony's just going to be this gentle with him, he can handle it. He has an imagination.

Tony smiles and it seems, finally, like most of the tension in him is gone. "Glad to hear it."

"I'd definitely do it again," he adds, just to see Tony smile again. "More than twice."

Tony rewards him by grinning broadly and kissing him once more.

"Do you want to stay the night?" Tony asks. "You don't have to," he adds, quickly, like he thinks of course Steve will say no. "I know the team will talk if they find us, and I don't know how you feel about that, but I just... I was hoping you would. I'd like it if you stayed."

Does Tony really think he'd leave him?

"I'll stay," Steve says. "Of course I'll stay. I'm not leaving you." And he knows Tony knows that he means more than just the night.

Tony's smile is bright and somehow fragile and so, so precious, and Steve knows Tony wants this to work as much as he does. Steve loves him so very much, he thinks, suddenly overwhelmed with joy, with fierce affection. He's going to treat Tony right. It's going to be good. They can do this. They can have this. They can be happy.

Tony's got his head on Steve's shoulder, and Steve watches him drift off to sleep. Even in his sleep he's smiling.

The next night, they end up in Steve's room. They're undressing as fast as they can, pulling off their own clothes, each other's clothes, tangling shirts around wrists and laughing, leaving a trail of clothes all the way to Steve's bed. Sometimes the rest of the team makes fun of his sense of decor, but he likes it plain. The furniture is homey, and sturdy, and has enough convenient attachment points for restraints, which work if he doesn't struggle too much, because then the bed gives out before he does. He learned that one the hard way. Maybe it's good that the topic won't come up, he tells himself, because it feels better than thinking that Tony knows his limits well enough that he could build something that would hold him perfectly.

And Tony in his bed, grinning up at him as he tumbles down onto Steve's sheets—well, that's exactly right. Steve's never really been a possessive kind of fella with his partners—at least, he tries not to be. Still, there's some part of him that thrums mine contentedly to itself as he lets himself be pulled down next to Tony. Tony's right here in his bed, his very own bed, where he's always dreamed of having him, where he never thought he could.

"So I was thinking," Tony says, and he rolls away and picks his pants up off the floor. When he comes back there's a condom and a lube packet clutched between his fingers, and his face bears a hopeful, if nervous, smile.

Steve suspects Tony wasn't thinking about Steve bottoming—which has been in Steve's thoughts lately—but he also suspects Tony isn't going to turn down the offer.

So Steve smiles and leans back and draws one leg up. "So was I."

Tony's eyes go wide. "Wow. Uh. I. Okay." He shakes his head a little and smiles ruefully. "That'll teach me to make assumptions, huh?"

He's grateful Tony doesn't tell him that he was worried he'd hurt him, or that Steve wouldn't like it, but he's sure Tony was thinking it. And Steve doesn't tell Tony about the box of toys in the closet. He's had plenty of practice.

Tony settles down between Steve's legs, lubes him up, and works him open, pressing tender kisses to his skin. When he pauses to get the condom Steve doesn't say anything about how he has a healing factor and can't catch anything anyway, because that's only a few steps away from the next thought, the one about how he wants to do something he's never been able to do before and has only seen in pornography. He wants Tony to fuck him bareback, come inside him, fill him up and let his come drip out of him where Tony's used him, fucked him hard and raw, stretched him wide open. Another way to mark him. To own him.

He knows Tony's definitely not expecting him to say that. So he doesn't.

So he just smiles. It's good. It's good. And then Tony enters him, slowly, slowly, trembling, sliding into him until he's as deep as he can go, and God, Tony's good at that. Tony's inside him, and it's just as amazing as Steve had dreamed.

"Steve," Tony murmurs, like Steve means the world to him, voice hushed and almost reverent. "Oh, God, Steve." He's smiling, and he's so happy, and Steve will do anything for this, to keep Tony happy like this.

Tony has one hand bracing Steve's leg and the other planted on the bed; Steve reaches up and brushes Tony's arm, feeling the strain in the muscle as he holds himself still, then he lets his hand trace a path up Tony's arm, to his shoulder, to his face. Tony's beard is soft against Steve's palm as he smiles and turns his head, kissing Steve's fingertips.

I love you so much, Steve thinks. It's too soon to say it, but it's not too soon to think it.

"So good," Steve tells him, and it's the truth.

Tony is slow and gentle with him, as if he would ever be anything else. Everything is smooth and easy, and there's nothing but pleasure, gathering and building within him, as Tony moves within him. There's nothing but Tony atop him, against him, inside him. Tony loves him. It's plainly evident in every smile, every caress, in the way Tony stares down at him, amazed, like he can't believe he's this lucky.

Steve comes untouched, and Tony follows within seconds.

Afterwards, they curl around each other, pleasantly drifting to sleep in the afterglow. Life is good.

Tony kisses Steve's lips, his jaw, then his neck, just where Steve likes it, and Steve shivers. Tony knows him already. Even if he doesn't know everything. That's okay. He doesn't have to know all of Steve's fantasies. Steve can be happy like this.

Tony's arm tightens around him.

"So," Tony murmurs, very softly, like he wants Steve to be able to pretend he didn't hear it if he wants to, "this is a thing we're doing, huh?"

"Looks like," Steve agrees. He finds Tony's hand in the darkness, raises it, presses it to his lips. He's always liked Tony's hands. "I think it's an awfully good thing. I'd like us to keep doing it. If you're asking."

He can't quite make out Tony's face in the shadows, but he feels the tension in Tony's body. "I suppose I'm asking," Tony says, slowly, and then he stalls and starts over. "I suppose I'm asking what you want this to be. It can be anything you want. Just say the word."

He thinks about what it must be like to be Tony. He thinks about all the people who have wanted him for his body or his money, wanted to use him and leave him and—alarmingly frequently—try to murder him. He thinks about all the people he's seen Tony date, about watching Tony fall fast and fall hard, looking for someone to love, clinging to the barest scraps of affection and hoping that they'll love him back. And that's just the women. That's the half Steve knows about. If Tony's been with men—and it seems like he must have—the fact that Steve didn't ever know doesn't bode well for how it must have gone. He imagines dirty little secrets. In the world Tony had been born into, maybe blackmail. Maybe, once, drunken indiscretions. It couldn't have been something Tony was proud of, or he would have said something. But at the same time, Steve knows that if Tony had ever fallen for someone, a man, a man who didn't want it to be a secret, he would have been out. He'd have been out if someone had made it worth it.

Steve doesn't want to be anyone's dirty little secret. And he doesn't want Tony to be his. He's proud of Tony: friend, teammate, and now lover. He wants people to know.

He takes a breath and swallows hard. "What if I said I wanted to tell people about us?"

He can hear Tony's surprise, a sharp, shallow gasp. Tony says nothing for several seconds. They tick by like hours.

"Then I'd say you're perfect," Tony says, hoarse with emotion. "God, Steve, what did I ever do to deserve you?" he murmurs, and his voice breaks halfway through the question. He's nervous; Steve can tell that much. But he's happy too. He wanted this. Steve does know him, after all.

Steve brushes the hair back from Tony's forehead and kisses his temple. "Shh. It's not about that. It's not about being deserving. We've got each other. That's what matters. You've got me, and you're not getting rid of me."

"Okay," Tony says. He can see Tony's smile, just barely, in the dimness, and he hopes Tony believes him. He's not going anywhere.

Steve is awake before Tony. He spends a lazy few minutes just lying there, unwilling to get out of bed, uncharacteristic for a man who's gotten up at 0600 almost every morning—well, every morning he wasn't frozen for—since 1940. But today, he thinks, as he contemplates the man curled up at his side, it might be a good day for sleeping in. Tony's face is relaxed; sleep takes years off him. Sleep and happiness, Steve thinks, with a little burst of renewed affection and pride. He's the one making Tony look like this.

"Mmm," Tony says, apparently awake after all and squeezing him tighter—he's like an octopus, somehow—as Steve tries to slide out from under him. "You should stay," Tony slurs, eyes still shut, smiling. "Little bit longer. I'll make it worth your while. Promise."

He turns back and kisses Tony, lightly, before sitting up. "But if you come downstairs with me now," Steve counters, "there's coffee." He's not above exploiting Tony's weaknesses.

"You fight dirty," Tony says, still smiling. "I'll consider it."

Tony watches Steve dress with the same enthralled intensity that he'd reserved for Steve undressing, these past two nights; he thinks maybe Tony just likes looking at him. Fair enough, he thinks, since he likes looking at Tony.

By the time Steve finally gets downstairs—a little later than usual, thanks to Tony's determined and enjoyable attempts at distraction—half the team is already up for the day. Clint, Wanda, and Carol are seated companionably around the table in the kitchen, chattering and making their way through breakfast.

Clint's got his booted feet up on the chair next to him and he waves at Steve as Steve heads to the fridge. Steve wants to get some training in, probably the Combat Simulation Room, but he wants some food first.

"Morning, Cap," Clint says. "How's it going?"

Steve's sure the smile on his face is ridiculously huge. "Oh, you know," he says, even though they really don't know, do they? "It's a good day."

"You are obscenely cheerful," Clint says, like it's supposed to be an insult; it's the same thing he's done since the old days, where he wants to find the line and keep pushing it, even in a friendly conversation. "Morning people. I swear."

"Oh, like you're not up before seven with the rest of us, Hawkeye," Carol says, and Steve grins and turns away to find the orange juice.

He pours himself a glass, and when he looks up, Tony's in the doorway. Tony's leaning on the doorframe. His hair is mussed, his eyes are bright, and his mouth curves in the same dazed smile that Steve suspects is on his own face. Tony's not quite dressed like he's ready to start his usual day; he's wearing sweatpants that are a little too big and a t-shirt, similarly too large, blue with a white star—

Oh. That's Steve's shirt. Those are Steve's clothes.

Maybe they should have talked about how they were going to come out, Steve thinks, but he can't find it in him to complain. It's a good decision. Sure, the public is going to want announcements and speeches and press releases, but the Avengers are their friends. It can be simple.

"Good morning," Tony says. "Someone told me if I got up there'd be coffee." His gaze meets Steve's, meets and holds, like he never wants to look away.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve sees Clint stare at Tony, turn back to stare at him, and then stare at Tony again, his eyebrows crawling up his head in surprise. It's not like any of the Avengers are stupid. Carol and Wanda are looking around with identical expressions of delight.

"Well," Carol says. "That's new and different." Steve remembers, suddenly, that Carol doesn't know Tony's other identity; though Steve has certainly been good friends with Tony-as-Tony, this probably comes out of nowhere to anyone unaware of the connection. But she smiles. "Congratulations."

"About time," Clint says, with satisfaction. "Only been waiting for you two for years." Then his face furrows, and Steve feels unexpected tension knot up inside him. He realizes that he's bracing for Clint's disapproval, for his disgust, because it's not like Steve's ever done this before. And then Clint throws his head back and laughs. "Holy shit," he says, amazed. "That's what that smile was. Cap got laid."

Steve can feel his face heating up and he curses his complexion. "It's been known to happen."

His eyes dancing with amusement, Clint makes a quiet scoffing noise.

"It wasn't actually a solo effort," Tony points out, still leaning on the doorframe. "You know, in case you want to mock me too, in the name of fairness."

"Pfft." Clint waves a hand. "You're Tony Stark. Too easy."

He knows it's a joke, he knows Tony knows it's a joke, but the brightness in Tony's eyes dims a little and Steve hates to see it. He doesn't want anyone to hurt Tony, even as a joke.

Steve crosses his arms. "Hey," he says, sharply, and it's his Captain America voice. "Cut that out."

Even as he says it, Carol is elbowing Clint in the side. "Clint."

"Ow," Clint says, covering his ribs and looking betrayed.

Tony's staring at them, mouth parted, like he can't believe, even after all this time, that he's got friends, and Steve feels more than a little sad watching it. Tony should know he's loved. Steve's going to do that for him, if nothing else.

"I can fight my own battles," Tony says, but Steve sees the look in his eyes and knows that's not quite a no.

But he doesn't have to, Steve thinks. And literally, truly, Tony doesn't; they are a team, they've been a team for years, and they've always had each other's backs. But Carol doesn't know that about Tony, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Wanda smiles graciously. "I am very happy for both of you," she says. Steve wonders if she's jealous; she's involved, or used to be, with two people who are at this point more-or-less non-corporeal. The Avengers' lives are always complicated.

"Thank you," Tony tells her.

And Steve smiles, and Steve pours Tony a cup of coffee, and when Steve hands him the mug their fingers brush, and then Tony leans in and kisses him, soft and sweet. He thinks that behind him Clint is muttering something about their disgusting happiness, but he's pretty sure that means Clint approves. The team approves. Everything's going to be just fine. This was the hard part, and it's done.

"So," Tony says, smiling. "About that date we're going to have."

They're in Tony's room tonight. It was a long day for both of them; Steve was busy coming up with new routines in the Combat Simulation Room to push the new team to their limits, and Tony has been looking increasingly frazzled over the state of Stark Solutions these days. But that doesn't mean they can't make time for each other.

He has to smile, too, because he likes the way Tony's phrased it. Like the date is a foregone conclusion. Like Tony might even believe, now, that Steve's going to stay.

"Yes?"

Tony rolls onto his side and pushes himself up with one elbow, studying Steve thoughtfully, and Steve looks right back, because he's never going to be tired of looking at Tony. And because he's never going to be tired of touching Tony, he runs a hand down Tony's lean, muscled torso to his hip. Tony's not going to be up for another round tonight, but Steve doesn't think that's any reason not to appreciate him.

"You're terribly distracting," Tony says, his mouth quivering somewhere between a smile and an attempted pout and then flattening out, suddenly serious. "I was just having... logistical thoughts."

Steve rubs his thumb over Tony's hip. "How so?"

"Which of us are dating?"

"What?"

"Which of us are dating?" Tony repeats, and there's a look in his eyes now that might be embarrassment. "Is Tony Stark dating Steve Rogers? Is Iron Man dating Captain America?" He coughs. "I'm all for taking you out and spoiling you rotten, believe me, but I need to know whether I have to press my tux or polish my armor."

Oh, Steve thinks, and he wants to laugh. These are the problems of superheroes. He's gone on more dates as Steve Rogers than as Captain America, but he thinks that with Tony it might be different. With Tony a lot of things are different. Different, but still good.

"The team knows we're dating," he ventures. "And they already know my civilian identity. But the Avengers who don't know that you're Iron Man... they think I'm dating the team benefactor and not my teammate, you know. If we decide I'm dating Iron Man, you really ought to tell them who you are before they decide I'm stepping out on my sweetheart."

Tony smiles—probably at Steve's choice of words—and gives a little shrug. "That's easy enough to fix; I'll tell them." He grimaces. "I should have told Carol years ago, anyway." He shakes his head. "No, I was thinking more about what we should tell the general public. Since we want to tell people, and all. And honestly, the press is going to find out anyway, unless you're willing to operate at a level of secrecy I'm certain you wouldn't be comfortable with."

Steve squeezes Tony's hip. "I don't want us to be a secret. You know that." And then he chuckles. "But secret identities—those are another matter."

He came out to the public before, but after a faked death or two, public interest in the identity of the man under the cowl has died down. No one's making much of an effort these days to connect Steve Rogers to Captain America, and he likes it that way. And he knows Tony is very fond of his own secret identity.

"I know," Tony says. He smiles a small smile. "I have my preferences on my end, but ultimately I'm good with either one. We should probably pick something, though. One identity each. I think masked and unmasked relationships at the same time might cause some... suspicion."

He can't even picture that. Tony's right; that would be a mess. He looks away from Tony for a bit, and he tries to work it all through in his head. It doesn't take him long.

"I have to be Captain America," Steve says. Tony has more of a decision to make, but Captain America is connected to both Iron Man and Tony Stark, so either one will be believable. "If Steve Rogers dates you—either of you—that identity will be under too much scrutiny. As far as anyone else knows, that guy's got no connection to you. So they'll go digging, and they'll find the connection. Your identity separation is solid and will hold up to a media blitz. Mine won't. It was never intended to. Steve Rogers is just a quiet ex-soldier who used to do some commercial art work a few years back. The cover only needed to look good enough on paper to rent an apartment and get a few freelance illustration jobs. It'll break."

"And then they'll know Steve Rogers is Captain America," Tony muses, "and there goes the secret identity."

"They already know Captain America knows both of you," Steve adds. "They're not going to be surprised, whichever one of you I end up with. And they're not going to dig deeper. Either one of you works."

Tony grins and raises his eyebrows salaciously. "I'm trying really hard not to suggest a threesome with both of us."

"I think that would surprise the media," Steve says, a mild rebuke. Though it's not like he didn't spend a couple years considering it, before he knew they were the same person.

"Well." Tony purses his lips in thought. "If you don't mind the mismatch, I was going to say that I'd prefer to date outside the suit. Fine dining's not as much fun when you have to suck everything through a straw."

Steve smiles. He definitely sees where Tony's coming from. "I'd have a heck of a time kissing Iron Man goodnight, I bet."

Tony laughs, and that's settled, then. Captain America and Tony Stark are together.

The rest of the week passes in a blur. Training during the day, and then Tony at night. The team is coming together well, and Steve—well, Steve thinks maybe he's happier than he's ever been. He hopes Tony is too.

On Friday night, they go out. Steve feels a little underdressed wearing his everyday uniform, especially when the sight of Tony dressed for a night on the town takes his breath away. Tony just smiles and tells Happy to drive.

The restaurant is magnificent, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the Manhattan skyline; it's the sort of place where the view alone adds at least a few hundred dollars to the bill. Steve knows better than to try to find out what Tony's paying for this. He knows that whatever it is, it's worth it to Tony if it makes Steve happy. Tony does like to buy people things.

When they're seated, the waiter comes over almost immediately. "Captain, Mr. Stark," he says. "It's a privilege." Steve thinks he probably thinks they're here on Avengers business. And then the waiter turns to Steve. "Captain, would you like the wine list?"

Well, he gets points for knowing not to ask Tony, but— "No, thank you." Steve waves his hand. "Just water for me."

"For both of us," Tony adds.

The waiter nods and retreats, leaving them with the menus.

"You didn't need to do that," Tony says, like he honestly hadn't expected it, and Steve wants to borrow a time machine and shake everyone Tony has ever dated.

Steve shrugs. "It's not a big deal. You know alcohol doesn't do much with my metabolism the way it is; I only have it for the taste. You mean more to me than that."

Tony raises his head and blinks at him, like Steve has robbed him of his powers of speech. There's not a lot that can do that to Tony. "Thank you," he says, softly.

They sit in silence, and when the waiter comes back, Steve hasn't even opened his menu.

"Order for me," Steve says. "I trust your judgment."

He worries a little that he's overstepping the bounds of their relationship, since asking Tony to take charge hints—even in some small way—at so many things Steve hasn't dared to mention, and he feels like he's getting away with something he shouldn't. Still, he suspects Tony brought him here because they have something Tony knows he'll like, and he knows Tony likes taking care of people. Steve's always liked that about him, even if he can't tell Tony about the precise breadth of the way he enjoys it.

Tony smiles. "I will have the seared tuna," he says. "Cap here wants the meat and potatoes."

Steve raises an eyebrow.

"Wagyu beef. They call it something even fancier on the menu," Tony says, when the waiter's gone. "But I know what you like."

The words have just a hint of teasing innuendo.

"Do you?" Steve asks, and he smiles back and tries to suppress the thought that Tony really, really doesn't.

Tony just smiles again.

The meal, when it comes, is delicious, the beef perfectly cooked and the potatoes in a sauce Steve doesn't recognize. It's probably some kind of artistic deconstruction. It's still great.

He's savoring his meal, conscious of Tony watching him from across the table. Tony picks at his food distractedly, like he keeps forgetting it's there; his main source of enjoyment seems to be watching Steve be happy. So Steve sits there and enjoys a damn good dinner.

"Thank you," he says, when they're both finished. "This was excellent. Thank you so much."

Tony smiles, broad and pleased. "You're welcome. How do you feel about dessert?"

Steve leans back. "Surprise me."

Tony's grin goes crooked. "I think you'll like it."

Dessert turns out to be relatively simple: a chocolate ganache torte, topped with a heaping pile of fresh raspberries. Maybe even extra raspberries. There are shavings of white chocolate that are possibly raspberry-flavored.

It's a little-known fact about Steve: he loves raspberries. He hadn't known Tony had known. Sure, he must have told him once, probably—it's been a decade, and surely they've told each other pretty much everything by now—but he hadn't expected Tony to remember. But Tony did. Tony does. This is what he does: he pays attention to the small stuff. The details. He gets even the little things right. Especially them, maybe.

"I don't know if you remember," Tony says, and he's smiling, but he looks a little awkward. "Maybe a month after you came out of the ice, I asked you what you liked about the future that you hadn't told anyone yet. You'd already given the speeches, talked about human rights and vaccines and all that good stuff. And you looked at me, and you said you liked how there was always fresh fruit. Everywhere, even when it wasn't in season. You said raspberries were your favorite." He shifts nervously in his seat.

Steve loves this man so much. He is so, so lucky.

The dessert is excellent. Everything is perfect. And the still-hungry way Tony keeps looking at him suggests Tony has more plans for the rest of the night.

Happy drops them off outside the gates of the mansion, and Steve jams his identicard in the reader, impatient to get them both inside. As the gates swing shut behind them, Tony takes his hand.

"Thank you," Steve says, yet again. Tony keeps delighting him. "I had a lovely evening."

Tony smiles at him, and his eyes go soft. His face is half in shadow in the night, and Steve reaches up and brushes his hair back from his forehead. Tony smiles again and steps closer.

"You want to keep having one?" Tony murmurs, his breath hot against Steve's face, a secret they're both sharing.

"I'd love to," Steve says, and he takes Tony in his arms and kisses him.

Jarvis coughs discreetly, and Steve finally looks up from his breakfast as Jarvis sets the morning's Daily Bugle on the table. The subject of the picture is familiar; the angle, less so. It's him and Tony, from last night, standing in front of the mansion, kissing passionately. The photo is blurry—they must have had a telephoto lens. The headline reads: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST... LOVERS? TONY STARK AND CAPTAIN AMERICA'S TORRID AFFAIR. EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS INSIDE. A little farther down it says STARK'S NEW "SOLUTION"—A SEX SCANDAL! STARK CONQUERS CAP, BUT WHO'S NEXT?

So much for the carefully-worded coming-out speech.

Tony looks over his shoulder and winces. "Well," he says. "That explains the hundred and three messages I haven't checked yet. You'd think Jameson could have come up with a better headline."

Steve opens up the paper to the rest of the article inside, which features a few more blurry photos and some people willing to say they saw them eating dinner together. The headline on that article reads LAND OF THE FREE... HOME OF THE DEPRAVED.

"No, actually," Steve says, voice gone bitter, "I have to say this is exactly the sort of quality journalism I have come to expect from the Bugle."

Tony pats him on the arm. "Cheer up," he says. "If we made the front page for locking lips, it means there weren't supervillains destroying Midtown last night, right?"

"Right," Steve agrees, glumness spreading through him. It's not that he's not proud to be dating Tony, but... he wanted to do this on his own terms. And what if Tony decides he can't handle this, or him? Oh, he knows he's seen Tony's name dragged through the mud before, but this—well, this is different.

Tony's hand slides to his shoulder, his neck, his jaw, and then Tony buries his fingers in Steve's hair, petting him comfortingly, and Steve relaxes into the touch.

"Shh," Tony murmurs. "It's going to be okay. You've got me. I'm not leaving. We can do this."

Once again, their personal lives have to be set aside in favor of saving the world. Duane Freeman, the new government liaison, calls with news of a downed aircraft and suspects possible foul play—and because their lives are never easy, it turns out to be a sprawling mess involving the Squadron Supreme (again), who are being mind-controlled (again). Mind control's really going around, Steve thinks, as they head upstate to Project Pegasus to review the list of possible entities responsible. First there was Morgan le Fay, now this.

He worries that he's been ignoring the team, in all his excitement about his new relationship with Tony. He needs to do better. Clint keeps testing his authority and got in his face about it before they left for Project Pegasus, but what else is new? Clint's always been like that, hasn't he? Wanda's preoccupied, and Carol—well, there's something going on with Carol, and he doesn't know what.

Carol finds the Corruptor, which fixes their little mind-control problem, and then flies off in a huff when Steve asks why she didn't use her Binary powers. Tony looks at him, wide-eyed behind the mask, like there really is something Steve isn't understanding, and Tony alone knows what it is. He'll ask Tony later, he tells himself.

When they land in New York and hold the usual press conference, the reporters don't want to ask about the Squadron Supreme. They don't even want to ask about why Carol is gone—which is good, because he doesn't have an answer for that one.

No, Steve knows exactly what they want to ask about.

Steve goes through the prepared speech—airplane found and evacuated, no casualties, Squadron Supreme intercepted, the Corruptor stopped. All in a day's work for the Avengers.

"Any questions?" he asks. "Raise your hand."

Every hand goes up.

"Any questions that aren't about my personal life?" he asks.

All the hands go back down.

Steve swallows hard and looks out at the sea of reporters, eager faces staring at him, hungry for the truth. He can do this. Tony's with him. Tony is right here, even if no one other than the team knows it.

"All right," Steve says. "One question about my personal life."

His gaze goes to a reporter in the front row, the woman who'd asked him about Tony after the roster announcement. Sure. Why not? He nods at her.

She seems taken aback by his choice, but only for an instant—not much fazes reporters in New York, these days—and then she quickly recovers her poise and begins talking. "Megan McLaren, WJBP. Captain, you may be aware that the Daily Bugle recently published photographs of Avengers benefactor Tony Stark, kissing a man who appears to be you. Many people have speculated that the man in the photographs was in fact a Captain America impersonator."

Dear God, Steve thinks, people want anything but the truth.

Next to him, Tony makes a quiet metallic snickering noise, but then he reaches out and sets his gauntleted hand on Steve's back, just between his shoulder blades, over the star. Tony's got him. They're together. They can do this.

Steve swallows again. His mouth is dry.

The reporter presses on. "Would you care to comment on your alleged romantic relationship with Mr. Stark?"

"Certainly," Steve says. He looks at the reporters and takes a deep breath. "I'd be happy to confirm it."

The crowd is silent; the reporters stare at him, stunned. He can feel Tony's hand tremble on his back, even through the gauntlet and the mail shirt.

Steve raises his head, looks straight into the nearest camera, and smiles. "Also," he says, "I'd just like to say that I kissed him first."

The silence lasts for one breath, then two, and then the crowd goes wild.

The public takes it much, much better than Steve could have hoped. Sure, they have their detractors—but they've always had a few of those. For the most part, the response is incredibly positive. There's fanmail, hundreds of letters. Steve reads the ones from teenagers thanking him, telling him that he gave them the courage to come out. It means a lot to them that Captain America is bisexual. He does specifically say as much, in the first actual interview he gives; he wants to make it clear that Tony didn't turn him gay. The talk-show host then asks him when he first realized he had feelings for Tony. He doesn't have an answer for that one. There was never a point, a dividing line, a day he woke up to it. It feels like he's always loved Tony, even when Tony was two people to him.

"Day I met him," Tony says, when the same question is put to him, reaching out and squeezing Steve's gloved hand.

The studio audience coos, and Steve smiles and thinks that no one else in this room knows that that happened when Tony pulled him from the ice.

The next interview request they get is actually for Iron Man, and Tony nearly falls out of his chair laughing when he reads the questions they want him to pre-approve for the interview.

"They want to know if I'm jealous of Tony Stark," Tony says, wiping his eyes, and then chuckling again.

Steve snorts. "Well, we are very good friends, Shellhead. And it seems like an awkward situation, your teammate dating your boss."

"My boss dating my boss," Tony corrects him. "Remember, team leader?"

Steve starts laughing. "Well, when you put it like that..."

"Should have said yes to the threesome!" Tony crows.

"Tell Iron Man I'll think about it," Steve says, and Tony grins.

Another week passes. The team seems to settle back down. Clint stops testing his authority. Wanda and Vision reach some kind of detente. And Carol—well, Steve still doesn't know what the problem was, or why she's been refusing to access her Binary powers, but she's back at the mansion. There hasn't even been any major supervillain activity and, for once, the team has some downtime. And, of course, this evening he's cuddling with Tony on the couch; Tony won the fight for the remote.

"You could be cuddling Iron Man," Tony murmurs in his ear. It's become a running joke. "How would you like that?"

"Just fine, actually," Steve says.

He's been having a lot of... thoughts... about the armor lately. Not because he has a particular kink for the armor—he'd suspect that of being Tony's department, if not for the fact that Tony hasn't really offered up any kinks he does have, other than the threesome jokes. Maybe Tony's just that vanilla. Maybe some people are. But, at any rate, Steve's been thinking about the armor: in the armor Tony could hold him down. He could really hold him down. Steve wouldn't be able to get away.

He thinks maybe he could bring that up to Tony, the idea of bondage. It's not so strange a kink. He could start with suggesting something gentle, something non-threatening. Fuzzy handcuffs. Something anyone could get out of. He knows painplay, or anything that comes close, is out of the question; he remembers Tony's terrified, guilty face the first time he'd tried going down on him, when Tony had thought he'd hurt him. But bondage might be safe, at some point in the future. He knows traditionally blindfolds and feathers are up there on the list of kinks for beginners, but Steve likes his sensation play hard or not at all, and decades in the ice have permanently put him off any kind of sensory deprivation (or temperature play) as a kink.

Tony should know this about him, anyway, he thinks. They've been involved for a whole month now. He knows Tony doesn't share his kinks. That's okay. Steve doesn't need this from Tony. But Tony should know the truth, so that he can decide whether he wants to stay. That's fair.

And if Tony stays—well, maybe then would be a good time to tell Tony he loves him.

Tony turns the television off, takes his hand, and leads him upstairs.

He can't tell him tonight.

He'll tell him tomorrow. Tony's got some kind of business trip for most of the day, but he'll be back tomorrow night. There will be plenty of time.

Tomorrow, Steve thinks, as Tony kisses him.

"It's going to be a long day," Tony says, on a sigh, as he stands up from the breakfast table. "There's been another factory inspection added to the schedule, after the last meeting. Getting home later than I thought. You don't have to wait up for me."

Steve pushes back the thought that maybe it all means that he wasn't meant to tell Tony. He'll just have to see how Tony feels when he comes home. He still wants to tell him today. He's promised himself this much.

Steve smiles. "You know I will anyway."

"That's my Captain America."

Yes, Steve thinks. He wants to be Tony's.

Tony leans down and cups his hand to Steve's face. His palm is warm against Steve's cheek and his thumb swipes over Steve's cheekbone like he's trying to memorize the shape of Steve's face with his fingers alone. Then he leans in and kisses Steve, briefly, lightly, but with enough heat behind it to make Steve wish Tony could stay.

"So," Steve asks as Tony draws away and pats him on the cheek again, "are you going to tell me there's more where that came from?"

Tony winks. He's irrepressible and Steve loves it. "You know me." He looks down at his watch and grimaces. "Okay, okay, gotta go. See you tonight."

Steve finds himself smiling stupidly after him.

He's not going to frighten Tony off, he thinks. It's going to be okay. Tony loves him. He must love him. Surely Tony can accept him, even though he doesn't share his kinks. Steve knows he's always been an optimist, but... he knows Tony, too. He can't be that wrong about Tony, can he?

Well, he'll find out soon.

He spends half the day training and the other half doing paperwork—the government seems to require more procedures and protocols than ever. He eats dinner by himself; Wanda and Clint are out together, Vance and Angel are out together, Thor is probably out saving lives, and he has no idea where Carol is. He looks at the clock. Six. Seven. Tony will be home soon. Eight. Nine.

Ten o'clock, and there's still no sign of him. He did say he'd be late, Steve reminds himself. He supposes he can wait for Tony in bed. In Tony's bed. It's hardly presuming too much to go there when they're together; besides, he thinks Tony will like finding him there. He would, if the situation were reversed.

He pulls the covers over himself. He hadn't realized how lonely Tony's big bed was until now, when Tony's not in it. This is the first time he's gone to bed alone in almost a month. But it's all right; Tony will join him later.

It's awfully late. He wonders if he should call Tony; he'd thought Tony would be home by now. But he doesn't want to nag Tony. Tony said he'd be home. He'll be home. He doesn't need Steve interrupting him. He probably got caught up in something for his company. Steve shouldn't bother him.

Steve supposes they'll have to have that conversation another night, after all.

Tony can wake him up when he comes to bed, he thinks, and he shuts his eyes.

He wakes up when the phone rings.

It's morning, later than he usually gets up, and he looks around the sunlit room, disoriented. It's empty. Tony's not here.

Maybe Tony came in while he was asleep and then got up without waking him. But wouldn't Tony have woken him?

He looks at the clock. Eight a.m. He hadn't turned his alarm on; he'd meant to get ready for morning when Tony got home.

Tony hasn't been home.

Maybe something came up and Tony stayed overnight. It wouldn't be the first time he's had to sleep in one of his offices.

Steve fumbles for the still-ringing phone. "Tony Stark's phone," he says. "Captain America speaking."

"Steve!" Pepper says, on the other end of the line. She sounds rushed, like she's trying to handle a thousand things at once. "Boy, am I ever glad I found you. Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure," he says, cradling the phone on his shoulder. "Of course."

Her tone is shaded, apologetic. "I hate to ask you to do this, but do you think you could remind Tony about the R&D meeting? They were supposed to start twenty minutes ago and he's not here yet. It was only added to his schedule yesterday morning. He probably forgot all about it."

What?

"What do you mean, remind him?" Steve asks. "He's not here."

"You mean he left already?"

"No," Steve says. There's a ball of ice forming in his gut, cold and hard and awful. "I mean he never came home. I thought maybe something came up and he had to stay overnight at the office."

There are a few long seconds of silence on Pepper's end of the line, and Steve knows exactly what she's thinking, because it's what he's thinking too.

"I talked to him at eight last night," Pepper says. Her voice is flat, even, like it's taking all of her strength to stay calm. "Twelve hours ago. He was at the Long Island factory. He said he was heading home. Oh, God."

Tony didn't make it home.

Steve breathes in and out. Okay. This is a thing that happens. This is actually a thing that happens to Tony. In another few hours Iron Man will have broken out of captivity, defeated whatever laughable villains thought they could get away with this, and flown home in triumph. There's no need to worry. There really isn't.

Steve's worried.

"It's going to be all right," he tells Pepper, summoning up his Captain America voice from God-knows-where. "We're going to find him. It's going to be okay." He thinks he's saying it more for his own benefit than Pepper's. "I'll assemble the Avengers. We'll get him back."

He hangs up and sits on the edge of the bed, in Tony's lonely, empty room. His hands are shaking. He takes a breath. He can do this. It shouldn't be any different now that he's in love with Tony.

He's in love with Tony, and he hasn't even told him he loves him, and what if—?

Now he's just getting ridiculous, he tells himself. They'll find Tony. They always have before.

The team—active and reserve—is in the briefing room as fast as Steve can assemble them. Seven faces stare back at him, and Steve is hideously aware of the empty seat at his side.

They'll find him. They will.

He summarizes the facts as best he knows them. "Tony's last known location is his Long Island factory." He'd checked the identicard tracker while waiting for the rest of the team to arrive; Tony's card is still on factory grounds, unmoved since last night. Steve expects that whoever took him left the card behind, but it's the only lead they have. "We'll prep a Quinjet and go."

The rest of the Avengers look at each other and nod, and Steve starts to push away from the table.

Carol opens her mouth. "Wait," she says, and there's a note in her voice, angry and antagonistic, that Steve hasn't heard since the Squadron Supreme mess and doesn't like one bit.

He was going to ask Tony about what was going on with her. Well, he can't do that right now, can he?

"Go ahead, Warbird." He's sure he sounds just as terse in return.

"If no one else is going to say it," Carol says, and now there's something downright ugly in her tone, "then I suppose I will." She meets Steve's gaze head on. "Look, we all know you... care about Tony. We care about Tony too. And God knows we're grateful for everything he's done for us. But have you considered that this isn't Avengers business? That maybe this is police business? And even if it is Avengers business, he's already covered. I mean, he's even got one of us as his bodyguard." Her eyes flick right and take in the empty space next to Steve. "And because Iron Man's not here, I can only conclude that he's on the case already. What do you think we can do that he can't?"

Oh.

Steve looks around the table. Thor, Clint, Vision, and Wanda all meet his eyes, and then they look away. They're going to let him handle this.

"Iron Man isn't available," Steve says, his throat tight. It's not his secret to tell.

"Not available?" Carol repeats. Her expression is frozen in skepticism, in disbelief, one eyebrow arched.

Steve nods. "He's not coming."

"Cap," Carol says, her face gone hard, "I'm sorry he's on vacation or whatever he's doing, but this is his goddamn job, so you should recall him."

Now he has to say something. I'm sorry, Tony, he thinks. He knows Tony likes his secret identity. But he'd said he'd wanted to tell Carol. Clearly he just hadn't gotten around to it yet. It's not like Steve's telling the whole world. And if Tony's going to be mad at him later—well, then, he can be mad. Steve will do what it takes to get him back.

Steve swallows hard and looks Carol in the eyes. "He can't come." He swallows again. "Tony is Iron Man."

There's absolute silence in the room.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Carol says. Her mouth has fallen open, and there are bright spots of color high on her cheeks, half-covered by the bottom of her domino mask. "Are you—" She stops and shakes her head. "No, stupid question, of course you're serious." And then she glances around the room. "Why the hell are none of you the rest of you surprised?" Her mouth hardens into something twisted, betrayed. "Oh, this is real cute. Am I the last one to know?"

What in God's name is wrong with her?

"Yes," Clint says, and then there's a thud like someone's kicked him under the table. "Ow."

"No," Vance and Angel say at the same time, looking at each other, then Steve, then Carol.

Carol looks back at Steve, levelly. "Well," she mutters, "that explains a hell of a lot about you two." She raises her voice. "How long?"

Steve blinks. "Since the beginning," he says, because isn't that obvious? "He's put other people in the suit when Tony Stark and Iron Man needed to be in the same place at the same time, and Jim Rhodes filled in a few years ago when Tony was... indisposed—" he watches Carol's face twist more— "but he's always been Iron Man."

She's glaring at him. "No, I mean, how long have you known?"

He has to think about it. "Seven years, maybe?" That sounds about right. "I was one of the first Avengers to know." Carol's looking at him like this makes it worse. "He was going to tell you soon, he said."

"Yeah," Carol says, voice laced with bitterness. "I just bet he was."

No one has anything to say to that.

"Right," Steve says. "If we're all agreed that finding Iron Man is Avengers business, then let's move out."

Carol looks at him for a long time. "Just so you know, when we find him I'm going to give him a piece of my mind."

Steve stands up. "As long as he's alive and unharmed, I'll be happy. Whatever you say to him is between the two of you."

She wasn't always this angry, Steve thinks. Something is wrong.

Well, when they find Tony, Tony can tell him.

Steve lands the Quinjet just outside the factory grounds, and Pepper meets them at the gates.

"Captain," she says, tightly. "It's good to see you again. I wish it could be under better circumstances."

"That makes two of us," he says, as the team follows her inside.

"We've shut down production," she tells him, turning back to talk to him as they all walk, a ragged group proceeding across the factory floor. "We've got employees pulling and reviewing security tapes, trying to track his last known location. There are—" she pauses and bites her lip. "You have to understand, it's a newly-reopened plant. That's half the reason Tony was here, for initial inspection. There are still coverage gaps in the security system. Not all the cameras are up yet."

Someone knew, Steve thinks, sickened. Someone knew that fact and they used it. They planned this. This was deliberate.

Steve motions to Vance, who holds up the tracker.

"We've got a bead on his identicard," Angel says. Steve wonders if her microwave-based powers help with that. "It's on the premises."

He hears Vision on the comms; they've left him an open channel at the mansion. "I will interface with the factory's systems and begin review of the security footage."

Pepper looks at the group warily, and then over at Steve. Steve realizes that Angel has just attributed Iron Man's identicard to Tony, and Pepper's probably trying to figure out who knows what, and what it's safe to talk about.

"It's all right," Steve tells her. "They all know about him now."

Carol's still glaring.

Vance and Angel are leaning together over the tracker. "The card's just northwest of here, Captain," Angel says.

"Okay," Steve calls out. "Let's find it. Everyone follow Justice and Firestar."

As they walk, Pepper turns to him and starts talking. "If they all know about him, Captain, then I might as well tell you: we don't know which identity he was in when he disappeared."

Steve sees the problem. The people who go after Iron Man and the people who go after Tony Stark... well, they're not necessarily the same people. But they might be. If it's Iron Man, it's likely to be a superhero with a vendetta—a higher-powered threat, most probably, but one that Tony in the suit will definitely be equipped to handle. But if it's Tony Stark, and if it's still a superhuman threat... there's a problem. Steve himself trained Tony to fight, but when it comes down to it, Tony is physically a baseline human. And Steve loves him, Steve thinks the world of him, but out of the suit there are a lot of things Tony won't be able to stand up to. He just can't.

"Historically," she says, "people who kidnap Tony as Tony want specific things from him. Ransom, sometimes. But more frequently it's—"

"Weapons development," he finishes, sighing, because, oh, yes, he knows this about Tony. The world knows this about Tony.

He also knows Tony will never give in.

In some ways, he tells himself, it might be better if Tony were the one who was kidnapped. Iron Man's foes don't necessarily want him alive; Tony's foes certainly will. Tony can't build them anything if he's dead, after all, and if it's money they're after they'll need proof of life. And Tony won't break, because Tony doesn't break, but that doesn't mean they can't make life very unpleasant for him.

They're in a deserted section of the factory when the tracker beeps.

"Over here!" Vance says.

Clint nudges him and then gestures upward. "No security cameras in this section, Cap," he says, with the confidence of someone who's spent a few years on the wrong side of the law.

Tony had walked right into a trap.

Steve turns the corner, and there's Iron Man's identicard in its case, flashing, in the middle of the concrete floor. It's surrounded by a mess of Tony's personal belongings: wallet, phone, keys. They clearly turned out his pockets; they must have guessed he'd had a tracker, but didn't know what it was.

Or Tony could have emptied his pockets when he'd become his own bodyguard, Steve tells himself, looking around for signs that Tony changed into the armor.

Over in the shadows, he finds the wrong sign entirely. Tony's briefcase is lying behind a pallet, as if flung there. Steve picks it up. It has a thumbprint lock, but if it's the case Steve thinks it is, his own hands will open it. He tugs off his glove and sets his thumb to the lock. The case clicks open. And, yep—it's Tony's armor. Untouched. Unused.

Whoever took him took Tony, not Iron Man.

It will be all right, he tells himself. They took Tony, and they'll want him alive. That means Steve can get him back.

There are a lot of ways to be alive that aren't particularly encouraging. He tries to push that thought away. That won't help anything.

He becomes aware of a few of the Avengers gathered in a tight knot, a little further down from where Tony's belongings are scattered.

"Nay," Thor says, "it will distress him unduly if—"

"He deserves to know," Wanda tells Thor.

Deserves to know what? Steve walks over to the rest of the group. They're all staring at the ground, so Steve looks down.

There's a smear of blood, dried brown across the pale concrete. Tony's blood.

He thinks he's going to be sick.

A heavy hand settles on his shoulder. Thor.

"We shall find him for thee, Captain," Thor says. "The Avengers will prevail."

They have to, he thinks, and he thinks about Tony, unarmored and bleeding and alone.

The worst part is the helplessness.

The review of the security footage, substantially aided by Vision's involvement, makes plain what Steve already knew was going to be the truth—there's nothing on the cameras. Tony's abductors obviously knew exactly what they were going to be dealing with. Either they'd cut wires, timed their exit and entry, or teleported out—but they'd planned this, down to the second. They knew what they were doing.

Even Wanda's magic won't help find Tony; she's been having difficulty with her powers, what with the... situation... with Wonder Man.

No, the only thing Steve can do is wait.

Whoever took Tony will want them to know it. There will be news. There has to be.

In the meantime, he's too distracted for the Combat Simulation Room to be a wise idea, so he heads to the basement and works the heavy bag until his hands start to bleed under the tape. He's dimly aware that this isn't good, but he's having a hell of a time coming up with anything better.

"Hey," someone says from behind him, and Steve turns to find a familiar figure standing in the doorway, bobbed hair swinging in her face. She's wearing a costume he hasn't seen in a long time, that blue and white one. She's clearly been redesigning. "I thought I'd find you down here," Jan adds.

She knows where to find him when he gets like this. She doesn't have to say it. They've been Avengers together long enough.

Steve makes himself smile. "Reconsidering your decision, Wasp? Are you and Hank here to join the team?"

She shakes her head. "No. Came to see you, actually." She shifts her weight. "I'd been meaning to come see you earlier, you and Tony, when I heard the news about you two." And then she grimaces. "And then I heard the... other news, and I figured I'd better come anyway. I thought maybe you could use a friend. I thought maybe I could use a friend," she says. And then she steps inside and looks up. "Are you doing all right?"

He opens his mouth to say yes, to say that he's fine, and he's horrified to find that no words come out of him. He stands there, open-mouthed, and he feels everything go tight in his chest and throat all at once.

"Oh, Steve," she says, and before he can do anything else she's hugging him, hard. Her head comes up to the middle of his chest.

"I'm okay," he forces himself to say. "We'll find him. We will."

Jan steps back and holds him at arm's length. "Doesn't mean we can't miss him. And you most of all, I'm sure."

He knows that out of all of them, Jan's known Tony the longest—she knew him even before the Avengers formed. And now, Steve's finding himself remembering, they dated once. It had been right after Steve had found out Tony was Iron Man and Hank and Jan had separated; Tony had asked Jan out without telling her he was Iron Man. And Steve had harangued him until he told her the truth, since that absolutely wasn't fair to Jan, at which point Jan had broken up with him, both for the lying and for being a teammate, or so Steve had gathered.

It hadn't been that long after that—after another bad break-up—that Tony had started drinking again, and that—well, that's one of those nightmares that Steve never, ever wants to relive. Tony had lost everything. For God's sake, they'd found him almost frozen to death in a blizzard.

Steve's tried not to think about what it could do to Tony if this doesn't work out between the two of them.

Now he has something even worse to contemplate.

"I miss him a lot," he says, finally.

She smiles. "He's a good boyfriend, isn't he?" she asks, and it seems they can talk about this after all.

"I haven't got any complaints."

"He was very romantic," Jan says, a little dreamily. "Always the way I'd thought he would be. A little intense, but the kind of guy who really wants to make sure you're having a good time, you know? And a great kisser."

"A great everything," Steve agrees.

Jan giggles. "Yes, well. I didn't, so I'll take your word for it."

He doesn't know why that surprises him, that Tony didn't sleep with Jan. He knows that Tony's been with fewer people than most people think. He wonders what that says about Tony's feelings for him.

"How do you handle it?" Steve asks. "Being with an Avenger, I mean? Knowing that on a frequent basis there might be—" he waves his hands— "this."

"Honestly?" Jan grimaces. "With Tony, I couldn't. You know that. But with Hank?" She purses her lips. "I guess... you always know that you're going to win. That you're going to survive. Because you're Avengers, and you always do."

He knows he's usually the one who makes these speeches, but sometimes he needs to hear them.

"We'll get him back for you, Cap," she says. "You'll see."

He sleeps in Tony's bed again, alone. Somehow his own bed seems lonelier, and he can't shake the irrational belief, the dream that Tony will come back here, that this is where he'll find him.

He wakes alone again.

The next day they still have no leads, and he's aching to do something, anything, to find Tony.

That's when the message comes in.

He's checking his Avengers email on Tony's laptop when a new message pops up... from Tony. The subject line reads, simply, "Tony Stark."

It's from Tony's corporate email address, the Stark Solutions one, not Iron Man's Avengers address. He doesn't know enough about computers himself to know if it's really from Tony's account—he knows they can fake that—but if it's real, and Tony's somehow given up his passwords, that's a really, really bad sign. Either way, this isn't good.

Cold sweat beads on Steve's skin, and he clicks on the message.

The first thing that loads is a video file. There's a black and white blur as the camera focuses on something held just in front of the lens. A newspaper. Today's date. This is proof of life, he realizes. This is what he's been waiting for. There's no sound, but then, they don't really need any.

The unseen hand lets the paper fall, and the camera blurs and zooms, refocusing. There's a shadowy room, white-walled. More metal—it looks like chains—glints at the edges of the frame, and the camera zooms in closer on the man in the middle of the room. He's naked, curled in on himself, chained to the wall by one wrist, hiding his face from the camera. But it's Tony. Steve knows.

Someone offscreen must say something, because Tony raises his head. His eyes are wide, and he's not quite tracking. His gaze wanders around the room, unfocused, and then finds the camera. Tony pauses like he's listening, and Steve imagines they're telling him what the video is for. They must be telling him that they're sending this to him, that Steve is going to see this—because now Tony looks terrified. And he's never this afraid for himself.

Tony's free hand, the unshackled one, stretches out toward the camera, and his eyes are wider now, his face pale.

Steve can see Tony's mouth soundlessly shape words.

Don't, Tony says. Don't come—

And then a booted foot swings into frame, the screen blurs once more, and the message ends.

Steve realizes that his hands are clenched into fists, and he has to stop and breathe for several seconds before the impulse to punch the laptop passes, because they have Tony, God, they have Tony and they're hurting Tony—

He scrolls down.

The rest of the email says COME ALONE. And there's a set of coordinates.

It's a trap. Of course it's a trap. They want Captain America.

Well, he thinks grimly, then they can goddamn well have Captain America, and he goes to suit up.

He's going to bring Tony home.

The coordinates turn out to resolve to somewhere in the middle of Connecticut, maybe a couple hours' drive away. As Steve gets his shield and heads for his bike, he starts to wonder if maybe he should at least tell someone where he's going. But he already knows that backup is out. Carol would have been his first choice, but she's— well, he has no idea what she is. Unreliable, and that's not even the half of it. Wanda is still having issues with her powers. Vision is still incorporeal. Thor is presumably off being a doctor in his other identity. He has no idea where Clint is. Jan was only visiting. And Vance and Angel are, he thinks privately, too new to be up to what is presumably going to be a smash-and-grab base raid.

He'll be okay by himself. He's taken down entire AIM and Hydra bases by himself. Besides, the message said to come alone, and he doesn't want to chance Tony's captors taking it out on Tony if Steve fails to comply. And he'll have his identicard on him—if it really goes south and he actually needs backup, the rest of the team can hop on a Quinjet and be there presumably in minutes. The Quinjets can be that fast when they have to be.

He can do this. It'll be easy. All he has to do is rush in, kick down a few doors, and get Tony out of there. Whoever's behind this, they can't be that tough—not if they presumably didn't think they could take down Iron Man.

The ride north is fast enough. It's a pleasant day—blue skies, nice breeze, the verdant foliage of summer. He's heading north through pine trees, and when he finally gets off the highway he's heading through more forests, down increasingly-narrow roads, until he's on a gravel trail in the middle of the woods and can hardly see the sunlight through the branches above him. Dead ahead is a rusted, chain link fence and what looks like concrete stairs down into a hillside. Maybe some kind of bunker. It looks abandoned, but Steve knows better.

He parks the bike behind a stand of trees and scales the fence as fast as he can. He can't see any security—no cameras, no guards outside, but he's done this for long enough that he's gotten into the habit of assuming they're watching him anyway.

The stairs lead down to a metal door. It's unmarked, which probably means it's not Hydra, as they wouldn't have been able to resist a few tentacled-skull designs by now. They're not exactly subtle.

There's only one way to find out who's behind this.

Steve raises his shield and breaks the door down.

He surprises the two guards on the other side of the door, taking them both out neatly with a single swing of his shield. Guns clatter to the concrete floor.

He looks down at their unconscious bodies. Definitely not Hydra. And they're not AIM either; they certainly aren't the usual yellow-suited scientists. These two are dressed for combat, wearing dark fatigues, tactical vests—and dark hoods over their heads and shoulders, with only cut-outs for eyes. The overall effect is incredibly incongruous, like a special forces Halloween ghost costume. There's no unit affiliation or rank insignia save numbers on the hoods, in the middle of their foreheads. The taller one is 117, the shorter 294.

This seems familiar, Steve thinks. He's seen this before. Where has he seen this before?

No time for that. He has to find Tony.

He looks around—and there's a map on the wall by the door. He grins in satisfaction. It's so much nicer when they make it easy for him. The map doesn't say anything about who these people are, of course, but that doesn't matter right now. All that matters is getting Tony away safely. The detention levels begin on sublevel three, the map says. Time to head downstairs.

The guards are presumably on some kind of schedule and he knows he has only so long until they're missed. He's just found the stairwell, which sadly only takes him as far as sublevel two, when the lights turn red and a klaxon starts to blare. That was fast.

He's a little surprised to find the door open, but as soon as he steps inside it slams behind him, heavily, and locks.

"Lockdown," a mechanical voice says over the speakers. "Intruder alert. Containment procedures in effect."

It's a long corridor, a straight shot to another heavy door at the end, and as Steve watches, every door on the floor clicks shut. And then, a few inches off the ground, red lights flicker to life, an interlocking pattern of lasers shining in squares all over the floor. Cut the beams, and—well, Steve's sure that whatever happens would be unpleasant.

They clearly don't even know him, do they?

Steve takes a second to stow his shield on his back and look over the floor. Then he takes a deep breath and jumps. His first leap takes him over three of the squares. He twists in midair, and comes down in a handspring in the middle of the corridor, pushing off and bouncing up again, flying through the air. He lands perfectly on the other side of the room. That was easy.

The next room has a crumbling floor—did they really build a pit in?—that looks like it will drop him straight to the detention level. Probably right into a cell. That's not exactly ideal. He runs as fast as he can and nimbly avoids the two tripwires just before the door at the end, which is off to the left, and thank God, it's the stairwell.

Tony will be on the next level, he tells himself.

The stairwell has three more goons—numbers 301, 46, and 218—who are wearing gas masks under their hoods. The air of the room is tinted an ominous green. He holds his breath, and when he knocks out 301 he pulls off their hood, and then the gas mask—301 turns out to be a young woman—because either he or Tony are going to need it.

He knocks 46 and 218 halfway down the stairs and doesn't even feel bad.

He wonders which number, which hooded figure, which of them was the one who chained Tony up, the one who kicked him, the one who made him bleed on the pavement, the one who took him away.

The next room is some kind of small antechamber. The gas is filtering out through vents near the floor, so Steve drops the mask and raises his shield. The door to the following room is more solid than most of the rest of the ones Steve has seen in this base, as he would expect for prisoner holding. He stares at the door, trying to figure out how best to apply leverage, when he hears it.

Tony's voice.

It's too distorted, too muffled by the walls between them, to make out anything other than help me, but that's all Steve needs to hear.

He hefts his shield and smashes the door open with every ounce of strength in him, because Tony needs him.

On the other side of the door, this level of the base is a cell block. On either side of him are metal-barred cells, cells and more cells, all empty. No guards. No nothing.

"Cap!" Tony calls out, and there's a hacking, wet cough, like he's bleeding, like he's choking. "Over here!"

To the left, Steve thinks. Not far now.

"Tony!" he yells. "Tony, hold on! I'm here!"

He turns down the nearest corridor and he's running, he's running past empty cells. None of them have Tony. He's getting to the end of the corridor. Tony has to be here. He heard him. But he's running out of space.

The corridor dead-ends into a solid wall. The cell on the left is empty. The cell on the right... has a little radio transmitter sitting in the middle of it.

Tony's voice issues from the radio. "Help me!"

"What the hell?" Steve says.

It was a trap. It was all a trap. Whoever set this up knew he'd get this far. It was supposed to be easy. They were luring him here.

He doesn't realize what the high-pitched hissing is until he feels the sharp pinprick of the dart in his back. Not a problem, he thinks, as he reaches to pull it out. Everyone underestimates his metabolism. He'll shake it off in a bit.

His hands don't seem to be working right.

His vision is starting to blur.

This might be a problem.

He has to get to Tony.

He rips out the dart. It feels like there's no strength left in him now.

There are footsteps behind him, and he tries to turn, but he can't quite move. Another minute, he tells himself. It was a big dose, like they knew how much would affect him. They were prepared for this. They knew he was coming. Just one more minute and he can shake it.

He doesn't think he has another minute.

I'm sorry, Tony, he thinks.

Something heavy collides with the back of his head, and everything goes dark.

When Steve wakes, he immediately wishes he hadn't. The first thing he's conscious of is the pounding of his skull, and then the stickiness of drying blood on the side of his head, trickling down his temple. The cowl is pulled back; he thinks there might be blood in his hair. He's upright, against a wall, and he has enough proprioception back to tell that he's been shackled to it spread-eagle. Whoever did this to him is definitely into classic villainy.

There's an awful, familiar lassitude in his limbs, an ache all the way down into his bones. He knows what this is. This is how it feels when his abilities are gone. He pushes against one of the manacles, and he can feel that there's so much less strength in him. He can tell that the healing factor is definitely gone. Everything hurts. He's aware of something around his left wrist, a metal cuff or bracelet, warm with body heat, underneath his glove. The way it fits makes the manacle on that side tighter. It feels like everything is leeching out of him where the bracelet touches him, like a slow poison spreading through his body, and he supposes that's where the power dampener is.

It's ingenious, he has to admit. Whoever they are, they planned for this. For him.

It was a trap, and he knew it was a trap, and he purposefully walked right into it. He just wasn't expecting them to be this good.

And then he opens his eyes.

He can't quite believe it, at first.

It's a supervillain's—well, wet dream is a more impolite description than he's usually inclined to, but in this case Steve can only conclude that it is, in fact, a representation of someone's very particular sexualized power fantasy, because the room is half workspace and half BDSM dungeon.

There's the section here where he's chained, of course; there are restraints at varying heights and something on the floor and ceiling that looks like an emitter array for an energy barrier, though it's inactive. Rudimentary sanitary facilities in the corner, behind a half-height wall, suggest that his captors might at some point let him out of the chains and keep him behind the bars.

And then there's the rest of the place.

The workspace half of the room looks like something even Tony would be jealous of, he thinks, and then he stops, heartsick, because he's failed Tony.

There's a massive plush chair set up with an array of screens surrounding it, as well as long workbenches. There's a small fabrication area, then desks with drawers, with who knows what in them. There's a smaller rolling chair by one of the desks. A mug of pens and pencils is holding down a stack of blueprints, with a swing lamp tilted over them. There's another mug. It's probably coffee, although right now Steve can only smell blood. It looks like the occupant of the room has just stepped away and will be back any minute now.

On the closest table to Steve is his shield. It's tossed there, like it's any old piece of metal, and he grits his teeth.

Next to his shield are the complete contents of his belt pouches, including his identicard, which sits there, dark and deactivated. They've turned it off.

Steve realizes now that he left and didn't tell anyone where he was going.

This could be very bad.

He turns his gaze to the other half of the room and realizes that it's about to get much worse.

There's a St. Andrew's Cross taking up most of one corner of the room. It's a bright metal X, with chains and cuffs dangling from the top of it. More cuffs sit at the bottom. Steve's mouth goes dry, and his brain fights with itself, a collision between the actual fond associations he has with things very much like this, and the reality of the fact that what his captors plan to do with him is going to be far from pleasant.

The wall behind the cross is mirrored. Presumably they'll want him to see every detail. Or they'll want to see him fall apart themselves, he thinks, and he shudders in his bonds.

On the adjacent wall, of course, are the whips. Whips, paddles, crops, floggers—everything Steve can think of to hit someone with is well-represented. They have quite a collection.

There's a hook on the ceiling by the cross. On the floor underneath it are several coiled ropes of varying widths and colors, and another pile of chains. They're all set up for suspension bondage.

A small, half-hysterical voice in his head wonders if they'll let him have a safeword.

There's a noise outside the room. Someone's coming.

The door rattles and swings open.

The figure who steps inside is definitely wearing a lot of black leather, and Steve's first thought is that it's Whiplash or Blacklash or whatever Mark Scarlotti is calling himself today, since that's the only villain Steve can think of who routinely dresses like he's going to the Folsom Street Fair.

And then Steve does a double-take, because that's Tony.

Tony's wearing—well, very little. And it's all kinky. He's got fishnet stockings on his arms and legs. He's wearing something that looks a hell of a lot like a leather thong, although Steve can't exactly see the backside of him to confirm this. He has approximately one-quarter of a shirt on, also leather. Several strategically placed leather straps spread outward from an O-ring in the middle of his chest, and other straps clip onto those in intriguing ways, showing off Tony's musculature, inviting the eye to keep looking. It looks like there's a whip wrapped around his waist. He has leather gloves to his elbows and an impressively-flattering pair of thigh boots. He's armed, too; there's a handgun in a holster on one of his boots, and he's also carrying a sheathed combat knife and something that might be a set of throwing knives.

In any other context, this would be the ultimate realization of essentially every fantasy Steve has had for the past several years. This is everything he has ever wanted, with the person he most wants it with.

In reality, he has no idea what's going on.

He wonders if their captors dressed Tony like this, because that sure wasn't how he looked on the video. He wonders why the hell they'd dress him like this.

Those are thoughts for another time. The important thing is getting both of them out of here. Whatever they did to him, Tony must have broken free, clearly. Tony broke free and came to find him and now they can leave as soon as Tony gets him out of this bondage.

Tony's not looking in his direction, and Steve rattles his chains.

"Tony!" he calls out. He's struggling against his bonds, but Tony will have him free soon enough, he knows. "Tony, I'm here! I came to rescue you! I came to save you! Just get me out of this and we can go home!"

Tony raises his head... and it's not Tony.

Oh, it's Tony's body, but whoever is currently occupying it is not the Tony Stark that Steve knows and loves. Tony's eyes are bright, and his mouth curls in a hard, cruel smirk, and God help him, the first thing Steve thinks is that it would be incredibly hot if it were really Tony. But it isn't.

Brainwashing, Steve thinks, wretchedly, brainwashing and mind control. There's been a lot of that lately. Morgan le Fay. The Squadron Supreme. And now this.

He has to save Tony... from himself.

He's made so many mistakes. The Avengers don't know where he is. No one is coming for him.

"Oh, Captain," Tony says. His voice is low and almost sultry. A purr. "I'm afraid you're not going home."

Head held high and proud, Tony strides across the room and comes to a halt in front of Steve. He tugs off his left glove with slow deliberation, lingering on every movement, watching Steve's eyes, in silence. Steve waits for Tony, Tony who isn't Tony, to hit him, to cut him, to do— whatever it is he's going to do. Clearly, he can do whatever he wants to him, but in a way Steve never wanted.

Steve holds his breath and it takes everything in him not to flinch and twist away when Tony reaches out—

—and cups his palm against Steve's face.

The caress is soft, warm, gentle, and Steve is abruptly reminded of Tony as he saw him yesterday, the last time he saw him. Tony touched his face like this before he left, he thinks, and desire and revulsion collide in his gut, because everything he knows tells him Tony is safety and security and home and— it's wrong.

Tony's eyes are the same arresting dark blue, now beginning to cloud with regret—for what, Steve doesn't know. Tony swipes his thumb through the blood that has now gathered on Steve's cheekbone. It's starting to dry, but it's still a little tacky. He pouts, a disappointed moue. Tony's careful, like he's afraid it will hurt him, like he's checking the severity of the wound. God knows they've done that for each other after battle often enough.

And then Tony smirks again, cruel and cold. Nasty. Heartless.

It's not him, Steve tells himself. It's not Tony. Even if this... entity... has some of Tony's mannerisms, it isn't him. Tony wouldn't do this.

Steve has endured so much in his life, but he doesn't know how he's going to make it through this.

"I'm so glad you're here, Captain," Tony says, still smiling, standing so close that Steve can feel Tony's breath against his skin. It's incredibly intimate. Like he thinks he belongs here. "You and I are going to have so much fun together."

Chapter Text

It's a dream come true, as a nightmare.

Tony looks like he's stepped straight out of every last one of Steve's fantasies, and he smiles with too many teeth, like he wants to tear Steve apart, and this is wrong, and everything about it is wrong, and the worst part is that it's exactly what Steve wants except for the fact that he doesn't want it at all.

Tony pats Steve's face again, takes a step back, and tugs the glove back on. He wiggles his fingers.

"Do you like the outfit, Captain?" Tony asks, with a sneer, like he thinks the answer is no, like he has never once considered that it could be yes. "I picked it out myself."

Tony spins about—and, yep, that's a whole lot of him on display, bared to the world. The fishnets stretch over his muscled ass, and the pairing of strength and prettiness is filthy in the best way. But it shouldn't be something Steve is admiring, not like this. Tony wouldn't have chosen to dress like this. Steve swallows hard. It isn't Tony. It isn't. It's just that Steve's body... hasn't really gotten the message.

Steve grits his teeth and clenches his jaw and tries to think about something else. Anything else.

Tony runs a finger over Steve's jawline, chin to throat. Steve can feel his already-tight muscles tense up further, and he's sure Tony can feel his pulse jump, a mix of fear and—no, no, no—arousal. "Cat got your tongue?" He tsks. "No matter. We'll have plenty of time to talk later." Another smile. "There's so much I'm looking forward to sharing with you."

"This isn't you," he tries to say. "Tony, I don't know what the hell they did to you, but for God's sake, you have to fight it. You need to remember that this isn't you—"

Tony backhands him. Across the face. Hard.

Steve rocks with the force of the blow, and his head snaps back and sideways and hits the wall, heavily. The cut on his temple stings; it's opened up again. His ears are ringing. Tony wasn't pulling his punches. It hurts a hell of a lot, but worse than the pain is the shock that Tony would do this at all. Tony hit him. Tony hurt him.

Until this moment, he'd been quietly entertaining the idea that this was all a pretense. A show for some unseen camera. Tony was only pretending to be a villain. But he wouldn't have hit him like that. If he'd had to do it, to look good for the audience, he'd still have pulled the blow. He didn't. He hit him because he could. Because he wanted to. Because he liked it.

This is real.

"I don't recall asking for your opinion on that particular matter, Captain." Tony unclenches his fist. His voice is cool and smooth. "You're an intelligent man. Surely you must see that there are rules here. I have all the power, Captain. You have none whatsoever."

"If you think I'm ever going to give in," Steve begins, and then he stops, because he doesn't know how to finish the sentence without it feeling like a lie. He would have knelt for Tony, for his Tony. He doesn't know how much of Tony is left. Is the real Tony in there, somewhere, watching through this impostor's eyes?

Tony smiles again. "I think you'll find you don't have a choice, Captain." He raises an eyebrow. "Soon you'll come to realize that. Anyone can break. Even you."

Blood drips down Steve's face. He says nothing.

Think of it as actionable intelligence, he tells himself. He knows their goals. He knows now that they want someone to break him. They've picked Tony. He tries not to think about how Tony very probably could. If this man knows what Tony knows, he knows all about him. He knows exactly how to hurt him the most.

"Nothing to say to that, Captain? No defiant remarks?" Tony takes a few more steps back and chuckles. "Well. You can learn, it seems."

He hates to think that Tony's gotten to him already. He was only quiet because there was nothing to say. It doesn't mean he's... submitting to Tony, he thinks, and then he wants to wince. His submission is a gift, a gift that could have been given in joy and trust and love for someone who used to be Tony Stark. It's a coincidence, an awful coincidence, that this warped man now wants it.

"I always used to think it was so very ridiculous when I'd end up captured and whoever it was—the Maggia, the Mandarin, whoever—would want to just tie me up and stand right in front of me and tell me all about their plans, you know?" He laughs again, and now his tone is quieter as he leans in, like he's inviting Steve to share this memory. His voice softens. He sounds just like Tony. "I thought it was so arrogant, and idiotic, and just gave me more time to implement my own plan to get out of there. I'm sure you can empathize."

The smile now is reminiscent, real, and that answers at least part of Steve's question: something of Tony is still in there. He has his memories. No matter what they've done to him, Steve thinks, he can still save him, and an ember of hope flares in Steve's chest. Tony still exists.

And then Tony steps back and holds his arms wide, turning this way and that, showing off the room, the situation, his new self. "But now that I'm here, I see what I've been missing out on." His voice rises in a grandiose swoop of self-satisfied glory. "It's about knowing that I have you exactly where I want you. And I'm different from any of your other foes, Captain. I'm better than them. I know you. You're not getting out of this one. And I know you know me, so you'll believe me when I say that. Maybe you don't believe me now. You're stubborn. I know. But you'll change your mind. You'll see. The Avengers aren't coming to save you." He smiles. "And I want to be right here, because I want to see the look in your eyes when you finally realize that."

He can't look at Tony. He tries to turn his face away, and now he's looking at his shield, out of reach. His shield, and his deactivated identicard.

Tony follows his gaze, and his eyes brighten when he sees what Steve's looking at. "Oh, the identicard?" He beams, the way he always does when he's made something amazing and wants to show it off, but now it's for entirely the wrong reasons. "Funny story there. The whole thing's even better than it looks. So that message I sent you this morning, you remember it?" He smiles, and then his eyes go wide in mock-fear. "'Oh, oh, help me, help me?'" He laughs, a cruel sound. "That one."

"I remember," Steve rasps out.

Tony faked the message. The pain. The terror. Everything. Steve supposes he shouldn't be surprised. This man knew him and deceived him and used him. It's not Tony. But whoever he is now, he knows everything Tony knows.

"I thought you might," Tony says, with a nasty smile. "At any rate, when you opened that message, it triggered, shall we say, a viral payload. Nothing big. Big stuff would have been noticed. No one will notice this. Vision won't find it. No one knows the Avengers' systems better than I do. So the upshot is that your identicard has been effectively dead to the Avengers' systems since this morning. All the telemetry needed to ping it has been wiped out of their servers and replaced with fake data. Just your card. No use in everyone getting suspicious." He smiles. "I kept the data, to track you, of course. That's how I knew you were coming and exactly where you were." There's triumph on his face now.

God. Tony thought of everything.

"I checked," Tony added. "Logged in myself, with enough anonymizers that they'll never find me. The Avengers' systems record no data for you. Oh, and I deleted and overwrote that message I sent you. No record of that. This isn't going to be your usual villain mindfuck where I tell you they're not coming regardless of how true it is." He leans in again and lowers his voice. "I don't make promises I can't keep, Captain. And I don't lie to you. Not about this. You know that. So when I tell you that they don't know where you are, that is the absolute truth."

Steve knows. What in the world did they do to him?

He steps back and the faintest tinge of regret clouds his eyes. "I am sorry I can't dramatically crush the card beneath my boot, though. Just to see your face when I do it. But I can't. There's a circuit in there that will automatically send out one last-ditch squawk to the mansion. Designed it myself. Not too many people know about that one. I suppose I could come up with a way to disable it, but, you know. Not an efficient use of my time." He shrugs and smiles. "I'm a busy man, Captain. Things to build. Heroes to torture."

This is really happening. This isn't a game and this isn't a dream and Tony is brainwashed and Tony is standing here proposing to torture him.

Tony gestures, now, towards Steve's wrist. "Do you like the bracelet I made you?" He reaches out and gently touches Steve's arm, pushing the cuff of his glove far down enough that Steve can actually see the bracelet, all silver metal and circuitry. Tony rubs a gloved finger over the strip of bare skin next to the bracelet, and Steve tries not to shudder. "The metal is mostly carbonadium. Wonderful stuff. Omega Red uses it. Kills healing factors dead. The rest of the bracelet is keeping the rest of your abilities... dampened. And there's no getting it off." He slides his hand up to Steve's wrist and taps one of the shackles; the metal rings dully. "This would have held you at your regular power levels anyway, but well." He raises his eyebrows. "Can't be too careful, can we?" His smile turns dreamy, pleasant. "Besides, this way will hurt ever so much more. Think about how weak you'll be. You hate that. I know exactly how much that terrifies you, Captain. And think about all the things I can do to you that just. Won't. Heal." The last three words are breathed into Steve's ear, one at a time, staccato, like gunshots.

"You don't want to do this to me," Steve rasps. He knows the odds are slim, but if he keeps talking, if he keeps trying, maybe he can get through.

It's not like Tony hasn't been brainwashed before, he tells himself. They're Avengers. It happens. Hell, last month Morgan le Fay had convinced them all they were feudal knights and lords. He tries not to think about how Tony hadn't shaken that one off until the spell broke. And the time before—well, the time before had been Kang the Conqueror, and Tony had betrayed them. Tony had been working against the Avengers. But he'd broken through the conditioning at last. And then he'd died in Steve's arms, whispering apologies with his last breaths.

That can't be what it takes. There has to be a way to get Tony free of this without killing him. Steve can find it. He has to.

Tony's mouth quirks. "Do I seem like I don't want to do this?"

Steve takes a breath.

"I love you," he says, desperately.

Steve's been giving some thought to those three words over the past month. He's been trying to decide how to tell Tony he loves him. He's been waiting for the right moment to say it for the first time. During sex is a little too crass for the first time, too crude. But at the same time it needs to be special. It can't just be something he lets Tony know one morning over coffee. It needs to be just right.

He never once pictured that he was going to be chained to a wall trying to convince Tony not to torture him.

The fairytales lied. It's not a magic spell. Nothing happens.

He tries not to think about how this is breaking his heart.

Tony's eyes narrow. He tilts his head, like he's heard all the words before but not in that order, and is trying to puzzle out what it might mean.

Steve tries a different tactic.

"You love me," he continues. "I know you love me. And I know you don't want to do this. Because you love me."

Reaching out, Tony strokes his hair ever so lightly—and then gets a grip in his hair and yanks his head up, hard. Steve can feel his eyes water.

"I don't think you want to assume, Captain," Tony hisses, "that you know what I feel for you. It's dangerous to be wrong."

That's a no, then.

Whatever Tony says, that can't be true. He knows how Tony feels. His Tony. His Tony just isn't here right now.

"Tony," he whispers, and his voice hitches and cracks. "Who did this to you?"

Tony lets his head go and smiles. "This part of the monologue already? Fine." He paces, a few steps back and forth, and then he eyes Steve with another nasty glare. "Do you remember the Secret Empire, Captain? Because they remember you. They remember you very, very well indeed."

The hoods. The numbers. That's where he's seen them before.

Like so many other organizations, they'd been Hydra, once. But where offshoots like AIM had gone for pure science, the Secret Empire had had its blackened heart set on world domination. Or any domination, apparently, he thinks, as he considers Tony's outfit. They'd started an anti-Captain America smear campaign of vile propaganda. They'd framed him for murder. He and Sam had gone undercover and infiltrated them, only to discover a vast conspiracy, a group of hooded figures known only by numbers. Number One had been the president of the United States, who'd committed suicide when Steve, aided by SHIELD and the X-Men, had foiled his attempted coup. Steve had quit being Captain America for some time over that particular betrayal, treason at the highest levels of government.

"I remember them," Steve says hoarsely.

Tony's grin is a delighted flash of teeth. "Oh, good. My superiors will be glad to hear it. They don't just stop planning because you stop thinking about them, you know. New Number One. All-new management. There are great things in store, Captain. And I'm afraid they haven't forgiven you." His hands turn palm-up; he's leveling. There are no secrets here. "It was actually a rather garden-variety plan for them, initially. You'll love this part. You played right into their hands. There you were, in the news, letting the entire world know that you were involved with Tony Stark. An ordinary human. A man who would be so helpless without his bodyguard—who, luckily for them, never showed up. Imagine that. So easy for them. I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase soft target."

Miserably, Steve shuts his eyes and tries to turn his face away. God. This is all his fault. They took Tony, they hurt Tony, they brainwashed Tony—all to get to him. He'd worried about this before, when he'd been involved with civilians—hell, even when he'd been involved with Sharon. But Tony should have been safe. Tony was his teammate. Tony was Iron Man. Tony could take care of himself. But Tony and Iron Man were never in the same place at the same time, were they?

Steve takes a ragged, hissing breath. "Tony, I'm so sorry."

"Why?" When Steve opens his eyes, Tony frowns, like he has no clue why Steve might feel any sorrow or regret. "This is what I was born for, Captain. The Secret Empire just helped me realize it." He smiles, and he looks so goddamned happy, and Steve wants to weep. "Honestly, they were thinking it would just hurt you. They were going to bring in someone else to try to break you, if you can believe that. I was supposed to be leverage. Maybe I'd be a little cruel. Insulting, saddening, but ultimately helpless. They were going to offer me back to you if you gave in. But they got so much more than they bargained for with me." He actually looks proud. He almost never looks this proud.

"They got Iron Man," Steve says, dully, because he can see where this is going.

But Tony shakes his head. "Actually, no." He gives Steve a conspiratorial wink. "They don't know that particular fact. You think I'm going to give up all my secrets to everyone? To anyone? To you?"

Okay, that hurts. This isn't Tony, Steve tells himself, and it doesn't mean that Tony believes whatever this man is saying even if he's saying it in Tony's voice and smiling at him with Tony's face. Steve bites his lip and looks away.

Tony must see it in his eyes. "What's the matter?" Then he laughs, a light, amused sound. "Oh, you think you know everything about me? You think you know my true, secret heart? You think I trust you with the deepest, darkest parts of my soul? You think I ever have? Captain, you know so much less about me than you think." He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. "I didn't even trust you with my secret identity, did I? I lied to you for years. I would have been perfectly happy to keep lying to you. It wasn't like I made the choice to tell you, remember?"

He's tried not to think about that, over the years. He knows it wasn't personal, that Tony's reasons for not confiding in him had everything to do with Tony and nothing to do with him. But it stings to hear it. Tony knows exactly how to twist the knife, how to make him start wondering—that little nagging thread of worry—exactly what will become of them.

Not that that question isn't occupying his thoughts right now anyway. But he'll think about that later. He can't afford to think about it now. He has to get them home first.

"Iron Man can't be here, anyway," Tony adds. "They planned this with the idea that he would come in after you once you came for me. Which would be reasonable if we were different people." He shrugs. "They have some kind of field blocking repulsor energy. Really nice work. So that's why I have to do this... the old-fashioned way." Smiling, he taps the gun on his leg and then he turns, lifting the knife halfway out of its sheath to display the shining metal, letting it fall back in. "So, you see, I'm the newest recruit. And as for you?" He hums. "I like to think of you as my signing bonus. I get to make Captain America mine. Leave my mark."

He wanted to be Tony's. He never wanted it to be like this.

"You really don't want to do this," Steve says again, but it's starting to sound hollow.

Tony ignores him. "Can you believe they were just going to stick me in a cell somewhere? Me?" He scoffs. "They had no idea what I could offer them. So I told them, of course. And now they've given me another job, in addition to, well, breaking you. They've got me doing R&D."

Steve goes cold as Tony laughs gleefully and waves his hand in the direction of the blueprints. If Tony were himself, he would never do this. But he isn't himself. And he knows everything Tony knows. And he can build them whatever they want.

"You remember Madbomb?" Tony adds, almost conversationally. Like this is a normal conversation. "They were one of the groups involved with it. They have a few more bomb designs they'd like some input on. There are a couple of thorny little problems holding up production. But they'll be very destructive, if I can get them working right. It shouldn't take too long. I am a genius, after all."

Steve knows, then, what he has to do. He has to endure whatever Tony will do to him—but more than simply endure it, he has to invite it. He has to be interesting. He has to be entertaining. He has to make Tony want to hurt him, because then Tony can't hurt other people. It's an awful calculus, the kind of decision he always gets angry about when Tony does it, when Tony tries to reduce right and wrong to a numbers game. But that's what this is now: Steve's life, one life, versus the untold millions Tony could destroy if he finishes the Secret Empire's designs. There's only one of Steve, and he's strong. He can take it. Whatever Tony does to him, he can take it. Every moment he can keep Tony's attention on him is a moment Tony won't be building weapons.

Tony's going to feel awful later. But Tony's going to survive, and there's going to be a later, and in the meantime Steve will keep as much blood off Tony's hands as he can.

It just means the blood that remains has to be Steve's.

Literally.

"Well?" Steve asks. His voice is a rough croak. He knows he has to say this, and he hates that he has to say this, but this is how it's going to be. He has to try. Tony has to focus on him. "I'm just hearing a lot of talk. You keep telling me you're going to break me. I'm not seeing it." He rattles his chains. "This, Tony? This is an ordinary Wednesday for me. Why don't you show me what you've got? Hurt me already. Get it over with."

Tony just stares at him, unmoved. "Mmm," he says, at last, a quiet hum of deliberation. "Half points for effort, Captain. The bravado is a nice touch. But do try harder next time."

Turning on his heel, he strides to the nearest workbench and pulls open a rattling metal drawer. Steve can't quite see what he retrieves; it's about the size of his fist, and has the sheen of leather, dangling from the edges.

"Tony—" he begins.

That's when Tony shoves the ball gag into Steve's open mouth. He keeps one hand over Steve's face, holding the gag in place even as Steve struggles to fit his jaw around it. Tony's strong; Steve can't spit it out. With his other hand Tony deftly fastens the buckle behind Steve's head, pulling the straps tight. It's a big gag, and it's been a long time since Steve's worn one. He's not going to choke, but he can feel himself already starting to drool, helpless, mouth held open.

He can't speak.

Tony locks his fingers in Steve's hair and wrenches his head toward him.

"This is how it works, Captain. Pay attention." His voice is sharp and cold, brittle, the thinnest blade of ice. "I'm not like anyone else you know. You think you can goad me. You think you can get this to happen on your terms. You can't. I'm not some washed-up second-string Hydra villain with pathetic plans that always fail. I get things right." His mouth curls, a dismissive sneer. "I'm an engineer, Captain. I understand systems. I understand how to take things apart. I understand how to break them. And I understand you. I know exactly how to get under your skin. It's not pain. It's not pure pain, anyway. I could beat you all day and you'd get up and give me some line about wanting more. No, this is an exercise in putting just the right amount of pressure in exactly the right places. Like how you can break a bridge walking over it if your steps hit just the right resonant frequency. You're the bridge in this particular metaphor. And the first part of the process is waiting. You don't know yet what I'm going to do. You don't know when I'm going to do it. It's not even about what it is, so much. But you know it will break your heart to watch me, to know that I want to hurt you. Anticipating that—now, that's awful." He traces a finger down Steve's cheek. "So we're waiting. Until you're ready."

Tony lets Steve go and steps back, and Steve stares at him in shock and anguish.

He thinks maybe Tony's right. No, he tells himself, he can't be. He can't. Steve has to stay strong. And Tony doesn't even know what the worst part is, that he would have wanted this before, that he would have loved it if Tony wanted to hurt him.

"In the meantime," Tony says, cheerfully, "I have some work to do. And you're being awfully disruptive."

He watches Tony walk across the room, settle down in the chair in front of the array of monitors, and boot everything up. Screens spring to life, displaying spinning schematics, parts Steve doesn't recognize and couldn't put a name to if you paid him.

Tony's half-turned away from him, but he can see Tony's profile firming up, his face tightening into that thoughtful expression, the way he always gets when he's trying to work something out. He taps two dark-gloved fingers against his chin, and Steve knows him well enough to know that he'll be occupied until he works out... whatever this is. So much for Steve's plan to distract him.

"Just make some noise if you're choking," Tony says, waving a hand in his direction. "It wouldn't do to have you hang there and die."

Steve considers this. Tony isn't planning to kill him. Small mercies. But it doesn't seem like Tony wants specific intelligence from him either—and honestly, since the Secret Empire already has Tony, they know everything there is to know about the Avengers. The two of them are team leaders, and Tony has access to all the same files as he does. He can't think of anything he knows that Tony doesn't, save possibly a few SHIELD passcodes, and those don't seem to be on Tony's radar at all. So there's no particular information he needs to protect. They've got it all.

That means Tony wants to hurt him just because he can. He wants to break him for fun.

The usual advice for how to endure interrogation doesn't seem to apply. There is no goal except pain.

Over the years Steve has been fairly resistant to mind control, and he knows Tony knows that; he suspects that's why they haven't tried out on him whatever it is that they've done to Tony. Therefore this has to be a hands-on experience. Tony clearly wants to take his time.

Whatever it is Tony has planned, he can get through it. He has to.

He doesn't know how much time passes; there's no visible clock that he can see, and Tony's monitors are too far away for him to read. He knows that manipulating his sense of time passing is one of the easy tricks. He's expecting Tony to leave the lights on tonight. Whenever that is.

He wonders what the rest of the Avengers are doing. By now, they've surely noticed his absence. Maybe they haven't. The team has been awfully fragmented lately, what with Carol's recent strange difficulties. The Secret Empire couldn't have picked a better time to make their move. They've been off-balance. And honestly, the Avenger he'd trust the most to be able to find a missing teammate... is Tony. Which means he might have to hold out for some time before help comes.

His jaw aches around the gag and he knows his face is a mess of spit. Gags aren't one of Steve's big kinks, but he's tried them for his partners before; Rachel had liked the look of it, the helplessness. She'd liked to admire him. So for Steve there's a certain amount of objectification in this, usually. But Tony hasn't even looked at him. For all that he went to some effort to get an actual, purpose-built gag, he hasn't once looked in Steve's direction. It seems that Tony only cares about shutting him up.

Practically as soon as he thinks that, Tony swivels his chair in his direction and gets up. He stretches, arms in the air, and Steve can hear his spine crack from here.

"Ah," Tony breathes, relieved, clearly luxuriating. "Okay. Time for dinner." He turns and smiles. "Anything in particular you want me to bring you? The commissary is surprisingly decent."

It sounds so much like something Tony would ask, kind and gentle, that for an instant Steve can almost forget that it's Tony who chained him up here, that he can't talk because Tony has gagged him.

Steve wonders if it's still Stockholm Syndrome if he was already in love with his captor.

Tony comes over, still smiling, and then the smile, once again, turns nasty. "As pretty as you are, Captain, I think I'd better take this off for a bit." He traces a finger over the strap of the gag, then over Steve's cheek, then his lips, and Steve supposes he was wrong about this awful simulacrum of Tony not being interested in gags. He'd just had other things to do.

He reaches around Steve's head, unbuckles the gag, and pulls it away. Steve's jaw aches, and his chin and throat are wet with saliva. "Well," Tony says. "You've made a mess of yourself, haven't you, Captain? We can't have that."

Tony slides his left hand inside his right glove, the one he hadn't taken off before, pulls out a handkerchief, of all things, and gently dabs at Steve's face, wiping him up with the kind of focused concentration he gives to finicky bits of machinery. The corners of Steve's mouth sting when Tony touches them, and Tony lightens his touch like he doesn't want to hurt him. It should be a caring gesture, and it is, but at the same time it's anything but, because this isn't Tony.

"There we go," Tony says. "All better." He tosses the gag on the table behind him, and his smile is sharp and cruel again. "Scream all you want. No one will hear you. I'll be back in a while."

Tony opens another drawer, pulls out a wad of black fabric, and shakes it out. It turns out to be a hood with "412" written above the eyeholes. He drops it over his head. Given that there can't be too many people wandering around the base wearing anything like what Tony is wearing, it does nothing whatsoever to conceal his identity, but Steve supposes that vast underground criminal organizations don't get where they are without some kind of rules.

Behind the hood, Tony's eyes are bright; Steve's so used to seeing Tony masked, so used to reading everything about him through his eyes, that it's easy to imagine that the pleased man underneath the mask is the real Tony, when it really, really isn't at all.

Tony gives him a cheerful wave and is gone. The door slams shut behind him.

And Steve's alone again.

No position is really all that comfortable; he's been chained to the wall for at least a few hours now. Ordinarily he wouldn't be worrying about nerve damage, but ordinarily he has a healing factor to protect him. Tony's probably going to let him down at some point, if only because Tony's interests seem to lie in actively hurting him rather than passively allowing him to be hurt.

All he has to do now is wait for Tony to come back.

Even now he wants to trust whatever's left of Tony. Tony says he's coming back. Tony offered him food. He wants to believe that Tony will act with a certain consistency, that his actions will match his words, even if his actions will be reprehensible. He wants Tony to be predictable. For all he knows, Tony's not in charge here and the next person through the door is going to shoot him in the head.

They don't want him dead. They'd have done it already.

But for all he knows, Tony's not coming back, either. This isn't his Tony. Who's to say that he'll do what he says he'll do?

Even if it's awful, Steve wants to be able to count on it. It's not like he can count on anything else.

He's not conscious of shutting his eyes, but he must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knows he's sagging in his chains and blinking awake as the door rattles open.

"There you are," Tony says, sounding pleased; his voice is a little muffled by the hood. "How have you been?"

Steve stares at Tony and tries to decide if he's actually serious. "I've been better," he says, finally.

Tony pulls the hood off and wanders over to the drawer where it came from. He's carrying a bowl in his other hand. He sets the bowl down, folds up his hood, puts it in the drawer, and then methodically strips off both of his gloves, leaving them on the desk. There's a long bandaged cut down Tony's right forearm, previously hidden by the glove, and Steve remembers the blood on the concrete. It looks like he'd tried to block a knife barehanded.

Oh, God, Tony, Steve thinks, and he wonders if it's strange that he still feels so much for this man, this man who has pledged to hurt him.

He wonders if now is when the torture starts.

Tony cradles the bowl and takes a few steps toward him. The edges of his mouth curl up in the smallest of smiles.

"I got you your very favorite, Captain," Tony murmurs. He steps even closer and holds the bowl out, tilting it down so Steve can see the contents.

Oh. Raspberries.

Steve shuts his eyes briefly in misery. He remembers Tony sitting across from him at that restaurant, bright-eyed and joyful, eager to please him, to offer him his favorite food. It seems like a lifetime ago. He hates that this horrible, distorted version of Tony knows everything Tony knows about him. He doesn't want to make this man happy. He doesn't want this.

"I'm not hungry," Steve says, flatly.

It's a lie, of course. And Tony knows it's a lie. But he couldn't possibly expect Steve to say anything else, could he?

The sigh Tony gives is exaggerated. "I thought we were getting on so well, Captain. Here I bring you your favorite food, and you reward me with blatant lies?" He clicks his tongue. "You're not going to be allowed to starve yourself. I take very good care of what's mine. And besides, you need to keep your strength up. You're holding onto that flimsy dream, that you're going to break out of here, that you're going to need to be at fighting strength."

Steve doesn't say anything. But Tony's right, and that's the awful thing; he can't afford to turn up his nose at food. He's never been able to, not very easily. He was poor and half-starving as a child, in the Depression, and after the serum gave his metabolism a kick in the pants he's had to eat and eat and eat. He can go without. He has gone without. But these days he doesn't have to. It was—is—one of the things that he likes about Tony. Tony's always kept the pantry well-stocked, and they've never really talked about it, what it means, if Tony knows how much it means that he doesn't have to worry anymore about going hungry. Tony's always made sure he knows where his next meal's coming from. It's one of the thoughtful things he does. It's caring.

It doesn't feel particularly caring now.

"If you decline this, Captain," Tony says, and there's steel in his voice, "you absolutely aren't going to enjoy the other feeding methods. Take my word for it."

Tony's word is... worth very little, right now. But he has a point.

"All right," he says, and he hates himself for conceding even the tiniest bit. But he has to. He has to survive. He has to do what it takes to get them out of here.

Tony pats him on the head with the hand that isn't holding the bowl, like he's praising a beloved pet for doing a trick. "There," he says, and his voice brims with satisfaction. "That wasn't so hard, was it? Your first step. And even now you're telling yourself that it doesn't count, that you're doing what you have to, to live. But it all counts, Captain. Everything matters."

The bowl is held forth, inches away from his face. He's not going to make him beg, is he? He has to know Steve won't beg.

"If you want me to eat those," Steve says, roughly, "I'm going to need my hands free. Can't exactly reach my mouth."

"Ha," Tony says. He sounds almost delighted by the objection. "No. I suppose you think you're being clever. You don't need your hands. Open your mouth, Captain."

He's holding a berry out between thumb and forefinger.

Tony wants to feed him.

Half of Steve says no no God no and the other half—the half that he is currently wishing had no opinion whatsoever—says please yes but not like this.

Handfeeding actually is one of Steve's kinks, albeit not one he's had much of an opportunity to indulge. It's not all about the masochism for him; he's not sure some of his past partners would believe it of him, being as many of them were more interested in throwing him around, but he can be the sweetest sub when he's with the right person. He thinks he could have been, for Tony. And Tony likes to take care of people. And, well, Steve has those issues with food. Tony already feeds him. It would have been nice to put himself in Tony's hands, literally, to trust him, to make the bond between them manifest, to let Tony care for him. He can't have that now.

He doesn't want this, but there's nothing else he can do.

He opens his mouth.

Triumphant, Tony smiles. He puts the berry gently, tenderly between Steve's lips.

Steve takes it from him, tasting the sweetness of the fruit, unable to keep himself from licking the juice off Tony's fingertips. He tries not to think of all the other times recently that he's kissed Tony's fingers. This is nothing like that. This can't be anything like that.

The berry is delicious, and Steve hates that he thinks that.

"You'd bite anyone else's fingers but mine, wouldn't you, Captain?" Tony murmurs.

Tony is very close to him. His eyes are wide and dark, his cheeks flushed. It's a terribly intimate moment, terrible because it is intimate, because it should be, because it shouldn't be.

When they get out of here, he's never eating raspberries again.

Tony's still smiling. He hasn't stopped. "Good, isn't it?" he asks. His gaze is a mix of that fondness that could almost be his real expression, and something with a gleefully tormenting edge. "This won't be enough food for you, of course. Your caloric requirements are lower than normal for you, with the serum knocked out, but you still need a fair amount of calories with your size and muscle mass, the same as any baseline human would. It's not like I could flatten your entire metabolism, unfortunately."

Steve waits to see how Tony is going to bait this particular trap.

But Tony just shrugs. "So I'll be feeding you more tomorrow," he adds, and he pops another berry into Steve's mouth. "You're stubborn, but I've seen you hand your share of food off to someone else who needs it more a fair number of times, and you have plenty of muscle to burn. I don't want to wait that long. Starvation's not how I get to you. Maybe if I'd known you back in the day." He pushes another berry into Steve's mouth and waits for him to swallow it before continuing. "Besides, I'm positive this is already hurting you, Captain."

Tony feeds him a few more berries in silence, ever so delicately. His eyes are wide and enthralled. When the bowl is about half-empty, he carries it back to the nearest workbench, sets it down, and retrieves a bottle of water from one of the drawers. Uncapping it, he sets the mouth of the bottle to Steve's lips and lets it trickle out, a little messily. Water drips down Steve's chin; it beads bright on the scales of his uniform.

He's thirsty. Of course he's thirsty. He's not going to make it through this without water.

Tony pulls the bottle away before Steve's thirst is anywhere near slaked, sets it on the desk, fishes his handkerchief out, and dabs at the mess of berry juice and water on Steve's face. He wrinkles his nose. He's always been fastidious. Something of Tony has to be in there, Steve thinks. It has to be.

"Thank me," Tony says, "and you can have more."

He has to know that there's only one way Steve can answer that.

"No," Steve says. "I won't."

Even if he needs more water, Tony's not going to make him beg.

Steve breathes in sharply and tries to think about all the things he would have begged Tony for, once. He thinks about their first time together, about how desperately he wanted Tony to make him do something, to force him to his will.

Well, now he's getting it, isn't he?

Tony doesn't seem fazed by the refusal. He just shrugs; it looks strange, with the little fraction of clothing he's actually wearing. Steve's been trying not to think about what he's wearing. He's sure Tony's got plans for him involving most of the implements he's carrying.

"You will eventually," Tony says, again with that nasty smile. "Still, we've made astounding progress for the first day. I'm very pleased with you, Captain."

He can't not like when Tony praises him. After ten years, it's practically a conditioned reflex. But right now, he really wishes he didn't. He shifts in his chains and tries to look away, but he finds his gaze drawn back to Tony. The real Tony has to be in there. He stares again at the bandage on Tony's arm. That was Tony. Tony fought back.

Tony sees him staring and holds his arm out for inspection. It looks well-bandaged, at least. Which is good. He hates to think of Tony suffering. It's Tony's body. Some part of this man is still his Tony.

Steve meets Tony's eyes. "They hurt you," he says, slowly, deliberately. "The Secret Empire hurt you and you fought back. Do you remember that? You're working for the people who did that to your arm. Do you remember what they did to you?"

"Of course I remember." Tony scoffs. "But I was wrong then. I was wrong to fight them. I'm better now. You'll be better soon, too."

The words are confident, but there's a flicker of something, some uncertainty, in Tony's eyes, and Steve presses his momentary advantage for all it's worth.

"Tony," he says. "I know you're in there. I know you can hear me. It's going to be all right. We're going to get out of here." He licks his lips. "And whatever you do, whatever you have to do, it's them. They're making you do this. It isn't you. This isn't your fault. I don't blame you. I'm never going to blame you. I'm with you. I'm not giving up on you."

Tony squints at him, and his gaze begins to look pained. Steve wonders if he's doing something right, if the brainwashing is breaking down, or if he's just hurting Tony.

Then Tony sneers, though his face is still tight around the eyes.

"Do I need to get the gag again, Captain?"

Steve shuts his mouth.

Tony's visibly wincing now as he steps back. He presses his fingers to his temple.

"I'm afraid I'll have to postpone the evening's entertainment, Captain," Tony says. "I can feel a headache coming on."

Tony doesn't get headaches like that. It has to be something the brainwashing is doing—although whether it's the brainwashing failing or the brainwashing eating away at his mind, Steve can't say.

He has to get them out of here.

Tony flips a control on the wall and green, glowing energy bars come up, walling off a little section of the room. He touches another control, and Steve's shackles unlock. Steve sags forward, trips, and nearly falls before pulling himself upright and dragging himself to the edge of the cell, a few inches away from Tony.

"Since you've done so well, Captain," Tony says, even as his face is twisting in pain, "you get to sleep on the floor. A special treat. I'll see you in the morning."

Tony picks up his gloves and slaps the light switch next to the door as he leaves. The room is plunged into darkness, lit only by the glow of the cell bars. And Steve is alone.

Unsurprisingly, Steve doesn't get much sleep.

Once he's determined he's got all the feeling back in his extremities—no nerve damage yet—he takes his gloves off, makes use of the sanitary facilities, such as they are, and then spends some time in the feeble light of the cell, more feeble without his enhanced vision, examining the bracelet around his wrist.

It's solid, and it doesn't seem to have an obvious join. It fits tightly, like Tony knew the exact circumference of his wrist—and he probably did. He already feels sick, wearing it, and touching it with his other hand sends an awful wave of vertigo through him. He's not going to be able to get the bracelet off. He's willing to dislocate his thumb if he has to, but he doesn't think even that trick will work. It's practically molded to his body.

All right. So until he gets back to the Avengers, who can presumably remove the bracelet, he won't have his usual range of abilities. He can do this without them. But he's going to need either a way out of the cell or a way out of the restraints, a way out of the room—though once he has free access to the whole workroom, his shield, which is still on the bench, will solve that problem easily enough—and a way to bring Tony with him.

He has no idea where Tony is.

He wishes Tony were still here.

Even though Tony is—his mind shies away from the word evil—emphatically not himself, he's still Tony. And he's in pain. They could be doing anything to him. Maybe they have to keep brainwashing him for it to hold. Maybe they're torturing him and brainwashing him again. It's not like this Tony would tell him. Maybe he can't. And if he's here in this room, even if he's hurting Steve, at least then Steve knows where he is.

Instead Steve's alone in a concrete cell.

He tries not to think about how only a few nights ago, he was in Tony's bed with Tony, the both of them safe and secure, and he'd been so happy in the knowledge that they had each other now, that they'd finally found each other. He knows better than to torment himself.

It's not the most comfortable place he's ever slept, but he's had worse. And the thing is, Tony knows he's had worse. There are a lot of things Tony could be doing right now that he's not doing. Sleep deprivation. Keeping the lights on to distort his time sense. Keeping him chained up all night. Instead, he's giving Steve... relative freedom. Steve has an uncomfortable feeling that he knows why that is. Tony wants to hurt him. Tony wants to watch him fall apart. Tony wants to destroy his trust, so that he won't know whether to count on this relative kindness or abject cruelty, because there will be nothing to count on. It's personal, for him. And Tony, personally, wants to be in the room when he finally breaks and gives in. Tony wants to break him with his own two hands.

Tony wasn't lying when he said anyone could break. Just because it's not something anyone expects of Captain America doesn't mean Steve's not just as human as anyone else. His torturer is brilliant, determined, knows almost everything about him that it is possible for another human being to know, is aware of where his weakest spots are, knows his physical and mental tolerances right to the limit, and has no qualms whatsoever. His only hope is to get them both out of here before Tony's... altered him... to the point where it's impossible for him to. And at the same time he has to try to keep Tony focused on him, rather than on his murderous engineering work, because Tony needs to not finish those bombs. It's going to be a very delicate balance. So the question remains: how much can Steve endure?

He wishes he knew the answer.

He suspects he's only going to be able to find the line after Tony's crossed it.

He stretches out on the floor and tries to sleep. He thinks maybe he gets a couple hours of sleep before he sighs, gets up, and starts doing as many stretches as he can manage. He needs to keep his strength and flexibility for as long as he can; it's even more important now that the effects of the serum are being suppressed.

He's halfway through a set of pushups when the lights come on again.

Tony's back and beaming, still leather-clad, and he's clutching a mug of coffee in one hand and balancing something that looks like a vanilla milkshake with a straw stuck in it in the crook of his elbow.

Well, at least he doesn't look like he's in pain.

"Good morning, Captain!" Tony says, brightly. "Did you sleep well?" Then he sees what Steve's actually been doing and he lifts an eyebrow. "Oh, that's cute. The exercise regimen. But of course. No, don't let me interrupt you. You keep doing that. I'll watch." He sets his mug and cup on the table next to last night's abandoned bowl of raspberries.

Steve gathers his feet under him and stands up. He's not doing this for Tony's benefit. "No," he says, obstinately, even though he knows he needs the strength and it shouldn't matter if Tony's watching him because it never mattered before. He liked it before, even; some part of him enjoyed showing off, because he knew Tony liked watching him. But he can't bear it now. "I'm all done."

Tony's arch gaze suggests that he knows perfectly well that Steve wasn't. "Suit yourself, Captain. You know you're only hurting yourself, letting your strength slip away." He points to a spot on the wall. "Breakfast time. Sit down. Wrists into those manacles."

The manacles Tony's indicated are mounted at half-height on the wall; he'll have to be sitting on the floor to reach them. They're fastened into the wall, cuffs open, and no doubt Tony has a mechanism for closing them.

Tony's asking him to participate in his own imprisonment.

He wonders what will happen if he says no.

He doesn't even have to say anything. Tony always knows what he's thinking.

Slowly, almost casually, Tony's hand settles on his sidearm. He doesn't draw the gun, but his fingers curl around it, and he tilts his head and regards Steve, a considering look in his eyes. "Is this really the hill you want to die on, Captain?" He just sounds... curious. Like he knows what Steve's answer should be, but he's waiting to see if Steve will surprise him.

Facing him, Steve lifts his head. He still remembers what it is to be Captain America. "You don't want to kill me, Tony." That much has to be true. "You'd have done it already."

Tony might know him, but that goes both ways.

A shrug, an acknowledgment of his point. "I don't want to kill you," Tony says. Steve breathes out—

And Tony draws and aims, very deliberately, at Steve's shoulder. Non-vital, but not a place Steve particularly wants to get shot, especially without a healing factor. Tony ostentatiously flips the safety off. There's cool competence in his eyes. Steve's hardly ever seen him fire a gun, but he's sure Tony can use them—that, and Tony's walked around for a decade in a suit with repulsor rays in his palms. He's a good shot.

"But I'm certainly not opposed to hurting you," Tony adds. "I could shoot you and then shackle you to the wall and get on with the rest of my day. I do have a schedule to keep, Captain. So you'll still end up in chains whether you go willingly or not, but it's your choice as to whether you'll be doing it with a bullet in your shoulder."

Steve breathes in. Breathes out. Breathes in.

"I think I'll just sit down now," he says, his jaw clenched.

Tony smiles, cold and nearly unrecognizable. He's won, and he knows it. "Excellent decision, Captain," he says, and he holsters the gun.

Steve turns his back on Tony, heads to the wall, and sits down, between the manacles, stretching his legs in front of him. He raises his hands, pressing his wrists against the cool metal.

Tony flips a switch on the same panel that had controlled the energy barrier last night, and the manacles click shut. Another switch, and the barrier falls. He moves the coffee cup next to the bank of monitors, taking a sip on the way, and then grabs the other cup and the bowl of berries. Steve definitely doesn't want any more berries.

Walking over to him, Tony kneels down. The gesture is somehow patronizing, like he's putting himself on the level of a small child. He sets the cup next to Steve and holds out the bowl.

"Your reward, Captain," Tony says, with a smile. "For making the right choice. I'm sure they're still fine; I've seen you eat things in much worse states."

It had taken Tony some time to persuade Steve that he didn't have to eat all the leftovers in the mansion. He knows he can't afford to turn food down. It doesn't matter that Tony's calling it a reward. Tony can call it what he likes. At least he's focusing on Steve.

So Steve opens his mouth, and Tony strips off a glove, and he lets Tony feed him the berries one after another, until the bowl's empty. They aren't as good as they were last night, but they're edible; even so, he can't imagine they'll ever taste truly good to him again.

"There we go," Tony says, indulgently, pulling the glove back on; it's more praise. "See how easy it is when you give in, Captain? All you have to do is what I ask of you. This needn't be messy at all. It's only as hard as you make it."

He lifts the shake. It's not a milkshake, Steve realizes, but it's vanilla. It smells sort of like a protein shake.

"Meal replacement," Tony says. "I'm afraid I won't have the time later to devote to feeding you at the pace I would prefer, so here are your calories for the day. Drink up." He sets the straw to Steve's mouth.

Steve can't afford to say no. He purses his lips around the straw and sucks.

It's not the best thing he's ever had, but it doesn't taste too bad. Tony's not at the point yet where he's feeding him deliberately awful things and expecting gratitude. Tony, in fact, is still smiling, crouching there, holding the cup for him as he drinks. It takes Steve what has to be several minutes to drink it all but Tony never falters or looks in any way bored; he looks delighted to be there, his smile a little fond, like it is his especial pleasure to make sure Steve is fed. Once again, it's an attitude he would expect from his Tony.

It's almost shockingly intimate, Steve thinks, and he tries not to ponder the obvious comparison as he watches Tony watch his throat work as he swallows it all down. It's the sort of thing most people would assume was sexual, and in most contexts this probably would be—but, the implications of Tony's outfit aside, that doesn't seem to be what Tony's getting out of this. As far as Steve can tell, Tony just wants to be close to him. Tony's always wanted that. It's just... coming out wrong.

There has to be something of the real Tony left.

When Steve's done with the shake, Tony gets up and takes the empty cup and bowl away.

And then Tony opens a drawer. Steve's already starting to tense at the sound of it—conditioning at work.

"I have another present for you, Captain." He's beaming again. "Well, for me. For both of us, really. I'm going to enjoy it a great deal. I don't think you will at all."

Whatever he takes out of the drawer is small and dark and fits in his clenched fist; he leaves the drawer open. And then he turns to Steve and opens his palm.

It's a collar. It's elegant, made of black leather, matching what Tony is wearing. The edges are stitched, and it looks like the inside is lined. The buckle and a pair of D-rings gleam silvery-bright. Steve bets it's exactly his size.

Everything in Steve twists up in one knot of horrified, agonized desire. He thinks he might be sick.

Tony is watching Steve's reaction with avid, eager enjoyment, eyes bright. "Oh, yes," he says, "that's exactly what I thought." His smile has too many teeth. "Captain America, the sentinel of liberty, with every fiber in his being opposed to the idea of any human belonging to another."

God. Tony is so wrong. Oh, he's right that Steve believes in freedom, and he's right that Steve hates this, but—

Tony has no idea whatsoever.

Steve's always been a traditionalist when it comes to the idea of commitment, and he understands symbols as well as anyone who's wrapped himself in the American flag for most of his adult life possibly can. He knows that generally the people he's dated expect certain things of Captain America. Everyone does. And certainly no one expects him to enjoy the things he enjoys. If they knew, if they really knew, they wouldn't be able to handle it.

Captain America wants to be collared.

And he doesn't think he could stand only having a play collar, informally, for scenes, to taunt him what he can't have, because no one would want to collar him and mean it, not the way he wants them to mean it. He doesn't need 24/7. He doesn't need it to live. But for him a collar means permanence. A collar means commitment. Someone who will care for him, and have his back, and stand with him. Someone who loves him enough to want that to show. His past partners have never wanted it as much as he does; it wouldn't have meant the same thing to any of them. So they never offered. And so he's never been collared.

He would have let Tony collar him, he thinks. In a heartbeat. He would have wanted it to be Tony. But it couldn't have been, because Tony would never have wanted this.

The collar is heavy as it settles around Steve's neck, a heavier weight on him than it should be, or perhaps it only feels like it is. It's lined with something soft and rich, maybe suede, maybe lambskin. It feels nice against the sensitive skin of Steve's neck, a luxury for some hedonistic version of himself, and for an instant he takes pleasure in the sensation, and for an awful moment he thinks about how happy he could have been if this were real.

Tony's smiling as he fastens the buckle and gives one of the rings an experimental tug. There's just enough room for him to slide a finger inside the collar, and he does so, caressing Steve's neck with a fingertip. Steve shudders, a visceral full-body shudder somewhere on the border between revulsion and arousal, and he can't tell if he wants this or if he doesn't.

It's not Tony, he tells himself. It's not the real Tony.

"There," Tony says. "Now you're mine, Captain." Steve tries not to think of all the times he's dreamed of Tony saying that, over the years. There's a faraway look in Tony's eyes that might be regret. "I would have preferred red leather with gold, of course, so I'd know just looking at you who you belonged to. So anyone would know. Would you like that?"

Steve's never dared to let his fantasies go this far, but just the idea that Tony could have marked him with what everyone knows are Tony's colors, Iron Man's colors, the first thing Steve saw waking out of the ice—it feels like it's ripping him apart inside, like the stab and scrape of a dragging knife wound. It would have been beautiful, it would have been perfect, and he could never have had it. He can never have it in his mind again; the dream is now darkened and sullied. The real Tony doesn't want this.

"No," Steve breathes. He doesn't mean to speak aloud, but he knows Tony hears him, because Tony smiles wider.

"You work with what you have, though," Tony says. "I didn't have the time for a custom job. And, of course, no one here knows I'm Iron Man." He makes a thoughtful noise. "I suppose I could convince people that Iron Man is likewise red and gold because I design the armor. I'll have to think about it."

"Don't," Steve says, a little louder, finding his voice now. Of course, Tony just smiles.

"I've got some work to do," Tony adds, "and I was thinking that it's a shame not to have you by my side. I mean, why else am I even keeping you if I can't enjoy you, right?" He steps back, goes to the drawer again, and takes out a leash—of course it's a leash—and a pair of very sturdy-looking cuffs, heavy manacles that will hold Steve's wrists together. Tony leaves the leash on the table, but he's got the cuffs in his hands.

This is Steve's chance. If Tony wants to move him, to cuff him again somewhere else, he's going to have to release him from his current manacles. Steve will be ever so briefly free. He gets one shot at overpowering Tony. He glances around the room. His shield is too far—Tony can definitely shoot him before he gets there—but if he rushes Tony directly he can make it.

Tony's at the wall switch, a few feet away. "Stay there," he says.

The manacles click open, and Steve is on his feet and lunging forward. He needs to take Tony down without hurting him too badly, he thinks, and he swings out—

Tony steps aside. He was expecting this. Right now he's at least as strong as Steve is, and Steve taught him everything he knew about hand-to-hand. These are not the odds Steve is used to working with.

The punch sails past Tony's head. Then Tony grabs Steve's arm. His grip is steady and powerful; Steve is held fast. Tony forces his arm down, spins him around, and drops him to the floor. Hard.

Steve twists his head as he lands and just barely avoids hitting the concrete face-first. His side is aching with the impact. There's a crushing weight in the middle of Steve's back. It might be Tony's knee, or his boot. He can't exactly turn around to see. Tony is holding Steve's hands behind his back and cuffing his wrists, efficiently.

"I suppose you had to try it, didn't you?" Tony's voice is ice-cold. "I'm not unreasonably cruel, Captain. I understand that sometimes people make mistakes. Bad decisions. This was your one free shot. I won't be lenient with you, next time."

The pressure on Steve's back slackens, but he's cuffed face-down; he can't exactly get up and make a run for it.

And then Tony clips the leash onto his collar. Well. Great.

Tony's hands are on his shoulders, grabbing him roughly, hauling him upright, until Steve gets his feet under him—tricky, with the way his hands are cuffed—and stands.

He doesn't try anything else. There's no point.

Tony is inspecting him, critically, squinting. "At least you didn't bruise your pretty face." he says, as if the important thing here is whether Steve's acquired additional visible wounds, and then he tugs on the leash like Steve is a recalcitrant dog. "That cut on your head from yesterday is deeply unfortunate. Come along, Captain."

Steve glances around the room as Tony starts to lead him forward, and helplessly his gaze settles on the St. Andrew's Cross, surely the most eye-catching object in the room. He can see himself reflected in the mirror behind the cross: his shoulders are slumped, his hair mussed, his eyes perhaps dull. There's dried blood on his temple. Tony's collar gleams around his neck. He can see Tony's reflection, too, smirking at him once he sees that Steve is watching him.

He wonders if now is when Tony is going to chain him to the cross and take him apart.

Tony tugs on the leash again. "Not right now, I'm afraid. The cross is going to have to wait." In the mirror, Steve can see Tony's smile broaden. "I have things to do, and you're not quite in the right mindset yet to appreciate everything I'm going to do to you. But we're getting there. Soon."

He lets Tony lead him back away from the cross, toward the workspace setup—Tony's plush, comfortable chair, surrounded by monitors.

Tony motions to a spot on the floor just to the left of the chair. "Kneel."

Slipping the end of the leash around his wrist, Tony settles himself down into the chair. There's not enough slack for Steve to do anything other than kneel. He can't use the leash to drag Tony anywhere, not when the other end is fastened to his own neck.

Steve kneels, legs folded under him, sinking down and back so that he's sitting on his feet.

"No." Tony's voice is sharp. He tugs on the leash again, a snap of tension. "Not like that. Kneel up."

He doesn't quite understand what Tony means at first. Confused, he looks up, and Tony impatiently motions upward. Then he gets it. He pushes himself up until his weight is all on his knees on the cold concrete floor, and he knows instantly why Tony asked him to do this.

This is going to hurt.

Stress positions, says a calm voice in the back of Steve's mind. Very easy, potentially very painful. Order someone to hold a pose that they won't be able to stay in without pain, and then have them keep holding it. And Steve's going to do it to himself; it's a test of his own strength, stamina, and pain tolerance. He thinks that maybe this nightmare version of Tony is going to be especially pleased by that. Tony doesn't even have to lift a finger and he'll be hurting him.

He's more than a little surprised when Tony's hand comes to rest on his head and curls through his hair, stroking lightly. The sensation is pleasurable, a caress, and his brain can't quite make sense of the combination of inputs. Tony's fingers massage his scalp, and Steve's knees are already beginning to ache.

"Good," Tony says. "Now you're going to stay right there, and I'm going to get some work done."

With his other hand he brings up a filesystem on the monitors and opens a schematic Steve doesn't recognize. This part of the design process seems to involve more thought than actual activity, as Tony doesn't do much besides rotate the model and occasionally sip his coffee. His left hand stays on Steve's head, and he cards his fingers through Steve's hair as he hums to himself.

Tony manipulates the schematic, erasing and redrawing a few lines while frowning at it. He brings up some kind of equation on one of the secondary monitors. Steve tries not to think about how much his knees are already hurting. He holds himself still. He already knows Tony's not going to like it if he tries to shift position. Tony's hand drops absently to the back of Steve's neck, and he rubs at the trapezius muscle from Steve's shoulder up to the base of his skull. It feels nice. It's something Tony would have done for him before, and Steve is caught between enjoying the feeling of it and knowing that the rest of him is very shortly going to be in agony.

"You're very tense," Tony observes, and then he looks away from the monitors to glance down at Steve, like he honestly expects him to reply to that. Like he doesn't know.

"It's been a rough few days," Steve says, finally.

Tony's smile is once again so very cruel. "It's hardly begun." His fingers slide back up through Steve's hair, cradling the back of Steve's head. "Do you want to know a secret, Captain? Since you're sitting here so nicely for me."

"I suppose you're going to tell me," Steve says.

As he says it, a sudden hope brightens within him. They're alone. What if this is where Tony tells him it's all fake? Tony hasn't really hurt him, not yet. Sure, he hit him and sure, he's thrown him around a little—but so far it's really nothing worse than they've done to each other in sparring matches over the years. What if this is where Tony says he's only pretending? What if now is when Tony leans down and divulges the plans he has for getting the two of them out of here?

"Gladly." Tony smiles. "You see, the Secret Empire has made a huge mistake with me. They don't know me at all."

Yes, Steve thinks. Finally. They're getting out of here.

"They expect me to have no ambition," he continues, in tones of utter disgust, and Steve's heart sinks. "They expect I'm going to be content with a position designing bombs for them forever. A nobody, slaving away in their underground lair." He smiles. "I can do ever so much better than that, Captain. They don't know it, but I'm going to be Number One. And then their pathetic organization will be a force to be reckoned with. No superheroes will be able to stand up to me."

Steve shuts his eyes. No. This isn't a trick. This really isn't a trick at all. Tony's secret plans are about how he can hurt more people.

"Aww." When Steve opens his eyes and looks up, Tony frowns at him. "You're not happy, Captain? You should be honored. You're the only one who knows." He turns back to the monitors and keeps talking, brightly, like this is a rational, reasonable plan. "Now, I know there's not a lot of room at the top right now, but that can change. I've got time to make my move. Get them to trust me before I take them out. Especially after they see what I'll have done to you. There'll be no question of my loyalties then. You'll be an excellent example. And they'll never see it coming."

Steve doesn't know what expression is on his own face, but it must be distraught enough to please Tony, because Tony just grins down at him before turning back to his work.

He can't have lost Tony. Tony has to be in there somewhere. They've kept Tony's engineering genius; they can't just keep that and lose everything else about him. Whatever they've done to him can't possibly be that selective. The fact that Tony cares about him, however... twisted... it's become, is proof that there's something. If it weren't really Tony, there would be no reason for him to have any fondness for Steve. But everyone knows about Tony and Captain America, for Tony's entire life. That has to be from the real Tony.

It took Steve ten years to make a move, and they could have been happy for so much longer if only he'd said something. They got a month. And it was a good month, the best, but if that's all they're ever going to have—

No, he tells himself. He can't think like that. He's going to escape and bring Tony with him and they're going to get him back to normal and he's still going to love Tony. No matter what.

He can't say how long Tony works for, sitting there and staring at his schematics, making notes here and there, petting Steve's hair. He can only measure the time by the aching of his knees; he's resting all his weight on his kneecaps, and it's not like his uniform is particularly padded. There's only a thin layer of leather and fabric between him and unyielding concrete.

At some point he starts to shift his weight, to try to relieve the pain, and he hisses under his breath, as that turns out not to help—one side only floods with new, unpleasant sensation and the other hurts more with the added weight.

Tony glances down. "Oh!" he says, in a tone of the greatest delight. "You're hurting."

Steve looks up at him and grits his teeth. There's not really anything he can say to that.

Tony's smile is almost beatific. He shifts in his seat and pulls out... a cushion. It's a soft red throw pillow. Right now, Steve can't imagine anything he wants more. Tony watches him watch the cushion and he laughs. "I'll tell you what, Captain. I'll make you a deal. Say please, and I'll give you this cushion."

Steve keeps looking up at him and says nothing. Tony's not going to make him beg.

"You must be in a fair amount of pain," Tony says. His voice is perfectly even. "You've done so well so far. All you have to do is say please. I'll even let you shift position. Get your weight off your knees. You won't be in pain anymore. All you have to do is ask me, and I'll make it stop hurting. Just one word. Say please."

Biting his lip, Steve once again says nothing.

And then Tony smiles, hard and sharp, smiling like the smile is a knife. "I know you know how to say it. I know you like saying it." His mouth twists, and there's no doubt as to the circumstances he's remembering.

It's the first time Tony's acknowledged what they are to each other now, and Steve goes cold all over. He doesn't want to think about all the times he's told Tony please, all the times he's happily, joyfully consented to whatever Tony wants to do to him, all the times he begged for more, all the times he imagined something that was so like this and nothing at all like it.

"Not like this." Steve's voice is hoarse. "Not like this, Tony."

Tony raises his eyebrows, unfazed. "This would hardly be effective if I stayed within your comfort zone, would it?" He holds out his palm, imploring. "I'm hardly asking a lot of you. I only want you to say one word. One word, and this will be over."

Steve lifts his head. "No."

The stare Tony fixes him with is full of a sort of weary disappointment. "Well, I suppose it's early days yet." He wedges the pillow behind his back and swivels his chair toward the monitors again. "We'll have that stubbornness out of you soon enough."

Tony keeps working, and Steve can't say how much time passes. Half an hour? An hour? He has no idea. He's trembling. He can't stay like this for much longer. He doesn't have the endurance he's used to. His knees are all fire, and the pain's spreading up through his thighs, and he knows he isn't going to be able to stay up. His arms are aching from being held back.

Sheer force of will isn't enough to triumph over basic biological facts. Not without the serum.

Shaking, Steve collapses sideways on the floor. He hits the concrete shoulder-first; cuffed as he is, he can't move to minimize the force of the landing, and he can't get back up.

Mercifully, Tony's given him just enough slack on the leash that he doesn't end up hanging himself.

Tony doesn't say anything. He doesn't even look up. He works quietly for what is probably a few more minutes. Steve can't really see him, but he can hear him typing away. Then Tony stands up. Booted feet stop right in front of Steve's face.

He wonders if Tony's going to kick him. It's not like Steve can do anything to prevent him.

"Hell of a thing, failure." Tony's voice is level, contemplative. "It's awful when your body just won't do what you want, isn't it? You probably think you're familiar with that. You're thinking right now that you remember growing up and being weak. You've had the serum for the past fifteen years of your life. I'm betting you don't remember life before your miracle cure as well as you think you do. We just found one of your limits, Captain." He squats down, so Steve can see him, and he smiles. "Tell me, was it where you thought it would be?"

This is where Steve's usual response to a villain would be an insult. Go to hell. But he doesn't wish harm on Tony. He can't. This is Tony. So he looks up and breathes in and out and says nothing.

Tony sighs. "You," he says, "are making my life very difficult. And I really must finish these preliminary notes by tomorrow morning. I have an important presentation to give. So, if you'll excuse me, I don't want you to get up to any trouble while I'm away."

He grabs Steve by the arm and begins to drag him across the room. He's strong; even though Steve's heavy, Tony's not acting like Steve is any kind of burden. Tony drags him to just inside the area where the emitter bars start, then he leaves him inside the cell, still lying on his side. He unclips the leash but doesn't remove the cuffs, and after a few seconds the bars start to hum.

Steve wonders if he should beg, if he should give in to Tony's demands, if that will make Tony stay and stop building bombs and hurt him instead. Isn't that what he wants?

He can't speak.

"Don't worry, Captain," Tony says. "I won't forget about you."

The door opens and shuts and he's gone.

Steve lies on the floor and thinks maybe Tony has gotten to him already.

He should have said something. Tony's going to build bombs, Tony's left him to go design bombs, and people are going to die because Steve couldn't take a little pain. If he'd just begged— if he'd just done what Tony wanted, Tony would have stayed, Tony would have focused on him—

Tony wasn't even focusing on him, and Steve couldn't handle a simple stress position. He doesn't know how he's going to survive Tony paying attention to him.

He'll do better. He's got to.

He's not conscious of falling asleep, but he must have, because he wakes when the door opens and the energy bars shut off. Then Tony's at his side.

Tony's sitting up against the wall, and that's not right, he thinks, groggily, as Tony pulls him closer. They're cuddling. His head is practically in Tony's lap. Tony smells right, he thinks. All of Steve's instincts tell him that this is the Tony he loves and trusts.

Unfortunately, his instincts are lying to him.

The thought drifts through his head that maybe he could pretend that this is still Tony. The real Tony would do this. If Tony's going to do it anyway, maybe it doesn't matter what Steve thinks about it?

No. He has to hold fast.

"I told you I wasn't going to forget about you," Tony murmurs, and he runs his fingers through Steve's hair. "I did miss you, though. It's just not the same without you."

He needs to get Tony to focus on him. He has to.

"So stay here," Steve rasps. His throat is dry. "You're all talk, Tony. You haven't done anything to me."

Tony's hand tightens in his hair. "I'm not stupid, Captain. I know you're trying to distract me. It's a noble effort, but it's not going to work. You want to know why?"

Steve shuts his eyes. "Why?"

"For one thing," Tony says, "I'm done for the day, and there's nothing to work on until after my meeting tomorrow. Now if you'd like me to torture you recreationally, I'd be thrilled to, and I do intend to, but right now there's nothing you'd be distracting me from doing." Tony curls a fingertip beneath Steve's collar again, and Steve opens his eyes and shudders. Tony just chuckles. "And the other reason, as I've said before, is that pain's not how I break you."

"Then what was all that about earlier?" Steve can't help but ask the question.

"That wasn't breaking you, Captain." This is the voice Tony gets when he's explaining something. A new invention. A plan of attack. "That was just softening you up. Fun and rewarding. But you must know that the way I get to you is through other people. Haul out an innocent person and threaten to hurt them—oh, then you'll do whatever I want, won't you?"

Of course. Tony knows him, after all. And that particular tactic—well, it's effective.

"And what we have here," Tony says, continuing on, "is a unique opportunity. The best possible person to hurt is me. And watching me like this—well, that hurts you. You're still holding out hope that the Tony Stark you knew is present, that you can bring him back. He doesn't live here anymore. So I'm going to build the best weapons I can, and I'm going to watch them used to kill whoever needs to be killed, and you're going to realize he's gone. The Tony you knew would never have done that. He's gone for good, and your team will never find you. He's dead, Captain. He's dead, and no one's ever coming for you. And that's what's going to break you."

"You're lying," Steve breathes.

Tony pushes Steve off his lap and stands up.

When Steve looks up, Tony's smiling.

"Am I?" he asks. "I don't think I am. Why don't you think about it? Good night, Captain."

The energy bars click back on, and then, surprisingly, the restraints click open. There must be some kind of remote control on them.

Steve doesn't even bother moving as Tony leaves the room.

In the morning, Tony arrives at what feels to Steve like earlier than he had the previous day, although Steve acknowledges that he has no way of telling time. But if it is morning, and Tony wasn't lying about it being morning the last time, then this is the third day of his captivity. Tony's carrying another protein shake, this one perhaps a little smaller than yesterday's. Tony might be planning to feed him again later.

Or he might be planning to starve him. It's hard to tell.

He's tried to ignore Tony's parting words from last night as best he can, and he thinks that's because something deep inside of him knows that Tony's right. He's holding on because he believes he can get them out of here, because he believes that there's something left of Tony in there. But what if he stops believing that?

He hasn't bothered to start his morning exercises, and he's already crawling toward the restraints on the wall when Tony stops and tilts his head curiously.

"I didn't even have to tell you to do that," Tony says, voice brimming with pride. "You're learning."

Steve's out of smart remarks. He just sits, back against the wall, and holds his wrists up for the manacles, which click into place. In an instant Tony's next to him, running his hands through his hair like his very touch is a reward. It would be, if it were really him.

"So good," Tony murmurs. "You're definitely getting a reward. I'll have to get more raspberries."

Steve can't actually stop the wince.

"Aversion already?" Tony looks very proud of himself. "That was quick. Don't worry, I'll find something else you like. But this is breakfast again," he says, holding the shake out. "Behave yourself today, and there will be better things later."

He needs the calories. He drinks down every bit of the shake, and Tony watches him.

Tony unfastens Steve's collar, takes it off him, and loops it around his own wrist a few times. Steve wonders if no longer being symbolically Tony's means that he's expendable.

Then Tony gets up, and he waits for Tony to start work—but instead Tony heads back toward the door.

"One minute," Tony calls out over his shoulder. "I have to get you a few things."

It's a break in the routine. He should have known that Tony wouldn't be predictable. And without the collar, he's beginning to get nervous. The collar was awful, but at least it meant that he was something to Tony. If he isn't anything—well, that could be very bad.

Tony comes back in. He has a small bag in one hand, a few towels over his shoulder, and a bowl of water in the other hand. Steam rises from the surface of the water. He sets this all down next to Steve, very carefully; he has steady hands, he's always had steady hands, and the water barely even sloshes.

"You remember me telling you I had an important meeting today?" Tony asks, as he strips off his gloves and unzips the bag. "I do. And you're invited. But, sad to say, you're looking a little scruffy. I take care of what's mine. I believe I told you that before."

The kit comes out of the bag now. A mug. A brush. A bottle of aftershave. A cake of soap. A strop. And a straight razor.

Oh.

Tony knows what he likes—a good old-fashioned shave. Tony also knows what the absolute most terrifying way to accomplish his goal is.

The towel Tony puts around his face is warm, with enough moisture to soften up some of the stubble. It feels nice, he thinks, and he remembers Tony smiling triumphantly at him yesterday when it hurt him too much to kneel, and it all collides with his memories of Tony, already becoming more and more distant in his mind.

"Hold this," Tony says, and Steve obediently clutches his fingers around the edge of the long piece of leather as Tony briskly strops the blade. Steve watches Tony work up the soap into a lather in the mug. He's looking at it with the same concentration he gives to a circuit board that he's about to solder.

He's never actually seen Tony shave with a straight razor, but either he's watched Steve enough times to pick it up or someone—probably Jarvis—taught him when he was younger, because he definitely acts like he knows what he's doing.

Steve hopes Tony knows what he's doing.

"Chin up."

Steve lifts his head, because he's not going to argue with a man holding a razor to his throat.

Tony dabs the brush into the soap and generously lathers up Steve's face, jaw, and throat.

"What," Steve asks, "you're not going to shave my head too?"

Tony pauses with the razor inches from Steve's neck. He shrugs. "I would if I thought it would humiliate you. I don't think it will. And I like your hair, so I'd miss it." He shrugs again.

The razor is closer and closer, and it's about to touch Steve's throat. Steve swallows hard. He can't move.

"You're afraid of me," Tony breathes, delighted, a scientist making a wonderful new discovery. His free hand settles lightly on Steve's forehead, brushing the hair back from his head. "Relax, Captain. If I wanted to kill you, I'd have done it already. And if I wanted to cut you, it wouldn't be your face. Now hold still. I have good hands, but I'm sure you don't want to chance any mistakes."

Tony sets the blade to Steve's throat. Steve doesn't move, but he can feel the pressure of it against his skin. It should be a show of trust. He's baring his throat to Tony. It's not a show of trust when he doesn't have a choice, when he knows he shouldn't trust what's left of Tony. There's nothing else he can do.

Ordinarily, he loves Tony's hands. He's seen Tony do amazing things with his hands. Steve's watched Tony shape the smallest of circuits beneath his fingertips. He's watched Tony's hands curve around hammer hafts as he shapes armor into place. He's watched Tony sign reams and reams of paperwork for the team. He's watched Tony fly, soaring through the air, held up by the glowing of his palms. And he's felt Tony's fingers interlaced with his; he's watched Tony's hands on his body, his eyes bright and joyous, like touching Steve is everything he's ever wanted.

Now Tony's got a razor at Steve's throat and Steve just has to hope Tony won't decide now is a good time to kill him. Like so much else of what Tony's done so far, it would have been wonderful, if only it had been Tony.

Tony's hands are steady, and he shaves Steve almost lingeringly, like he's learning the contours of his face with the blade, a dangerous caress.

There's a small smile edging its way across Tony's face. "You're perfect, aren't you?"

Steve would laugh if there weren't a blade at his throat. He's positive that perfect people don't let their lover get kidnapped and brainwashed. He imagines that Tony, the real Tony, would say he shouldn't blame himself. But it's Steve's fault that the Secret Empire decided to target Tony. If they'd never gotten involved, Tony would be safe now.

Well, okay, Tony would probably be out trying to get himself killed in new and exciting ways, but it wouldn't be because of Steve, and he'd be safe from this.

Tony's fingers are warm on Steve's face, gentle, and he's touching Steve like he cares about him. Like he loves him. The Tony who loves him must still be out there somewhere, in here somewhere, underneath this cruel facade, hidden behind the man who wants to break him until he becomes like him, until he doesn't remember himself.

He doesn't know how long Tony takes, but Tony goes over his face again, another pass of the blade, until he's satisfied with the smoothness of Steve's skin. Steve's still chained to the wall and can't feel his face himself, but he's sure Tony's done a good job. Tony does clean up nicely, and even this Tony seems to want to extend that same care to him.

Tony folds the razor back up, wipes off Steve's face, and then dabs on aftershave. It's one of the brands Tony likes; the sense-memory of the smell, of cuddling up to Tony, hits him all at once.

"There," Tony says. "You'd have to pay good money for a shave like that, these days. You could probably do with a bath, but it's not urgent yet, and honestly it's not worth the trouble that hosing you down would be. I'll save it for when the blood needs to come off." He says this in a perfectly calm tone of voice, as if it is entirely reasonable to plan for a moment in the future when Steve will be dripping with blood.

Tony undoes the collar from around his own wrist and fastens it around Steve's neck again.

Steve tries not to think of it as a comfort, and he fails miserably.

Whatever Tony wants from him, he doesn't currently want him dead, which is probably better than a lot of the Secret Empire could have in mind for him. When he infiltrated one of their bases before, they were definitely trying to kill him. Tony has at least some apparent status within the organization, and if he's under Tony's protection that means he's at least going to be alive. They're both going to live. It doesn't matter what he has to do to get through this if they both make it out alive.

Tony rubs two bare fingers over Steve's newly-shaven skin, just above where the collar sits, and Steve shivers. He's sensitive there. He knows he is.

He tries not to remember Tony kissing him there. He tries not to remember how much he'd loved it.

"I'm going to cuff you now," Tony says, putting his gloves back on. "I trust there won't be a repeat of yesterday's unfortunate behavior."

Steve meets Tony's eyes. "I'll stay."

So Tony releases the manacles, hauls Steve up to standing, and cuffs him—hands in front this time. Steve doesn't try anything. Tony clips the leash to Steve's collar again, slips the end around his own wrist... and then opens a drawer and comes up with the ball gag again.

No, Steve wants to say, but he can't make himself protest aloud. It's not like he can do anything about it.

"We're off to meet with some very important people," Tony says. "And you know a few things about me that I don't think you should tell anyone." His secret identity. His secret plans for world domination. Could be either, really.

He pulls Steve's cowl back up—God only knows why—and then shoves the gag into Steve's mouth, fastening it over Steve's cowl, behind his head. Steve's mouth stretches wide over the gag. He can't speak.

"And now you won't be able to tell anyone anything," Tony says, cheerfully. "And aren't you just so pretty like this? Captain America, bound and gagged and collared and leashed. They should have painted you just like this on your posters. An inspiration for generations to come. I know I'm enjoying this. And you're all mine."

With his free hand, he opens another drawer and grabs the hood he wore yesterday, dropping it over his head, pulling it down to peer at Steve through the eyeholes. He's still wearing basically a leather thong and thigh boots. It's not very anonymous at all.

"You don't get a hood, Captain," Tony informs him. "Everyone's going to know who you are. Which is the point. And if you're thinking of making an escape, please remember that I am very well-armed. I'd hate to have to shoot you after putting all this effort into your appearance."

Thanks to the gag, Steve can't reply. It's not like he was going to try anything. Think of this as the initial reconnaissance run, he tells himself. He can learn the layout of the base. If he doesn't act up, he can learn more than if he does.

Satisfied by whatever he can glean from Steve's expression, Tony tugs him toward the door. There's no visible key or keypad, but the door clicks as if it had been locked when Tony puts his hand on it.

"Oh," Tony says. "I almost forgot."

He turns back toward the desk, grabs a dark piece of fabric out of the drawer... and blindfolds Steve. The fabric settles over the cutouts of Steve's mask, neatly blocking out all but the vaguest impression of light. God, he hates blindfolds.

"There," Tony says, sounding satisfied. "That's better. Don't want you learning any more than you need to. You will learn the way to the meeting room, I know, because I'll need to direct you, but that can't be helped. Not like it will get you very far." He chuckles. "Also I suspect your memory isn't currently eidetic, what with the power-dampener. You probably won't even remember."

Steve hears the door open.

"Come on, then," Tony says, and hauls him forward on the leash.

It's another trust exercise, Steve supposes, but with someone he really shouldn't trust right now. Tony's hand is on the leash, all right, but Tony's other hand is on his shoulder, and his voice is soft in Steve's ear, guiding him. Ten paces forward. Turn left. Twenty paces. Left again. Wait. Five more paces. Careful, the floor is uneven.

He hears other footsteps around him and occasional low voices. They're not alone. An elevator, he thinks, as people crowd up to him. He feels someone brush against his side. Tony's right that parading him around in this getup isn't going to humiliate him, the way it might if he were someone else. He doesn't shame easily. But he is a little worried about being blindfolded and helpless in what is presumably an elevator full of Secret Empire members.

"Morning, 412," a man says, and Steve remembers that 412 is Tony.

"Hi, 90," Tony responds.

"That's the real Captain America, huh?" the man asks.

"Yep," Tony says. There's pride in his voice. He's made Steve look like this. "Taking him to meet the boss."

There's a hand on his face now, chilly and callused and broad. It's not Tony's hand. Tony's wearing gloves. The man—90—is very close to him. His breath is warm and stale and smells oddly like licorice. And then the hand is very abruptly removed.

"Excuse me," Tony says. His tone has an odd combination of deference and defiance. The man must be Tony's superior by number, but Tony clearly doesn't care. "I'm at a very delicate stage of the interrogation process. Interference could ruin everything. Don't touch him."

There's a pause, and Steve can only imagine how the man is staring at Tony, how Tony must be glaring back.

"Well," 90 says. "When you've broken him, perhaps you'll share."

"Perhaps," Tony agrees, obviously meaning fuck off.

The elevator dings, and he thinks 90 gets out. He's not sure if they're alone.

Tony's hand—it's gloved, it's Tony's hand—brushes his chin, just under the gag.

"It's all right," Tony murmurs. He smells right, too. Like himself, except he isn't. "I wouldn't share you. You belong to me."

Steve knows he shouldn't find that reassuring, but he does anyway.

When the elevator stops again, Tony leads him out, down another hall, turning this way and that. Steve concentrates on remembering the directions, not that the location of the conference room is going to do any good in an escape attempt.

"In here," Tony says, and Tony leads him forward. There's a pull on the leash that suggests that Tony is sitting down. "Kneel."

There's not a lot of slack, and Steve thinks he bumps into the side of a chair. He kneels up, like Tony asked him to before, not resting his weight on his heels.

"Good," Tony murmurs. Then Tony's hands are on Steve's head, and he pulls off the blindfold, and Steve blinks as his eyes adjust to the bright room.

There's the edge of a polished wooden conference table just below where his eyes are, a long oval table, with half the seats filled. He and Tony are at one end, and at other are masked figures, their hoods numbered one through nine. The leaders of the Secret Empire.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Tony says, in the voice he saves for sales pitches. He turns his hands palm-up, pointing in Steve's direction. Steve's leash is still around Tony's wrist. "Captain America."

"Thank you, 412," Number One says. It's a different voice than the Number One Steve remembers from so long ago; of course, Steve had watched that man shoot himself in the head. "We've asked you here today for a report on both of your projects. The weapons research first, if you please."

"Right." Tony clears his throat. He presses a control panel inset into the surface of the table, and a holographic image springs to life in the center of the table. It looks like one of the schematics Tony's been working on, but beyond that, Steve really has no idea what it is or does. He suspects it's not good. Tony spins the diagram to face the rest of the room. "The main issue is one of fault tolerance—" he highlights a few areas— "here, here, and here. Essentially, our facilities aren't equipped to build these with the precision required, and there are only so many ways to handle reinforcing this section of the casing without impacting the desired yield."

And then Tony's off on a technical explanation, the details of which are beyond Steve, but he tries to pay attention as much as he can; it takes his mind off his aching knees. Tony seems to be outlining a few different methods the design could be changed, offering their pros and cons, explaining apologetically that he hasn't yet run full simulations with any of these.

Number Three raises a hand. She's wearing a dark green pantsuit with her Secret Empire hood. "Assuming you begin simulations immediately, how long will it be before you can determine which revisions of the designs are viable?"

"Oh, not long at all!" Tony says, brightly. "A day, day and a half, for the mainframe work."

"And then production?"

Tony shrugs. "We can start building a prototype immediately after the design is finalized. Maybe a week, maybe less. But I can't make any guesses about mass production. Without inspecting your factories personally, it's hard to say how long it would take them to reconfigure. You will of course want testing before using them on civilians."

"Of course," she agrees.

A week, Steve thinks, bleakly. He has a week to get them out of here.

"And how is your progress with Captain America?" This is Number One.

"Coming along nicely," Tony says. Steve's positive that he's smiling under the hood. "He's made remarkable progress. While he hasn't been completely broken yet, he's amazingly compliant. Observe the lack of active resistance. He's not even fighting."

Tony pets the top of his head, near the wings of his cowl, like it's a reward.

And that's the thing, isn't it? He doesn't want to hurt Tony. He's trying to come up with ways to get out of here without hurting Tony.

Number Two leans forward. "And how long, in your opinion, will it be until his resistance is broken completely?"

"It's difficult to say," Tony says, sounding a little apologetic. "Humans are vastly less predictable than machines, and he's unusually stubborn. Ideally I'd like to have him broken in a week or two. It could take up to a month. He requires... constant effort."

Number One tilts his head, dubiously. "We gave you Captain America on the understanding that you would be quick and efficient, and that you would not allow him to interfere with your design work. Would it not be more efficient to assign Captain America to another torturer so that you can devote all your time to the bomb designs?"

Steve looks up at Tony, wild-eyed. They can't take Tony away from him. He needs to be with Tony. No matter what Tony does to him. He needs to be able to get them out of here together.

"Absolutely not," Tony says, very quickly. "You can see by his reaction that he's already formed a bond with me. No one else knows him like I do. You won't be able to make any progress. He's just too stubborn unless you know how to get to him. And I'm the only one who can."

Number One hums. "Very well. But I'll expect constant reports, 412."

"You'll have them," Tony says, and he sounds... relieved? He didn't want Steve to leave either.

God, what's become of them?

After a few more concluding remarks, Tony stands up, thanks them for their time, drags Steve up, and blindfolds him again, marching him back down the hall.

They're in the elevator again before Tony speaks.

"They're not going to take you from me, Captain," Tony says. "I'll never let them."

Steve is now absolutely sure he's not supposed to like the sound of that, but— it's Tony. He can't not be near Tony. Not in this situation. And whatever Tony does, he can take it.

He supposes that this is what Tony meant by remarkable progress.

When Tony pulls off Steve's blindfold, they're back in the workroom. Someone seems to have come in and tidied up in their absence; all the cups are gone, as is the shaving kit.

Tony drops his own hood on the nearest table and then takes the gag out of Steve's mouth. There's still a towel on one of the tables, and he picks it up and very gently wipes Steve's mouth off.

"There we go," he says. "Tell me the truth, Captain: would you have missed me?"

Yes, Steve thinks. He can't say it.

But Tony smiles. "You don't have to answer. I saw it in your eyes."

He unclips the leash. And then he unfastens Steve's cuffs.

For an instant, Steve is free—

And Tony punches him in the stomach. Hard.

Steve doubles over, taken by surprise; he hadn't seen it coming. The blow was unusually vicious. He takes a deep breath and tries not to gag.

Still quick, still brutal, Tony shoves him backwards, and he lands sprawling on the floor next to the restraints. The energy bars come up.

"I have a hell of a headache," Tony says. "And I've got work to do. I'll be back. Sometime."

Inconsistent treatment works best, Steve knows. If he can't predict what Tony's going to do, it's going to hurt him so much more. And he knows Tony knows that.

He lies on the floor gasping, and the door opens and shuts, and more than anything he wants Tony to come back. Tony just punched him and he wants Tony to come back. Even if Tony keeps hitting him.

He's not going to be able to hold out for much longer, is he?

Tony doesn't come back later that day. Steve thinks this is a true statement; the lights are still on, and he's not sure if it is, in fact, still day. He's hungry enough that he thinks it must be nighttime. Tony didn't come back to feed him, as he had offered.

He'd said he'd had a headache, Steve thinks. He's probably frustrated. Tired. Irrational. That was why he didn't do what he said he would.

He knows he's trying to ascribe some kind of consistency to Tony, some sensible reason why he might do that, even as he knows exactly why Tony did it: if Steve doesn't know what to expect, he's going to get desperate. He's going to try harder to please him in hopes of earning a reward and not a punishment. He's going to get closer and closer to cracking. All of which Tony wants.

On the plus side, he does get some sleep, and in the unchanging light of what he decides must be morning, he makes it through his entire exercise regimen, or as much of it as he can do while stuck in a cell.

It must be hours.

He wonders if Tony's not coming back as a method of torture, or if something's happened to him.

He wonders what the Avengers are doing.

They'll find him. They've got to find him. Somehow, he and Tony are going to get out of here, and it's all going to be okay.

The door opens.

It's Tony, with that bright, unsettlingly cruel smile that doesn't belong anywhere near his face. And his hands are full of food. Another milkshake. A bottle of water. Foil-wrapped granola bars. And an honest-to-God cheeseburger and fries.

Steve's stomach growls, and he's suddenly aware that it must be over a day since he's eaten anything. And Tony brought food. Oh God. Real food.

He sets all this down on the nearest table and takes off his gloves, the way he usually does before he feeds Steve. Steve hates that there's a usual routine for this now. "Sorry I've been away so long," he says, and he sounds actually, genuinely sorry. "There was work to be done. I brought you extra food, though, to make up for it."

It's better if Tony doesn't have to order him to move. Steve backs up toward the half-height restraints, so that Tony can get inside the cell.

"Not quite yet," Tony says, sharply, and he holds up his hand. "Take your shirt off."

Steve blinks. He can't have heard him right. "What?"

Well. He can't say that it hadn't occurred to him that Tony might want that. He's just been trying not to think about it. What with their past relationship and the way Tony's dressed and the unfortunate fact that it's an all-too-common part of torture, it's a definite possibility. It's statistically likely, he thinks, numbly. He can't even put words to it in his mind.

God, Tony's going to hate himself so much.

"Take your shirt off," Tony repeats.

"You don't want to do this to me," Steve says. "Tony, you— you really are going to regret this."

Tony stops, cocks his head to the side, and a flash of abject horror passes over his face and is gone. Maybe that's him, Steve thinks. Maybe that's the real Tony.

"Jesus Christ," Tony says, and his face is several shades paler. "I'm not going to rape you." Steve thinks, very distantly, that this is an odd place for Tony to acquire some limits. And then his voice settles back into that light, callous, arrogant tone. "You really think I would go for something as uncreative as that, Captain? I'm insulted." His mouth lifts in a smile. "I want to look at you. Maybe touch you a little. Strictly above the waist. What is that, second base? Take your shirt off."

Well, if he doesn't, Tony's probably going to shoot him. Steve peels his gloves off and drops them on the floor. The power-dampening bracelet still glimmers on his wrist. He pulls off his uniform shirt and lets it fall to the floor in a metallic thud of scale mail and leather, and then adds his undershirt to the pile. Bare to the waist, he lifts his head and looks up at Tony. "Like that?"

"Exactly like that," Tony says, contentedly. "Now into the manacles, if you please."

A little bewildered, Steve sits down and lets Tony remotely manacle him to the wall before Tony turns the cell bars off. The manacle locks just over the bracelet that's still on his left wrist. The wall is cold against his bare back. Tony nods approvingly. He's bringing over the burger, fries, and shake. An actual meal. And all he has to do, apparently, is take his shirt off.

Steve wonders if yesterday, or the day before, he would have objected out of principle, and Tony would have threatened him again. Probably.

He's hungry. He still needs to keep his strength up.

Tony kicks Steve's discarded shirt to the other side of where the bars are. Apparently he doesn't get to have his shirt at all. That's okay. He can work with that.

He thinks maybe two days ago this would have been an indignity.

It occurs to him now that he could have taken off the collar. When he's not chained to the wall, he's perfectly capable of undoing it himself. But he left it on. Tony gave it to him.

He thinks maybe this is also a problem.

Tony sits down next to him and sets the food on the ground. He doesn't move to hand Steve the food immediately, but instead reaches out and touches Steve. He presses two fingers to the collar he gave Steve, then draws them down, slowly, to the hollow of Steve's throat, to the edge of his collarbone, to his breast. His gaze is rapt, wondering, and Steve is reminded of the first time they slept together, when Tony looked at him like he thought he could never in a million years have been lucky enough to be here, when he gave Tony permission to touch him.

He didn't give him permission for this.

He did take off his shirt. Maybe that counts as permission. He should have at least protested.

You're under duress, says the small part of Steve's mind that remembers how to think rationally. This isn't consent. He would have hurt you if you hadn't done it. That's the definition of duress. He'd have shot you just like he said he would the other day. He's not Tony.

Tony smiles at him, warm and fond, and it could be real. It could be. "Steve," he whispers. "You're so beautiful."

The sound of his own name on Tony's lips makes Steve shiver and shudder. Tony hasn't said his name since this happened, and he doesn't know why. But now Tony is. It has to mean something, but hell if he knows what.

"I thought maybe you didn't remember my name," Steve says, and he doesn't realize he's said it at all until Tony lifts his head and smiles.

"I was saving it," Tony says. "For a special occasion." He's still smiling, and it's still that real smile. It's worse, somehow, to know that the awful thing they've warped Tony into can wear Tony's real face like a mask.

Tony's always been good at masks.

Steve clears his throat. "A special occasion?"

"I'm just making good progress with the design," Tony says, animatedly, the way he always is when he's proud of something he made. "The models are very encouraging. They're building the prototype now." He's talking about building bombs. He's going to hurt people. Steve just feels numb. He thinks there might have once been sadness there. "And who would I want to celebrate my victory with except you?"

"Me?"

Tony nods. "You're so beautiful, Steve, and you're all mine." His voice changes, hardens, and there's ugly possession in his tone now. Tony would never have sounded like this before. Tony's hand drifts down Steve's torso and settles on his abs, which are faintly mottled in the shape of Tony's fist. It had been a hard punch, yesterday. "Shame about the bruise. And your face, too, but this one concerns me more." He's not saying it like he's honestly concerned about Steve's welfare. He's saying it like a collector, who wants all his toys and baubles just so, mint in box. Or a man just home from the grocery store finding that the apples he bought had a few spots. Like the problem with Steve's injury is that it makes Steve less than perfect. He shrugs. "Ah, well. Only a minor flaw."

He picks up the burger and puts it to Steve's lips, and Steve is intensely grateful that Tony's not going to make him beg for it. Tony just... feeds it to him, smiling fondly. He doesn't ask him if it's good—which it is, because currently it's the best thing Steve can ever remember having eaten. The meat is perfectly cooked, medium-rare, the lettuce and tomatoes are crispy, the cheese is delicious, and Tony remembered the ketchup. He doesn't make Steve thank him. He just feeds him, and he looks so happy to be feeding him, and if this is what he wants, Steve can handle this.

Still silent, still smiling, Tony feeds him the fries, one by one. Steve ends up licking his fingers a little, tasting the salt.

He doesn't bite him. He can't. It's Tony.

And then Tony picks up the shake. Steve doesn't need an entire second meal, but can't exactly figure out how he can decline—and then he smells it.

"Today it's an actual milkshake," Tony says, sounding so very proud of himself. It's how he looks at Christmas and on birthdays—like he's just so thrilled to give people presents, to make them happy by providing for them. "I did say I was going to reward you. And I do remember your sweet tooth."

Maybe he'll still be able to eat burgers and fries and shakes after they get out of here. Maybe nothing will happen that will ruin this.

Tony presses the straw to Steve's lips and watches with intense, eager concentration as Steve drinks. The milkshake is excellent, just cream and sugar and vanilla, with none of the protein and nutrient sludge Tony's been feeding him.

"It's good, isn't it?" Tony asks, but he doesn't seem to expect an answer. His other hand is on Steve's shoulder, his thumb rubbing lightly across Steve's skin as Steve drinks it down. Steve can handle this. Steve can take this.

This is how much his dignity is worth. This is how much his principles are worth. He knows that he's only accepting this because it's Tony—it's not like he'd ever let any of his usual villains do this, not that they'd want to—and he knows Tony knows it and is using it. He thinks maybe this should bother him more than it is.

He can think about it when they're home. He's got to make it through this.

Eventually he's drunk it all, and Tony sets the cup down.

Then Tony gets up, goes over to one of his drawers, and takes out... more restraints. Unlike the solid single-piece cuffs he's previously had Steve in, these are individual wrist cuffs, heavy-duty, matching Steve's collar, with silvery D-rings. They're the kind of restraints used to cuff people to something else rather than to cuff their hands together, and indeed, the next thing Tony does is pick up one of the coils of rope from the floor and move it to the desk.

Tony walks back toward him with the restraints, and Steve tilts his head in confusion.

And then the whole room tilts around him.

He doesn't feel very good.

"That was fast," Tony says, admiringly. "I didn't think it would hit you so hard. That will make standing a little tricky."

"Am I goin' somewhere?" His voice comes out of him slurred and garbled, his tongue too thick to talk around. It sounds like he's drunk. He feels sort of drunk, but not exactly. He can't get drunk without putting in a hell of a lot of effort. Not since the serum.

The serum's not working right now.

Tony's smile is cruel again, hard-edged. "In a manner of speaking. Not very far."

"I don' feel good," Steve says. The world looks a little fuzzy. "'M I drunk, Tony?"

He can't be drunk. He'd have tasted the alcohol. Tony couldn't have slipped anything into his drink. He wouldn't have.

Tony wouldn't have, he reminds himself. But this man would have.

Tony's never drunk or eaten anything that he's fed Steve, has he?

It would have been easy.

"Drunk? Not exactly." Tony's face is bright. He's pleased with himself. "There was a sedative in the milkshake. I had to eyeball the dosage. Might have gone a little too high. I didn't want you giving me any trouble. You'd ruin my present."

Tony unlocks the manacles and Steve's arms fall. He can't make himself lift them. He just looks down at his hands against the concrete, like they belong to someone else. Everything is too heavy. He can't stand up. He probably can't even move. Holding his head up is about the limit of what he's capable of, and that's taking a lot of energy.

He doesn't think he wants a milkshake again. Ever.

Steve lets his head loll back so he can more-or-less look at Tony. "Your present?" he slurs.

"Mmm-hmm," Tony says. He picks up one of Steve's arms, buckles the cuff around his wrist, and then repeats the process with the other wrist. Leather tightens over the power-dampening bracelet, making it shift position, and Steve feels even sicker. "My present to myself, for the good work I've done. You. Just how I want you."

Steve doesn't like the sound of that at all.

There is really nothing he can do about it.

"Up we go," Tony says, and somehow Tony has an arm around him, a shoulder under him, bracing him, and he's hauling him upright. Steve is unsteady and can't get his feet under himself but Tony's dragging him across the room anyway.

He's not dragging him toward the cross.

Tony laughs when he sees Steve's head trying to turn to the mirror, to the cross. "You are obsessed with that thing, aren't you? Not yet. Not today. I need you horizontal. It'll be much easier for me if I can sit."

Betrayal twists within him, dark and raw. He'd almost been thinking that this Tony was somehow like his Tony, that just because he was kind to him, because there were lines that Tony wouldn't cross, that he was safe. But Tony is still his torturer, and Tony is clearly willing to drug him and— and—

Steve has no idea what he's going to do to him, and that's the most frightening part.

"Sadly, I don't really have a good setup for this," Tony says, as he guides Steve toward... one of the desks? "But I do need to be able to see, so I'm going to have to improvise. Here, let's get you on the desk."

The closest table has been cleared off, and Tony essentially drapes Steve over it; it's not like Steve is much more than dead weight. He's lying on his back along the length of the desk, his arms dangling off the sides. Tony looks at him, hums thoughtfully, picks up the rope, and starts looping it through the rings of one of the cuffs.

Tony crouches on the floor; he's passing the rope under the table and then through the rings of the cuff on Steve's other wrist. "This is going to be a little rudimentary, I'm afraid, but it's good enough for my purposes."

He can't make out all the details of what Tony's doing, but he can feel the tension of the rope pulling his arms down. He can't move. He couldn't have moved anyway, but he supposes that Tony wants to be sure.

There's a desk lamp on a swing-arm clamped by Steve's shoulder, and Tony tilts the lamp toward Steve and turns it on. Steve blinks into the too-bright light.

"There," Tony says, approvingly. He drags over one of his desk chairs and adjusts the height; sitting on it, he towers over Steve's supine body almost as much as if he'd been standing. "I think I've got everything I need."

"What." Steve stops and licks his lips. The room spins dizzily around him. At least he can't fall off the table. "What are you going to do to me?"

This seems to be something Tony was waiting for him to ask. He smiles, a broad, broad grin, and he very lightly sets his bare palm on Steve's chest, fingers sliding across his sternum. "You're so very handsome, Steve," he murmurs. "I don't think that you think of yourself like that, but you are. You're so beautiful. The ideal body, really, in every way. And you'll be the perfect canvas. My perfect canvas."

Steve squints into the light, trying to focus on Tony. "No offense, but you've never really seemed like the artistic type," he slurs.

"Oh!" Tony claps his hands once. "Bravado! How charming! You still have it in you. And there's a lot you don't know about me. I might not be a painter, but that doesn't mean I don't want to immortalize my genius. Surely you've seen my blueprints."

That is true; Tony does do rather a lot of technical drawings. But that doesn't explain Steve's role in this, and especially not why Steve is tied to a table.

"And I think you don't quite understand," Tony adds, "exactly how much you belong to me. I aim to illustrate this to you. On you." He laughs. "To illustrate you, actually."

Steve tries to glance around. There are no pens or pencils or brushes that he can see.

Tony unsheathes a wicked-looking combat knife, utilitarian and deadly sharp, and holds it up. Light glints off the blade.

Oh. Oh, God. No.

"In addition to your obvious physical charms," Tony says, like he's only lecturing, like he hasn't just pulled a knife on Steve, "the healing factor is also an enticement. I can tweak the bracelet you're wearing just enough to let you heal right up so I can do it all again. The ultimate blank slate. Or I can leave it and admire my work fading slowly. Or I can scar you. You'll scar now, you know." He smiles a very little smile, a spark of delight, and the idea clearly pleases him. "But I think I'm going to start with something non-permanent and work my way up. You'll have to hold very still, or it might be more permanent than you would like."

If this were any other villain, there would be a goal. Something Steve would need to hold out for, or against. Information he'd need to protect. They might be trying to torture him to death, but eventually they'd kill him, and Steve could fight against that. Tony just wants to hurt him. There is no goal except pain.

Knifeplay isn't something Steve has ever really done in his private life, not to this degree. Not that this is anything Steve would call play, but in terms of the actual physical activity it's the closest match. Since he doesn't mark up, with the serum, the satisfaction is gone for anyone who might want to scratch at him, to draw on him. Rachel had tried, because of course Rachel had tried. It was one of her big kinks. She could scratch a little but nothing really stayed, much to their mutual disappointment. He has to be cut pretty deep before it shows long enough to be satisfying. It has to be deep enough to bleed profusely, which is not a lot of fun for him and upsets his partners, and it all heals fast anyway. It's just one of those kinks incompatible with his usual biology.

It's clearly possible to mark him now. Not that this Tony would mind cutting deep, either.

Tony tilts the lamp a little so it's shining down on Steve's chest; it's a little easier to see Tony's face now, behind the lamp, and Steve really wishes it weren't. Tony is staring down at him, rapt, enthralled, planning his design.

He sets the very tip of the blade just above Steve's sternum, and Steve can't help but gasp a little at the sharp prick of the knife; it pierces through the fogginess of his senses, and all he can feel is the pain. He thinks maybe whatever Tony's drugged him with is enhancing it. It shouldn't hurt this much. He must jump, because the blade bites deeper. He doesn't think that's what Tony intended. He doesn't think Tony's ever done this before. Tony has steady hands, but no one can expect perfection the first time.

"Hold still," Tony says, with the cool snap of command in his voice. "The more you move, the more this will hurt you. And you'll ruin my design." He frowns contemplatively. "I suppose I could work it in. Do the major outlining in blood. Yes, that will look lovely."

The blade catches and drags, a long horizontal line across Steve's chest, and Steve bites his lip to keep from gasping again. It's painful, and he's not in the right frame of mind to interpret the pain as anything other than bad. Tony presses down a little harder, and the sensation blossoms into agony, as the knife must easily be parting through his skin. He thinks he feels some wetness. That might be blood.

"So beautiful," Tony murmurs. His gaze is transfixed. He's looking at him like—God, Steve has never seen Tony look at anything like this. Not him, not anyone he's dated, not his beloved technology. Tony's looking at him like he is absolutely the best thing that there could be in the entire universe. In the entire multiverse. Like this has fulfilled every one of his dreams.

Steve wants to be sick. He wants to burst into tears. He does neither.

Half of him is wishing this were real. Consensual, he means. It's definitely real.

Tony reaches out and presses his other hand to Steve's face. His fingertips are shaking against Steve's cheekbone. He's wide-eyed. Reverent. Tony the atheist has found God. It's an apotheosis Steve never wanted. Not like this.

"Look how you bleed for me, Steve," Tony whispers. "The serum's still in your blood, you know, even if you can't feel it. You're bleeding it out right now. It's priceless. Infinitely precious. Gorgeous."

The blade lifts and presses down again, another line parallel to the first, deep enough to draw more blood.

He curls his hands into fists. He holds perfectly still, not even daring to breathe until Tony lifts the blade up.

"Good," Tony says. "See, just like that. Perfect."

The blade comes down again, just below that. It feels like Tony's carving a circle in the middle of his chest, like he could carve his way down into Steve's heart, like maybe he already has.

"What do you know?" Tony murmurs, amazed, to himself. "I can freehand a perfect circle." He blinks and seems to come back to himself, and he taps Steve's jaw. "How are you doing? Can I get a color?"

It's a parody of BDSM, a mockery of consent, of a caring top; it's also the first indication that Tony might be aware that all of this—his costume, his chosen activities, that damned cross—exists in a larger context. He wonders how much Tony knows about that world. He wonders if Tony actually expects him to know what he's asked. Probably not.

"Red," Steve grits out. He knows it won't matter, but somehow it feels important that he tried. He tried to say no.

Tony chuckles. "Red is my favorite color."

Well, it's not like he was expecting Tony to stop.

Tony brings the knife down again and carves what feels like a second circle, a deeper one, inset inside the first, and Steve digs his fingers into his palms and tries to remember what life was like before it was pain.

The Avengers. The Avengers are waiting for him. He has to hold on. He pictures the rest of the team. He pictures the first team, the way they were, long ago, the team he first saw when he came out of the ice, when—God—when Tony was holding him down, just like now—

He snaps out of the fantasy as the knife digs in again, a little lower, over his ribs, and then Tony lifts the blade and repeats it on the other side. He clearly has some kind of design in mind. Steve isn't going to ask what. He's sure Tony will tell him eventually.

"You should cry," Tony says, somewhere between idle musing and an order. "You'd be so very pretty if you cried for me. You hardly ever cry." He smiles. "I think you will when I break you."

"No," Steve breathes. The denial is all he can articulate.

Another deep line across Steve's stomach, and then the pressure lightens. Tony isn't quite breaking the skin now, just scratching, fine detail work with the very tip of the blade. He's squinting a little in concentration, and then he smiles fondly.

"You're so pale that I can just see the blood rush to the surface," Tony adds, appreciatively, and he scratches him again. "Your skin's marking up so well. It's really a shame that you could never even hold a bruise before. You should be grateful."

The most awful thing is that some part of Steve almost is.

Tony bends his head and starts in again, still scratching. He looks a little less transcendent now. Still pleased, but more focused. Whatever he's transforming Steve into, he needs to have all his attention on Steve to do it.

This almost doesn't hurt, Steve thinks, a little dreamily, and distantly he recognizes the slow blurry slide into something very like subspace, where the rhythmic, repetitive touch of the knife is just pressure, where the pain isn't pain anymore. It might be the drugs. He's pretty goddamn high. And it's Tony doing this to him, and some primal part of him, despite everything, is trusting Tony to take him down. But this is really not a situation he wants to be in subspace for; he doesn't want the perfect, calm place in his head to be something Tony can force him into. He doesn't want to taint it with this. But he doesn't think he can stop, either. His eyes fall shut.

Tony slaps his face, and the shock of it stings, rattles him up and out into full consciousness. His chest bleeds and burns. And he's thankful, not that he can ever tell Tony that.

"Hey!" Tony says, voice sharp. "Nuh-uh. Don't pass out on me. You stay right here. You're going to feel every moment of this."

He doesn't think Tony recognizes it as subspace. There's no reason he should. Tony clearly does not have experience with bodily reactions to pain beyond what their lives as Avengers call for, and certainly has never scened with him to be able to recognize his subspace. And while keeping him up and present in the pain is certainly a sadistic act, it also reaffirms to Steve that Tony isn't really like this. This isn't him. The real Tony isn't the kind of person who would ever do this out of love, not if he doesn't even know what subspace is, not if he has zero experience with this, not if he doesn't understand that Steve could have enjoyed it.

This is as close as Steve's getting to everything he ever wanted, and it's actual sadism, selfish and awful, without love or caring or even empathy, just a twisted fixation because somehow what's left of Tony remembers that he used to feel something for him.

He almost wishes there weren't anything left of Tony, because he doesn't want Tony to have to remember this.

He's not going to cry, because he isn't going to give in, but right now it sounds incredibly appealing.

He shuts his eyes again. Tony puts the knife down next to his face and then slaps him again, harder. Steve twists and nearly jerks his face into the blade.

"What did I just say?" Tony demands.

Steve blinks and, with great difficulty, focuses on Tony's face. "'M here," he slurs. "Tony," he manages. "Gonna be okay. This isn't you, Tony. I forgive you."

They're going to get out of here. Somehow. It's important that Tony, the real Tony, knows Steve still loves him.

Tony just smirks. "Don't you get it yet? This is me."

"You're wrong," Steve says. "Gonna— gonna save you. Gonna get you out of here. Bring you home."

Tony chuckles. "You have no powers, you're drugged, and you're currently tied to a desk. I'm stronger than you. I'm smarter than you." He picks up the knife again. "And I can do whatever. I. Want."

He punctuates the words with sharp little cuts. Steve gasps and hisses through his teeth.

Tony lifts the knife away again and reaches out to run two fingers over Steve's cheekbone, then down to his jaw. "Just one tear," he says, and Steve realizes he's tracing the path of it, in his fantasies. "You know you want to cry. You know you're close to giving up. There's not much left to hold onto anymore." He smiles. "Statistically, most missing persons are found within 72 hours, you know. You've just passed that. The Avengers aren't coming. There's not going to be a rescue. You're not bringing me anywhere. And you're certainly not saving me." He laughs. "Why would I need to be saved? This is me, Steve. This is who I am. You need to accept that."

"You know me," Steve manages to say. "Not giving up. Not on you. Not on anything. Especially not on you."

Picking the knife up again, Tony twirls it between his fingers, and then scratches out something angular, low on Steve's stomach.

"Well," Tony says. "Better get used to disappointment, then." He sits back and hums contentedly. "Just a little bit more left to do. Deep cuts. This will hurt."

Tony's eyes are once again avid and eager, and after the first cut he pauses and looks up, searching Steve's face for a reaction. He's waiting to see if he'll cry, Steve realizes. And, like so many other things, it's something Steve would have done willingly. If the real Tony had wanted this—he didn't—if he had known enough about Steve's reactions to bring him down into subspace—he doesn't—Steve would have trusted him, unquestioningly, would have bared his heart to him, would have cried, conquered by sensation. He would have let Tony overwhelm him, would have let him in past every one of his defenses. If he'd wanted to, he could have been the best and most caring and most generous top Steve's ever known. His personality, his true personality, is wired for it in every way, save the actual desire. But if he had wanted it, God, if he'd wanted it—Steve would have trusted Tony like nobody else in the world, to take him down and keep him safe and then bring him up and put him back together again.

And now Tony only wants to take him apart.

Steve clenches his teeth and watches Tony gaze down at him, with the purest joy in his eyes, a deep calm blue like the surface of the ocean at night. Tony has no regrets, no remorse. Everything he does now makes him brilliantly happy. Ecstatic, even. He's never this happy. It's some kind of sick joke.

The knife is sheathed. It's done. But it's not over. It's not going to be over until Tony either grows weary of him, like a child abandoning a toy, or until Tony manages to kill him.

Or until they go home, Steve reminds himself, and then he's promptly horrified at how long it took him to remember that.

"Beautiful," Tony breathes. "All done. Do you want to see?"

He wants to say yes and no at the same time, and so he opts for silence.

"I'll take that as a yes," Tony says. "Here, let me get you a mirror."

He turns to the other desk—the one where Steve's shield and identicard still rest—and a drawer rattles open. Steve tells himself not to contemplate what else is in the drawer. It's never been anything good.

Tony returns with a hand mirror, holding it over Steve's face. All Steve can see at first is his own slackened face, his eyes gone too dark, pupils dilated too wide by whatever drug Tony gave him. His lips are red where he's been biting them—was he biting them? He can't remember. He looks like he's as high as a kite, which—well, fair enough, he is. He looks like he's not even here. The collar gleams at his throat. Seeing his own face is dizzying and awful.

Then Tony angles the mirror down so Steve can see his chest, and it's even worse.

It's worse because Tony's right—it is beautiful.

The centerpiece of the design is a circle within a circle in the middle of Steve's chest. A ring, almost, welling with blood. Simple. Elegant. Somehow familiar. The majority of the work around it doesn't break his skin; it's sharp and angular, little boxes with slashes through them, long lines turning corners to skim over his ribs, drawn just right to wrap around his side. There are confident parallel lines, running in twos and threes, deeper and bloody at the top and bottom of his chest, like they're defining a workspace. It doesn't look organic, like Steve might have expected from something meant to be on human skin; it looks almost mechanical, but it looks natural too, in a way he can't quite put a finger on. He feels like he's seen this before somewhere.

It hits him then: this is one of Tony's designs.

And he sees that Tony sees when he understands that, because Tony smirks and runs his hand possessively over Steve's jaw again.

"Were you expecting me to sign my name?" Tony asks. "I have much more imagination than that. Names are so facile. They're not even unique. It's ever so much more personal this way."

Steve shivers a little as Tony's hand drifts to his shoulder. "What is it?"

"It's a simplified schematic for a repulsor assembly," Tony says, softly. "I was always proud of it. It was one of the first things I invented that was mine, all mine, that I wasn't building for my father or my company or my government." His lips part in a small, delighted smile. "You're mine, too. And you're so very close to accepting it."

Steve tries to shake his head. He gets as far as pressing his face against the table and then doesn't have the balance to move it again. God. Tony's made him into Iron Man. Tony's made him into himself.

"There's so much waiting for you," Tony murmurs. "Life outside the cage, outside this room. A cause to serve. Battles to fight. And you'll be at my side, always. All you have to do is say yes."

He can't say yes. But he finds he doesn't quite have the strength to say no, either. The room swims around him, and he's shivering again. He says nothing.

"Ah, well." Tony pats his head with some simulation of fondness. "Soon. Not too much longer now, I think. I enjoyed this immensely. Maybe I'll work on you more tomorrow night. So much skin to mark. I might do your back next."

And then the tension's gone from his wrists, the resistance disappearing; Tony's untying the ropes. Not that Steve can move at all, of course. He has freedom practically in his grasp and he can't even stand up. He suspects Tony knows exactly how that's making him feel. He suspects Tony's enjoying this part too.

Tony slides an arm under Steve's knees and his other arm under Steve's shoulders. He's carried Steve like this before, but only in the suit, and Steve can feel Tony's muscles tremble against his bare back as he lifts him. He knows he's not exactly light, and he can't exactly hold on; his own arms dangle limply at his sides. His head lolls back, and Tony angles him to tuck it against his shoulder, so that his face is pressed against Tony's minuscule quarter-length shirt. He breathes in, leather and sweat, and he knows he shouldn't be comforted, but he is, as Tony turns and carries him across the room.

Tony sets him down, very gently, back on the concrete floor. It's cold, and Steve's shivering so hard that surely Tony has to notice, but if he does he says nothing. Tony just walks back to the desk where the food is, picks up the bottled water and granola bars that he had originally brought in, and sets them next to Steve.

"Keep the cuffs on," Tony says, an idle command. "They look good on you."

Steve is tempted to remove the cuffs and the collar immediately, but he's positive his fingers won't work. He's still shaking. He's freezing. Tony's not going to give him his shirt back. Tony wants to admire him. It's not cold—Tony's wearing less than he is—but Steve knows what this is, beyond the drugs: he's coming down off an adrenaline rush, a scene-that-wasn't, the fight-or-flight reflexes that gave him enough endurance to get through the pain, maybe just enough of an endorphin high to start to enjoy it. And now he's crashing. Subdrop, he might have called it, in a happier context.

Tony steps back, and the energy bars go up.

Torturers don't provide aftercare.

"Drink the water," Tony says. "Drink lots of water. You're going to have a hell of a dry mouth." He says it coolly, remotely, like his only concern is keeping Steve well enough that he can do it all again tomorrow. It probably is.

And then Tony leaves, and the lights go off. The room glows faintly green, and Steve is alone.

He's not going to cry. He's not going to cry.

He takes a shaking breath. His chest stings. It's just torture. Objectively, he's had so much worse than this. But the combination of the sedatives and his body trying to react like this was—well, something he'd like a lot better—is hitting him hard. If this were really Tony, he thinks, Tony wouldn't leave him. Tony would be right here with blankets, with warmth. Tony would wrap himself around him, bring him juice, feed him chocolate, tell him how good he is, tell him how proud he is of him.

He knows he shouldn't think about it. He can never have it. He knows Tony doesn't know what to do for him and this Tony wouldn't care to do it even if he did know. He knows thinking about it is probably making it worse. But somehow it's a comfort, thinking of the Tony in his imagination, the one who would understand.

With effort, he breathes deep. He doesn't cry.

He shuts his eyes and the world slides away into foggy, unnatural, dreamless sleep.

When Steve wakes up, his head is pounding and his mouth is cottony and dry. He crawls to the water bottle, spills it trying to open it, and then drinks half the bottle at once. He didn't check if it was factory-sealed. It might be drugged. Steve decides the situation could hardly get much worse. He drinks the rest of the bottle anyway, and then eats two of the granola bars.

In the dimness, he can see that the heavy cuts on his chest have scabbed over; the lighter scratches are still present and possibly less red, but it's hard to tell.

It's just torture, he tells himself. He's had worse.

He's still shivering.

He doesn't know how long he waits there, awake. He doesn't bother with his exercise regimen. He also doesn't take the collar or cuffs off.

Some increasingly-small part of him is aware that this is probably a bad sign.

The door rattles and Steve starts heading toward the wall. When the door swings open he's already seated at the manacles and raising his hands. He knows how this goes.

Tony's smiling at him. He's got a plastic cup of what looks like orange juice this time, and a styrofoam container. Steve sniffs. It smells like maple syrup. His stomach growls.

"How are we doing this morning?" Tony asks, and then continues on, brightly, when Steve says nothing, as if Steve's given a normal response. "Me, I've got a headache starting again. Could be better. But I see you're all ready for breakfast." He grins; the manacles click around Steve's wrist, over the other cuffs he's still wearing, locking him in tight. "Excellent. You really are learning. Soon you'll find it hard to imagine that you could ever have thought of anything else. Isn't it so much easier this way?"

The energy bars come down, and then Tony's at his side with the juice and the container; there's a plastic spork atop it, and Steve supposes this is why Tony hasn't bothered to remove his gloves this time.

Tony opens the container. Scrambled eggs. Sausage. Pancakes, drizzled with syrup, already cut up into bite-size pieces. Steve's mouth waters. He thinks that clearly Tony was wrong about not being able to get to him via food. The quality of the food has definitely improved.

Following the usual routine—Steve hates that this is a routine—Tony puts the straw at Steve's mouth, and Steve sips the orange juice until Tony takes it away. Tony strokes his cheek possessively, then glances down at his bare chest and grins when he sees the marks. "Beautiful. It still shows. I had a wonderful time last night. I definitely need to do that again today."

Tony stabs at a piece of pancake with the spork... and then eats it himself. Steve stares.

"No drugs," Tony says. "Not today. The one thing I didn't like about yesterday was how dazed you were. You kept trying to slip away from me. I want you present. In the moment. So today the food's clean. I don't lie to you. I haven't lied to you." He takes a swig of the juice, for good measure.

Steve isn't sure whether Tony's objecting to the actual effect of the sedative, or the subspace that he clearly doesn't know enough to recognize. It could be either.

It's also true that Tony hasn't lied to him. As awful as he's been, he hasn't lied, as far as Steve can determine. Not about anything.

Therefore, he must be telling the truth when he says the Avengers don't know where he is and aren't coming.

No. He can't think like that. They're going to get out of here. He still doesn't know how, but there has to be a way.

Tony readies another piece of pancake; this one, he holds out in Steve's direction.

And across the room, Tony's computer beeps.

Tony pauses and frowns.

The computer beeps again. A window is up on one of the monitors, mostly blank; there's a line or so of text at the top, too small for Steve to read. It looks like a messaging program.

Tony glances back at the computer, shrugs, and then feeds Steve the bite of pancake. It's delicious—fluffy and buttery, and Steve suspects that's actual maple syrup. They are in New England now, after all. He knows it's mostly in his head, but he thinks maybe he feels a little warmer and less shaky with actual food in him.

There's another beep from the computer, which Tony ignores.

Steve chews and swallows, during which time the computer beeps twice and more messages appear in the window. "Aren't you going to get that?" he asks, finally.

Tony stabs another bite of pancake with the spork and feeds it to Steve. "No," he says. "I'm busy."

After a few more bites of pancake, there's one more beep from the computer, and then eventually the screens dim again as the computer sleeps. Tony's moved on to spoon-feeding him bites of scrambled egg.

"You almost refused to let me feed you, the first day," Tony murmurs. "Now, I bet you didn't even consider saying no, did you? Even though yesterday I drugged you." He pats Steve's cheek again, a loving gesture with nothing of love behind it. "You're doing so well. You've stopped saying no. Did you notice that? Now all you have to do is start saying yes."

And damn it all, Tony's right. He has stopped saying no, hasn't he?

He can't give in. He can't.

But he needs to eat. He needs to stay strong.

Tony can't make him like it, though.

So he opens his mouth again, and Tony smiles triumphantly, pets his hair again, and holds out another bite of egg—

And then the door opens.

There's a hooded figure standing in the door, a woman in some kind of coverall, with 9 on the forehead of her hood. Number Nine. She was in the meeting the other day. She stands braced in the doorway, arms thrown wide, head down, like she's leading a charge into battle.

"For fuck's sake, Stark!" Nine snarls.

Tony pales and jumps away from Steve almost guiltily. Steve feels a strange kind of embarrassment and shame knot up in him, like they've been walked in on in flagrante delicto. It wasn't sex. But a private, intimate moment has definitely been interrupted. No one was meant to see this.

"Check your messages," she snaps. "I tried to contact you four separate times, and while things are going up in flames, you're down here cuddling your boyfriend! Christ. You're supposed to break him."

"I am breaking him," Tony says, a little obstinately. He recovers fast; he's already less pale.

Her eyes narrow. That's all Steve can see of her face, but he's sure her expression beneath the hood is dismissive. "Doesn't look like it."

"I promise it is," Tony says, quickly, too quickly, like he's afraid she'll take Steve away from him.

She directs her glare briefly at Steve, and then back at Tony. "We'll talk about him later. Get your hood. You're coming with me now. They need you upstairs. Immediately, Stark."

Tony stands up, leaving the food where it is, leaving Steve chained to the wall.

The sole thought running through Steve's mind is that he doesn't want Tony to leave him. What are they going to do to Tony?

"What happened?" Tony asks, as he pulls the hood down over his face.

"Your fucking prototype broke, that's what happened," Nine says. "Number One is none too pleased with you. So you'd better fix it." She eyes Steve. "Or we're taking your toy away and giving him to someone else."

Tony's eyes go wide. "I'll fix it. Right now."

"You'd better," she repeats, darkly, and then she's hurrying them both out of the room.

The door slams shut.

At first the only thing Steve can wonder is if leaving him tied up and half-fed next to a meal he can't reach to eat is part of the torture plan. A modern Tantalus, that's him. He thinks his concerns are starting to narrow down to what his minimum needs for survival are, and that is... probably also not a good sign. Much like the collar. And the fact that, as Tony pointed out, he's stopped actively resisting.

Anyone can break, Tony told him.

He starts to wonder if this is all part of Tony's master plan—the real Tony's plan, concealed until now. Maybe Tony screwed up the designs, sabotaged the prototype, did something to fight back. Maybe this is the longest of long cons, and this is how they're going to win free.

Then he remembers Tony's face yesterday. The way Tony looked when he was cutting into him, the pure, exultant glory. That wasn't faked. That was something Tony wanted. And even if Tony had been pretending to be brainwashed for everything else, he wouldn't have cut Steve. He wouldn't have drugged him. He wouldn't have hurt him. Not like that. He knows Tony's limits, and this man has long since crossed them.

So once again, this has to be real.

He wonders why he's still hoping that it's anything else.

So Tony's out there building weapons with his own two hands, and Steve—well, Steve's just sitting here waiting for Tony to come back and start hurting him again.

This is his life now.

He finds his gaze drifting to the cross, now that Tony's not here to point out that he keeps looking at it. It's not his fault that it's the most noticeable object in the room. He sees his own bruised face and scratched body reflected in the mirror behind it. Tony's going to have him up on that soon.

It's another thing Steve hasn't ever done. Oh, he's certainly been tied up and beaten—recreationally and otherwise—but not like this. Not on a cross. He had the chance to, once. Back when he was with Rachel, they'd gone, occasionally, to a few parties. She'd been humoring him, he thought. They blended in, setting aside the few people who glared at them because Steve wasn't collared. No one knew who they were out of their costumes. It wasn't like anyone else had used their real names either. One night he'd watched one man tie another man to the cross and work him over, stripe beautiful patterns into his skin, hit him and hit him until they were both smiling, proud and happy, and he'd looked at them and thought I want that.

And he'd looked at Rachel and he'd known he couldn't have that. They couldn't do that, not where anyone could see. He would have healed up so fast that anyone would have been able to tell he had a healing factor, and there weren't so many people fitting his description whom that would have applied to. And at home that night Rachel hit him, like he'd wanted, but it hadn't been the same thing as this would be, as what he'd really wanted: being put on a device intended for this, being displayed, his suffering drawn out and examined from every angle, even if there's no one else there but whoever's holding the whip. He doesn't need more than an audience of one, but he craves the ritual of it. The preparation. The intention.

Steve wonders if that's why Tony added the mirrors, so that he can see himself and know he's being watched. So he can watch himself fall apart. It's awful how close Tony's warped ideas are to Steve's own fantasies.

He has a lot of other associations with being tied up and beaten, of course; he is, after all, a superhero. It's all villains. Sometimes he wonders how it can even still be his kink. He has to think of this like that, like just another mission gone wrong. He has to think of it as something that doesn't mean anything to him personally; he has to pretend it's another cackling madman trying to shove him around. He can't think about this being Tony, or it will get to him.

He thinks maybe it's too late for that.

Since there's really nothing else to do, he lets his head fall forward and he drops somewhere halfway between dream and wakefulness. He's gotten good at sleeping in chains.

The door is flung open, thunderously colliding with the wall, and Steve jerks awake.

Tony's boots echo on the floor as he stamps his way inside. He rips the hood off his head, and his face beneath is twisted, miserable, bitterly angry, and something is very wrong here. Tony's villainous self so far has been arrogant, calm, collected, in control—nothing like this. Tony, the real Tony, at his most self-loathing—he has hints of this, he thinks, this awful wretched despair. He's never seen Tony like this, has he? There's something familiar about it, something he can't quite place, niggling at his now-normal memory.

"Tony?" he asks, and the name slips out of his mouth before he can help it; he hears the concern in his own voice.

"Spent five hours trying to fix their fucking bomb," Tony says. His voice is a low snarl. "Not sure it's even fucking fixable." He stomps toward Steve, his steps wobbling and uneven. "And then there's you."

Tony nearly walks into the wall before stopping and bending down. He has one hand braced on the wall, just above the manacles Steve's currently trapped in, and he's holding himself there like he'd fall over without it.

He leans in close, and that's when Steve smells the liquor on his breath.

Steve shuts his eyes. Oh, God, Tony. No.

He remembers, with all the exquisite precision of a sense-memory, being five years old and helpless and terrified, with his father drunk and looming over him. He remembers Tony, years ago, lying in a Bowery flophouse, bottle in his hand, slurring at him, saying that Steve would never understand why he had to drink, and he'd been terrified then too. He hadn't been able to save his father. He couldn't have survived losing Tony too. And he'd carried Tony out of the fire, but Tony had been the only one who could save himself. And he had, just barely. When it was almost too late.

Tony's not going to want to save himself this time. No one can save Tony now.

"You're drunk," Steve says, hoarse, afraid, because that's all he can manage.

"I am," Tony says, and his mouth twists in a sort of sad triumph. "It's all your fault, anyway. You're so goddamn frustrating. You don't do what you're supposed to. Supposed to break, they said."

Steve takes a deep breath. It isn't his fault. It isn't. It can't be.

It's his fault Tony's here. God. Maybe it is his fault.

"Need to show results, they said. Number One wants to see you tomorrow," Tony slurs. And then he grins. "So we're— we're skipping ahead on the timeline. Need— need you to break soon. Or I don't get to keep you."

Steve finds that his eyes dart over to the cross again before he's really aware of what he's doing.

Tony caresses his face with two gloved fingers; he can't be that drunk, because he's still got a fair amount of coordination left in him. Steve supposes he's going to need it. Tony's lips part in a wide, wide smile. "Yes," he says. "Exactly that."

It's time, then.

Maybe it's better to get it over with.

Tony pushes himself up and walks to the controls on the wall. He doesn't open the manacles. He stops, hand in midair, and looks back at Steve. "This is what's going to happen." Tony's voice is slow and calm. He's making an effort to articulate, to keep his voice level. He's found a few remaining shreds of composure. "This is a trust exercise, of a sort. I'm going to unlock you, and you're going to stand up and walk to the cross, and I'm going to tie you down. If you give me any reason to think, even for one second, that you won't be doing precisely this, you are going to find yourself regretting your actions immensely." He smiles. "I might not be entirely sober, but I'm still a crack shot. Not that I need to be, at this distance."

Steve blinks up at Tony and considers this. He thinks of his shield, still across the room. He thinks Tony could shoot him before he gets there. He thinks of Tony's boot on his back the other day, when he'd tried to take a swing at him. He knows Tony's not going to hesitate. He also knows Tony's drunk. If Tony has to try to stop him with force, if he shoots him, there's no guarantee Tony won't hurt him more than he's intending to. All it would take is one stray bullet. At least if Tony beats him instead, it will be harder for Tony to accidentally kill him.

He thinks about being taken away from Tony, handed off to someone else, someone with no reason to want to hold back. He thinks about what the Secret Empire might do to Tony, if they determine that Tony has failed to do what they've told him to.

He knows he might not be broken all the way yet, but he's positive he can see the first of the fractures starting to form.

He's out of options.

He has to do this. For Tony. This is the way it has to be. He can survive this. It's only pain.

Besides, Tony hasn't fixed the prototype bomb yet. He said he hadn't. This will keep Tony occupied. All Steve has to do is endure this.

He opens his mouth.

Tony raises an eyebrow. "Going to say yes?" He smiles. "It would make me so very happy, Steve." The pitch, the phrasing, the smile—it's all Tony, real and earnest, so open about something he would never, ever want to do. He wouldn't be this open about his real desires, either; Tony's always lived his life putting other people first. He doesn't ask for his happiness. Not like this, and not about this. This doesn't make him happy.

Steve's throat closes up and he chokes on air. He can't say yes. But something inside him can't say no, either.

Tony looks at him for a long time, evenly, like he knows exactly what Steve is thinking. "You're so close," Tony murmurs. "Not today, but soon, you'll agree. You'll say it. And I know that right now, you're not going to fight me. You're going to get up there because I want you to. I believe in you."

The manacles click, and Steve's aching arms drop to his sides. He doesn't move. The room is silent.

"Well," Tony says, softly. His lips curve into a small, cruel smile. "There we go."

Tony's not reaching for his gun. He's just watching. Waiting.

Awkwardly, Steve clambers to his feet. He's off-balance and his arms are painful and numb all the way down. He couldn't have lifted his shield like this anyway. He's not sure he can raise his arms at all, except he knows he'll have to. He stands still.

Anything he could say would make this worse, so he says nothing.

He takes a step forward. Then he knows he might as well have said yes, because Tony lifts his head and positively beams at him, delight in his eyes. It's not the happiest he's ever seen him—Steve thinks that was, unfortunately, yesterday, when Tony was cutting into him—but it's a very near thing.

It's not too late to turn back.

He keeps walking. With every step he can feel himself sink somehow deeper and deeper, down into cold despair. It was always inevitable. Tony was always going to do this to him. Steve was always going to give in.

His gaze shifts to the cross, a gleaming metal X; he can watch himself walk to it, in the mirror. He's still half-naked, wearing Tony's collar and cuffs, as well as the bracelet keeping his powers away from him. The scratches on his chest stand out bright in the harsh lighting, a little darker than the red of his uniform boots. The cut on his temple from the day he came still hasn't quite healed. His eyes are dull. He's not entirely certain that anyone would recognize the man in the mirror as Captain America.

Behind him, he can see Tony smiling in triumph, walking behind him, following all the way.

He stops at the cross, facing it. He tries to raise his arms and can't. He's been holding them over his head for hours, after all. It hurts too much.

"I can't lift my arms," Steve says. Once, this would have felt like defeat. The serum's gone, and Tony is pushing past every limit he has. Once, this would have been an indignity. He doesn't think he can summon up any kind of feeling about it now: it just is. This is the way the world is now.

Tony steps close and wraps his hands around one of Steve's arms. Steve can still see the mirror between the arms of the cross; he can see everything Tony's doing to him, and he's pretty sure that's deliberate on Tony's part. In the mirror, Tony works at one of the cuffs Steve's wearing and drops it lazily on the floor. Then he raises Steve's arm for him and Steve struggles not to cry out already at the pain. There are more leather cuffs hanging from the cross, and Tony straps him in tightly and moves over to Steve's other arm.

It's his last chance to fight back. Tony's behind him. He could turn. He could hit him. He can't. There's nothing he can do.

Tony's breath is hot against his face, scented with whiskey, and he takes off the cuff Steve was wearing and gets the new cuff on, just next to the inhibitor bracelet. He tightens the cuffs down, more securely than he has so far for anything he's put on Steve other than the inhibitor bracelet. The leather bites into Steve's wrists. In the mirror Steve can see him kneeling and fastening his ankles to the cross, and then he fastens a leather belt around Steve's waist, once again tightening it down, holding Steve to the cross at the middle. He's held fast. His arms, sore from being bound above his head for hours, are already killing him, and Tony hasn't even done anything to him yet.

Tony presses his gloved hand to the center of Steve's back, fingers splayed wide. He's not forcing him closer—he can't. He's just resting his hand there. Because he can. He steps in close, his mouth at Steve's ear, and his hand moves, two fingers stroking up and down Steve's shoulder blade.

"I was thinking," Tony breathes, "that maybe I was wrong about you not being susceptible to pain. You're already injured, after all. You're not healing like you're used to. And you've been here with me—what, five days now? I was thinking that it might be possible to hurt you after all. All I need to do is hit you hard enough."

He smiles at Steve, cruel, triumphant, bright-eyed—although at least part of it has to be the alcohol. Steve's beginning to feel like he could get drunk just from breathing Tony's air. He shivers.

"Don't be afraid," Tony says, and his fingers slide up the back of Steve's neck and over the collar. Steve shudders again and stamps down on the impulse to bow his head and go slack in his bonds. Tony's hand keeps moving, fingers on the edge of Steve's jaw, on his chin, across his lips, a kiss by proxy. "Just trust me, Steve. Trust me and let go. Together we'll find out what's on the other side of resistance. You'll be so beautiful."

I already know, he wants to tell Tony. I know exactly what it's like. And I'm not going there with you. Not like this.

Tony's not himself. He's not going to get what he wants, the way he wants it. This isn't going to be peaceful, or easy, or transcendent, or anything it could have been, anything that in a different context Steve could have enjoyed. But this is how it's happening, nonetheless.

"Are you going to cry for me?" Tony asks. "I hope you are."

Steve shuts his eyes and turns his head away. He won't. Not like this. Not for this Tony.

Tony sighs and steps back. When Steve opens his eyes, Tony's unwrapping the single-tail whip from around his waist, the one he's been wearing this whole time. It seems more personal this way, to use the implement Tony has had on him this entire time, rather than any one of the variety of whips and crops and paddles hanging on the wall next to him. Steve suspects that's on purpose. He also suspects there will be plenty of opportunity for Tony to branch out and try all of them eventually.

Uncoiling the whip, Tony flips it back and forth, letting the leather fall this way and that, smiling fondly. "I do know what I'm doing, you know," he says, almost conversationally. Like this is normal. "I went through a bit of an Indiana Jones phase as a teenager. Thought it would be a nifty skill to pick up. Admittedly I've never tried it out on a person, but how hard can it be?"

This could be very bad. Tony's drunk. Tony's inexperienced, both in terms of actual practice and in knowledge. Tony's goal seems to be pain without major permanent harm—physical harm, anyway—and Steve isn't sure Tony knows enough to be able to achieve that. Tony very possibly doesn't know where not to hit him if he doesn't want actual, serious injuries, unless he can put that together with what he knows from hand-to-hand. Ordinarily it wouldn't matter, because ordinarily Steve has the serum, and even if Tony wanted to—or accidentally managed to—beat him in the kidneys he'd heal it right up. He won't, now.

Steve closes his eyes again and tries to look away, to hide his face against the cross so he doesn't have to see any of this in the mirror. He doesn't want to watch this. He doesn't want to see Tony enjoying this. And he really doesn't want to see his own face.

"No." Tony's voice is sharp. "Look at me. You're not getting out of this."

Footsteps come closer. There's a hand in his hair, pulling his head up and back, roughly.

"Look at me," Tony repeats, frustrated.

Tony can't make him do that.

Another breath is puffed out in his face, pungent with liquor. Tony sighs. When Tony speaks, his voice is calmer. More level. Composed. "Fine," he says, coolly. "You want it like that? You want to do this the hard way? You can have it."

There's a pause, then the sound of something sliding, leather creaking—and then cold metal at Steve's throat, stinging his skin. He's not bleeding yet, but with a little more pressure, he will be.

Tony's holding a knife to his throat.

"Open your eyes," Tony says. His voice is icily calm, commanding, the tone he uses for facing villains, for standing up against Kang, or Ultron, or Thanos. "Open your eyes, or my hand might just slip."

Tony had said he wasn't going to slit Steve's throat. He's also brainwashed, drunk, under a great deal of pressure, and rapidly losing control of his new villainous life. Steve knows Tony doesn't react well when he starts to lose control of a situation. So what if Tony said something different before? There's nothing saying Tony can't change his mind. There's nothing saying this version of him is going to make anything resembling consistent decisions.

Now he really has no choice. Steve opens his eyes.

Just as he'd thought, Tony's pressing a blade to his neck. His hand is steady, thank God, but that's the only part of him that is. His breathing is shaky. His eyes are bloodshot and a little glassy, and his flushed face is twisted into pained lines. Something's hurting him. Maybe that headache he'd said he'd had, earlier? Steve's instant, reflexive impulse is to ask him what's wrong, to comfort him—but, well, Tony's still got a knife at his throat.

Tony clearly finds some composure from somewhere. He inhales, exhales, and pastes that cruel smile on his face once again. He sheathes the knife. He's still holding the whip in his other hand.

"Good," Tony says, tersely. "Keep your eyes open. Watch me. Stay on your feet. You can scream if you want." He chuckles. "Actually, I encourage it."

Tony steps back and raises his arm, swinging the whip back and forth a few times to check the clearance. In the mirror, he's a blur of black leather and golden skin, and oh God, his face—

Tony's smiling at him like his enemies smile at him, pure and confident, buoyed by their own madness. This isn't the quietly ecstatic contemplation of last night. Tony is angry and hurting and delighted that he gets to take it all out on Steve.

The whip cracks down on Steve's back.

He feels it before he hears it, before he's aware that Tony has swung. A thin line of pain stripes across the middle of his back, exquisite and concentrated agony, like a knife wound, a blade of pure sensation. It could be cold. It could be hot. He can't process what it is, other than that it's too much. He tries to rock away, instinctively, but there's nowhere to go. His arms tense, sending renewed pain shooting through his aching muscles, and all he can do is stand there and take it. He bites his lip.

In the mirror, Tony's smiling. He looks so goddamn proud of himself.

Steve's not going to cry, but looking at Tony like that makes it hard not to.

He can't let himself think about how he could have wanted this.

"Huh," Tony says. "Not too bad for something I haven't done in twenty years."

The second blow comes without warning. Steve thinks maybe this one was misaimed, as the very tip of the whip ends up wrapping around his side, a streak of fire over his unprotected ribs. Or maybe that was what Tony wanted. He doesn't know.

Three. Four. Five. Either Tony's not good enough at this—or too drunk—to lay the blows atop each other or he's got something else in mind, because they come down parallel to each other, diagonally across Steve's shoulders. They're slow enough that Steve can brace himself, now. He's had worse than this. The very worst part about this is that Tony is doing it. It's not the pain that makes it bad. He can take the pain. If it's not going to get worse than this, he can handle it.

Tony pauses and walks closer. He smiles again. "Crying yet?"

It takes most of the strength Steve has to lift his head, but he turns his head toward Tony, and somehow he smiles back, with the last bit of defiance in him. His mouth tastes like blood. The part of him that still remembers how to be Captain America is hardly there at all, but it's enough to get him to draw himself up, lift his chin, and speak like he's holding his shield high, like he's defending the world, his friends at his side.

"Not even close."

He knows as soon as he says it that it's the wrong thing to say. Anyone else might back down from Captain America. Anyone else might be discouraged. But Tony's never been afraid of him. And Tony is demonstrably not himself, is out of control, is out of anything resembling his mind, and isn't going to take this at all well.

Steve's just taunted him, and Tony's going to hit back.

A ripple of pain crosses Tony's face, and then he stills, cold and arch and arrogant. "Oh," he says, with a very small laugh. "You're going to regret saying that."

Tony puts the whip back on his belt, slowly wrapping it back around himself, and he heads to the wall where the rest of the implements are hanging. He picks something Steve can't quite see, smallish, made of dark leather, and then he turns around and walks back, grinning, holding it out in front of him.

"You see, I'm done with being nice." Tony's voice is even. His expression is more of a mask than if he'd been wearing the suit. "I'm done with being kind. I'm done with being patient. And I want results."

It's a scourge. A cat o' nine tails. It's shorter than the bullwhip, but the tails are knotted at the ends, and there's something dull and metallic knotted into each tail as well. It's not that the whip wasn't painful, but the major danger there was accidental injury. A bullwhip looks scary and makes a lot of noise. And Tony wasn't doing much to him, the way he was using it. It was too wide to really cut him. But this—there's no use for this that isn't torture. It's designed to rip him open.

This is going to hurt.

It's not that he can't take it—it's that it's Tony, and there is so much about this that Tony is going to regret. He's going to regret everything. He's going to hate himself so much.

"What do you think?" Tony asks, almost casually. "Shall we see if you can take twenty lashes?"

With the serum, it would have been rough. Without it—he doesn't even know what it's going to do to him. Serious injury, probably.

Steve can't quite remember how to breathe, and Tony sees the fear in his eyes and laughs.

"Good," Tony says. "That's what I want to see. Where's stoic Captain America gone now, eh?"

This was never about Captain America. And it's not himself he's afraid for.

Tony paces behind him. In the dropping into a ready, if unpracticed, stance. He smiles and raises the whip. "Any last words?"

Steve lifts his head, looking at Tony reflected just behind him through the top crossbars. He breathes in, breathes out, and braces himself, getting as much of a grip on the crossbars as he can.

"I love you," Steve tells him. He knows it won't fix Tony, won't bring him back to himself, but he knows Tony is in there somewhere, listening. He wants Tony to know this. "It's all right, Tony. I forgive you. I love you so much. It's going to be okay."

Tony sneers at him. His face twists into something pained and hateful and awful. "Wrong answer."

Tony hits him, and it hurts like nothing Steve has ever felt in his life.

The blow lands on his upper back, directly on the previous whip weals, and the tails snap and fall and drag across his burning skin. It feels like it's clawing him open. Again he tries to move away, but there's no room, and he grits his teeth so he won't scream when the second blow lands, which it does, full force, right on top of the first one with no time to prepare. It looks like Tony's figured out how to maximize the pain.

He's a natural, Steve thinks, half-deliriously, as Tony strikes out again, again, again, and all he can do is ride out the pain. At this point he can't get anywhere in his head where this would be at all enjoyable. He would do it if he could. He'd drop into subspace if he could. Hell, he'd probably try to get off on it. He's beyond thinking about how screwed up that would be, only that then the pain wouldn't hurt him. But the world is too present, his awareness too sharp. He's not going anywhere.

He has his eyes open, because Tony ordered him to, but he can't make sense of anything he's seeing, just shapes and motion. There's something wet on his back. It's probably blood.

There's a pause, and that just makes it worse, because he has another half-second to think about what's coming. Six. Seven, down his spine, oh God, at least he's moving. Eight is across his lower back. That's his kidneys. Nine is up across his shoulders again, where the worst of the pain is, and ten, right on top of it, is so brutal that his mouth opens in a soundless scream and he sags and nearly loses his balance.

He's not crying, but that's about the only thing he still has to hold onto.

And then it stops, and there are footsteps, and Tony's hand is on his shoulder, and God, the pressure is even worse. Tony's pushing down, hard, clearly uncaring now about blood on his gloves.

"You're a beautiful mess, aren't you?" Tony says, and Steve can't help but hiss a little at the pain. Tony leans in, and Steve can see Tony's avid face and his own miserable one, reflected. "But I see you've found the stoicism again. So quiet. Not a whimper. No tears. It would be beautiful, all that strength broken under my hands. When will you cry for me, hmm?"

Never, Steve wants to say, because he never will now.

He clears his throat. His mouth is bloody. He must have bitten his lip.

"I won't," Steve breathes. "You won't— you won't make me."

He's not sure whether he's saying it just because he wants it to be true, or because he doesn't have much else left.

"Anyone can break," Tony says. It's the same thing he told Steve when he captured him, but his mercurial mood has now slid from benevolent, free with twisted praise, into the bitterest frustration and anger. "Anyone can break," he repeats, and there's something dark in his voice, something final and inescapable.

Whoever Tony is now, he doesn't care what he does to him anymore.

"Why won't you cry?" Tony snaps, suddenly, and it sounds like he's crying when he says it, a horrible drunken rage. He steps back and raises the whip again. "Why won't you break?"

Four words, and with every word Tony hits him. He hits him harder than he was hitting him before, with all of his strength, and when he stops talking, he keeps swinging. Five. Six. The blows keep raining down. Steve loses count. With the next blow he's off his feet, sagging by his wrists, but Tony doesn't stop.

There is nothing in the world but pain. There is no sight, no sound, nothing but unending agony, nothing but the blood on his back and one blow after another. Everything is right here, and at the same time it's very far away. This isn't his body. This is happening to someone else.

With the next blow, Steve's eyes fall shut and the world goes dark and quiet. The oblivion is welcome.

"Steve?"

He's hanging by his wrists. His shoulders are burning. His back is all fire, but that's a different pain, on him rather than in him. He can't quite remember why it hurts.

There are hands on his wrists. Someone is loosening the leather cuffs by a few notches, sliding their fingers underneath, clumsily checking for circulation. Why is he wearing cuffs? Who put him here?

"Steve?" the voice repeats. "Oh, God. Steve? Wake up. Say something."

Someone's standing behind him. The hands slide down his body, and then strong arms wrap around his waist—and that hurts, why does it hurt—and the person behind him is holding him up, trying to lift him, because he's not standing on his own.

"Nnn," Steve says.

"Come on," the voice says, more confidently. Now that the speaker knows he has an audience, the tenor of his speech has changed. "Wake up. On your feet." Something about the voice is familiar, so familiar, but off somehow.

It's Tony, Steve realizes, fuzzily. Tony's here.

And he has an awful, wonderful half-second of it's all right because Tony's here now before he remembers exactly why he's here. Tony did this to him.

He opens his eyes.

The panic on Tony's face quickly settles back into the now-usual cruelty. He'd gone too far. He'd lost control. He hadn't actually meant to hurt Steve like he'd hurt him—or perhaps he hadn't actually envisioned the consequences.

Somehow Steve's getting to Tony. Maybe not the real Tony—or maybe it is?—but he's getting somewhere. He's seeing behind the mask.

Steve gets his feet under him. He's leaning on the cross, heavily, putting all his weight on it. Tony moves away, standing at the side of the cross, watching him. And smirking.

"Disappointing," Tony says, his lip curled, like he's going to pretend that wasn't honest terror on his face just now. "I'd thought you could handle so much more than that. It's really not any fun if you're not conscious, you know."

Steve grits his teeth. "Terribly sorry."

And then Tony smiles, again with that false cheer. "It must hurt a lot. All you have to do is cry. Give in to your feelings."

"I already know how I feel," Steve rasps. He knows—oh, how he knows—about so many things Tony has no clue about.

Tony misinterprets him, of course. "I don't think you do," Tony says, a little airily. "I can't imagine you've endured anything like this without the serum. It's going to hurt worse, you know. And I've been good to you. I've let you sleep on the floor. Not tonight. Tonight you're going to stay right there. And you're going to bleed. And in the morning when you haven't slept, when you've been standing on your feet for hours, just like that, when you've had all this time to think about what you've done—well, maybe you'll want to reevaluate your position, hmm?"

"You don't want me dead," Steve croaks. "I know you don't. I know you, Tony."

Tony smiles again. "Not as well as you think you do." His face goes tight around the eyes—another headache? "You've got a long night ahead of you. Maybe you can think about that, too. Good night, Steve."

He grimaces, fingers at his temples. Then he pats Steve on the face, turns, and walks out the door.

The lights are still on. Steve supposes he's meant to examine himself in the mirror. He's grateful that he can't actually see his back. He stares at his hollow face.

He wishes he had water.

As long as he stays on his feet, he knows he'll last the night. The wounds won't kill him that quickly. He knows he's still bleeding, slow and sluggish.

Time passes.

He wonders what the Avengers are doing. He wonders if they're thinking of him, if they're still trying to find him, if they're frantically scouring the countryside. He wonders if they've given up. He wonders if some other threat is menacing the team, and how they're handling it without him and Tony.

More time passes.

He wonders what Tony's doing. He imagines that the Secret Empire has given him actual quarters—with an actual bed. It hasn't even been a week—has it?—and Steve wants to lie in a real bed more than he's wanted anything else. He wants to lie down, and he wants a glass of water. And he wants—well, okay, he wants Tony there, the real Tony, at his side, because this is his fantasy. He wants Tony to hold his hand and tell him it's all going to be okay, that this is a dream, a nightmare.

But this is all too real.

He wonders why Tony keeps having the headaches, if that means he's getting through to him—or if it means something is going wrong. They seem to be getting worse, or at least more frequent. He hopes the Avengers can heal that, if they get out of here.

When. When they get out of here.

Even Steve has to admit that his chances aren't looking good. He's half-naked, he's tied to a cross, and he's been beaten bloody. At some point Tony's going to manage to do more to him than he can take. He's getting close.

In one last act of private defiance, he rattles his chains, pulling at the restraints—

—and his right hand slides halfway out of the cuff, still loose from where Tony had let it out a couple notches when he was checking on him. Tony hadn't secured him again.

He could be free.

He pulls again, and the entire cuff slides over his right hand, over and off, dangling from the cross.

He's free.

Half-delirious with something that could be equal parts joy and blood loss, he reaches over to his left wrist to undo the other cuff. His back screams in protest at the movement, and he wants to scream aloud himself, but he thinks that might draw attention. He needs to hold it together. He'll be out of this soon.

It takes him longer than he would like to work the cuff open, with his numb, pained fingers, but he gets it eventually, and then he twists to get the belt at his waist and bends down to unfasten his ankles. He's sweat-soaked by the end of it, clammy, panting, but—oh, God—he's finally, finally free.

All he has to do now is find Tony and get them out of here.

First things first: his shield. He knows it's at least partly psychological—isn't everything, really?—but he'll feel a hell of a lot better once he has it in his hands. He really does need it. He still can't take the inhibitor bracelet off. The Avengers will need to do it for him, so he needs to break out of here first. And for that, he definitely needs his shield. Operating at the strength of a baseline human, and an injured one at that, is going to slow him down. He needs all the help he can get.

He leans on the cross, pulls himself upright—and nearly falls with his first step away from it. This is going to be harder than he thought. But he's so close now, and he didn't come this far to fail now. He's Captain America. He can do this.

The workbench where his shield has lain for days is just across the room, not too many steps away, and every one is agony. He tells himself to keep his head up. It'll get better. He'll make it.

An eternity later, he practically collapses onto the rolling chair by the desk. He hasn't sat in a chair in days. He's very careful not to lean back, but he reaches out and gets a hand on his shield, feeling the cool, sleek vibranium under his fingertips. He can almost imagine it's singing to him. He already thinks he's a little better, just touching it.

Okay. Stand up, pick his shield up. He can do that. The rest of what was in his pouches is here, and he doesn't really need any of it urgently. He needs to get out of here as fast as possible. Tony had said he wouldn't be back until morning, but this Tony is not especially predictable, and Steve doesn't know when morning even is, here in this windowless underground lair. Besides, the only thing he would really want is his identicard, which is sitting there, completely dark. Useless. Tony had said he'd deactivated it—

Wait.

That wasn't all Tony had said, he remembers. Tony had told him he couldn't break or crush the card because it would trigger an emergency signal that he hadn't wanted to spend the time disabling. As long as Tony was in possession of the card, he wouldn't have needed to disable it; all he had to do was not break it. There's a circuit in there that will automatically send out one last-ditch squawk to the mansion, he'd said.

Well, that sounds exactly like what Steve wants right now.

He reaches for the identicard, puts it on the floor, and then stomps on it. Something cracks under his boot, and when he lifts his foot away the broken screen flashes the Avengers' symbol once, then twice, then goes dead.

Steve smiles.

He realizes he can't remember the last time he smiled.

He has no way to tell if it actually worked, he thinks as he picks up the card and tucks it into one of his pouches. All he can do is hope. He has to hope that the signal got through, that the Avengers can understand it's from him after what Tony did to their systems, and that they can trace it. And then they have to assemble the team and get here. He doesn't know how long it's going to take. And he doesn't know how long he has until Tony comes back.

A different man might sit here and wait for rescue. That's not him. He's going to get Tony and get out of here, and if he meets the rest of the Avengers on the way, they can help.

He also needs his shirt. As much as the thought of anything touching his back makes him want to sob, his uniform shirt is leather and scale-mail, and he'll take all the protection he can get. He knows he's going to have to fight his way out.

His shirt and gloves are on the floor just outside his cell, where Tony had kicked them to keep them away from him, and it's another long, slow walk back across the room.

His undershirt sticks to his back, and he bites his lip so he doesn't make a noise louder than pained groaning. He thinks the blood is already soaking through. The mail shirt is worse, because it's so goddamn heavy as it settles on his shoulders. As Steve pulls his gloves on he drags the left one over the inhibitor bracelet and thinks, dazedly, about how nice it will be to get the bracelet off, to get his powers back, to heal everything, to stop hurting.

Right. Shirt on, gloves on, cowl up, shield in hand. He's getting Tony, and they're going home.

The door is locked from the other side. He has much less strength than he's accustomed to, but vibranium is vibranium, and it still wins. After a few blows the door eventually gives way, and he's— somewhere.

It's a long, echoing corridor. There are a few corridors crossing it farther down, and a row of unlabeled doors, and the whole thing dead-ends into a T-junction maybe five hundred feet down. He's been here before, he knows, but he was blindfolded. Tony took him to an elevator. That sounds like a good start. There might be a map to personnel quarters, if that's where Tony is. Which way did Tony take him before? Was it left?

Left sounds good, Steve thinks, and he jogs down the corridor and turns. Adrenaline is coursing through his veins now, thank God. It almost doesn't hurt anymore.

At the far end of the corridor, a man with 182 on his hood sees him and freezes. "Prisoner escape! Captain America's escaped!" he yells, and Steve's timetable for getting out of here has just been drastically shortened.

He slides his shield off his arm and poises for a throw. Bringing his arm back makes his shoulders protest in new and horrific ways, but he ignores it, and he lets the shield fly. It's not the best throw he's ever made, but it does the job, as 182 takes the hit and goes down.

The yell must have alerted someone, because lights start to flash, and a solid metal door starts to descend just behind the fallen man, blocking the corridor. If he runs—

Steve grabs his shield. He runs, and he dives, sliding under the door, hitting the floor hard, his ribs howling in protest at the landing. He's through. Was it left again from here? He thinks so.

He picks himself up and keeps running. Another Secret Empire member steps out, and he swings his shield and the woman falls. The impact jars all up his arm, and he thinks his back must be bleeding again, but he keeps running, following what he thinks are the directions Tony had given him. He's going to get to that elevator.

Three more hooded people get in his way. Only the last one has a gun, and the bullets ping harmlessly off his shield. He's a little slower to block than he usually is, but even his unenhanced reflexes are better than a lot of people's. He can do this.

And then he sees it. At the end of the corridor, there's another door, its sliding metal halves shut—and this one has an elevator call button next to it.

He's at the elevator, reaching out for the button—

The elevator doors open before he can do anything.

Tony's standing there, leather-clad, a taser in his hands.

"Goddammit," Tony snarls. "Why won't you do what you're told?"

And he fires.

The taser leads sink into Steve's thigh, below the shield, and he convulses, all of his muscles spasming. Already almost at the limit of endurance, his weary, abused body can no longer tolerate this, and he pitches to the floor, head first.

His shield flies out of his hands, his head hits the floor, and he's out cold.

Consciousness is a profoundly unwelcome experience.

Steve's lying on his side on cold concrete. His hands are cuffed behind his back, which hurts more than he could have imagined possible. Someone's pulled the cowl away from his face, and the cut on his temple from a few days ago has opened up again; either that, or a new one has taken its place, because the side of his face is damp and sticky with blood. There's blood all over him. Underneath his uniform, his undershirt is stiff with dried blood, still stuck to his back.

He opens his eyes and wishes he hadn't, because the first thing he sees is a booted foot planted firmly atop his shield, which is lying on the floor right in front of his face. Tony's foot, of course—still clad in thigh boots and fishnets.

He's back in Tony's lair.

Tony's face is hard, unmoving, but his eyes—he's alive, all right, eyes narrowed, the coldest blue Steve has ever seen. He looks absolutely betrayed, like he never expected Steve would do this. Betrayed, hurt, and furious. He's staring at Steve like Steve's escape attempt was some kind of personal insult.

Tony reaches down, grabs him by the cowl, and hauls him back and up until he's more or less kneeling, tilting his chin up until he has no choice but to look Tony in the face, as Tony sneers down at him from on high.

Tony has the bullwhip in his hand again. Oh, God. No.

"Well." Tony clicks his tongue, sadly, shaking his head. "This is awkward, Steve." His tone is all disappointment. Like he expected better from him. "I thought you said you loved me."

Steve's breath catches in his throat. He's told Tony he loved him twice so far, twice in this horrible week, but Tony never really acknowledged it when he said it; he'd thought that perhaps this twisted version of him was deliberately ignoring it, for fear of stirring up his own feelings. But it's worse than that—Tony heard him after all, and he warped that statement of love in his own mind into something awful, some reason Steve should be forever dependent on him, forever submissive in a world where he can never say no again.

"I believed in you, Steve." Tony's eyes are huge and luminous now, face still wracked with pain, like he's about to cry. "I trusted you. And you callously betrayed that trust. You tried to leave me, Steve." His chin tilts up. "Do you remember the very first thing I told you, when you got here?"

He doesn't, at first. Some generic villainous threat, wasn't it? And then the exact words slide into Steve's brain, an exquisitely precise memory. He wants to shudder in horror, but he can't quite move anymore.

"You said I wasn't going home," he rasps.

The Avengers are coming for him. All he has to do is hold out a little longer.

He's beginning to suspect that he doesn't have a lot of time left.

"Exactly so." Tony smiles. He's given the right answer. "This is your home now. Right here. With me. Even though you've failed the test I set for you." He smirks. "Really, do you think I'd be so careless as to accidentally loosen your bonds? I may have been drunk, but I'm not an idiot. I thought we had a relationship. I thought my order would be obeyed. But, no, you had to run." Tony's sigh is theatrical. "Perhaps I gave you too much credit, and you gave me too little."

Tony bends down, his head at a level with Steve's, and his smile now is vicious, something Steve has never wanted to see on Tony's face.

And then Tony reaches out with one gloved finger and taps... Steve's throat?

The collar.

Steve's stomach sinks. God, he didn't even realize.

Tony laughs. "You were going to escape, and you never thought to take my collar off. How about that?" His eyes are alight with a terrible glee. "You're mine. Even though you'll die before you admit it, you belong to me. And even you know it."

And then Tony takes the collar off. The buckle comes undone easily, and Tony steps back, folding the little strip of leather up in his hand.

Steve tells himself he is not even the tiniest bit disappointed. This isn't Tony. It's just a piece of leather. It should have no significance whatsoever to him.

The collar meant Steve was protected. The collar meant that he meant something to Tony. Now that Tony's removed it—well, Steve doesn't know what happens to him now. Is Tony going to hand him over to someone else? Is Tony going to kill him?

Tony walks back toward the closest desk and drops the collar in a drawer. He rummages around and takes out something Steve can't quite see, balled up in his fist, but it had jingled like metal against the inside of the desk drawer.

"You're probably glad to have that thing off, huh?" Tony asks. He shuts the drawer. His tone is bright, almost conversational. "You couldn't stand to be anyone's property." And then he steps in close, and his voice is coldly furious. "Well, you're going to miss it. You'll be begging me to give you the collar back. You'll see."

Tony opens his fist—the hand that isn't holding the whip—and lets the object in it dangle between his fingers. Steve doesn't understand what he's looking at. His blurred vision focuses, with some difficulty. It's a length of steel chain, maybe two feet long, with slightly larger rings at either end.

Steve doesn't understand what it's for. Is Tony going to hit him again?

"I'm afraid it's going to be a very short leash for you from now on, Steve," Tony tells him, and there's nothing in his smile but pure cruelty.

There can't be anything of the real Tony left now. If some part of him were still here, were still watching, he would find a way to stop himself. He wouldn't do... whatever he's about to do to him. The man Steve loves is gone.

Tony bends down and puts the chain around Steve's neck, sliding one end through the ring on the other end, and that's when Steve realizes he knows what this is: a slip collar for dogs. A choke chain.

The ring on the end of the collar slides past a few of the links and the whole thing tightens around Steve's throat, the metal cutting into his unprotected flesh. He can't breathe.

And Tony takes a grip on the loose end of the chain, straightens up, and takes a step back so that he's once again standing on Steve's shield. He smiles. It's a pose of absolute and utter victory. Tony has him exactly where he wants him. He wraps the chain around his fist. And then he starts to pull.

Steve's time has run out.

There's nothing he can do to get away. His hands are bound behind his back. All he can do is stare up at Tony's smiling face as Tony chokes the life out of him.

His vision is going gray at the edges. The world swims around him, but all he can see is Tony's face, and Tony's not stopping. If he still had his powers he'd be able to hold out a little longer, but in the end everyone needs to breathe. Tony's not going to let him. Tony might let him go after he passes out, but at this point Steve thinks it's no longer safe to assume that Tony doesn't want him dead.

The chain is cutting into Steve's throat, and he's gasping and gasping for air that just isn't there. He tries to lean back, forward, anywhere, but Tony's grip remains steady. Tony is holding him fast.

He's going to die.

Everything darkens—and then goes bright. Colorful spots form at the edge of his field of vision. He thinks he hears voices, faraway, like someone's shouting from the other end of a long hallway. This is new, he thinks, distantly. He's no stranger to being choked, and it's only ever been gray before.

He wonders if this is what dying is like.

The spots in front of his eyes are red and yellow and—

Those aren't hallucinations. Those are energy blasts.

"He's got Cap!" someone yells. "Warbird, Wasp, go!"

The Avengers. They came for him.

The pressure on his neck stops increasing, but it isn't slackening; the chain is still digging in, tight. He still can't breathe. He realizes he can't see Tony anymore at the same time as he collapses onto his side. The world is again bright with energy, and there's the sound of footsteps, pounding away, and above his head, a gunshot.

Someone's standing next to him. All he can see are black boots, and then black-gloved hands are reaching for his throat. He can feel his heart rate spike, one last shot of terrified adrenaline, but it's no good. He tries to move away, but he can't. He's out of strength. He's done. Tony's finally going to kill him, now that the Avengers are here. Tony's going to choke him with his own two hands. Maybe he'll break Steve's neck.

At least he'll be quick about it. At least it will finally be over.

The hands at his throat loosen the chain, and it falls away.

Oh, God, he can breathe.

He gasps for oxygen, drawing in huge lungfuls of air, dizzy with it. The skin of his throat is abraded, rubbed raw, probably bleeding, but it hurts so much less than his back that he doesn't even care. The gloved hands run over his throat, tilting his head back, checking for injury. The touch is soft. Gentle. That can't be right. Tony was just trying to hurt him. He blinks a few times and the world comes into focus.

Black gloves. Black thigh boots. Black leotard with a huge lightning bolt.

It's not Tony. It's Carol.

"Oh my God," Carol breathes, and the maskless half of her face twists in agonized pity. "Oh, God, Cap. Are you all right? What happened? It looked like Tony was— what the hell is going on?"

"Brainwashing," Steve says, and speech feels like liquid fire in his throat. "Secret Empire. Not his fault. They— he— we have to stop Tony. Bring him home." He tries to push himself up, to look around the room. He remembers too late that his wrists are still bound. He's not going anywhere. "Where is he?"

Jan is at Wasp-size somewhere above his head. The door to the room has been blasted off its hinges, and there's twisted and scorched metal on the floor. Clint has an arrow nocked and is running back out the doorway, Wanda at his heels. She's surrounded by a red halo of magic and her hair is streaming behind her.

Somewhere far away, he thinks he hears the pure ringing of Mjölnir colliding with a foe. Thor's holding the exit open for them. Looks like they brought the whole team with them.

"He ran when he saw us coming," Carol says. Her hand goes to her earpiece. "Vision's at home, pulling all the data off their systems. Says he's deleting some kind of bomb schematics. Thor, Justice, and Firestar are keeping a path clear. Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch are following Tony." She gives him a dubious glance. "Are you good to go?"

Jan circles around Carol's head. "You want to head back to the Quinjet, Cap?" Jan asks. "We can handle this one without you." Steve thinks that's a concerned expression on her face, but it's hard to tell at this size. "You don't look so hot."

"I'm fine," he lies. He has to get to Tony. He owes it to Tony. It has to be him. "I just need my wrists untied. I'll be fine."

"Sure thing," Jan says. She flies around behind Steve. He can't see her, but there's the familiar sound of her energy blasts, and then the cuffs click open. "There you go."

They can't get the inhibitor bracelet off. It's too close to his skin for that trick to work again, and there's no time to try anything else. He has to get to Tony.

Steve grits his teeth, picks up his shield, and pushes himself to his feet. He stumbles and wobbles a little, but he doesn't think either of them have noticed. He swings his arms, testing his range of motion, and he stifles a yell as his back tightens up.

He'll be fine, he tells himself. He's had worse. Tony's more important right now.

"Okay," Steve says. "Which way?"

"Hawkeye says down the hall and to the right," Carol says, and she eyes him again. "You sure you're okay?"

He hefts his shield and dodges the question. "Don't worry about me," he says. "Worry about Tony."

They're out the door and back into the maze of corridors. Steve leads the charge, shield held in front of him, with Jan and Carol flying behind. He takes the first right; he hasn't been in that direction before. He keeps running. He figures Carol will tell him where to go. Their path is clear, with the only Secret Empire members he sees unconscious on the floor, one with an arrow in his collarbone. It's clear that the Avengers have been this way already.

"Just up ahead," Carol says. "And right again."

The corridor has widened, and Steve turns, takes in the open doorway to what looks like a storage area, and is running forward even as Jan yells, "Careful, Cap, take cover—"

He brings his shield up on pure reflex, and that's the only thing that saves him from getting shot in the head.

Tony is clearly not concerned about his welfare any longer.

The room is huge, cavernous, full of pallets, like a warehouse. Clint and Wanda are crouching behind two of the pallets by the door; Steve, Jan, and Carol duck down next to them.

"That's Tony," Clint whispers, unnecessarily, and he jerks his head toward the far end of the room. "He's fired six shots, but I don't know what he's got, so I don't know how many rounds he has left." There are three arrows stuck into the pallet just behind where Tony is crouched. "And he's awfully tricky to hit."

What kind of gun was it? Steve can't remember. He's having a hard time focusing. Now that he's paused for breath he's aware of how much everything hurts. He thinks his back is bleeding again.

"Wanda," Steve says. "Can you summon Wonder Man—"

But she shakes her head. However her connection with Simon works, it's clearly very tenuous. And not working right now.

Steve glances over at Carol. "We could use your Binary powers—"

Carol's face goes cold all over, just like the last time he'd asked her, and he wonders what he said wrong. But it's clearly not an option.

"I'll talk to him," he says, ignoring Jan opening her mouth to offer a suggestion. It has to be him, anyway.

He stands up, and two more bullets ping off his shield, then one more. Tony has to be out of bullets. He can just barely see Tony, crouching behind a pallet at the end of the room.

"It's all right, Tony," he calls out. "It's me."

His vision's a little blurry, but he sees Tony standing up, stepping away from the pallet, into unguarded, open territory. Next to Steve, Clint readies an arrow, but he motions Clint away.

"No," he tells Clint. "Stand down. I've got this."

Tony shoots at him again, and Steve just barely blocks it in time. What do you know, he had another bullet. Steve wishes there had been enough time to try to take the inhibitor bracelet off. These aren't the reflexes Steve is used to having.

Clint squints up at him. "You don't look like you've got this, Cap, if you don't mind me saying so."

Steve ignores him. He steps forward.

"Tony!" he calls out. "It's okay, Tony. The Avengers are here. We're going home."

Tony's chest heaves raggedly and his eyes are wild. "Have you forgotten again?" he calls back. "You're not going home, Steve. You're going to stay right here, at my side. Forever." And he smiles—once again, that awful smile, panicked, desperately trying to hold onto control.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Carol and Wanda exchange worried glances.

"We're going home," Steve repeats. "We're going home together. It's going to be all right."

Tony laughs, a high cackle that Steve associates with villains who aren't quite sane anymore. "You think I'm just going to let you walk out of here with them? I'll see you dead first."

It's okay, he tells himself. This isn't Tony. It doesn't matter what he's saying. Steve can knock him down without doing permanent damage. Then they can take him out of here. Get him home. Heal him. There has to be a way to heal him.

"I know you don't want me dead," Steve tells him. He would have killed him before if that were the case. He can't mean to kill him now.

He slides his shield off his arm and into his hand, testing the weight of it. Even without the serum, he knows how to throw the shield—it's all muscle memory. If he bounces the shield off the wall just so, he'll hit Tony low, knock his feet out from under him, and then they'll have him. Tony's not armored; there aren't a lot of other safe places to hit him.

"You remember what else I told you that first day?" Tony calls back, a smile curling around his lips. He chuckles. "Don't assume that you know how I feel about you."

Steve raises his arm and throws—

There's a searing, burning pain in his chest, just as the shield leaves his hand—

The throw goes wild, higher than Steve meant it to, bouncing off the far wall—

Steve looks down and there's a knife in his chest, just below the scale mail, oh Christ, Tony threw a goddamn knife into his chest, Tony's going to feel so awful about that—

The shield rebounds. It was a bad throw, and Steve watches in horror as the shield hits Tony... in the head. Oh, God, no. It collides solidly with the unprotected back of his skull, an awful crunch of metal and bone, before falling onto the nearby pallet.

Tony's eyes roll back into his head and he drops to the floor like so much dead weight. God, oh God, please let him not be dead, Steve thinks, and he tries to move, he tries to run to Tony, but he takes a staggering step forward before realizing his legs aren't quite working the way he wants anymore.

He looks down again. Blood is soaking through the front of his uniform around the knife hilt. His uniform is red and white and red and red and red. That's not coming out, he thinks, dazedly, and then he thinks he might be in shock.

Summoning all the strength in him, he reaches up and pulls the knife out. He has to get to Tony. Tony has to be all right.

He staggers forward again, but someone catches him around the midsection. They're holding him back. He hisses as his uniform rubs up against the weals on his back. He looks down. There's a hand in a purple half-glove resting there, splayed across his stomach, pressing down into the wound, and Steve groans and tries to push forward anyway. He doesn't remember Clint being this strong before.

"Jesus Christ, Cap," Clint says in his ear, "did no one ever tell you that, even for super-soldiers, if you're going to pull a knife out you gotta put pressure on the wound? Hold still."

"Tony," Steve gasps out, still trying to fight his way past Clint. He has to get to Tony. He has to see if Tony's okay. Steve can't have killed him with a stupid mistake. Not after everything that's happened to them. Tony's not going to die like this. Not because of him. "Is he—"

Steve's vision is starting to go again. He sees a dark blur and a lighter one moving past him. He thinks maybe that's Jan and Carol flying over to see Tony.

"You got him," Clint says. "You got him. He's down. You got him good."

"No," Steve says, hoarsely. He can hardly talk. "I mean, is he all right? I have to see him. I have to. He has to be okay."

Clint turns his head. He's talking to someone else.

"—hex him back together before he kills himself trying to get to Tony!"

The words are fading. He can't quite hear. But Clint's talking to Wanda, and his grip slackens, and Steve pulls away, stumbling across the floor, finally sprawling next to Tony's body.

"Cap," Jan says, but he ignores her. "Steve, you're bleeding out, you have to stop this—"

"Tony," he whispers. It's all he can say.

Tony's curled up on his side. There's blood matting his hair, and Steve feels sick. Steve can't tell if he has a pulse, if he's breathing. He can hardly see. Tony is a blur of dark leather and too-pale skin, and, oh, God, what if— what if—

He can't see, he realizes, because his eyes are filling up with tears. He's starting to cry, and he pulls himself toward Tony with the last bit of strength in him. His gloved hands are wet with his own blood, and he's smearing it on Tony. He leans into Tony's body, wrapping his arms around him. He's sobbing in earnest now, and he can't think, he can't breathe, he can't do anything except cry, his face pressed into Tony's shoulder. He's hurt Tony. Everything hurts so much. He just wants it to stop.

Steve's last thought is that Tony would be so happy. He's finally crying for him. Just like he wanted.

And then the darkness swallows him up, and there's nothing.

Chapter Text

The first thing Steve's aware of isn't a thing, precisely, so much as the absence of a thing: there is no pain.

He's lying on his back, on smooth sheets, and it doesn't hurt at all. There's the slight pressure of an oxygen monitor on one fingertip, the pinch of an IV in his arm, and the oddly sticky feeling of electrodes across his chest. The room smells like antiseptic cleaning products. There's the faint, rhythmic beeping of medical equipment, and the even softer susurration of someone else in the room breathing.

He opens his eyes. He's in the mansion's infirmary. Jan and Thor are sitting on either side of him. Jan's mouth rounds, a small "o" of surprise, and then she smiles encouragingly and pats his hand.

It's like the original team is coming back together again, he thinks, dazed. Just like the old days. Missing a few people, though.

Steve looks down at himself. He's been stripped to the waist again, but they've left his pants on. There are electrodes dotting his chest, and a gauze bandage taped to his midsection. Other than what's likely under the bandage, there are no marks anywhere on him; the precise lines of cuts and scratches Tony carved into his chest have disappeared, and from the way his back feels, it too must be completely healed. There's no inhibitor bracelet encircling his arm, and the sick, weakened feeling that plagued him since the beginning of his captivity is entirely absent. He has his healing factor back. He has the serum again.

He glances over. There's another bed in the room, but it's empty.

Memory comes back to him in unpleasant flashes. A chain. A knife. Blood smeared across concrete. Tony's body on the floor, still, unmoving.

Maybe Tony's not here because he's—

Steve tries to sit up, but he's stopped by Thor's hand on his shoulder, and the look in Thor's eyes suggests he's more than happy to balance Mjölnir on Steve if nothing else will keep him still.

"T—" Steve tries to say, and then he swallows, and then he tries again. "Tony. Where's Tony?"

"He's all right," Jan says, quickly. "He's upstairs, in his room, asleep. Wanda's with him. Hank McCoy might still be there too. They're monitoring him. He has a concussion, but that's all that's left."

Beast hadn't been around a week ago, but Steve supposes it was easy enough to call him in. And Tony has a concussion. That's my fault, he thinks. But, wait, if that's all that Jan mentioned—

"Is he—"

Jan smiles, softly. It's strange to have someone smile at him with no cruelty in it. "He's going to be fine, Steve. He's himself again."

"A most foul spell was wrought upon him," Thor adds. "The Secret Empire marshaled powerful magics against his mind, to cause him to forget the kindness of his own heart. The Scarlet Witch worked long hours, and in the end she triumphed over the curse. He has been restored."

"He was having headaches," Steve says, because someone else should know, because if Tony's unconscious he can't have told them. Someone else needs to know this. It's personal, true, but it's Tony's life at stake. He bites his lip and tells them the rest. "And he was— he was drinking again, towards the end." Steve's not quite clear on the details of Tony's resurrection; he knows that when Tony was still drinking, the doctors had told him another drink would kill him, but he doesn't know if Tony's current body still bears those scars. He doesn't know if Tony's going to be going through withdrawal again. Oh, God, Tony.

Jan pats his hand again. "We know," she murmurs. "It's okay. He was awake for a bit. He talked to us about that. He's going to be okay."

"I recommended that Jane Foster attend to him," Thor says, "for she is greatly skilled in these arts. She said he will not take ill from the drink, not bodily," he adds, and Steve feels good about something for the first time in a week, "but it is of course a matter of his mind, whether he should wish to continue to drink, and that is not so easily healed."

Steve frowns. "If you asked for Jane, then—you weren't there? Don Blake, not required?"

Thor smiles gently. "My talents were required, but not my leechcraft." He taps Mjölnir's handle, and Steve stares, confused.

"Thor broke that bracelet you were wearing," Jan puts in. She regards him with a stern glare. "I know stubbornness is your secret superpower, Cap, but next time, could you maybe tell us you're wearing carbonadium under your uniform and your powers don't work before you rush into battle?" She holds up her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "You were this close to dying before we figured out why you weren't healing the way you should have been."

"No time," Steve says. "Wasn't important. Had to get to Tony."

She sighs in exasperation. "Well, you're all healed up now. It was an unpleasant surprise when we finally got your shirt off. You were a mess under there."

You're a beautiful mess, Tony says in his head, and Steve shudders. He doesn't want to remember that.

"There were some cuts on your chest," Jan says, very gently, "and— and whip marks on your back. Did Tony...?"

Steve sighs and nods. "That was all him. There was a knife, and then a whip. But he didn't— you can't blame him, Jan." He reaches out and grips Jan's arm. "It wasn't really him, he would never have, you can't—"

"No one's blaming him." Jan puts her free hand over his. "We just need to know the extent of what happened to you. So we can help you." And then she looks away. "I don't know how to ask this, and Tony didn't tell us. Did anyone— did he— was the abuse only that, or—"

Steve realizes what she can't say.

"He didn't rape me," Steve says, and Jan relaxes. "No one did. He didn't— he didn't want to. Not what he was there for. That... wasn't what he was interested in."

He knows it will sound wrong if he tries to explain it, that Tony wanted to be close to him in every way but that. He knows Tony could have if he'd wanted to. He doesn't think he can explain what went on in any way that will make sense to anyone who isn't him. Tony smiled at him, and Tony fed him with his own two hands, and Steve was so close to breaking apart even before Tony drew that knife.

"Oh, thank God," Jan says, under her breath. "Okay. Well." She swallows hard and seems to regain some composure. "The stab wound is the only thing left, and it's healing nicely, or so Jane said. You've been out maybe twelve hours. I'm told you should probably get more sleep. Aids the healing process."

Steve nods. "All right. Am I cleared to be out of bed soon? I need to see Tony."

Thor and Jan's eyes meet, and their gazes are both filled with a hesitant sadness. Wait, what?

"I believe that would be unwise," Thor says.

"What?"

Jan's teeth worry at her lip. "We don't think you should be there, Steve."

Steve tries to push himself up. This tugs on the IV, and he glares in annoyance at it before settling back down. "What? Why?" He stares helplessly. "That's— that's what we do. What we've always done, when one of us isn't well. We wait for each other. We always have."

He cares about Tony. He always has. It shouldn't be different now. And if they do something different, if they let it be different because of what happened to them, that's just inviting this awful experience to stay with them. He wants—no, he needs—to see Tony, his Tony, the real Tony, alive and well, to know that he's okay, that they've made it out of this together.

"Look," Jan says, very quietly. "We know you love him. Of course you want to be there at his side. But we're saying that maybe it's not the best thing for him right now. He remembers what he did to you. There's no amnesia, or anything of the sort."

"When he awoke," Thor says, "he spoke to us, and he wept as he told us of the shame and regret he felt for his actions."

God. Tony's been crying. Tony was crying about him and he wasn't there, he wasn't there to tell him it was all right—

"They weren't his actions—" Steve starts to say, throat gone tight.

Jan raises an eyebrow. "You've known Tony for ten years, and you're going to tell me you don't understand why he could possibly blame himself? You know him, Steve. He feels responsible. He always feels responsible. Even when he's been under mind control."

"He shouldn't. There wasn't anything he could have done differently. It wasn't his fault."

"Yeah, well." Jan sighs. "Welcome to Tony Stark." She meets Steve's eyes with all the commanding presence of a founding Avenger. "He spent a week brainwashed into villainy, fixated on you, and by both of your accounts, torturing you. Can you see why he might not want to see you immediately?"

Steve shuts his eyes in misery. "He asked not to see me?"

"Not directly," Jan says. "But... I got that impression, yes."

Well. So much for moving on.

And then he has an idea, a little glimmer of hope in his chest.

"Can I see him?"

"What do you mean?" Jan asks.

"He doesn't have to talk to me. Or even wake up. I just want to look in on him," Steve says. "That's all. So I can see for myself."

"I'm not sure you should be walking—" Jan begins, but Steve's already pulled out the IV and is working methodically on the electrodes. "And, yep, you are definitely still Captain America," she finishes, on a sigh.

"The stubborn didn't come with the uniform, you know," Steve tells her, and she sighs and moves to the side as Steve pushes himself upright. His stomach barely hurts at all. "It was already there."

"I kind of suspected that." Jan tosses him a backless hospital robe and he pulls it on. "Let's do this in style. Thor, tie that in back for him, will you?"

"Aye," Thor says, and he does. "Come, Captain, we shall see your leman anon."

Steve frowns. He's usually good at figuring out what Thor means, but this one has him stumped. "My what?"

"Your beloved," Thor says, and it warms Steve's heart to know that people think of him and Tony like that, like they're a couple. The Secret Empire can't have taken that away from him. They can't have. Thor pauses. "Your leman. Is that not how it is said?"

Despite himself, Steve smiles. "Not anymore." For all that some days he still feels like he doesn't belong in this time even now, it's nice not to be the oldest one on the team.

"Ah," Thor says. "Very well."

Steve walks slowly, gingerly upstairs, two of his first teammates on either side of him, off to see a third.

He waves Thor and Jan away as soon as he gets to the second floor. He can walk down a hallway himself. The door to Tony's room is open, and Wanda is sitting inside; he doesn't see Hank anywhere. Wanda waves silently. Steve gives her an absent nod, all his attention focused on the figure in bed on the other side of the room.

Tony's lying on his back, asleep, blankets pooled around his waist. Someone was clearly responsible for changing him out of the getup he's been wearing all week; he's now wearing fuzzy flannel pajamas. His face is relaxed, peaceful. You wouldn't know, looking at him, what Steve did to him. What he did to Steve.

There's a rustling behind him as Wanda moves to stand at his shoulder. "I healed the concussion as well," she says, in an undertone, so as not to wake Tony, "as best as I was able. He will need to rest, but his recovery will be swift. And his mind is his own now. He's free."

"And the headaches?" Steve asks. "Will he have those?"

She shakes her head. "It was an ingenious spell. The man who set it on him—a high-ranking member of the Secret Empire—will never work magic again. I saw to that." Her voice is deadly serious. "But the spell had its limits, and when Tony tried to push against them, to reassert himself, it gave him pain."

He thinks about all the times Tony had to stop, had to walk out of the room, because his head was hurting. That was him fighting back. That was Tony. He was still there. Steve is half glad that Tony, the real Tony, was there, was really still there underneath, and half sickened to think that Tony was there and couldn't do anything, and worse, that he remembers everything that they made him do.

Steve's clenching his hands into fists, he realizes, when his palms start to ache from digging his fingers into them. He's tense all over; his half-healed wound twinges. That's always his solution, isn't it? He runs into a problem, he gets angry, he wants to punch his way out.

That's not going to help him now.

"He remembers it all," Steve says, and it's not quite a question, because if it were a question, he couldn't have asked it, because the thing he can't even contemplate would make him as much of a monster as the people who violated Tony's mind in the first place.

But it's not fair, he wants to say. He wants to scream it. Tony didn't do it. Tony would never have done it. He shouldn't have to live with it.

Wanda's gaze is knowing. "He does." And then, even quieter: "I would not make him forget, unless he asked me to. You must know that. And even then—" her face wavers, unsure— "I'm not sure I could."

"I know." Steve scrapes his hand over his face. "And he won't ask."

That's Tony, all right, the weight of the world on his shoulders. He probably even believes he deserves to remember, to suffer for it, like the pain, the unneeded guilt, is an expiation. For an atheist, Tony makes a damn good martyr.

In the bed, Tony turns over and mumbles something against his pillow, inarticulate, distressed. Bad dreams.

Yeah, they're all going to have a lot of those.

"Tell him," Steve starts to say, and then he stops. There's nothing he can say that will fix this. And everything he wants to say is so personal that he's not going to leave it to a teammate to pass on.

"Tell him what?"

Steve sighs. "Never mind." He summons up a smile. "Thanks, Wanda. Thanks for saving him." For doing what I couldn't.

In the doorway he stops, turns back, and takes one last look at Tony, trying to fix him in his memory. He doesn't know when he'll get to see him again. He wants to remember Tony as himself.

He skips team dinner in the evening. He can't face it. When he judges that everyone, even Jarvis, is safely gone from the kitchen, he raids the pantry. He eats only prepackaged, unopened food, food that can't have been tampered with. He avoids the fruit bowl in the refrigerator.

That night he sleeps in his own bed, alone. One wall separates his room from Tony's. It's the first bed he's slept in in a week. It's the first time he's slept alone in his bed in a month.

In his dreams Tony smiles at him and says you'll stay with me forever, smiles a real smile, and Steve smiles back and says yes, yes, Tony, yes, and then Tony unsheathes the knife—

He wakes up soaked in sweat, gasping.

He lies awake restless, uneasy, and as he flings his arm across the expanse of sheets, the emptiness that Tony's body fit into perfectly, he thinks about how quickly he'd come to believe that Tony would always be there, and how quickly it was all taken away from him.

In the morning Steve peels the bandage away from his stomach; there's only pale, unmarred, unbroken skin underneath. There's no sign that anything whatsoever happened to him.

(Your skin's marking up so well, a voice that isn't quite Tony's says in his head.)

The soundproofing in the mansion has always been very good—well, it has been since the first time Tony had to fix the place up after it got smashed—but the regular rooms aren't isolation chambers, and he can hear someone moving around next door. In Tony's room. There's the low hum of someone talking, muffled, too indistinct to make out any words. Tony's awake. He could knock on the door. He could talk to him.

Tony doesn't want to see him.

So Steve sits back down on the edge of his bed. He waits for the talking to stop. He waits a little longer, until the door opens and closes and there's the sound of footsteps in the hallway.

He brushes his teeth. He stares at the razor next to the sink for long, frozen moments. He remembers watching Tony strop the blade. He remembers Tony's steady hands on his jaw. If I wanted to cut you, it wouldn't be your face.

It hadn't been, had it?

He splashes water on his face and watches water run down his hollowed cheeks. His eyes are set too deep. He tries to smile, but it doesn't change the haunted look in his eyes.

He'll shave tomorrow.

No, he tells himself, he'll do it now. He won't let this get the better of him.

So he shaves. But today he uses a safety razor.

Most of the rest of the team is downstairs, eating breakfast. Tony's not one of them. That much, he'd been expecting. But Carol isn't there either.

He watches the team look at him, look at each other, and look away. Like they're trying to decide which of them has to deal with him.

"Hey, Cap," Clint says, too cheerfully.

Steve makes himself smile. "Good morning."

He gets himself a bowl of cereal. There's nothing wrong with cereal.

He doesn't say much during breakfast. He doesn't think anyone really expects him to. He's not very hungry.

Then he heads to the basement and trains. The gym. The Combat Simulation Room. Everything he can think of. He needs to be ready. He dodges laser beams, he slides across the room, he thinks if only I'd been faster, he thinks if only I'd called Tony when I was worried about him, he thinks if only I'd never kissed him—

He stops dead in the center of the simulation room and a robot arm knocks him flat.

That's enough practice for today.

The team often tries to eat dinner together, and breakfast is usually a team affair by virtue of everyone happening to be awake at the same time, but lunch, as always, is a mixed bag of whoever is around. Today it's Vance and Angel, who—thankfully for Steve—are mostly engrossed in their own conversation. Steve's still not very hungry, even though he should be, and he makes himself a sandwich. No one will have tampered with the packaged ham. It's irrational, he tells himself.

Soon enough, Vance and Angel drift away, and Steve's alone in the kitchen.

And then he looks up, and Tony's in the doorway. He's not polished, put together. He's wearing faded, worn corduroy pants and a hooded sweatshirt, hands shoved in the pockets. He looks like he's drowning in it. His movements are quick, nervous; if he'd had the hood up, Steve might not even have known it was him.

Tony, wide-eyed and pale, stops when he sees him—a deer in the headlights, Steve thinks—and then backs up, taking a few hesitant, stumbling steps. He'd clearly thought the kitchen would be empty now that Vance and Angel had left. Tony's face is perfectly still, a frozen moment of surprise.

When Tony wasn't himself, he was so happy. Now he looks like he's never going to smile again.

"Don't go." The words are awkward in Steve's mouth, and he's painfully conscious of the need to say the exact right thing. It feels like if Tony walks out the door, he'll never see him again. "Please."

Four days ago, he was kneeling on a floor and Tony had told him to beg. And he'd refused.

"All right," Tony says, so quietly Steve might have missed it, and he steps inside.

He has to walk past Steve to get to the counter.

Steve can feel his heart rate increase. He's sweating. He's not scared of Tony. He can't be. This is Tony. Tony isn't going to harm him.

Taking one hand out of his pocket, Tony pours himself a cup of coffee. His hand is shaking.

"Are you okay?" Tony asks, not looking at him. "I mean, are you— are you healing?"

"Yeah. Uh." Steve nods. "Thor knocked the bracelet off. Healing factor's back. Serum's back. All better."

"Good," Tony says, sipping his coffee. "Good. That's, uh. That's. I'm glad. I am."

They could be strangers. They really, really aren't.

If they can just keep talking, Steve tells himself, they can get over this. If they try, everything can be normal again.

"And you? The headaches are gone?"

"Mmm-hmm," Tony says. "There's no need to worry about me."

Steve does, though. He always has, and now more than ever. But he's pretty sure Tony doesn't want to hear that. He casts around for another, safer topic of conversation. "You went out this morning?"

Tony isn't quite looking at him, again. "Yeah. Uh. Went to a meeting."

Steve raises his eyebrows at that. "Back to work already?" He knows Tony's always been devoted to his company, and Tony has been gone for a week, but he needs to take care of himself, too. Even for Tony, it seems unusually fast.

The flush of red across Tony's cheeks is only visible if you know him well enough to know you should be looking for it. He glances away again. "No," Tony says, almost mumbling. "Uh. Not that kind of meeting. A meeting. The kind where you drink bad coffee in a church basement." He removes the hand that he's been keeping in his pocket the whole time, fisted around some small object, white-knuckled.

Tony opens his hand. There's a coin in his palm. White. About the size of a poker chip.

Oh, geez. That kind of meeting.

It wasn't you, Steve wants to say, and he wants to gather Tony in his arms, like if he holds him tightly enough he can make him believe it. You didn't drink. It wasn't really you. You wouldn't have done it. But he knows that it's not about him. It's about Tony, and if Tony thinks it counts, then it counts. He remembers one of the more recent times that Tony was mind-controlled, a couple years ago now. His body had been taken over by a malevolent, sentient computer program named Vor/Tex, who'd decided to make Tony drink—and afterwards Tony had headed right back to AA then too.

"Twenty-four hours sober. I'm going to earn the rest back. You'll see." Tony lifts his head and meets his eyes then, and he just looks—weary. Disgusted with himself. The corner of his mouth twitches, like he's trying to joke about this but can't quite make it. "It was either AA or the liquor store."

Oh, God, Tony.

Tony's fingers curl around the coin, like he's clinging onto it for dear life. "It would have been easy, you know? So goddamn easy. I— I almost did." He makes a face and half-turns away. "I'm sorry, I know you don't need to hear about my problems. God. How much of an asshole am I?"

"Not an asshole at all," Steve says, automatically. "I'm proud of you."

Tony stops, mouth half-open in surprise. "Steve—"

"I am, you know," Steve says. "I know I didn't— I know that I was angry at you, before, when you drank. And I'm sorry. And I never told you that I was proud of you for getting help, and maybe I should have."

Tony's response is an incredulous stare.

"How can you stand to look at me?" Tony asks. He glances away again, nervous, and he tenses, like he thinks Steve should want to hit him, like that would somehow even the score, like there's a score to be evened.

"Tony," he begins, and he doesn't know what to say.

Tony's gaze is bleak. "Why am I still here?"

"Here?"

"On the team." Tony swings his arms wide. "In your life. Any of this. Why aren't you telling me to get the hell out of here?"

Because I love you, Steve wants to say, but the words catch and die in his throat, because he remembers the last time he told Tony this, because it wasn't Tony then.

"Do you want to leave?" Steve asks, instead, and Tony's face falls.

Tony sighs. "I think it's... appropriate."

"Not what I asked," Steve says, more sternly than he intends, and he doesn't mean to sound like this, he doesn't at all, and he wants to hold Tony, and he thinks the last thing he should do is touch him.

Tony waits a second or two to reply, just enough to let Steve's too-loud statement echo around the room, to let him regret saying it. "No," Tony says, finally.

"Then stay," Steve says. "You're an Avenger. We'll take the rest one day at a time." The phrase sparks a memory. "Isn't that how they say it at your meetings?"

Tony smiles weakly. He reaches out—

—and Steve flinches back, an unchecked reflex, because Tony's going to touch him, because he doesn't know what Tony's going to do to him—

"Oh God," Tony says, and he looks like he's about to be sick. "I'm— I'm so—" he says, and then he's practically running.

Shaking, Steve drops into the nearest chair, alone in the room.

That wasn't how he wanted this to go.

He doesn't see Tony for the rest of the day, but someone—he has his suspicions—slips a replacement identicard under his door in the night. Neither Tony nor Carol are there for dinner. Or breakfast, the next day. Steve's at loose ends for most of the day. He can't decide if he should work on a report about the Secret Empire, or if he just can't think about it, and in the end he goes for a run.

He's the only one in the mansion, heading up to shower when his new identicard lights up with Carol's picture.

He hasn't seen Carol since yesterday, he realizes, with a sudden, sinking chill. Not again. Damn it all, not again.

Goddammit, he's not going to lose someone else because he failed. Because he was too slow.

He grabs the card so tightly he nearly cracks it.

"Priority red, Cap!" Carol says. He can hear her energy blasts in the background. "I need help—fast!"

Carol's in Florida, it turns out, pinned down in an abandoned missile silo by a group of Kree calling themselves the Lunatic Legion. He doesn't recognize the name, but then, he's not the Kree expert. No, that would be Carol.

"Grab a Quinjet and track my signal!" Carol yells. "Hurry."

"I'm on it!" Steve says, and he's taking the stairs two at a time up to the hangar. And because he's learned his lesson about rushing off without backup, he adds, "Reinforcements?"

Carol's voice cuts out again. There are more energy blasts. "Already called in!" Carol yells back. "I can't hold the Kree off much longer, Cap! Get moving! Over and out!"

It's sooner than he wanted to be in combat again, and it's definitely sooner than he wanted to put Tony in combat—but life doesn't wait for the Avengers. The team will be there. It will be fine.

Carol was awfully curt, he thinks, as he locks the Quinjet's flight path in. He's alone in the Quinjet. The rest of the team can follow in another jet. She's been odd lately. But she's being shot at, so surely that's reason enough for her to be tense?

He's almost to Cape Canaveral when he realizes he's entirely alone. He's not getting the rest of the Quinjets on his radar, and he's not getting Tony's suit transponder. Tony should be at least as fast as any of them. Tony should have been there already.

Steve opens a priority channel. "Iron Man, why aren't you responding to Warbird's call?"

There's a long pause. "Because I didn't get one. Where are you?"

"Coming into Cape Canaveral," Steve says. "Warbird's fighting some Kree. She said she'd called for backup."

Tony sighs. Whatever this is, it doesn't surprise him. "Yeah, well." The rest of his reply is oddly matter-of-fact. "She probably lied about that."

Lied? Carol? What the hell is going on?

"If you know something I don't," Steve says, "now would be a great time to tell me."

The reply now is too quick. "No, it really wouldn't." There's a somber pause, and when Tony starts talking again, he's all business. "Look, I can be there in twenty minutes. I can go suborbital but I still have to suit up first. Don't go in without me."

So there is something going on. And Tony knows what it is.

He has visual on the missile silo now, and it's anything but abandoned. There's barbed wire. In fact, it looks like a prison camp. There are signs of a recent battle—blasted walls and buildings, a few Kree lying unconscious. He doesn't see Carol at all. That means they've taken her. He queries Carol's identicard, and it pings back: inside the silo, not moving.

Not again. He's not going to let any more of his Avengers be kidnapped.

"No sign of her outside," Steve reports. "There's been fighting. They must have taken her. I can't wait for backup. Going in."

There are several bitten-off obscenities from Tony's end of the line, and the sounds of metal locking into place. "Don't go," Tony says. "Wait for me. For all you know, you're walking into a trap."

Why can't Tony just tell him what the hell is going on? What's so special about Carol that only Tony understands? Something awful and dark and jealous twists within Steve.

"Well, it's not a trap you designed to catch me," Steve snaps, "so I think this time I'll be okay."

On the other end of the line, there's a sharp, pained inhalation of breath, and Steve realizes he shouldn't have said it.

"Iron Man—" Steve tries to say.

Tony cuts him off. "Twenty minutes," he repeats. His voice is harsh. "Try not to get anyone killed. Out."

The line goes dead. So much for that.

When he lands, he follows the trail of destruction to a closed door. He breaks it open to find a roomful of prisoners... and Carol trapped under glass. The Kree are trying to take her.

Goddammit, Steve thinks. Not again. He couldn't save Tony. He can save Carol.

The prisoners start to run for freedom, but Carol's tied down. She can't move, but she's conscious. He can see her mouth moving as she tries to yell something at him, but it's all dampened by the glass. Behind the mask, her eyes are wide and panicked. She's— she's shaking, she's sweating, and something's really wrong with her—

"Warbird!" he yells. "Stay calm! I've got you!"

With another few hits from his shield, the glass spiderwebs and cracks, and Carol gasps for air as glass rains down on her.

She looks like hell, but she doesn't complain. And they're freeing the prisoners—test subjects for the Kree, apparently—when she starts to talk. The Kree base is on the moon. She didn't call the rest of the Avengers after all. And the Kree are jamming communications. He hopes Tony can find them.

"Well, I called them," Steve says. "Iron Man will be here soon, if we can just hold out."

"Oh, of course. You called Iron Man. That figures." Carol's face twists. "What, you didn't think I could handle it alone? You don't trust me, is that it?" She looks even more awful. Maybe she's ill.

Steve just stares at her, flabbergasted. "Warbird, what the hell is wrong with you?"

And then the Kree are shooting at them, and there's no time to think about anything but getting out of here alive. He dodges lasers, and he goes hand-to-hand with a huge Kree soldier who packs quite a punch. They fall through a doorway together.

The room is full of bodies, gassed to death. Failed experiments, the Kree soldier says.

Steve just vows to fight harder, even as he feels sick inside.

The Kree are preparing to rocket off to the moon, and there's only him and Carol. They can either get the rest of the prisoners to safety or follow the Kree, and well, there's only one choice there, isn't there?

"You didn't call the Avengers in because you wanted to impress me," Steve says, awful realization dawning, as they're hurrying the rest of the prisoners away from the launch area. He knows he's been hard on Carol. She's been erratic. He needed to make sure she was holding up. And she... wasn't, it seems. "You wanted my approval. Well, it's not coming!"

This arrogance, this selfishness... it goes against everything it is to be an Avenger. Sure, Avengers need to be good enough for the team, but stunts like this aren't the way to prove it, not when lives are at stake. Steve's appalled.

"I knew it!" Carol snarls. "I knew you had it out for me! You think I'm not good enough for the team!"

"Because I know your powers are in flux?" Steve snaps back. She can't honestly think that's the reason. "You've just described half the Avengers at one time or another! But you're right, Warbird. You're not good for the team—if you're not a team player!"

Carol's lips thin and her face pales. She says nothing. Steve knows he's being harsh, but maybe some of this is getting through. She needs to shape up. Whatever's wrong with her, she needs to lose the attitude, fast.

"Listen to me," he says. "I need to know that the Avengers—my Avengers—can act as a flawless unit."

He thinks about him and Tony, about how they're anything but flawless, and he knows it's wrong of him to hold Carol to a standard he can no longer meet, but people are in danger and now is not the time to argue. This is the situation Carol's gotten them into and she needs to pull herself together and get them out of it.

"You want my approval?" Steve asks her. "Then get your head together and start acting like an Avenger!"

Carol bares her teeth, grim and determined. "I get the message." And then she's in the air. "You get these people out. You want to see an Avenger? I'm going to avenge the deaths of those the Lunatic Legion gassed!"

"Warbird, no!" Steve yells after her. "That's not what I—"

He watches in horror as the Kree stun her and pull her into the rocket. Captured again.

It's all his fault. He lost Tony, and now he's lost Carol.

As the rocket leaves, as it becomes too tiny to see, there's a red-gold blur in the sky, and Steve's comms crackle. The jamming's gone, Steve supposes.

Steve sinks to his knees and doesn't bother getting up.

"Cap?" Tony says, over the comms. "Cap, are you all right?"

"I lost Warbird," he says. "She disobeyed orders. I couldn't stop her. The Kree took her. She's going to their base on the moon. This is my fault."

There's silence. Well. All right, then. That's what Tony thinks of him.

He's not aware that Tony's even landed until he sees jet boots in the dirt at the edge of his peripheral vision.

"Hey," Tony says. Even with the vocal filters, his voice is soft. "You want to look at me?"

He looks up into Tony's masked face. The eyeslits are blocked out, glowing. He can't even tell that it's Tony under there, looking at him. Somehow that makes it better. Easier to take. Tony and Iron Man were two separate people to him for so long that somehow he can think of Iron Man as entirely apart from this mess.

"I just called Quicksilver," Tony says. "He's with the Inhumans, so he's got Lockjaw. He's going to round up Clint and Wanda, and they're going up to the Blue Area. Rescue mission. They'll get her back. This isn't your fault."

It's not that Tony didn't want to talk to him. Tony's just doing his job. Better than Steve is, apparently.

"I tried," Steve says, helplessly. "I tried to talk to her. I kept saying everything wrong."

He's not just talking about Carol.

I keep saying everything wrong with you, he wants to say.

Tony sighs, a fuzzy hiss of static. "It's really not your fault. There's... a lot more going on here."

Whatever that means.

They've dealt with the prisoners, and dawn is breaking by the time they head for home. Tony shucks his helmet, slides into the co-pilot's seat next to Steve, and reports that the team has Carol back as Steve maneuvers the Quinjet into a serviceable takeoff.

"Did they say she was all right?" Steve asks, as he inputs a course homeward and switches on the autopilot. "She didn't look too good, when I found her. She was shaking. Maybe the Kree did something to her."

Steve glances over and wishes he hadn't. Without the helmet, Tony is Tony again. It's hard to take, and Steve hates that it is. It's Tony. He should be over this. He knows it's Tony. Tony wasn't the one who hurt him. Tony would never have done any of it.

"Not the Kree." Tony grimaces. "That would probably be the DTs."

He can't have heard him right. Why would Carol have the shakes? She's not an alcoholic. She can't be. He'd have noticed. "What?"

Tony's throat works. "She's— she's been drinking. Heavily."

Dear God. That's what's been going on. That... well, that explains why it's something Tony knows how to deal with. But Tony's known at least since that mess with the Squadron Supreme, hasn't he? Why didn't he say anything? And how did Steve not notice?

"How long?"

"I don't know when she started." Tony's not meeting his eyes. "But the day we formed the team, I found her behind the bar, getting herself a drink. And lying about it. The drinking wasn't the problem, so much. The lying was."

Steve's glad the Quinjet's on autopilot, because he turns around and stares. What the hell? He can't even believe this.

"You didn't think to mention this when we were putting the team together?" Steve's voice comes out harsher than he means to, once again. He doesn't mean to yell at Tony, but he can't— he can't—

It's always wrong.

Tony's mouth twists.

He remembers the smell of liquor on Tony's breath. I don't get to keep you, Tony says in his head, and the whip cracks.

"There wasn't much in the way of proof," Tony says, and then he sighs. "I wanted to give her a chance." Another pause. "I'd be a goddamn hypocrite if I didn't, wouldn't I?"

"I don't mind you wanting to give her a chance," Steve says, and he can feel the anger gather in him, and he can't stop. "I do mind you not telling me when it endangers the team. The lying is the problem, as you say."

Tony's face pales, then colors. "I didn't lie to you. I don't lie to you." His voice is cold.

I don't lie to you, Captain, Tony says in his head, smiling cruelly, backhanding him, and all of a sudden Steve can't breathe.

Tony stares at him, wide-eyed, and Steve knows he knows exactly what he said.

For a fraction of a second Tony's face is pain-wracked, tortured, in the depths of despair. He's hurting. He's barely holding on. Then he breathes in and out, and it's all smoothed away, hidden behind a mask.

Steve wants to— he wants to—

He doesn't know what he wants to do. He wants them to talk. He wants them to comfort each other. He wants to hold Tony. He doesn't think he can touch Tony.

He wants the past week of his life to not exist.

"There's nothing you can do, anyway," Tony says. "There's nothing any of us can do."

He knows Tony's not just talking about Carol, either.

Neither of them says anything for the rest of the flight.

The post-mission debriefing is a catastrophe.

Carol's back, along with the team that brought her back: Pietro, Wanda, and Clint. Thor and Vision are here too. For some reason Jan's still here. And the entire group has piled into a room and gathered around the table for what started out as a debriefing and has turned into some unholy combination of an intervention and a court-martial.

She can't access her Binary powers at all, apparently. The truth comes out. And she'd started drinking to cope. Not that she's admitted that.

At least Carol's not currently drunk, which is the only way this could have been worse, though Tony has his faceplate pushed up and keeps glancing over at her with an awful mix of pity and longing in his eyes. She'd started drinking again on the moon to make the shakes stop, Clint had said, after they'd rescued her, and because of that, the rescue hadn't gone well.

"—nearly got us all killed!" Pietro says, his eyes flashing.

"Look, Steve," Tony says, pitched low for Steve's ears. "I appreciate that Carol needs help, but putting her on trial isn't going to get her that."

"No one's putting anyone on trial—"

"Really?" Tony asks. "Because this looks kind of like a witch hunt—sorry, Wanda."

Wanda inclines her head.

"I don't need your help, Tony," Carol says from the other side of the table, her teeth bared. "Or Iron Man. Nice of you to tell me about that little detail, by the way."

Tony's face twists. "Carol—"

"Save it," Carol says.

Steve pounds the table with one frustrated fist, and the chatter quiets down. Steve takes a deep breath and meets everyone else's eyes, in turn. Carol refuses to look at him.

"What we're discussing is Warbird's fitness as an Avenger," Steve says, into the silence. "This is not a— a referendum on anyone else's behavior or personal identity."

"If the condemned may speak," Carol drawls.

She's not condemned. It's really not worth pushing the point.

"Warbird, you're not—" Steve sighs. "Go ahead."

"I think you should look at your own goddamned self," Carol says. "You're all ganging up on me, and no one's going to say anything to you, because you're Captain fucking America. You shouldn't be in the field. I ran off without backup? Well, what the hell do you think you did last week?"

Steve's hands clench into fists. "Tony was in danger—"

"Pfft." Carol rolls her eyes. "Tony, Tony, Tony. Tony's been drinking too, and you're falling all over yourself to make excuses for him. You want to bench someone for having a drink? Why don't you bench him, huh?"

Tony wasn't himself. Carol knows that. They don't blame people for their actions under mind control. This isn't Carol. This isn't who she should be. She's not cruel or vindictive, and God, Tony doesn't need this.

"Carol—" Steve begins.

"Oh, that's right," Carol says, mocking, voice rising in fake realization. "It's because you're fucking him. And we're all supposed to pretend that we're equals here, that you'd never treat any of us differently, that you're not giving him a thousand extra chances because he's literally sucking your dick."

Steve stares, shocked into silence. She's really— God, there's really something wrong with her.

Tony covers his face with one gauntleted hand. "Jesus Christ, Carol." He sighs. "The difference between me and you is that I know I have a problem. I'm getting help. And when I was drinking, I wasn't on the team. I wasn't Iron Man."

Carol spins around. "I wasn't talking to you." She stands up. She's shaking with rage. "I have been through so goddamn much on this team, and this is the support I get? None of you are here for me. None of you have ever been here for me. Not when it counted."

And then the lights flash red.

"Excuse me, Avengers," Vision says. "A communication has just come in to the mansion's computers—from the moon. It seems the Lunatic Legion is still a threat—and an imminent one."

Carol can wait. Time to save the world.

"All right." Steve stands up, drawing the eye of everyone else in the room. "Let's go. Iron Man, prep the space Quinjet." Tony flips his facemask back down and nods. "Quicksilver, you're the most familiar with the Blue Area, so I'd appreciate it if you'd brief us on what we can expect." Vision's still non-corporeal, so he can't come. "Vision, please summon Justice and Firestar." He glances around the room. "Everyone else, get to the hangar bay. Ten minutes."

Everyone's on their feet—or wings, in Jan's case—and starting to hurry out. Carol's still standing there, staring at him. Her face is muted, distant, and she looks drained of energy, like that outburst was all she had left. He knows she's waiting to be dismissed.

He doesn't say anything.

"Cap?" she asks.

She's not drunk right now. They'll have an entire team backing them up this time.

I wanted to give her a chance, Tony had said.

He turns to her. "You want to impress me, Warbird? Last chance. Follow my orders, understood?"

Her eyes are a blaze of blue fire. "Understood, Captain."

Steve is grateful to be in the pilot's seat of the Quinjet as they soar into space toward the Blue Area of the moon, because as he dodges Kree lasers and missiles, as he rolls and turns and evades their pursuers—well, then he doesn't have to think about anything else. Tony and Carol are both better pilots than he is, but Tony had bowed out, and he thinks that, given the wary glances the entire team is aiming at Carol, handing her control of the Quinjet would have been pushing it.

He's distracted, and a laser beam just barely misses the jet, straight down the port side in a flash of bright green energy, parallel to the Quinjet's body. Half a foot lower and the wing would have been sliced clean off. He takes a breath, tightens his grip on the yoke, and focuses.

He banks, loops, just barely avoids a missile, and he wishes he weren't the one doing this. Even as he's glad for the reprieve from his thoughts, he knows this shouldn't be him. He's not usually the first-choice pilot, and the fact that it's him in this seat means something's really wrong. Tony's a mess, and Carol's a mess, and the team is just barely holding together, but they've all got to get through this because there are no other options. No one else is going to save the world for them.

They dive toward the pitted surface of the moon, toward the ruined towers—and that's it, they're below the field of fire of the main batteries. They can do this. They're clear.

As he pulls the Quinjet's nose up, he's acutely aware of Tony's eyes on him, as Tony sits next to him, Tony's gaze sliding toward his behind the impassive mask of his armor. This is usually where Tony would compliment his flying or maybe crack a joke about having left his stomach behind.

Tony says nothing.

This is not the time to think about that.

"Coming in for a landing!" Steve calls out. "We'll be under fire from the ground troops as soon as we touch down. Avengers, get ready to hit the ground running!"

"I'm always ready for that!" Pietro yells back, since Steve walked right into that joke, and there's a ragged laugh rippling around the Quinjet, bleeding away some of the tension. They're ready to fight.

The Omni-Wave Projector is a massive blob of energy on the Quinjet's main scanner display. Steve can't quite see it from here, where they've landed. They'll have to fight their way to it and deactivate it. It used to be some kind of communications device, but it's been modified with DNA stolen from Carol and Terrigen Mists stolen from the Inhumans, and now it's the perfect bioweapon delivery system, aimed straight at Earth. As soon as it fires, any human it hits will be dead or mutated into Kree, which is as good as dead, because then they'll be under the mental control of the Supreme Intelligence for the rest of their undoubtedly-miserable lives.

God, not more mind control. He remembers the cruel, cold look in Tony's eyes, when the Secret Empire had him in their clutches.

He's not going to let that happen to anyone else.

They land. Steve slams the control for the ramp as fast as he can and starts unclipping the safety harness. Behind him, the team is starting to move.

"Quicksilver!" Steve calls out. "Get to the Omni-Wave Projector fast and let us know what we're dealing with. Everyone else, we're fighting our way through. Fliers, cover the ground fighters. You know the deal. Let's go."

Tony always covers him. He wonders if Tony's going to bother.

And then he's up and running, bringing up the rear, sprinting out into the ruined, starlit city.

It all goes sideways fast.

Wanda can successfully summon Wonder Man, thank God, but that's about all they have going for them. Two minutes in—a little slow for him—Pietro starts to check in on comms, then all Steve hears is the echo of laser fire. He's down. Hopefully only unconscious. There's no time to worry. They'll find out when they get there.

The fighting is tough. There are waves and waves of Kree soldiers, all heavily armed, not stopping. It seems like for every one of them he takes down there are three more. He glances around. Carol's a little bit slow, for her, but she's still fighting; he can see her dazzling, energy-lit, with Earth rising on the horizon far behind her, as she swoops down on the next rank of soldiers. Good. Thor's swinging Mjölnir, Jan's firing energy blasts, Clint's putting arrows left and right into the Kree, and Wanda's standing there in the middle of sheer chaos—literally—as the glowing form of what's left of Simon Williams rises above her. The old Avengers have it covered.

"Did you see that, Firestar?" Vance yells to Angel. "I took down five of them with one telekinetic blast!"

Looks like the new kids aren't doing too badly for themselves, either.

He looks around, because he can't see Tony, and then he does, and— Tony's sloppy. Tony's not covering him. Tony's nowhere near him. Tony's not even in the air. He's trading blows with a helmeted Kree soldier, hand-to-hand. Why isn't he flying? He shouldn't be on the ground. He can do so much more than that. And half the time, he's missing. The soldiers are laughing and dodging him, and then Steve nearly gets clipped in the head with a laser because he's busy staring in horror at Tony. What's wrong with him?

"Keep up the pressure, people!" Steve yells, on all-call, but meaning for Tony to hear him, to take notice, to fight like he means it. "We've got to break through!"

And then the bodies of the fallen Kree start to disappear. They're dissolving into pure energy.

"I've seen this!" Wanda says. "That effect! It was around Captain Marvel when he created an Omni-Wave Projector!"

Carol's hovering in the newly cleared space, the path to the Projector. Energy crackles around her body. "I know what they're doing! The energy is fueling the Projector. Follow me!"

They run. Steve looks back. At least Tony's flying.

The Omni-Wave Projector is a massive, ugly machine, towering high above them, glowing with energy, pointed at the Earth. Pietro is lying unconscious near the base of it, and Thor drags him away as Wanda sketches out a hex over his forehead. As Steve watches, the Projector glows brighter and brighter. There's a low, teeth-rattling hum, growing louder. Steve's no engineer, but this doesn't look good.

There's a screen on the wall, filled with Kree lettering. The actual controls seem to be high up on the Projector itself. Only the fliers can reach it.

"The countdown's started," Tony says. His voice is grim, and there's something wrong with it, something dull and dark. Steve wishes he could see Tony's face.

"Can you stop it?" Steve asks.

Tony shakes his head. "There's only one solution. Reverse the energy flow and detonate. It'll make a hell of a crater." He says it slowly, strangely, like there's something here Steve's not understanding.

"Okay," Steve says. "Set it to blow, and let's all get clear."

Tony's rising into the air. He spins as he lifts up, and Steve can't make out his expression but he knows Tony's looking at him for one long moment. "There's no timer or remote detonation," Tony says, the words devoid of all emotion. "Avengers, get out of here. This is going up in flames, and I'm going with it."

He raises his hands and soars.

Steve's stunned into silence for half a second, because Tony can't have said that, he can't have meant what it sounded like he meant—

Tony's going to die. Tony's going to kill himself.

"Tony!" he yells, and he doesn't care about only using code names on the comms. He doesn't care about anything that isn't getting Tony back down. "Tony, no!"

"I can do this." Tony's voice crackles in his ears, on their private channel, low and determined. "There aren't any other answers. It's got to be someone, and it's going to be me. It's better this way. I can finally make up for what I've done. I'm finally going to be a hero. This is what I want. It'll be okay. You'll see."

"No," Steve says. He's pleading now, terrified. He'll beg. He'll cry. Whatever Tony wants, anything he wants, Steve will give him, as long as Tony's still alive for it. A small part of Steve thinks that he's damn lucky that the Secret Empire's brainwashed version of Tony never figured out he could skip all the torture and put the gun to his own head instead. Tony's so high up now. Steve can't get there. He can't stop him. Self-sacrifice is always Tony's first choice, his immediate and awful answer to all questions. "No, please, Tony. It's not okay. Don't do this. We'll find another way. This isn't the way."

"Look at it like this, Steve." Tony laughs, an awful sound, dry and sad and miserable. "Now you can find someone who actually makes you happy."

The comm line closes. The conversation's over.

No. This can't be happening. How can he stop this?

Steve turns... and he sees Carol. The smallest ember of hope burns bright in him. Yeah, this could work.

"Warbird!" Steve says. "Ground him."

Carol meets his eyes, and in her gaze he sees hesitation. She doesn't trust herself. She doesn't know if she can do it. He's putting Tony's life in her hands.

"Cap," Jan asks, doubt in her voice, "are you sure that's a good—"

"On my authority," Steve tells Carol, and Jan shuts her mouth. Steve's voice is shaking. "Whatever you need to do, just do it. Right now."

And then Carol's aloft, rising after Tony, hands outstretched. She's moving faster than he is, catching up to him, and then she's reached him and Steve holds his breath, because he has no idea what she's going to do.

He expects her to punch Tony with her superhuman strength, to fire an energy blast at him, to bring him down with violence, because they're Avengers. That's what they do. But she doesn't hit him or shoot him. She passes him.

Tony's soaring high, arms held out in front of him, and Carol dives down onto him like a bird of prey, like a fighter plane on an attack run, earning her Warbird name, coming down from behind and above. Her arms wrap around him and she drags him back in a strange embrace, an arm over his torso. She's floating, hair haloed around her head, glowing green-gold in the light from Tony's armor and his boot jets. Something about the way the two of them are posed is beautiful, and the thought drifts through Steve's head that he'd paint this, if he could. Tony twists, but she's stronger than the armor; he's held fast.

Carol splays one black-gloved hand over the unibeam housing, where the suit is at its most reinforced, where the outer plating of the armor is thick. She's blocking out the glow of the unibeam with her palm—and then Steve understands what she's doing.

"Sorry about this, Shellhead," Carol says. Her voice echoes over the comms. She grits her teeth.

That's when Carol pulls. Energy flows out of Tony's suit like liquid gold, trickling out into Carol's hands. The power crackles around her in glimmering tendrils, into her other hand, over her body, through her hair. Her eyes glow gold. She's like a star in miniature, a bright supernova. It's almost as if she's Binary again, connected to the unfathomable power of a white hole. She's Carol Danvers, and no matter what her code name is, no matter what else she can do, she can still eat energy for breakfast. And Tony's suit runs on battery power. He never stood a chance.

Even as Carol glows brighter and brighter, Tony grows dimmer, the power ebbing away from him. The lights on Tony's armor flicker and die out, and when there's nothing left but the red-gold shine of metal, Carol shifts her grip, cradling him in her arms. She descends slowly, slowly, and then sets Tony, immobilized in his now-disabled suit, on the ground, laying him gently on his back. She's saved him. Thank God. Steve breathes out, dizzily, shakily. Tony's alive.

Tony turns his head. The faceplate gleams dully in the starlight.

"Goddammit," Tony says. His voice is a low, pained groan of anger and frustration. With his suit dead around him, the vocal filters are gone, and his unamplified, unmodified voice echoes in his helmet, the sound muffled. It's a good thing the whole team already knew who he was, because that's unmistakably Tony's voice.

He starts to push himself up. His usual graceful movements are lumbering and ungainly; with no power left, there are no servos to help him, and he's moving the entire suit with raw strength, with his own muscles. He pushes himself to his feet, slowly. Gritty moon dust is caked onto the metal paneling. He raises his arm and, after two tries, knocks his faceplate back up. His hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat, and there's a trickle of blood on his cheekbone.

And he's furious.

The last time Tony looked like this, he was about to murder Steve.

Well, Steve's pretty goddamn furious himself. How could Tony just... decide to kill himself? Just like that?

"What the hell were you thinking?" he snarls at Tony. The words hurt his throat.

Tony's eyes are ice blue, pale, cold, and Steve can't quite meet his gaze. "I was thinking," Tony says, like Steve is a particularly slow student, like he has to spell it out, "that I might actually save the fucking planet. I was thinking that I might save billions of lives." Tony raises his voice. "And I was thinking that you can't stand to be in the same room with me anyway, so what the fuck do you care what I was thinking? I was doing my goddamned job."

Steve takes a few steps toward him. "Suicide isn't your job."

It's not what he wants to say. He wants to say that he cares, that he's always cared, that he doesn't want them to be like this, that he didn't know Tony was hurting so badly without breathing a word, that he'd rip his own heart out if it would make Tony stop bleeding. But he's running hot, anger and fear and combat-fueled adrenaline, and all he is right now is terrified that Tony would do this.

"You would have made the same call if it had been you," Tony retorts. "Your life for all of humanity. The same goddamn call. Look me in the eye and tell me that's not true."

Steve just barely manages to raise his head. He still can't look at Tony; it's like staring at the sun. He opens his mouth, but there's nothing.

"And you can't even look at me." The corner of Tony's mouth twitches, a sad smile. "You can't even look at me, I've been an Avenger for longer than you, and this is when you want to second-guess my tactical decisions like I'm the newest recruit? This is when you want to take me down?" He sighs. "I get it. You're angry."

"I'm not angry," Steve says, automatically, but he's saying it with his jaw clenched.

"You're the world's worst liar," Tony tells him. Then he smiles again. "Go on. Hit me. Get even. I deserve it. Make me bleed. You know you want to."

Nothing about that is right. "Tony, I don't—"

"If you don't want to hit me," Tony asks, "then why are you raising your fists?"

Horrified, Steve looks down at himself, and sees his hands curled into fists. No, no, no. Waves of nausea and vertigo pass through him. He staggers.

Tony's still talking. "I fucked you up. You won't even admit it. It was my fault. Just because you're not bleeding anymore doesn't mean I didn't take you apart. Of course you're angry. Stop lying to yourself and feel it. Get it over with. And then let me get it over with."

"I'm fine!" Steve steps forward and raises his head. He's practically in Tony's face, but Tony just won't understand, and Tony wants to die, and he doesn't know how to make this better. "I'm not the one who just tried to kill himself—"

"Yeah, well, I'm not the one who's in denial here—"

"Stop fighting!" Jan yells, and that's when Steve remembers that they're not actually alone. They've been arguing in front of the entire team. And the Projector is still counting down.

No one says anything for a few seconds, and the only sound is the Omni-Wave Projector, whining louder and louder as it charges.

Then there's something that sounds like one of Clint's exploding arrowheads. Clint had taken up a sentry position once they started getting close to the Projector; his task was to keep the area clear and warn them of Kree reinforcements.

"No, keep fighting!" Clint yells over the comms, and in the background there's the sound of another small explosion. "But fight the Kree! There are more coming!"

The Kree burst through, and Steve pivots around and raises his shield. Next to him, Tony flips the faceplate down. Unpowered, he's just a guy fighting hand-to-hand in a suit of armor—but he can still make a dent, as long as he keeps swinging. As long as he can keep standing, anyway. It's Steve's fault he has no power.

"Sorry about the battery," Steve says, as he bashes the closest Kree with his shield.

Tony punches a Kree soldier in the face. It's a slow, heavy punch, telegraphed from a mile away, but it does the job. "You're not sorry, actually. So don't bother."

"Cut it out, you two! Keep your personal life off the battlefield!" Jan says, with a remarkable amount of venom in place of her usual cheer. "And someone come up with a way to stop the Projector that doesn't involve killing anyone! Warbird, can you blast it?"

Carol's still crackling with the energy she stole from Tony's suit. She shakes her head. "Same problem. I'd have to be in the blast radius. And I can't drain it." She grimaces. "I'm not Binary anymore. I don't have the capacity to keep that much energy stable, not when I was just dri—" She cuts the sentence off. "This is my limit, Wasp."

Damn it. She can't control her powers? She definitely needs help.

Steve opens his mouth, but Jan takes charge.

"Fine," Jan says, though it's obvious from the way she says it that it isn't fine. She's hovering by Wanda. She's too small for Steve to see her face. "If we can't stop it, and we can't set it off, can we move it? Thor, can we use your hammer to open a dimensional portal?"

He hadn't thought of that. Tony hadn't thought of that.

"Aye!" Thor says. He lifts Mjölnir, and energy begins to rise up around the Projector.

The Kree bodies disappear, all gone to power the Projector—except for the last man, a blue-skinned warrior who leaps down, holding a shapeshifting weapon that takes on the form of Thor's hammer itself.

"You cannot stop us!" the warrior yells. He swings the hammer and completely blindsides Thor, and then they're tangled in combat. Thor's attention is no longer on the portal.

Without Thor to hold it open, the portal starts to close.

An energy barrier surrounds Thor and his assailant. Even Wanda's magic can't penetrate it. They need Thor.

"Angel's microwave powers!" Vance says. "She can juice up the portal!"

Angel glances sidelong at Vance like she really didn't want to be volunteered for this—have they fallen apart too?—but she steps forward. "When I use my powers at that kind of level—" she begins, hesitantly.

Carol raises a fist. Her fingers crackle with golden energy. "I can help. I've got power to burn."

"My power," Tony grumbles.

"I don't want to hear it," Jan says, glaring at Tony. "Warbird, Firestar, do it. Go. Now."

Steve wonders at what point he lost command of the situation here.

Angel and Carol channel all the power they've got, and the portal grows in size, almost engulfing the Omni-Wave Projector. The barrier around Thor goes down; the last Kree soldier lies unconscious at his feet.

The Omni-Wave projector is surrounded by a ragged smear of energy, a rip in the fabric of the universe. Light pours out from around it. Steve doesn't need to be told that it's close to detonation. It needs to be on the other side of that portal. It's not quite there yet.

"One last push!" Carol yells into the raging vortex. "We've got this."

The Projector is brighter than it's ever been. They're not going to make it.

"Vance!" Angel calls out. "Lift it!"

Vance raises his hands, channeling all the telekinetic power he's got, and the Projector is ripped from its moorings, somehow still glowing brighter and brighter as it rises, higher and higher—

"We're past the event horizon!" Carol yells. "Thor, close the portal!"

On the other side of the portal, Steve can see the Projector shatter and break apart, and it blows in a massive fireball, fueled by the life energy of hundreds of Kree soldiers. Steve's vision goes dazzlingly white and all he hears is the roar of the explosion as the shockwave rushes toward them.

The portal winks shut.

Vance, Angel, and Carol are sprawled on the ground. Carol's ribs heave as she breathes. Her hands are flung wide, fingers digging into the ground, and she's discharging energy into the dust. Vance and Angel start to pick themselves up. Angel is coughing wetly. Not great, but not bad for her first real Avengers mission.

They're alive. They made it. They saved the Earth.

If only the rest of it hadn't been such a mess.

Next to him, Tony, knocked down by the blast, has skidded backwards into the gray moon dust. The armor creaks as he tries to stand up, fails, and sags back into the dust. The suit's too heavy. He's clearly exhausted, at the limits of his strength.

Steve remembers lying on the concrete next to Tony, unable to stay upright.

"You want a hand up?" Steve's ears are ringing. He almost can't hear himself talk.

"No," Tony says, rebuffing him with a single, cold word. Behind the mask, he shuts his eyes. "You've done more than enough already."

Steve had thought the last debriefing was bad. He hadn't known then just how bad it could get.

They're gathered around the same table in the mansion again, where they had been discussing Carol before news of the Kree on the moon interrupted them. The room is once again filled with a cacophony of angry voices and accusations. It's that curious post-battle state, a mix of keyed-up energy and bone-deep weariness, and when the mission's been tough, it never results in the kindest conversations. And they're going after Carol again.

"If you hadn't been drinking," Pietro says, "you'd have been able to drain the Projector's energy yourself, and we wouldn't have had to rely on Justice and Firestar." He's pale, and there's a bandage around his shoulder, but at least he's still upright.

Carol glares. "They're Avengers. You're not even on the team, you were mostly unconscious, and you're going to complain because the new kids had to pull their own weight?"

"No." His lip curls. "I'm going to complain because you couldn't."

"Quicksilver!" Steve snaps.

"I'd have been able to," Carol shoots back, "if Cap and Shellhead here hadn't decided to treat us all to a lovers' spat that meant I had to carry a whole bunch of extra energy and couldn't safely hold more. You're seriously going to blame me for following orders? For saving Iron Man's life? You want to blame someone, blame Tony for trying to get himself killed!"

Once again, she's deflecting, trying to pin everything on Tony. Steve expects Tony to rise to the bait, to disagree, to protest. Tony's sitting next to him. His armor is still dark, disabled. The helmet is off, placed on the table in front of him. He's visibly sweat-soaked, and his face is hollow-eyed, exhausted; he's been trudging around in broken armor since Carol sucked all the power out of it.

Tony's voice is barely more than a whisper. He's staring down at his helmet. He doesn't look up. "I didn't ask you to save me, Carol."

Christ. He doesn't want to be angry at Tony, he really doesn't, but right now he can't figure out how to be anything else. He knows Tony's not coping. He knows Tony's not handling this, but God, he just wants to not have to worry that he'll lose him.

"Yeah, well, I did," Steve growls. He looks around the room. Tony still doesn't look up. "So take it up with me."

Tony lifts his head. His eyes are glassy and dull. "If you'd just let me follow my plan, it would all have been solved, and no one else would have been inconvenienced."

"And you'd have been dead!"

The armor moves, an infinitesimal tremble, like Tony's trying to shrug and can't. Like it doesn't matter.

Tony turns to him, and there's life in his face now, a terrifying rage that makes Steve shake inside and want to run, and Steve shouldn't be terrified of him, he shouldn't be. None of this should be happening. He sees it in Tony's eyes. Tony knows what this is doing to him. "Maybe you want that." He pauses. "Maybe I should have taken pictures last week, Steve, because you have the exact same look on your—"

Steve jumps at the heavy thud of hands on the table. He looks around.

"That is enough." Jan's voice is crisp, commanding, no-nonsense, the kind of voice that a decade as an Avenger breeds into a person. She's standing up and leaning forward, her hands braced on the polished surface of the table.

"Wasp?" Steve ventures.

"You're off the team." Jan's eyes are a steady deep blue, her mouth a thin line. She's not kidding around. "Both of you."

"What?" Steve can feel his own mouth hanging open. "I'm team leader, Jan, and you're not even on the team. You can't just—"

She lifts her head. "I can, Cap. I can and I am." She fixes him with a baleful glare. "Founding Avenger. Naming Avenger. And I'm pulling rank. Effective immediately."

"Now, listen here—" Tony says, but Jan holds up her palm.

The harsh lines of her face soften. She smiles a small, sad smile. There's pain in her eyes as she turns back to Steve. "Look, Steve. Maybe you don't see it, but I guarantee that everyone else at this table does. You've been through a horrific experience." She's looking at Tony now. "Both of you have. You need to admit that. You were both hurt beyond your ability to bear it. And you can't pretend that it's all okay and make it go away. You're not functioning. Either of you. You can't handle being around each other, and on the battlefield that makes you a danger to yourselves, to each other, to the rest of us, and to the entire world. And even if you didn't have to see each other, I'm guessing neither of you would be up to your usual standards as Avengers."

Steve's throat is dry. He tries to swallow. It doesn't help. How can she talk about this, like this, with everyone here? "What do you want us to do?" he asks. His voice rasps.

"Do whatever you need to do," she says quietly. "Get help. Talk to each other. Work through this. And then come back to us. We'll still be here, when you're ready."

Next to him, Tony hasn't moved. He's sitting there, frozen in his broken armor. Steve's reminded of one of those statues of wounded warriors. The Dying Gaul, maybe.

"Okay," Tony says. His eyes are unfocused. "Okay. You're right. I'll do it."

"I wasn't actually offering you a choice," Jan says, but then she smiles again, her reassuring smile. "It'll be okay, Tony. I promise." She looks up. "Steve?"

Jerkily, Steve nods. He feels like he's not in control of his body. He's been— he's been irresponsible, a poor leader, and now the whole team knows, now they can all see, they can see how Tony ripped him up inside—

"The team is yours, Wasp," he says. "I'm sorry for all of this."

"It's not your fault," Jan says, and when Tony opens his mouth she tuts at him. "Either of you." She sits back down. "Just get better, okay? We'll miss you."

The room is awkwardly silent, the Avengers looking around at each other. Tony drops his gaze again.

And eventually, of course, everyone else is looking at Carol.

"I get it," Carol says. Her voice is low and twisted. "You all think I have some kind of problem, even though I came through and saved the goddamn day. I don't need any of your feel-good lectures. I don't need to be patronized. I'm fine. And I can tell when I'm not wanted. I'll save you all the trouble of voting me off." She stands up, and the chair shoots back so hard that it hits the wall behind her. The plaster cracks. "I'll show myself out, shall I?"

Jan takes a breath. "Carol—"

Carol ignores her. She turns, heading toward the door. "I need a fucking drink. It's happy hour somewhere, right?"

Tony shuts his eyes in misery.

A month ago, everything was perfect. Now the Avengers, Steve's wonderful new Avengers, are falling apart right in front of him.

Just like that, Carol's gone. Steve can hear her boots ringing as she stomps down the hall.

And then Wanda stands up.

"Sister, no!" Pietro says, in tones of horror. "What has happened? You need not leave."

Wanda lifts her head and looks around the room. She gathers herself up, and when she speaks, it's with a grace and poise that so far none of the rest of the team has managed today. "Carol has said a lot of things to us lately," she begins. "Many of them were unkind, many were cruel, and many were wrong. But she wasn't entirely wrong." Her green eyes widen, solemn and earnest. "She said we weren't there for her when she needed us, and she was right. We weren't. We have hurt her. We have wronged her. We owe her so much more than we have given her. I'm her friend. And I'm going to be there for her, because she needs me."

At this, Tony looks up. His face is haunted as he meets Wanda's eyes. "Wanda, she has a problem. You know that, right? She's an alcoholic. Until she realizes she has a problem, until she accepts it, there's nothing you can do for her." His gaze is faraway. "When I was drinking, there were so many people who tried to get me to stop. So many people who cared for me, who loved me, who meant well, who believed with everything in them that they were doing the right thing." Steve tries not to think about how he yelled at Tony, so long ago. He's never done right by him, has he? "None of them could help me, until I realized I needed help." Tony's expression is grave, wretched. "You can't stop her. You can't save her. All you can do is follow in the wake of the destruction and pick up the pieces."

But Wanda stares back, unflinching, determined. "Then I'll be there," she says. Her voice is steely. It sounds like a vow. "And I'll pick up the pieces."

And she walks out the door and down the hall, after Carol.

The room is silent.

Clint whistles. "Well," he says, "there goes half the team. Hoo boy."

"I can call Sam—" Steve offers.

Jan gives him an exasperated look. "Cap," she says, her voice stern. "This is officially no longer your problem." And then she smiles. "Not my first time at this rodeo, remember? It'll be fine. I'll call Hank—and the other Hank—and we'll see who else is available."

"I'm in," Pietro says. "If you want me."

"See?" Jan smiles gently. "We're good. We're the Avengers. I'll put everything back the way I found it. Better than I found it. Go. Get well."

He doesn't know if the words are a dismissal, but he's had enough. He's had enough of being examined, probed, criticized, found wanting. He pushes himself to his feet and walks out of the room.

He doesn't look back.

Steve's already back in his room before he realizes that he doesn't know where he's going to go now.

Dealing with the debriefing, and the Kree, and then the other debriefing had taken the entire day; it's dark outside now. He heads across the room and closes the drapes, and then turns back and contemplates the room. Little, sure, and not too fancy, but... his. The mansion was his first home in the future, and he's always had an inordinate—or maybe not so inordinate—fondness for the place. So much has happened here, and he doesn't just mean all the times the mansion's been rebuilt. He's decorated over the years. Pictures, mementos, souvenirs, and presents all decorate the walls and shelves. There's a portrait of him, Clint, Wanda, and Pietro. The kooky quartet, someone had called them, once. There's a history book Sam got him for his birthday. There's a photo of him and Iron Man, from a long long time ago. In the faded image, Steve's smiling and he has his arm over the metal shoulders of the suit, a tight embrace, and the way he's looking at Iron Man—God, how did they only figure this out a month ago? He bites his lip, looks away, and moves on.

It feels like home in a way that so many other places haven't—maybe more than any of the places he lived growing up, even. He's certainly lived here longer.

He's always had this room held for him at the mansion, whether or not he's currently on the team; Tony had made that clear to him a long, long time ago. So he can stay here. He's just not entirely certain he wants to.

He's not on the team, and he doesn't particularly want to be surrounded by the active team when he's grounded. He doesn't want to watch them head out when he can't go with them.

He wants— he wants to be where Tony is.

Even as he thinks it, something in him tenses and twists up, mingled longing, sorrow, anger, and fear. He doesn't want to feel like this about him. He wants Tony back, his Tony, the way they were. He wants his friendship back. He knows the responsible, mature feeling should be a desire for his friendship above everything else, but Steve's not perfect. He wants Tony's love too. He wants to hold him, to touch him, to not have that joy stolen from him because a lousy bunch of villains decided it would be fun to make Tony hurt him.

He misses sleeping with Tony, he thinks, as he looks at his own plain, lonely bed. He misses sleeping with him in all senses of the word.

They need to sort this out. If nothing else, they both need to be back on the team. They have to do something about this. About their relationship. Whatever it is. They have to figure it out.

Steve's not good at relationships. He knows this. He's taken his lovers for granted. He's made unreasonable demands. He has broken up with them in so many unkind ways. He's gotten too close, too fast, and then too far away. But he wants this. He wants them to work out. It's Tony. He wants this maybe more than he's ever wanted any other relationship in his life. If they're too close, then they were already too close years ago, before they ever breathed a word about it. He's already in too deep to just walk away.

He knows what he has to do. He can see it in his mind, the way he can see a battle plan. He has to start by seeing Tony.

He remembers Tony staring him down on the moon. You can't stand to be in the same room with me, he'd said, and Steve knows he's breathing faster, everything in him ratcheting up, trying to prepare for a fight he doesn't want to have. His body has spent a week learning that Tony was his enemy, and somehow that's overriding the entire decade they had before.

The only way to get used to seeing Tony is to see Tony. It makes sense.

All right. He straightens up. He's on a mission.

He changes out of his uniform first. He's not Captain America for this. He's just Steve.

It's only a few steps down the hall to Tony's room next door, and as he raises his hand to knock, he wonders what he'll do if Tony's not there. If Tony left. If he's already run. No. Tony wouldn't just have gone away without telling him. He might still go, but he'd tell him first. They owe each other that much.

He knocks, and there's shuffling inside. A few seconds later, Tony opens the door.

Tony looks exhausted. Of course he looks exhausted, Steve tells himself. They were both in Florida with the Kree last night even before the debacle on the moon started. It's not like either of them has slept since. There was no downtime. Tony's probably been awake for at least twenty-four hours. His shoulders are slumped and his expression is slack; his eyes are slow to track movement, huge in his sallow face.

At some point after the debriefing he must have showered, and he's wearing a gray t-shirt and soft, worn pajama pants. And he's bruised. Heavily. Steve can see bruises streak down the sides of Tony's neck and along the insides of Tony's arms in thick, precise blackened lines. They're probably under his shirt as well. They cover the backs of his hands like dark circuitry. They mottle his scraped knuckles, and that's when Steve realizes what they are. They're from the armor, from the bracing and the edges of the plates. Tony went hand-to-hand and punched the Kree, and they punched back, and his own armor hurt him.

His mouth twitches a few times, an attempted smile. This is as close as he can make it to even feigned happiness. "Steve."

Steve smiles back, a little more tightly than he means to. "Can I come in?"

In answer, Tony steps back and motions with both hands toward the rest of the room, like a magician doing a trick. He shuts the door behind Steve.

Steve was in here the other day, of course, while Tony was asleep. And he's been here before. He remembers Tony smiling, laughing, pulling him into his bed. That's... not on the agenda.

He looks around the room. Tony's been busy. There's an open laptop computer, next to a spiral-bound notebook. The topmost page is covered in Tony's neat drafting hand—the writing he actually uses when he wants to be legible—and what looks like a few equations and some kind of circuit diagram. Steve remembers the lines Tony carved into his chest and tries not to shudder.

He's here. He can get over this.

He breathes, in and out, and then nods over at the notebook. "What are you working on?"

Tony wanders over and pushes the computer closed. "Suit modifications. Improving the efficiency of the photovoltaic receptors. Reinforcing the shielding on the main battery. I want to develop some protection against what Carol tried on me."

"Even when you're not...?"

Tony raises an eyebrow. "So I'm not on the team. Doesn't mean I'm not Iron Man." He sighs. "Doesn't mean the bad guys stop, either."

"Good point." Steve nods firmly. He realizes it's his Captain America voice. He's retreating into formality. He didn't mean to. At least he's not irrationally angry, but Tony doesn't deserve this from him either.

And Tony just looks at him. His expression is unreadable at first. Then he sighs and his face falls into some new emotion, something weary. Something aching and lonely. "So here I am. I'm alive. I'm sober. You've checked on me. You didn't just come here to check on me." He sighs. "Why are you here, Steve?"

Steve swallows hard. This is his plan. Honesty. It's all he's got left.

"I miss you."

"You miss me," Tony repeats, now raising both of his eyebrows. "You miss me." Steve doesn't like the sentence any better with the second emphasis. Doubt is writ broadly across his face.

Steve should have known it wouldn't be easy. His half-formed fantasies of Tony falling into his arms drift away.

"What," Steve asks, "I can't miss you?"

Tony's mouth twists, but he doesn't say anything. Instead he steps forward, steps close, into Steve's personal space.

In the kitchen, Steve had flinched back. It takes everything in him to hold still now. It's Tony, and he loves Tony, but there's that little voice in his brain that says that he doesn't know what this man is going to do, even though he knows, rationally, that Tony would quite literally rather die than hurt him again. The Secret Empire just managed to take away that choice.

Tony raises his arm. If he were suited up, it would be how he'd aim at him. Steve knows this is a test. He doesn't flinch. But he thinks he might be trembling, just a little. If he wanted to run, he could. Tony's not making any sudden movements. The gesture is broad, and it's easy to see what he's about to do. Tony doesn't want to frighten him. Tony has to know he already is.

Tony presses his hand to the middle of Steve's chest, where the star would be if he were still wearing his uniform. His palm is warm through the thin fabric of Steve's shirt, and then Steve does shiver.

Tony's touching him. Tony hasn't touched him—

—since he put that chain around Steve's throat, oh God—

"You're terrified of me." The words are a low, quiet observation. "I made you terrified of me. I can feel your heart pounding, Steve."

Steve takes a breath. Tony's hand on his chest rises and falls. "That's just a physical response," he says. This seemed so much easier when he was rehearsing it in his head. "That's just... conditioning. It doesn't have anything to do with what I feel for you."

"That's what you're going with?" Tony tilts his head to the side. "If I said that, that would be one thing. Life of the mind. Other things are more important than my body. We all know I'm a big believer in ignoring every single warning sign that something is wrong with me and then having multiple heart attacks. At least I don't have to worry about that anymore." His mouth quirks. "But you? You love your body, Steve. Body like you've got—who could blame you? You live in your body, more than anyone else I've ever met. You're grounded. And you trust what your body says to you." He shuts his eyes. "I knew that. And that's exactly why I used it against you. I— I made you... easier to condition. And then I conditioned that response."

The inhibitor bracelet. He remembers it with a faint twinge of nausea. Any villain could have simply tied him up; Tony had done that too. But Tony knew what it would mean to take the serum away from him, to make him feel truly powerless, and he had the technical knowledge to do it. And then Tony set about alternately praising him and hurting him until he couldn't trust his responses to anything, until even his reactions were at Tony's mercy, such as it was. Not that he had had any.

"All right, then," Steve says, because Tony has a point. "Maybe it is what I feel. Then it's not what I want to feel for you, how about that?"

Tony's tongue flicks out. He licks his lips. He looks away. He drops his hand.

Steve knows what Tony's thinking. He can see the guilt on Tony's face, as plain as day. He waits for the words. He waits for Tony to ask why he's bothering, why he wants to feel any differently. He waits for Tony to tell him he doesn't deserve kindness or forgiveness because someone made him hurt Steve against his own will.

He wants to tell Tony he loves him, again. But he thinks that would just make it worse.

"If it's easier to think of it this way," Steve says, "we need to do this for the team. The Avengers want us back."

Tony snorts. "Yeah. You, maybe."

"Tony."

"How can you even be here?" Tony asks, voice gone bitter, pained. "How can you even want to see me again? You're the one who was hurt. And I'm the one who hurt you."

Steve stares in incomprehension. "And you think you weren't hurt? They kidnapped you. They violated your mind. They forced you to do things you didn't want to do."

"So they hurt me. So what? That still doesn't change the fact that I hurt you." He pauses and changes gears entirely. "You can't fix this," Tony says. "Whatever you're planning, whatever you think you're planning—you think you can just walk in here and wish it all better? Life doesn't work like that."

This can't be it. This can't be how it ends.

"I know it absolutely won't get better if we don't try," Steve counters. "Look, if you don't want me here, if you actually don't want me in your life, that's one thing. You tell me to go, and I'll go." He holds his breath. Tony is silent. "But I don't think that's what you want. It's certainly not what I want."

"It doesn't matter what I want." Tony's mouth lifts, a sad smile. "I can't have it."

"Tell me."

Tony looks evenly at him. "I want it not to have happened. That's what I want. I want not to have hurt you. I want it to be last week, and I want to come back from those meetings and have you be here and be happy. I want to see that look in your eyes again, that look when you're so perfectly content that you look like you can't remember anything but pleasure. I never want to see you look at me like you're terrified of what I might do to you. I want to maybe be on the verge of believing that I've finally atoned for my life. That maybe, maybe even I deserve to be happy." His mouth twists again. "I liked that thought a lot, actually. It was nice."

Oh, God. Steve holds out his hands, palms up, imploring. "You deserve that. You deserve everything you want." He takes a breath. "I know I told you this, but I'm not giving up on you." He watches Tony look away and go pale, and he knows Tony remembers exactly when he said it. Steve remembers the knife, poised, glinting in the light. "I didn't give up on you then, Tony. You know I didn't. I'm sure as hell not giving up on you now."

The corner of Tony's mouth tilts up. This time, it might actually be a real smile. "You're the most goddamn stubborn person I've ever met, you know that?"

A surprised little laugh comes out of Steve, a huff of air. "Well," he acknowledges, "you're not the first one to tell me so."

"I just bet." Tony's smiling faintly, still, and Steve lets this encourage him. Maybe, maybe this is going to work. Tony gestures to the rest of the room. "Anyway. You've seen the place before, Captain Stubborn. I was just about to call it a night. I don't know what you think I can do other than terrify you, but—"

"I wanted to sleep with you."

Tony stops in mid-sentence. His mouth is still open, and his eyes are bright with shock. Steve thinks distantly that no one who's seen Tony's dazzling, crowd-pleasing smile in the papers has ever seen him like this.

"Not— not like that," Steve adds, a hasty clarification. "I mean, yes, like that, but not yet. I just— I miss sleeping with you. Next to you. In your bed." He tries on a smile. "Or my bed. Either would be good."

Tony's still silent. Steve wonders if he's going to say anything at all. His face is unreadable.

Tony turns, then, and walks across the room to the dresser in the corner. He yanks open the top drawer, and pulls out a double handful of wadded, worn cotton. It's a pair of Steve's pajamas, here where he'd left them, here where Tony had been keeping them for him. Some of his things had been gradually starting to migrate into Tony's room, before— before last week.

Tony tosses the bundle of fabric at him; Steve reflexively catches it.

"Here." Tony's voice is rough, like he's trying to hold back some feeling. "More comfortable than your pants. I don't think you still want to sleep naked."

Tony heads back across the room and sits on the far side of the bed, turning away from him, toward the wall. He's giving him privacy, Steve realizes, and the thought wounds him, because they— they shouldn't be like that. They weren't like that. Even if they'd been ordinary teammates, even if they'd never been together, it's not like Steve has any modesty left. But then he remembers Tony avidly eyeing his body from the other side of the energy bars and he shudders. It's not fair.

But this is how it is. They're starting over.

He quickly skins out of his clothes and pulls on the pajamas, and then heads for the bed. Tony doesn't look up until Steve pulls the sheets back and sits down on the side opposite him.

"Get comfortable." Tony just waves a hand. The rest of him doesn't move. He's staring at the wall like it's the most interesting thing he's ever seen. "Knock yourself out."

Steve lies down on his back. Tony's mattress is, as usual, obscenely, luxuriously soft—like sleeping on a very, very cuddly cloud. Steve can feel himself sinking into it. It's a damn sight better than concrete floors. Or, for that matter, being chained to a wall. But even so, he's profoundly uncomfortable, and he grows even more so as Tony turns the light off, lies next to him, and pulls the covers over them both. He's curled up and facing away. Steve can see more bruising on his neck, at his hairline. He wonders if that's from the Kree or from his shield.

Half of the discomfort, he knows, is part of what Tony's done to him; he's come to dread Tony's presence. The other half is knowing that Tony knows that perfectly well, and that's why Tony's turned away from him.

He takes a shaky breath. The response was trained into him. The response can be trained out of him.

This is Tony. The real Tony. The one he spent a week wondering if he'd ever see again. Tony isn't going to do anything he doesn't want. Tony isn't going to do anything to him without his explicit permission. His consent. Probably also his repeated encouragement. And maybe not even then.

"Tony?"

"Yeah?" Even in the otherwise-silent room, Tony's response is quiet.

He knows how Tony's always liked to sleep, when he's in bed with him: wrapped around him and holding on tight. Not faraway like this.

Steve holds out an arm in his direction. An invitation. "You wanna come here?"

Tony breathes in, once, sharply. "Yes," he says, even more quietly, the barest whisper.

He doesn't move.

"It's all right," Steve says. "I trust you."

Tony's laugh sounds very much like a sob. "No, you don't. Not anymore."

"I want you to," Steve says. "Please."

He knows Tony spent a week trying to get him to beg, and he refused. He knows it's very hard for Tony to say no to him when he asks. And, well, if Tony used what he knows about him to hurt him—surely Steve can use what he knows about Tony to heal both of them?

Tony rolls over, and he's half-smiling. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing."

"Oh, I know," Steve says.

Tony's teeth flash white in the dimness, a real smile. "Captain Sneaky Bastard. That's your new code name." The joke is a little forced, but Steve will take it. He's trying.

"Thought you said that was Captain Stubborn."

"Eh." The blankets move as Tony shrugs. "Changed it. It reflects the most salient facet of your superpowers."

"Then I'm looking forward to meeting my new teammate, High-Modulus Polyethylene Man," Steve says, dryly, just to see if it will make Tony smile again. It does.

"Someone's been paying attention to my armor design ramblings."

"I always do," he says, and Tony's still smiling. Steve could get used to this.

It's light enough that he, with his senses, can see Tony pretty well; Tony's gaze is fixed on a point just beyond his shoulder. He watches the blankets shift as Tony breathes. "It was always more than just the suit, you know. And the funny thing is, I think you always knew that. Maybe even before I did." Tony's a little misty-eyed. "Even when you thought Iron Man was just a bodyguard and Tony Stark was just the guy who signed your paychecks—"

"I didn't know you were the same."

"I know," Tony says. "I meant that— I always intended for Iron Man not to get close to anyone. I'd just do the job. I wouldn't have friends in the suit. I couldn't. You were all supposed to look at me and see... a robot. You weren't supposed to wonder about the man underneath. But you always—"

"Cared about you?" Steve smiles. "Yeah, Shellhead." He uses the old, old name deliberately. "I did. I do."

Tony breathes in and out. "Me too, Winghead."

Steve can feel blood pounding in his head. "Come here, then."

And then, finally, Tony shifts over. His head is pillowed on Steve's chest. He stretches one arm over Steve and pulls himself close. He can trust this, Steve tells himself. This is Tony. He asked Tony to be here. And if he said no, Tony would stop.

"Your heart's pounding again," Tony says, softly. "It's all I can hear."

"It's all right," Steve tells him. "It will slow."

He reaches up and lets his hand settle on Tony's head. He never touched Tony last week. Oh, Tony certainly had his hands all over him, but Tony never asked him to touch him in return. He never ordered this. So Steve hasn't done this since Tony was himself. This is one thing the Secret Empire couldn't taint.

Steve slides his fingers through Tony's hair. Tony freezes for a second, and then relaxes. Steve cups the back of Tony's head. He remembers seeing Tony fall after he hit him with the shield. He can't feel any wounds.

Tony's sigh is long and stuttering. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"Think about it," Steve says. "Pretty sure you know the answer."

Tony's silent again.

Just when Steve thinks Tony must finally be asleep, he speaks again. His voice is thick with something that might be tears. "I missed this." He says it guiltily, like this is the worst of confessions. "Even when I— God, I tried so hard to break you because I missed this, because then you'd want to be with me. How fucked up is that?"

"I know," Steve says. Even when he wasn't himself, Tony still wanted to be at his side. "It's all right. I missed this too."

Tony doesn't say anything else, and Steve doesn't shut his eyes until he hears Tony's breathing slow into sleep.

By then, Steve's heart has stopped pounding. He wonders if Tony was awake for it.

Steve's awoken by the morning sunlight filtering through the edges of the drapes. Neither of them had set an alarm. Steve supposes it doesn't matter much; there's no team either of them need to be up for. But surely Tony has to go back to work at some point soon. Stark Solutions doesn't run itself, after all.

It doesn't look like Tony's moved much all night, except to fling one of his legs over Steve as well; he's well and truly trapped, and no, no, he shouldn't have thought of it like that. Steve can feel his heart beat faster again as he thinks about all the things Tony did to him. Tony tied him up and held him down and— and goddammit, he used to love bondage. He'd thought about suggesting it to Tony, back when he'd thought he could tell him about this. He's not even sure he can like it anymore.

Well, Tony's never going to know now, is he? He definitely does not need to know what Steve used to like, and why he doesn't want it now. That would just be cruel. And if there's one thing Tony doesn't need in this life, it's more cruelty.

Tony's draped over him and—oh God—Tony's hard. Bodily functions, Steve tells himself, but he can still feel everything in him trying to tense up in response. REM sleep. Perfectly natural. It doesn't mean Tony wants—God, even when he wasn't himself he still didn't want—

Half-asleep, Tony snuggles closer, mumbling something pleased and inarticulate into Steve's chest.

Steve is in no way ready for this.

Tony opens one eye, glinting sapphire-blue in the light, and then—as he raises his head—the other. "Bad dreams? I— oh, fuck." And he must have figured out the problem because he scrambles off Steve like Steve's going to burn him, moving so fast that he nearly falls off the bed.

"It's okay," Steve says, because he wants it to be okay. "It's natural. It happens. I'm okay. You're okay."

Tony's sitting on the edge of the bed. Tony has his face in his hands.

"Okay," Tony mumbles into his hands. He lifts his head. His expression firms into a familiar resolve. "Okay. We're okay." He pauses, and Steve recognizes the look in his eye that accompanies a dramatic change of subject. "I want to go to Seattle."

Steve can feel all his fragile hope sinking. He'd thought Tony would want to run. And at least Tony's telling him first. He guesses that they tried, that this is it, that this is all they get—

Tony turns around. He smiles a very small smile. "Come with me."

Steve catches his breath. That, he hadn't expected.

He doesn't even need to think about it. "All right."

But Tony talks over him, talks like he hasn't heard, the words falling from his lips in one huge nervous rush, like he'd expected Steve to say no. "I know it's not like here, I know it's not your home, but it's nice. I've got a house there. Brand-new. Everything state-of-the-art. It'll give us somewhere private to talk, if you want, somewhere where the team won't be barging in on us. And it'll be good to be somewhere else. If we're not living with the Avengers, we won't have to feel so bad every time an alert goes off and we're not suiting up, and—" He stops and frowns. "Wait, you said yes?"

"I said yes," Steve confirms, with a confident nod.

He's not sure that this is what anyone would recommend as a way to heal. He's also not sure that any kind of rulebook exists for this situation. But he wants to be near Tony. He's always wanted that. This is the way. He'll just be with Tony, and they'll figure the rest out as they go.

Tony's smile is full of disbelief and maybe, maybe, a little delight too.

This is going to work.

When Tony had said house, of course he'd actually meant island.

As the helicopter comes in for a landing—because of course there's a helipad—Steve stares out the window, awed. He wonders, sometimes, if he'll ever stop being impressed by Tony, Tony who takes everything he touches and turns it into the future. It hasn't happened yet, and he's pretty sure it's never going to. Next to him, Tony's staring just as eagerly; apparently he hasn't actually seen this place yet either, even though he's the one who had it built.

The Seattle skyline glitters in the west, and Lake Washington is shining blue beneath them as they approach the island. The majority of the little island is forested and undeveloped, but as they fly closer, the house comes into view on a hill by the water. It stretches from the helipad and swimming pool at the top of hill, down through the main house, then down to a boathouse and dock at the water's edge.

The house itself is sprawling, multilevel, built into the verdant hillside. Steve would bet anything there are additional underground levels; he's seen what Tony's done to the mansion over the years, after all. The construction is a mix of the ultra-modern glass and steel he would have expected from Tony—many of the levels have floor-to-ceiling windows—and some very nice mortared stone walls and outdoor pathways. There's even a chimney at one end. Tony's a lot more of a traditionalist than he's willing to admit, sometimes.

"Landing now, sir," the pilot says. She isn't Rhodes, as Steve might have expected; Tony had muttered something about not wanting to impose on his friends.

When Steve's off the plane with his duffel and shield case, Tony—who didn't pack anything other than his armor—leans in and exchanges a few brief words with the pilot, and the helicopter takes off again just as soon as they're both clear of the pad, heading back toward the city.

"We're alone," Tony says, and then he grimaces. "Sorry, I didn't mean for this to sound like the beginning of some horror film. I just thought you might prefer it if the place was unstaffed. I can get staff if you want..."

"No, no," Steve says. "This is fine."

"The kitchen should be fully stocked," Tony adds. "And if necessary Iron Man can fly to the mainland and get takeout." He lifts the armor briefcase he's carrying.

Steve pictures Tony soaring through the air with a pizza. "You wouldn't."

"I so would." Tony smiles, but then a wave of sadness passes over his face. "And, look, just so you know, you're not trapped. The house is computerized. You have full admin rights on the system, and that includes summoning another helicopter to take you back to the city. And if that... doesn't work, there's the boat dock. And underwater tunnels, if you need to swim out."

"Why would I be tr—" Steve starts to say, and then he stops, because he knows exactly what Tony's thinking, and he hates that Tony's thinking it, and he knows that Tony is right to think it, and that's maybe the worst thing. "You're worried that what the Secret Empire did to you will come back, and you'll try to hurt me."

Tony swallows hard. "Can you blame me?"

He turns. He drops his gear. He puts a hand on Tony's shoulder. Tony wobbles like part of him wants to lean into the touch and the rest of him is still afraid that this will somehow harm Steve. "Tony," Steve says. "That's not going to happen."

"It happened once."

Steve squeezes Tony's shoulder. "Even if Wanda's wrong and there's some way for it to... recur, then you had time to prepare, and to manufacture a setting where you could... control for everything. You set up a situation where I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't know to expect what was actually there."

Tony's gaze is bleak. "It took me five minutes to requisition a tranquilizer dart gun, and it's not like this place doesn't have medical equipment and probably even the same drug. It took me maybe half an hour to pull parts and build a serum inhibitor bracelet, while you were still unconscious. And there's a workshop here too." He winces. "Honestly, I spent more time decorating."

"But this time I'll know," Steve says. "I'll be prepared. You're not going to hurt me. It's going to be all right."

"Steve—"

"You won't hurt me," Steve repeats. He turns to the house. "Come on, show me the place."

The house is, of course, amazing. The security system, present but unobtrusive, identifies both him and Tony. Lights come on automatically. Soft, yet lively, music starts to play; Steve recognizes it as Glenn Miller, and he suspects that Tony's computer can tell it's him with Tony, and that Tony put all this effort into programming it for him. And then Steve actually gets inside, and he stops and stares.

It's different from the mansion, in almost every way in which it's possible to be different. The mansion was always stately and dark-walled, wood-paneled, filled with expensive-looking art, gradually replaced over the years with portraits of the Avengers. This is bright, airy, modern. It's not about antiques or the beauty of craftsmanship; this is about being able to look out and see the water and the sky, and letting nothing in the house be a distraction. This is the future.

Tony's not even looking at the room. Tony's looking at him, like watching the way Steve takes in the place is a thousand times better than actually seeing the place for himself. Tony's smiling.

"You should see your own face," Tony says. "You look like you did the day I brought you h— the day you first saw the mansion."

Steve knows he's smiling in return. "Yeah, well, I feel like that too."

"You know," Tony says, like this is normal, like they're two normal people and not—whatever they are to each other, "I was always hoping I could get you to come to one of these places with me. Not even romantically. Uh. Not entirely, anyway. Just, you know, a vacation. Like other people take. I mean, I knew you were never going to go on a vacation, but, hey. That's why it was a fantasy."

"This isn't exactly how I'd have imagined a vacation," Steve says. "We're here because we've been kicked off the team."

"Eh." Tony shrugs. "I'll take what I can get." And then he's perched at the top of a staircase. "Come on," he says, and there's that bright grin that Steve loves to see, a flash of that old happiness. "Let's explore."

The rooms are pretty much what Steve would have expected, for Tony. A rec area with a huge gym. A library. A massive workspace, downstairs. An in-home movie theater, with plush seats. An infirmary as advanced as the mansion's. A gleaming kitchen, with the pantry and refrigerator both full. A dining area next to another bank of windows, with a huge deck outside.

And then, upstairs, Tony stops outside the doorway to a large and somehow impersonal bedroom. Everything in it is done up in white: walls, carpet, furniture, bedding. There are no pictures. No one lives here. "Master bedroom," he says, and his fingers flutter in the air before he stills them, sliding his hands into his pockets. "If you— there are guest bedrooms down the other hallway, if you'd rather— if you don't want to—"

Steve silently unslings his duffel and slides it inside the room. He places the shield case next to it.

"Well," Tony says, his voice gone faint. "That answers that."

Steve swings his hands, newly freed of their burdens. "So, if this is a vacation, what are your plans?"

"It's not entirely a vacation," Tony says, a little guiltily. "I wanted Stark Solutions to have a presence in Seattle, so I could get talking with some of the aerospace and tech companies—" He stops when Steve purses his lips. "Okay, fine, it's mostly a vacation. Was there anything you wanted to do? Maybe go to the city, play tourist?"

I want us to talk about what happened. I want us to get better. I'm terrified to talk about what happened, in case we never get better.

Steve clears his throat. "I, uh. Maybe tomorrow. How about that pool?"

Tony's smile is relieved, like he'd been expecting Steve to bring up one of those topics and didn't want to talk about it either. "Sounds good to me."

Steve hadn't thought to pack swim trunks; Tony offers him a pair, and he stares at the impossibly tiny spandex briefs in muted horror. They have a stars and stripes motif. Naturally.

"Did you buy these for me?"

"Wishful thinking about that vacation," Tony says, cheerfully. "You go on and get changed and go on in without me. I'll be along. I'm just going to grab a glass of water first."

He realizes it's another smooth excuse, another way to avoid him actually disrobing in Tony's presence. And damn it all, but he's grateful for it.

He knows at some point they have to deal with this.

Tony just smiles and heads back to the kitchen. Well, they don't have to deal with it now.

The second pool—because of course there's a second, smaller one indoors, which Steve heads to after he decides it's just too chilly outside—turns out to be heated, because Tony spares no expense there either. Steve can feel himself start to relax as soon as he steps into the water, all of his muscles slowly loosening. It's indolent, hedonistic in a way he doesn't usually allow himself to be. He dives down and kicks back up, and he knows he must really be off his game when he leans back into it, stretching out and floating on his back, looking up into the cloudy afternoon sky through the skylight.

With his head half-underwater, he can't hear anything. All sound is blotted out. He lets his eyes fall shut. Somehow his worries begin slip away. There's only water. He wishes he could stay here and not have to think about any of it.

Eventually he opens his eyes and raises his head, coming up to tread water. Tony's wrapped in a robe, perched on the edge of a deck chair. Watching him.

"I, uh," Tony says, momentarily tongue-tied, and Steve realizes then that Tony was watching him. With interest. But before he can think of what to say or do about that, Tony recovers his powers of speech and flashes him a grin. "I thought I'd find you outside. And then I thought for sure you'd be doing laps. What, you've decided you're actually on a vacation now?"

"Maybe," Steve says, and then he's the speechless one as he watches Tony set his glass down and push his robe off, but for a much less nice reason: Tony's bruised all over.

He knows what the bruises are: they're more souvenirs from the Kree fight, and they're still all shaped like the edges of armor plates. But he hadn't seen Tony shirtless before, and it's... pretty awful. Dark lines are scored perpendicular to his ribs and stamp themselves over his collarbones. His shoulders and the middle of his chest are mostly clear, where the armor is the most reinforced. He's wearing a similarly-tiny red swimsuit, but Steve can see another cluster of bruises just above his hips.

Tony catches him staring and Steve looks down and away, awkwardly.

"That bad, huh?"

"Just looks like it hurts."

"Looks worse than it is," Tony offers, and Steve holds his gaze until Tony laughs, trapped in the obvious lie. "No, you're right, I'm stiff as hell. Still, nothing broken. Could have been worse."

Yeah, Steve thinks, you could have been dead.

"So come on in," Steve says, instead, beckoning. "The water's great. You'll feel better."

Tony grins at him, paces over to the deep end, brings his hands together over his head, and dives in. Even battered, he's graceful, elegant; he swims like he flies, with power and an economy of motion. He's heading toward Steve and eventually surfaces a few feet from him, smiling again, shoving his hair out of his eyes.

"Oh, that is nice," Tony says, appreciatively, and Steve thinks he probably means to say it about the water but he's looking at him.

It's okay for Tony to look at him, he tells himself. He used to like it. He does like it.

"I told you." Steve tries to smile. "Thanks for inviting me. This seems like a nice place."

"I'm glad you wanted to come," Tony says, and then he dives back under the water before Steve can reply.

Steve starts his own laps of the pool. Underwater, everything is once again calm and peaceful, and he stays still for long moments watching the light play across the tiles underneath; Tony passes by him in the opposite direction in a soundless rush of pressure, the currents rippling against Steve's skin. Steve heads for the far end of the pool, touches the wall, springs back, pushes off, and is halfway across the pool before he even bothers to kick again.

He stands where the water is waist-deep, because Tony's standing there, staring. When Steve surfaces next to him, Tony's face is incredulous.

"Did you even need to breathe?"

Steve has to think about it. "Uh. No."

"Wow," Tony says, and his mouth twitches into a smile, and Steve feels so much better seeing it. "Super-soldier making the rest of us look bad again, huh?"

"Hey," Steve counters, grinning back, "feel free to write the Army and complain."

"Oh, that's a great idea." Tony chuckles. "Dear Sir or Madam. Uh. Dear General. To whom it may concern. I wish to register a complaint about Captain Steven Rogers, better known to the public as Captain America. He is unfairly— unfairly—"

And then something's changed in the way Tony's looking at him, eyes gone huge and dark, and Steve's abruptly aware that Tony's standing very close to him and wearing very, very little. He can pick out the rivulets of shining water wending their way from the hollow of Tony's throat down the curves of his muscles, and he could reach out and touch him. Tony's looking back at him like he's just now realized the same thing in reverse.

"He's unfairly attractive, that's what he is," Tony whispers. His voice is low, sultry, and at the same time, sad. As if it's actually unfair.

Steve licks his lips and he watches Tony's gaze fixate on that one small movement.

"Do you want to kiss me?" Steve asks.

Tony's breath is half a laugh. "I've wanted to kiss you pretty much since I knew what kissing actually was." And then he does laugh, nervous, tense. "That sounded way less creepy in my head. I'm sorry."

They were always meant to be here. They were here before. All they have to do is find their way back.

He can do this.

"You can, you know," Steve says. He smiles. "I want you to. If you want to."

"I want to," Tony says, but he doesn't move.

Steve leans in.

When they were with the Secret Empire, Tony never kissed him. He didn't take this away from him, Steve tells himself, firmly. It isn't tainted. All his memories of this are good. But he leans in and remembers Tony petting his hair, Tony's hands on his face, Tony's hands all over him like he owned him, owned him in a way that wasn't ever what he wanted—

He won't get better if he doesn't do this.

He's sure his heart's pounding like he's just fought off all of AIM and Hydra combined, but then Tony's lips meet his and he's lightheaded, dizzy with relief, because it feels nice, because it feels good, because they're doing this, because the goddamn Secret Empire didn't win after all. Tony's mouth is soft and warm. He smells like chlorine. The kiss is gentle, closed-mouthed. Tony doesn't grab him, doesn't pull him close, doesn't take, doesn't conquer.

When Tony pulls away, he's trembling a little; Steve puts his hand to Tony's face.

"Is that good?" Tony asks. His voice is small, so small, almost timid, and Steve has never, ever heard him like this.

"It's good," Steve says. "It's good, it's good." I love you, he wants to say. It's not time yet.

Tony's sigh is one of utter relief, and then he tips his head onto Steve's shoulder, laughing against Steve's skin in what sounds like half-dazed delirium, like he does when the team has just barely eked out a victory by the skin of their teeth, bloodied and triumphant. Steve wraps his arms around Tony, mindful of the bruises, and they stand together in the water.

They can't avoid the topic forever, Steve knows. But maybe it doesn't have to hurt.

They could have stayed there. They could have kissed more. They could have let events take their course, as the saying goes—as if that would have been natural, rather than carved out by a thousand deliberate decisions, won back from their raw, healing selves.

Instead they'd stepped back and looked at each other, and silently, mutually decided that that was enough testing of their fragile boundaries.

Steve climbs out of the pool, aware of Tony's eyes on him, and while he heads upstairs. showers, and dresses, he thinks about all the worlds in the multiverse where it happened differently. Where they kept kissing. Where he'd rescued Tony from the Secret Empire the way he'd meant to. Where Tony had never been kidnapped, and they were happy, and they'd never known this.

They're glum thoughts, and he knows he's still nervous, out of sorts, but he finds Tony in the kitchen, still smelling like chlorine, again wrapped in his robe, juggling two lit burners on the stove with intense concentration.

"Dinner is spaghetti," Tony says, cheerfully, without looking up. "Don't worry, even I can't ruin spaghetti. The garlic bread's in the oven. There's ground beef in the fridge and there are probably breadcrumbs somewhere, or there are premade meatballs if you want to be a heathen."

"I want to be a heathen," Steve informs him, because he's hungry now, and he smoothly integrates himself into the cooking process, searching for the meatballs. He checks the fridge first, and he tries not to wince when he sees the container of raspberries. He's positive Tony wasn't in charge of that detail, and somehow Tony hasn't noticed. It's all right. He'll get over it eventually.

He's a better cook than Tony, although that particular skill was born out of years of necessity rather than any innate talent. Tony, for his part, is a better cook than people usually assume he is, but when he feeds himself he keeps it simple. There have been a few culinary disasters.

Dinner is done soon enough; Tony makes about enough food for three regular people, because he knows how much Steve eats. Steve stares down at his plate and then across the table at Tony, who at some point in the process ducked away and put actual clothes on, and he tries not to think about the week of Tony tying him to the wall and feeding him.

He knows Tony must be thinking about it, though, because then Tony looks away and rests his face in one of his hands. "God," he murmurs, "I ruined everything."

Steve reaches out and covers Tony's other hand with his. "You didn't," Steve says. "You didn't. I'm here. We're okay."

Tony smiles a small, thin smile, but the meal is subdued: neither of them say much. Steve knows they're just avoiding the problem.

That night they lie in bed together, in this new bed neither of them have slept in. After long moments of silence Tony cuddles up to him again.

"If I could have stopped myself," Tony says, voice too-loud in the stillness, "I would have. I would have done anything to stop myself. Anything at all."

Steve brings his hand down on Tony's head, stroking through his hair. "I know."

He remembers Tony trying to kill himself on the moon. He knows, if Tony'd had an instant of control—well, he'd been armed, Steve thinks, and then he feels sick. He's guiltily glad Tony didn't, because Tony's alive now. He made it through.

"The headaches were from me reaching the limits of the spell, Wanda said." Tony sighs. "If I'd just— if I had pushed them, if I had— I didn't do enough—"

Tony's breath ratchets up, and Steve strokes his back. "Shh. It's all right. You did all you could."

"You wouldn't have gone under," Tony says, miserably. "If it had been you there instead, you'd have broken through. You'd have shaken it off. You're just— you're just better. A better person. You'd have tried harder. You'd have done something I just couldn't do."

"That's the serum." Steve's response is automatic. "It helps me resist these things. You know that. It's not fair to compare yourself, because that's just the serum—"

"No, it fucking isn't." Tony's breath is harsh in the quiet of the night. "I took the serum away and you still held out. You held out against literally everything I could think of to do to you. That's you. That's intrinsic."

Steve's throat is tight. "Tony. I cried."

"You— you didn't," Tony says, and his voice is shaky in stunned denial. "I— I would have seen. I would have known."

"You weren't conscious," Steve says, and his voice cracks. "I thought I'd killed you and I was sobbing and I remember thinking that you'd be so happy." His eyes sting. "I'm human, Tony. You got to me. So just don't— just don't—" He doesn't know how he wants to finish the sentence. Don't leave. Don't die. Don't let us go on like this.

Tony's arms tighten around him. "Okay. It's going to be okay. I'm— dear God, I can't believe I'm saying this— I'm not going to hurt you. I know you have no reason to trust me, but we can do this."

"I trust you," Steve says. "I've always trusted you."

Tony sighs. "Yeah," he says. "I know. I used that."

And then neither of them say anything else. They're talking about it, but they're not— they're not talking about it right. Steve doesn't know what right is, but it's not this.

Whatever this is, maybe it does have to get worse first.

The next day, as promised, they head to Seattle itself to take in the sights. Tony insists on taking him to the Space Needle—because, well, Tony and heights, who'd have thought?—and they walk through the streets together, though they're interrupted a few times by kids who want Captain America's autograph. Superheroes seem to be a more novel experience here than in New York.

Steve has the vague notion that Tony's planning on buying him dinner somewhere ridiculously expensive later today. He doesn't know if that makes this a date. He doesn't know if he wants this to be a date, if he wants that to happen at all. It's like he can't accept the way Tony cares about him, because when they were with the Secret Empire, Tony twisted even that. And if it is a date, there are generally certain... expectations... about what happens after, and he— he just can't. Not right now.

He needs to just get over it. That's what he needs.

They're walking down the street, and for once no one's paying attention to them—well, not more than they normally do when he's in uniform. Tony can't escape the attention either way. And so Steve reaches out and takes Tony's hand in his.

They're together. Everyone knows they're together. They can hold hands. This is allowed.

Tony jumps, glances over at him in surprise, and then squeezes his hand back, briefly.

They're in public. They can't talk about it. But there's a smile on Tony's face now, and the knot in Steve's stomach starts to loosen. This is the right thing to do.

And then Tony stops abruptly, and Steve looks up.

Carol's standing there, hands on her hips, dressed like she's come from the middle of some kind of business meeting: heels, skirt, blazer, nice blouse. It's a little odd: he almost always sees her either in uniform or entirely off-duty and in a t-shirt and jeans. And he sure wasn't expecting to see her here in Seattle.

From the look on her face, she wasn't expecting to see them either. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is hanging open in surprise before her face quickly settles into something hard and determined. And now that Steve has the serum back, he can smell the alcohol on her from here. Business lunch. Drinks. Of course.

"Well, well, well," she says, grimly. "Tony." Her eyes flick over to Steve. "Cap," she says, and at least she's paying attention to the fact that he's still in uniform.

"Carol," Tony returns, neutrally.

"It's good to see you," Steve adds. It isn't, really, but—at least she's conscious and taking care of herself. It could be worse. He's seen worse.

"So what's the deal?" she asks, and her voice is cold and—goddammit, Carol—more than a little slurred. "I'm already having to avoid Wanda and all of her misplaced concern, and now you two? You're checking up on me for the team, huh?"

There's something pained and gentle in Tony's eyes. "You were in the room when we were kicked off the team. No, we're not checking up on you. We have no active orders."

"It's a coincidence," Steve adds. "Tony wanted to come to Seattle. So we're here. We weren't following you."

Carol doesn't look mollified. She steps forward and lifts her head. Her fists clench and unclench. Steve recognizes the stance, even when she's out of uniform.

He doesn't have his shield on him. This was supposed to be a quiet day downtown.

Tony drops Steve's hand. He starts to raise his hand, palm outward—though from him, that reflex is more than just defensive. But he's not armored now.

"I'm an adult. I can take care of myself. Why the hell does no one trust me?" Carol hisses, and her fists crackle with golden light.

Tony tilts his head down at the glow. "Probably because of that, for one thing."

"Tony," Steve says. Tony doesn't even have the briefcase armor on him. He'd have to summon something remotely, and in the meantime no one needs to antagonize Carol. Steve will take any number of energy blasts for Tony—even without his shield, he still has his body—but he'd prefer not to if there's a choice. He turns back to Carol. "Carol, this doesn't have to get messy. Please."

Her face twists. "What, because Tony's bodyguard isn't here?" The word is mocking. Her hands still writhe with energy. She looks over at Tony, who regards her with an awful look in his eyes, and Steve just bets he knows what Tony's remembering. Tony's alcoholic past hasn't exactly been pleasant. "You know, with the suit, no one can tell if Iron Man pities anyone. I bet you like that better." She laughs. "And you think I've got problems? Tell me why you drank, why don't you? You're the one who doesn't want to be himself. You'd rather be a goddamn robot. You lied to all of us about who you were. You're the one who was playing nightmare Rocky Horror for a week and I bet you loved not being Tony Stark so much that you didn't even try to shake it. You probably didn't even care who you were as long as it wasn't you." She glares. "When we were rescuing you two, I was the one who had to pick Cap here up off the floor where you left him and he was terrified because he thought I was you, coming back to kill him. And here you are, skipping down the street holding hands and completely in denial." Tony goes pale, and Steve winces. He'd been hoping Tony wouldn't find out about that. "But, fine, fucking pity me because obviously I'm the one with the problem. Because that's fair, right?" Her hands are brighter now.

"Please," Tony's voice is hoarse. "Carol, it's not about pity. And it's not about me. It's not even just about addiction. Look at what you're doing. You're out of control. People are going to get hurt." He swallows hard. "Iron Man... tried to fight drunk. More than once. It's one of my— it's one of his biggest regrets, and thank God he had people to stop him. Once it was Rhodey, and once it was actually Machine Man." He grimaces. "I'm just saying. Unchecked power's not pretty. It's really not pretty for people like us. The more power you have, the better you are, the worse it is when it all goes wrong. The more damage you can do."

And Steve knows what Tony's talking about, he knows he's talking about years ago, but he can't help thinking about last week—

"Nice story," Carol says, coolly. The words have an edge to them. Her hands are golden. "So you're a control freak. We all know that. What's the point?"

"My point," Tony retorts, tightly, "is that you should be concerned. Because it's harder to stop you than me. There's no suit to take you out of. No off-switch. And you're standing here, and I know you don't think you have a problem. I sure didn't. I know you think you need to drink. I know you think we just don't understand your pain. Believe me, I know exactly what that feels like." He swallows hard. "But, Jesus, Carol, look at yourself. Think about what you're doing right now. You're not safe. You're already lighting up like a Christmas tree. I know you're angry at me. What happens when you get angrier, huh?"

"I don't need a goddamn lecture," Carol snaps. "I don't need your goddamn pity." Her eyes are wild. The energy spreads up her arm, ripples, and crackles aloud. "I don't have a problem. So I like to take a drink every so often. So what? I have a good life. I'm writing a book now. I'm putting it all behind me. I just need you to stay out of my way."

She's in the air, then, a move Steve hadn't expected; she doesn't usually fly when she's not in uniform. She rises higher and higher, moving fast, and then she's gone.

Tony lets out a breath.

"You want to go after her?" Steve asks.

Tony shakes his head. He's too pale, practically sallow. He runs a hand through his hair. "I, uh. No. Not right now. There's no point." His gaze darts around, from building to building to building, not settling. "She'll just get madder. She's not... she's not all right."

That's an understatement.

"Are you all right?"

Steve doesn't know how to deal with this. He knows the last time Tony drank he said everything wrong. He did everything wrong. And they're not talking about any of this. Maybe some of what Carol said was right. He doesn't know what to do.

Tony runs his hand through his hair again, sending it into wild disarray. "No," he says, finally. "I'm not." He smiles a little, a small self-effacing smile. "Sorry about this. I wanted to go out with you. Have a nice time."

"It's okay," Steve says. "Some other time. Can I do anything?"

He shakes his head again. "I'll let you know. I think right now I'd like to go home and... call my sponsor." His eyes are shadowed. "If you don't mind?"

Geez. As if he would mind. "Of course I don't mind."

Tony grabs his hand, then, and holds onto it practically the entire way back to his house, even during the helicopter flight. He holds on tight, like he'll lose Steve if he lets go.

Steve's far enough away in the house, helping himself to cold chicken out of the refrigerator, that all he can hear is the indistinct rise and fall of Tony's voice several rooms away, as Tony talks to Henry Hellrung on the phone. Henry is Tony's AA sponsor, an actor who'd played Tony once on TV. Outside of his fellow Avengers, Steve supposes that someone who's had to be Tony for the world would have the best chance at understanding him. Steve's never met the guy, but he's seen him on TV. He'd won awards for his portrayal, but privately Steve had thought he didn't have quite the same spark as Tony. Still, he's always sounded like a good guy, to hear Tony talk about him.

And Tony needs the help. Tony needs more help than this. Steve's pretty sure AA meetings aren't equipped to handle victims of mind control. But if he needs help not drinking, especially with Carol in the state she's in—well, that he can have. God knows Steve doesn't trust himself not to make it worse.

He puts the chicken back in the fridge and notes that the raspberries that had been in there yesterday are gone. Tony's thinking of him. It won't help, but it's sweet of him.

The other room's been quiet for a long time, and soon enough Tony comes in, with the lights in the hallway brightening in a soft glow to follow him as he walks.

It's nighttime outside, and suddenly the huge house seems lonely, dwarfing both of them in its shining vastness. He can see their reflections on the inside of the glass of the huge windows; the world outside is black and all at once overwhelming.

"Did you have a good talk?" Steve asks. He doesn't know what else to say.

Tony nods. His eyes aren't focused and he has that familiar vague, abstracted look he gets when all his attention is elsewhere. "I did. I— I think I'm going to go to another meeting tomorrow."

"All right," Steve says, awkwardly. It feels like Tony's asking him for permission. Tony definitely doesn't need it.

And then Tony takes one, two, three steps forward and he's wrapping his arms around Steve, holding him tight. His mouth meets Steve's, hot and desperate, and they haven't kissed like this— not since—

He's just not going to think about before. There is only now. Tony's in his arms and he loves Tony and it's going to be okay.

Tony's tongue slides into his mouth and Steve goes hot and shaky all over and he's not sure if it's fear or arousal. Probably both. He's gasping. He wants this. He thinks he wants this. He must want this.

Tony pulls away.

"Don't let me hurt you," Tony whispers. He shuts his eyes. "Just, please—"

"You won't," Steve promises, and he can almost see how they used to be, and he's reaching out for it. "You won't, you won't."

He can't wish that Tony would. Not anymore.

"You would have said that before, too," Tony says.

Steve doesn't know what to say to that.

Tony pulls away from him again, leads him down the hall, and eventually they end up in bed together—not, however, in the euphemistic sense. They trade a few more kisses, gently. Everyone's hands stay well above the waist, though that doesn't make the contact any less meaningful. Tony has one arm wrapped around Steve, hand planted between his shoulder blades, pressed there like it's only the contact with Steve that's keeping him alive. Steve runs his hands through Tony's hair and kisses him and kisses him.

"Is this all right?" Tony asks, between kisses. His eyes are wide. His body against Steve is a coiled spring, muscles taut.

He asks again and again, between all the kisses, and each time Steve tells him yes, tells him yes again, kisses him more. He doesn't know how else to make it clear.

"Yes," Steve whispers. "Yes, Tony, yes, it's good. I want this." He takes a shaking breath. He's hot where Tony's touching him. He's hot everywhere, and it's almost overwhelming. This is pleasure, he tells himself. This is what pleasure feels like. He's not sure his body remembers.

Tony kisses him again, and his skin is cold and hot at once, wet where Tony's mouth has brushed against his. His body is lighting up, sparking sensation, and he gasps but he knows better than to ask for more right now.

And then Tony pulls away yet again.

"If you didn't," Tony says, and the words are too fast, almost frantic, "if you didn't want this, would you—"

"I'd tell you," Steve says, and he kisses him. There's no need for safewords here, no ridiculous selections like banana or, God help him, shield, or even the more standard red or safeword. No and stop are quite enough for two people who are clearly never going to play with consent. Or, for that matter, anything else. "I'd tell you," he repeats. "I'd tell you right away, and you'd stop."

"But what would you do if I didn't stop?" Tony asks. His voice is low and miserable.

Well, he could stop him. Very easily. If Tony's still himself, if he's not actually trying to remove the serum and hurt him, Steve is stronger and faster and can heal anything Tony does to him. If anything, Tony should be concerned for himself. But somehow Steve thinks that's not the answer Tony wants right now. He doesn't know what that answer is.

He rubs his thumb over Tony's jaw. "You'd stop," he says, instead. "Of course you'd stop." Tony doesn't look convinced. He tries again. "You wouldn't hurt me." He takes a breath. Here in the dark, maybe it's okay to mention it. "What the Secret Empire did to you—they made you hurt me. That wasn't you. I know you, Tony. You wouldn't."

"But what if?" Tony repeats.

And once again, Steve has no response. He's out of his depth here. He doesn't know what to do.

Tony just shuts his eyes and tucks his face against Steve's shoulder. He sleeps, and Steve stares into the darkness for a long time.

In the morning the bed's empty, and when Steve, half-awake, flails around for the presence he somehow has come to expect should always be there, he finds instead a creased note on the pillow.

Don't freak out, the note says, in the messy scrawl Tony uses for everything except engineering. I'm going to a meeting. I'll be back soon.

He gets up. He goes for another swim. Tony's house can probably tell Tony where he is, when he gets back.

Tony's not back yet when he gets out of the pool.

What if, he thinks, and then he can't stop thinking it, and he knows it's irrational but he didn't call Tony before, when Tony was late, when he was worried. He'd told himself it would be okay, and then Tony didn't come home.

He calls. He holds his breath.

Tony picks up on the second ring. "Hello?"

"Tony?"

"Steve?" Tony asks, confusion thickening his voice. "Is something wrong?"

"No, I—" he starts to say, and he doesn't know how to say it without sounding like an absolute idiot. "Nothing. I was just wondering if you were okay. You've been gone so long. I was— I was—"

He can't make himself say I was worried.

But Tony must hear it anyway, because his voice is lower, soothing. "Everything's fine. I just got a little distracted. I'm on my way home now. I'm in the suit, actually. Five minutes, tops."

"Okay," Steve says. "Okay. I'll see you." He breathes out.

Tony's okay. Tony's all right. This isn't like before.

Soon enough, there's a flash of red-gold in the gray skies, and Tony comes in for a landing. As he approaches, Steve sees he's got a paper bag clutched in one gauntlet. The door opens and closes, and then there's the heavy scrape of metal on hardwood, and the familiar noise of armor plates hitting the floor.

Steve turns the corner and sees Tony standing in the middle of the room, wearing most of a business suit and surrounded by shining metal. "You're making a bit of a mess there."

"I'll fix it after breakfast," Tony says, with an amused smile. He shakes the paper bag. "They had sesame. No longer warm bagels, I'm afraid, but at least they're fresh." He pauses, and the smile disappears from his face. "I mean, you— if you don't want me to feed you, I see how that could be a problem—"

"I ate dinner just fine the other day," Steve says, but his heart is pounding. "It's nice of you to think of me."

"All right," Tony says, but he looks wary.

Steve picks at his bagels, and he only ends up eating one.

"How was the meeting?" he asks. He wishes he knew how to be more supportive.

Tony smiles thinly. "Fine. Good." He sighs. "I checked on Carol afterwards. That was... less good."

"Oh?"

Tony's eyes unfocus. "She's writing a book—or trying to—but she's not sober. At all. She barely talked to me. Told me to get out. Her apartment's just full of empties." He grimaces. "I was beginning to think I shouldn't have gone by myself, actually."

"I can go with you next time," Steve offers. "You don't have to do this alone. Unless you think I'll— I'll—"

"I'd like that," Tony says, in a rush, like he was just waiting for Steve to say something, to show some interest, and Steve abruptly feels awful for being so hesitant.

"I'm sorry," Steve says, and Tony blinks at him. He looks away and picks at his bagel. "I know I'm— I just don't know what to say, and I'm afraid if I say the wrong thing—"

"You're not going to drive me to drink, Steve." Tony's face is tense, but his smile is gentle. "That's all on me."

You said it was my fault, he doesn't say. "When you were drinking before, really drinking, I— I tracked you down and I yelled at you," he says, his throat tight. "I didn't know what to say, and I was so angry. And then you were avoiding me so much that you switched clothes with a hobo so I couldn't find you again, lost your company, and lived on the streets." He looks away. His vision is blurry.

"Steve, have you been—?" Tony starts to say. There the sound of a chair scraping, and then Tony is standing next to him, pulling him into an awkward half-hug. "Ah, God, Steve, have you been blaming yourself? All these years?"

"I don't know what to do." Steve turns his face into Tony's side. "I don't have a great track record with this."

"It wasn't your fault." Tony cradles Steve's head with his hand. "None of this is your fault. You want to know how you can help?" There's a long pause, like even this is hard to admit. Steve knows Tony well enough to know that he thinks even asking for help is selfish. "Just stay. That's all you need to do. You being here, that's— that's what I want. We can work the rest out later."

We can't keep putting this off, Steve almost says.

He doesn't know how to talk about any of it.

He doesn't eat the rest of breakfast. At least it's not pancakes.

They're kissing again.

They've been kissing, here and there, since they'd started again, but this time there's an urgency to it, a finality that wasn't there before. Tony's not stepping back and running away, and he's not either. This feels like a journey with a destination. Tony's mouth is hot against his, and Steve doesn't know how long they've been kissing, and Tony's hands are sliding over his body with barely a hint of his earlier tentativeness. Like they used to be.

They're on the couch in what Steve supposes is the living room. Tony is sprawled halfway on top of him, and behind Tony it's all windows, sky and water and evergreen forest beyond. Anyone could see them if they were watching, Steve thinks, and God, he didn't think he had much of an exhibitionism kink, but he gasps and is suddenly very, very hard.

It's okay, he thinks. It's okay, Tony didn't do that before, the mirrors weren't about that—

And then Tony kisses his neck and it should be a turn-on, and it is, but he's also half-terrified, still, and he doesn't want to be—

He just needs to push through this. That's what he needs to do. He'll get better if he just does it. If he makes new memories. If he has new associations.

Tony lifts his head. "Is this good?"

"This is good," Steve says. He wants it to be good. He does. It's not bad. It isn't. "This is very good."

The kissing gets hotter, heavier. At some point his shirt ends up on the floor. Then Tony's shirt does. Tony palms Steve's nipples, softer than Steve likes, but Steve is gasping and rocking his hips up and he's pretty sure he's going to come in his pants anyway, because, God, Tony's so good at that. It feels like no one's ever touched him before.

He can do this. He's doing this. They're getting better.

Tony's fingers trace the fly on Steve's jeans. "Do you want...?" he asks, and lets the question trail off.

They can do this. They used to do this.

Steve smiles. "Please." He lets his eyes fall shut.

Tony's fingers on him are perfect, and he sighs and moans and lets Tony do this to him. They're doing this. He trusts Tony. He loves Tony. Tony's so good at this. Tony—

Tony isn't saying anything, anymore.

Tony hasn't moved at all. Tony isn't touching him anywhere except his hand on Steve's cock, jerking him off like he wants this to be over with fast. God. No.

Steve opens his eyes.

Tony's face is twisted up in some kind of terrified misery. His face is furrowed in pain. Steve glances down. God, he's not even hard. How could he have missed this? Tony's doing this all for him because he thinks it's what Steve wants, and he doesn't want it at all, and it's killing him.

"Wait," Steve says. "Wait, no, Tony. Hold on." He struggles to draw a breath. "Stop."

And Tony's off him so fast he actually falls off the couch, landing in an ungainly sprawl. His eyes are wide, and he's practically hyperventilating. He's panicking. He was halfway there anyway, Steve realizes. "I'm sorry," Tony says, brokenly. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh God, I'm so sorry. I did— you didn't want me to— I'm sorry—"

What the hell is going on?

"It's all right," Steve says. He tries to sound as calm as possible. Soothing. "It's all right. I asked you to stop, and you stopped." Just like he'd said Tony would. "See? It's not a big deal. Nothing to worry about."

But Tony's still staring, and he's scrambling to his feet, backing away.

Steve tries again. "You didn't hurt me. It's okay. I'm okay. We're okay."

"I—" Tony says, but he can't get the words out. "I— I have to go. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Tell me what I did wrong, he wants to say. He wants to scream. Pure frustration courses through him. But he can't be angry at Tony. The Secret Empire hurt him so much. It's not his fault.

Then Tony's gone, backing away into the hallway, and Steve hears the door open and shut.

He sighs.

A few minutes later, Iron Man is in the sky.

He wishes he knew what just happened.

Tony comes back late. Very late. Steve doesn't see the familiar glow of repulsors in the sky until long after dinner, when Steve is about to give up and go to bed without him.

"Hi," Tony says, very quietly, a few minutes later. He sounds exhausted. When he brushes by Steve, heading for the stairs to the bedroom, he smells mostly like the suit, hot metal and the odd, distinctive scent of repulsor ionization.

"You've been flying all this time?" He doesn't know what else to say.

"Yeah."

Tony pushes past him and doesn't say anything else.

He's in bed already when Steve gets there, and he says nothing when Steve grabs his pajamas and heads to the bathroom to change. Steve feels a little ridiculous—for God's sake, Tony had been undressing him earlier—but he doesn't want to chance doing anything that could make Tony react like that again, especially since he doesn't know what set it off.

When he comes out, Tony's sitting up and staring at him from across the dimly-lit room.

"Do you want me to sleep somewhere else?" Tony asks. It's the first full sentence Steve has heard from him in hours.

Steve shakes his head. "No," he says, but then he feels like he has to add the rest. "If it would make you feel better, though."

Steve's beginning to think nothing will. He wonders if Tony's already decided that.

Tony lies back down. Steve supposes that's an answer.

The covers rustle. The bed creaks when Steve sits. When he lies down, Tony doesn't turn to face him.

The lights dim automatically. Everything is dark.

"You really didn't hurt me," Steve says, into the darkness. Maybe now it might be okay to talk about it, now that Tony can't see him, now that they're nothing but voices. "I asked you to stop because it looked to me like you didn't want to be doing what you were doing, and I was worried about you. That's all. You weren't doing anything I didn't want. You didn't hurt me."

Tony says nothing.

He's breathing. In. Out. In. It's the only sound in the room.

"I can't stop thinking about what I did to you." Tony's voice is rough. Heavy. Guilty.

Steve sighs. It's good that Tony wants to talk about it, but... they've all been through this, haven't they? They've all been mind-controlled before. You're fighting and then someone waves their hands and says a few words and then you're taking a swing at your teammate. It happens. It happens to Steve less than the rest of them, but he's certainly had his share. Hell, even back in '41 the Red Skull had managed to brainwash him, but Bucky had gotten him to snap out of it before he'd actually taken the shot at the Allied commander that Skull had ordered him to take. Even now he remembers the utter blankness, the passivity, the weight of the gun in his hand. He remembers the alien will consuming his mind, overriding all other desires. He hadn't wanted to, but he'd had no choice. He hadn't been himself then. And Tony certainly hadn't been Tony last week.

"It wasn't you," he says. "The Secret Empire made you do what you did. You didn't want to do it. I know you. You'd never hurt me. You'd never want to."

He remembers wishing that Tony would. It feels like another lifetime now.

Tony doesn't say anything after that.

In the morning, Steve wakes up and heads to the pool for another swim while Tony's asleep. The house's gym facilities, Tony had said apologetically, weren't yet built for super-strength. He'd said he was working on getting something new made and delivered, but in the meantime Steve's only got himself. Laps, then.

It's calming. He dives into the water, lets it rush by him, and then loses himself in the flow. There's nothing to think about except his body, except moving forward. There are no distractions, no worries. Some people might meditate, but Steve's most at peace when he can do something, when there's nothing but his body and no need to think about anything except sensation.

He supposes that it shouldn't be much of a surprise why he likes—why he used to like—subspace.

The thought jars him back into reality, into that aching regret that's been coloring his days.

Everything's going wrong. He got Tony back, and everything's still wrong.

He stands in the shower afterward for a long time. The water doesn't ever run cold. It figures.

He doesn't know what to do.

When he heads back to the main living area, he finds that Tony's in the kitchen, scrambling some eggs. Tony looks up and smiles and Steve tries not to think about sitting chained to a wall next to a plate of eggs he can't reach and staring at the cross—

"You want some?" Tony asks, as he scrapes the eggs out onto a plate. A small plate. Steve eats more than that and they both know it. Tony grimaces apologetically. "I didn't know when you were going to be done swimming, but, here, you can eat this now and I can scramble a few more—"

He takes a bite of toast—there's a pile of buttered toast on the counter—and wanders back to the egg carton.

Is this how it's going to be? They're not going to talk about it? They're just going to keep pretending it didn't happen? That nothing's wrong? That yesterday he didn't somehow scare Tony badly enough that he ran off for hours? That Tony didn't spend a week torturing him?

"Tony," he says, and he honestly doesn't know what he's going to say next, but goddammit, he has to say something.

Tony looks at him, and his face is tense but his eyes are just... bleak. Like he knows what's coming, knows it's going to hurt, and can't do anything to stop it.

Then there's a very familiar beep. An Avengers identicard beep. A priority alert.

In his pocket, Tony's card is beeping. Steve can faintly hear his own card, upstairs with his uniform; Steve's still wearing just a t-shirt and sweats.

Tony's eyes meet his again, and Steve can see the transformation: Tony's face hardens, and everything else shuts down. Steve's sure his own face looks the same. They're Avengers. They're needed. This is what they do. Their personal relationship doesn't matter right now. Someone needs help. They help them. Anything else just doesn't matter.

Tony pulls his identicard out of his pocket, flips it over, and taps the screen.

"Sea-Tac airport has put out a request for closest superhero assistance, immediately. Championair flight 620 to JFK has recently taken off. They're reporting that a superhuman passenger with energy blasts is belligerent and an active threat. The plane's being blasted open. Breaking apart in the air. The cabin crew are reporting that a second superhuman passenger is blocking many of the blasts as well as somehow covering the holes and maintaining cabin pressure. There are passenger injuries. No deaths yet. The perpetrator— oh, fuck."

Tony stops and pales.

"What?"

Tony reads off the description. "Female. Caucasian, blonde, approximately 5'11". Visibly intoxicated." Oh no. Steve knows what's coming. Tony looks up and swallows hard. "Passenger manifest lists her as Carol Danvers."

He can't let himself feel anything about this. There's no time for feelings. "What do you want to bet the other passenger is Wanda?"

"I wouldn't bet against you," Tony says, grimly.

"All right," Steve says. It isn't all right at all. Thank God he brought the shield. "Let's go."

Tony stops and tilts his head. "Steve. You can't fly."

Is Tony seriously going to try to ground him now? This is why they were kicked off the team, isn't it? They can't work together anymore. But people need their help, and no one else is here. It has to be them.

"Neither can any of the passengers on that flight," Steve returns. "Neither can Wanda." Wanda, he thinks, can probably at least slow her own fall, but that's not the point. "I can take care of myself if you get me up there. You know I can. We can stop her. Together."

Tony looks at him for long moments. They don't have time for this. He finally blows out a breath. "Okay. Suit up. I've got you." The corner of his mouth twitches. It might be a smile.

Steve smiles back.

He can feel himself settling into a different kind of calm, that familiar readiness, as he suits up, as he slides into his uniform, as he pulls his cowl over his head, as he clips his shield onto his back, as he pulls his gloves over his hands. He tightens his fists a few times, watching red leather flex over his fingers. It's a ritual. This is his life. He saves the world.

Tony comes upstairs from the workshop, armored up save for the raised faceplate, at the same moment as Steve heads downstairs. Tony passes him an earpiece as they jog out to the helipad.

"I've got clearance from air traffic control," Tony says, with another grim smile, as Steve fits the earpiece to his ear. "That's currently a closed comm line, just to me, but if you want to talk to the tower or the pilot I can patch you in. Wanda should still be carrying an identicard but I can't raise her yet. I think she's more than a little busy. The flight's about half full. We should have room to maneuver when we get aboard, but not a lot."

Steve nods. "Anything else I need to know?"

"They're in a holding pattern, a few thousand feet up," Tony tells him. "It's going to be a bit chilly for you until we get inside. Sorry about that."

"I can handle it."

"Yeah." Tony's smile is faint. "Of course you can." He reaches up and flips the faceplate down. Clear shutters drop over the suit's eyes and mouth, and Steve can no longer see the blue of Tony's eyes, only the residual bright glow of the suit HUD. Iron Man, reporting for duty. "You ready for the express elevator, Cap?"

In reply, Steve steps forward and wraps his arms around Tony, the way they always do. "Ready."

"Hold on tight."

They rise.

Seattle from the air is impressive, a city nestled against mountains, surrounded by endless evergreen forests and shining water, but Steve instead fixes his gaze upward, searching for a plane in the skies.

The air is colder and colder, the wind whipping by them, stinging his face, and he clings even more tightly to the unyielding panels of Tony's suit, pulling himself closer, trying to spread his fingers wide against Tony's back. Tony's going fast, and Steve doesn't want to slip. Tony's head is tilted back, faceplate bright and impassive, shining in the sun. Steve can't read him by looking at him but he knows that for once this week, Tony's thinking about the same thing he is: how they're going to save people.

"I have a lock on the jet." Tony's voice crackles in his ear. "Interception in one minute."

Right after Tony says that, the plane is in view. At first it's a small spot in the sky, but it quickly grows, and Steve sees immediately that it's in bad shape. There are gaping holes in the passenger compartment, metal bent outward in huge explosive curls. It looks like the jet ought not to be flying at all, but as they get closer Steve can see the holes are wreathed in misty scarlet forcefields, flat planes of energy swimming and rippling with arcane designs. It looks like a patch over fabric, but on an entirely different scale. One of the wings has a giant crack in it, run through with scarlet—the chaos energy is literally holding the wing together.

"Well," Tony says in his ear. "Now we know how they still have cabin pressure. And how they're still airborne. Thank God for Wanda."

They draw level with the plane, and Steve can see a few dim figures through the tiny windows. None of them seem to be Carol or Wanda. The biggest hole is over the wing, where one of the emergency exits used to be, and the barrier covering it looks thick. He can hardly see through it; he can make out a few wrecked seats on the other side.

"Got any ideas for how to knock on the door without letting too much air out?" Tony asks.

Steve suspects the barriers will prevent them throwing themselves through, if they're meant to keep passengers aboard. But maybe something small could get through. Or something very fast.

Or both, he thinks, and he has an idea.

"Shield!" he yells, and Tony's head turns toward him like he's reading his lips and he nods, a curt jerk of the faceplate.

"Let me do it," Tony says in his ear. "You hang on to me."

Tony doesn't wait for his assent; it would be hard to communicate, at any rate. And Steve trusts Tony with the shield. Of course he does. Tony just slides one gauntleted hand to Steve's back and lifts the shield away. Steve tries to shift position to give Tony better range of motion.

They're a few feet from the barrier.

Tony raises his arm, shield in hand, and pitches the shield sideways at the gap, throwing slow and vertically, so anyone on the other side can see the star. Steve watches as the barrier ripples, tears—and then there's no time to think because Tony's shoving them forward through the hole in the forcefield at high speed, repulsors blazing bright—

—and then they're inside, and it's a warzone. Several rows of seats are ripped away, the lighting is flickering, and passengers are huddled in their seats and screaming. Steve holds out his hand and grabs his shield on the rebound as Tony skids to a halt. Steve practically falls off him, stumbling across the deck in a dizzying rush as his body reorients itself.

Wanda's standing just in front of them, her back to them as she faces down Carol. Raw chaos energy is crackling around her. Her hands are in the air, outstretched, and in front of her is another scarlet barrier. Through it, Steve can just barely see the rest of the plane, and then the barrier thins a little and gives him a better look. Oxygen masks dangle from above. Passengers are crouched in their seats, doubled over, hiding as best they can. And at the far end of the plane, floating in the aisle, is Carol, haloed in brilliant golden light.

Carol raises a hand and fires an energy blast, dazzling Steve's eyes with the photons. Steve's not sure whether she means to aim at Wanda or the two of them, but the shot goes wild and scores one of the overhead compartments, melting and scorching the plastic.

Wanda spares a half-second to glance back and flutter her fingers, and the barrier in the side of the plane grows more solid; the rip Tony made closes as if it had never been there. Her face is pale, taut with strain. She can't keep this up forever.

"Avenger, report!" Steve yells, over the crackling roar of one of Carol's energy blasts hitting the barrier.

Wanda opens her mouth—

But Carol's the one who speaks first.

"What the hell do I have to do to get away from you people?" Her voice is almost unrecognizably slurred, and Steve distantly wonders how much she had to drink to get that drunk; her metabolism runs nearly as fast as his. "Leave me alone!"

She holds out her hand and fires another energy blast, a stronger one, and this one is aimed at—oh God—Tony's head. It slices through the barrier, cutting as clean as a knife. Tony brings up his hands just in time and blocks it with an answering repulsor blast, gold against gold.

Carol's shaking with an awful, vicious, bitter anger. Steve thinks of his father on the worst nights, he thinks of—no, no, no—Tony raising the whip, and his heart pounds in chest, a hideous and terrified drumbeat.

"You need to stop this!" Steve yells.

He doesn't know what to say. He never knows what to say.

"That's not going to work," Tony says, and the synthesized voice echoes with determined finality. "She's in a full-on blackout rage. She's not going to listen."

He wonders if Tony has any better ideas.

"She was drinking when she got on the plane," Wanda grits out. She's sweating. Her skin is almost gray with exhaustion, but more chaos energy arcs from her fingers. "She was drinking while everyone boarded. And then the plane took off and she saw me, and—" Her voice catches.

"It's not your fault," Steve tells her.

Tony hisses static. "I agree, but we have bigger problems—"

Carol raises her hands. The energy blasts stop. Steve wonders if that means she's giving up.

"You all think you're so much better than me," Carol slurs. "You think I'm weak. You pity me."

"Carol, no—" Wanda says, frantically, holding out her hands. "It's not like that at all—"

"So tell me," Carol roars, "who's the weak one now?"

She draws her hands back, and Steve realizes he's seen this. He saw this on the moon, when Carol took Tony down. She's draining the energy away from Wanda. It's flowing in scarlet tendrils across the cabin, brightening into a pink shimmer before merging with Carol's golden light, which grows stronger and stronger.

Wanda sags, barely upright, and the barrier in front of her dissolves. They're unprotected now. She's holding onto the barriers keeping the plane together, but it looks like it's costing her everything she has to do it.

And then Carol turns on Tony, raising her palm. Steve realizes, with horror, that Tony never made those suit modifications to protect him from Carol. Tony's suit flickers and starts to dim, and golden energy flows out around him.

Before Steve's even conscious of making the decision, he's leaping through the air, and he stands in front of Tony, raising his shield high. The flow of energy slows and stops.

"Warbird!" Steve yells. "Stand down!"

Captain America ought to be able to make anyone do anything with that voice, but Carol doesn't falter. The drain reverses, and then an energy blast hits the shield. The vibranium absorbs it, of course. The blast doesn't even rock him.

"I don't take orders from you, Cap," she snarls. "You're not even a goddamn Avenger anymore! Go away!"

He has to take her down. At least no one's throwing knives at him, he thinks, and he raises the shield. It's a perfect throw—and Carol bats the shield back with an energy blast like they're playing ball.

He raises his hand high, fingers fitting around the familiar rim of the shield to catch it—

That's when the next energy blast hits him in the chest.

Everything is raw, searing pain, and as Steve flies backwards through the air the only thought running through his head, as irrelevant as it is, is that he's damned tired of his teammates shooting him. He wants to laugh. He can't breathe. His chest is on fire.

His back slams into the energy barrier in the side of the plane, the one over the wing that they came in through. Chaos energy roars and tingles around him and the barrier flexes elastically, bowing outward and then inward, as if he's leaning against a trampoline.

And then the barrier starts to thin.

He can feel himself sinking through it.

"Wanda!" someone yells, and that has to be Tony, but he can't quite see right through the haze of magic. "Cap's going to fall!" Even filtered through the armor, Tony's voice is tight with what has to be barely-suppressed panic.

Steve blinks and tries to struggle forward, but he can't quite balance and he tips back into the barrier.

Wanda's turned toward him, holding out a hand, and he can see energy gather around her fingers, a scarlet glow—

An energy blast scorches across her shoulder. She screams, a ragged, awful cry, and then she's down. The magic ebbs away from her fingers. Steve can see her trying to hold on, to cast another hex, but it's not enough. It won't be enough.

The barrier is iridescent, soap-bubble thin, only keeping air in now—

And Steve falls through.

"Steve!"

Tony's agonized shout echoes in his ears, distorted by the armor and the comms, but there's nothing Steve can do.

He's tumbling through the air. Up and down don't quite make sense at first and the world whirls around him, gray skies above him, silvery seas below. He's falling head-down, dropping and dropping and dropping, plummeting through the air, watching the water grow closer. His shield is in his hands. It's all he's got and he's clinging to it, even though he knows it won't be able to save him. Nothing will.

Well, he thinks, at least he's done this before. He wasn't this high up in 1945, though, and he doesn't think the serum will save him when he hits the water this time. He's so cold already. The water shines below him. It's beautiful. If he's going to go, at least it's going to be pretty. He's had a good life. He's saved the world. He's fought for freedom and justice. He's— he's brought hope to people, maybe. He likes to think that he has.

Tony and Wanda will stop Carol, he thinks. They'll save the plane. Carol will get help. Everything will be okay. And Tony—

His mind stutters and sticks on Tony. This wasn't how he wanted it to end, between them, but Avengers don't get a choice about that, do they? Every day could be their last. But he made Tony happy, didn't he? They were happy. They loved each other. That's worth something. He hopes Tony will be able to move on, to find someone else, to be happy without him.

He realizes that's exactly what Tony was telling him on the moon.

He wonders if the landing will hurt, or if it will all be over too fast—

And then strong arms wrap around him from behind in a tight embrace. He's caught. He's slowing down. Steve looks down along his body and sees brilliant red metal, shining in the daylight. Tony's holding him.

It's the best thing he's ever felt.

"Tony," he whispers, and there's no way Tony can hear him but he says it anyway.

The comm crackles. "I've got you," Tony says in his ear, and his voice is low and soothing and perfect. Steve would trust him with anything, trust him to do anything; it feels like everything between them that was wrong is swept away. They're together. Tony has him. "I've got you," Tony repeats. "You're gonna be okay." Tony laughs then, a quiet little nervous sound. "You gotta stop falling off airplanes, Winghead. I don't want to wait another fifty years to find you again. Don't want to lose you at all."

There's so much caring in Tony's voice. Tony loves him. He hasn't said it, but he does. He must. Steve knows. Tony's always loved him. Something in Steve is warm and bright, and the pain in his chest lessens. I don't want to lose you either, he thinks, but anything he tries to say will be swallowed up by the wind.

"How are you feeling?" He pauses. "No, you can't really talk like this, can you?" There's another pause. "Suit sensors say you're injured but non-critical. Okay. Good. You want to head back up now?"

Steve manages to move his head in a nod.

"All right," Tony says. "I'm not going to drop you, I promise, but I am going to pull a few Gs, so hang on—"

And then the world spins and grays out—Tony's taking his breath away, Steve thinks, lightheaded—as Tony pulls them both upright in a soaring spiral.

The plane's above them again, still ringed with scarlet energy, so Wanda must still be conscious, and she can't be too badly hurt. Steve exhales in relief. Good.

Tony holds him tight, and soon enough they're back up at the plane again. The barrier is thin enough that he can see Wanda on the other side, and she smiles at them in relief before thinning the barrier enough to let them back on board.

When Tony lets him go he moves quickly to Wanda's side. "Are you all right?"

There's an angry red burn all over her shoulder, and her arm is hanging limply at her side; she's doing all her hexing with her other hand. But she gives a tight nod and a ghost of a smile. "Fine, Captain. You?"

Steve looks down at himself; he'd actually managed to ignore the pain in the face of his impending death and then his salvation. Half his uniform is burned away, and the skin underneath is broken and bleeding. He shrugs. "Doesn't even hurt."

Down the aisle, Carol is still glowing bright, face twisted in fury. She fires another blast—this one at Steve—and Steve raises his shield and blocks it. Tony's half-turned toward him. He's still armored up, but Steve can see Tony's eyes now, and they're wide in dismay.

"Carol!" Tony calls out. "Carol, please, you can't do this. You've hurt civilians. You've hurt Wanda. You could have killed St— Cap. You're going to bring down this whole plane if you don't stop!"

Wanda grits her teeth. The plane rolls alarmingly to one side. She's losing control. She's the only thing keeping the plane up right now, since she's literally holding the wing together. Or maybe she's not, anymore.

"I can't—" Wanda says, teeth gritted, and the plane tilts more. The emergency lights cut out entirely.

"I can," Tony says, his determination audible even through the vocal filters, and then he takes a running dive through the barrier. On the other side of it, repulsors flare bright as Tony drops under the plane.

After a second, the plane rights itself—but then wobbles again.

"Steve," Tony says in his ear. His voice is strained. "It's too heavy for me alone. Half the wing is gone. We need Carol."

She can't. She can't do it.

She's their only chance.

"Warbird! Listen up!" Steve yells. "You need to save these people! Stand up, Avenger!"

And Carol just... stops.

She blinks a few times and looks around. The glow starts to fade, and she settles to the deck. "I— what? How did I get here—?"

He can see her taking in the state of the cabin. He doesn't give her time to ask. "Can you fly?"

She meets his eyes. She wavers unsteadily, but she's standing. "I can fly."

"All right," Steve says, hoping he isn't making an awful mistake. "Then I need you to fly out and lift this plane. We need your help. Only you can do this."

She nods, floats up, and flies in a wobbly line down the aisle, and then through the barrier. Steve holds his breath—

—and then the plane settles, as steady as anything.

She did it. She really did it. She saved them all, in the end.

Tony whoops in his ear. "We've got this, Cap. We'll keep the plane in the air, and Wanda can keep the air in the plane. We'll bring her in for a landing."

"They've got it," Steve relays, and Wanda smiles. Steve grins back.

This time, this time everything is really going to be all right.

The landing is one of the roughest Steve has ever experienced, and he's crash-landed Quinjets more times than he can count. He and Wanda reassure the passengers—and the crew—as best they can, but there are several terrifying moments as the plane descends toward the runway where Steve thinks they can't possibly make it. They're too low, the nose isn't up, they're going to crash—

Then the plane's nose is up just in time. That's Tony and Carol. They did it.

They hit the runway and bounce hard. There are a few cries of distress from somewhere in the cabin. Even Steve is rattled, and he sags into a bulkhead. They hit again, and then brake.

When the plane finally comes to a stop, he taps his earpiece. "Iron Man?"

He hears Tony's ragged, exhausted panting. "Yeah?"

"You and Carol okay?"

"I'm fine." There's a pause. "Carol's going to need medical attention, though. Alcohol poisoning. She's passed out. I see paramedics coming, anyway. You should get the wounded off first."

"All right," Steve says. He can do that. He has a job to do. He can't think about anything else right now.

Wanda finally lets the forcefields drop. She had been unmoved during the landing, buoyant on chaos energy, but now she settles heavily down and her uninjured hand wraps around her injured arm, pinning it to her side. She stares up at him, and her face is hollow, the circles around her eyes as dark as bruises. She looks like she's about to pass out—like this is the final straw, the last possible catastrophe in a relentless sequence. If Carol's been talking to her like she's been talking to him, it's no wonder. He remembers how awful he felt when Tony was drinking. He admires that she's wanted to help Carol, of course, but it must have been a lot for Wanda to handle.

"Go on," Steve says, summoning up a smile he hopes is kindly, and not just similarly exhausted. "I've got this."

Wanda bites her lip. "The passengers—"

"I've got this," he repeats. "Go on, go see Warbird and Iron Man. Or at least go sit down before you fall down. Get your arm looked at. EMTs should be on the way." He fishes one of the protein bars he likes to keep handy out of one his pouches.

Wanda clutches the bar with her good hand, a hungry look in her eyes, and she smiles. "Thanks, Cap."

Chaos energy rises around her in a fine mist as she pushes herself out of the plane and down to the ground. Steve breathes in and out. Okay. She's taken care of.

It doesn't take as long as Steve feared to get the plane evacuated; the worst of the injuries are a couple broken bones, and probably some whiplash. He smiles and nods and tells everyone it's going to be fine, because this is what he does, because he's Captain America, because somehow people just want to believe him.

When everyone else is off Steve climbs down last. Tony's standing there waiting, his eyes behind the mask full of concern, a concern that doesn't ease even when he sees Steve.

Steve frowns and looks around. He doesn't see Carol or Wanda among the throng of passengers being attended to by harried medical personnel. "Where are Carol and Wanda? Are they—"

"They're fine," Tony says, quickly. "Relatively fine. Stable, anyway. They hurried Carol off first, and Wanda went with her. Carol is—" He pauses. "She was barely conscious by the end. She didn't even realize what had happened. I'm not sure she'll remember this."

Maybe it's better that way, Steve wants to say; the sad look in Tony's eyes suggests that he knows exactly what Steve is thinking. Instead he nods briskly, like he's not afraid. "And Wanda's fine?"

Tony nods. "Minor injuries only. But she wanted to be with Carol when she comes to."

"That's good of her," Steve says, but there's still tension around Tony's eyes, the only part of him Steve can see. "But are you all right?"

"I thought you were dead," Tony says, and the mechanically-altered voice cracks on the last word. Behind the mask, Tony's blinking too fast, like he's blinking back tears. "Jesus Christ, I saw you— I saw you fall, and I thought—"

And then Tony takes three creaking steps forward and wraps his arms around Steve. In the suit, the hug is uncomfortable, all cold metal, but it's Tony, it's Tony and nothing else matters.

"Shh," Steve murmurs. He rocks up on his toes into Tony's embrace. "You saved me. You got me, okay?"

"There's so much I haven't told you," Tony says, brokenly. "I thought you were dead, and I'd never be able to— there's so much we haven't— God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry—"

"We'll talk about it," Steve promises, but Tony just grabs him tighter. Steve's stomach, still burned, abraded, protests at the touch: he's rubbing up against cold metal and the shredded remains of the bottom of his uniform shirt. "But maybe you should let me go for a sec, Shellhead? Wouldn't want to make my sweetheart jealous."

Tony snorts. "You know he'll share. If you still want any part of him." But he relaxes his grip, and then looks down. There's blood spotting the panels of his suit. The skin around his eyes is pale, and he takes in the wreck that is Steve's torso. "Are you okay? I completely forgot, God, I hurt you again—"

He steps back, clearly appalled. Please, Steve thinks, please don't let him run again.

"I'm fine," Steve says, quickly. "I'm fine, I'm fine, it wasn't even you." He reaches out and catches Tony's arm. "Please. Don't go. Please, T— Iron Man."

Tony looks at him for a long, silent moment.

"Together, okay?" Steve asks. "We're in this together. You said you didn't want to lose me. I don't want to lose you either."

There's another pause.

"Can I take you home?" Tony asks. It's his real voice, low and echoing in the suit. He switched off the vocal filters. He sounds quiet. Hesitant.

Steve nods. "Please."

"I'll take you home. And we'll talk. I promise."

Tony insists on, as he puts it, "christening the infirmary," although the little twitch of his mouth as he says it makes it clear that there are many more pleasant things he can think of to do in any given room. Well, at least he can joke about it.

"You know, when I built this place, I thought it would be me getting patched up down here," Tony says. Now out of his armor, he kneels down to rummage through one of the cabinets for supplies as Steve obediently hops up on the exam table.

Steve feels a little silly being tended to—sure, it was a fairly nasty wound to begin with, but he'll heal in a matter of hours. But it makes Tony happy to take care of him, and it's not like a lot of things have made Tony happy, recently.

(If he's honest with himself, secretly he likes when Tony fusses. But that's not the sort of impulse he should give into, especially when Tony doesn't know why or how much Steve enjoys it.)

Tony stands up and turns back to him. His hands are full of gauze, bandages, and a jar of something that's probably burn cream. His gaze is intent as he inspects the worst of the burn, which is a raw patch low on Steve's stomach on one side, above his hip. The uniform shirt is in shreds around it. Tony visibly winces. "All right," he says. "Take your shirt off—"

And then he freezes.

They both remember exactly what happened the last time Tony told him to do that.

"It's all right," Steve says, instantly, even though he's not sure it is at all. "It's all right, Tony. We're not there. We're safe. We're free. You're not hurting me. You're helping me, right?" He forces a smile, even though for a horrible instant the bandages in Tony's hands shift to a knife.

"I'm helping you," Tony repeats, seizing on the words. His hands are shaking. "I'm helping you. I'm helping— oh, God."

Steve reaches out and lays his hand on Tony's arm. "It's okay. I trust you. You wouldn't hurt me."

Tony's mouth works. "Can you not tell me that?" he asks, finally.

"What?"

"Just—" Tony sighs. "It's— it's not— please. Just don't."

"Okay," Steve agrees, bewildered. He has no idea what's happening here.

He pulls off his shirt. He lays down and swings his feet up. Tony doesn't say anything, but he starts cleaning the wound on Steve's stomach, and then applying a thin layer of cream. It feels right to Steve. They're here, but now Tony's not hurting him. Tony's helping him, because he cares. It would make Steve feel better, but Tony's clearly out of sorts still.

And then Tony sighs as he puts a square of gauze on Steve's stomach. "I'm selfish," he says.

"Tony—"

"No, hear me out," Tony says, and Steve stops protesting. "I'm selfish because we haven't talked about it. About what happened. About what it was like. I haven't told you the truth. It wasn't— it wasn't like you think it was. But if I tell you everything, you're going to leave. I know you are." His voice twists in misery. "And I just wanted to keep you with me as long as I could."

Steve pushes himself up and Tony starts to wrap the bandages around Steve's midsection, focusing on it like he can lose himself in the task.

"I'm not going to leave you," Steve says. "I care about you. Nothing you say could make me want to—"

"Stop." Tony's voice is sharp, a spear of agony, and when he looks up and meets Steve's gaze Steve sees Tony is blinking back tears. "You can't say that. You can't promise that. You don't know. You can't reassure me. You don't know what you'll want to do."

What in God's name could it be? It can't be that bad. It can't be. Tony's a victim here, more than Steve is. The Secret Empire probably—Steve feels sick as he thinks it—they probably worked him over to a degree where he feels unfailingly responsible for everything they made him do. That sounds like something Tony could believe about himself, easily. And of course it's not Tony's fault.

He didn't give up on Tony then. He's not going to now.

"Okay," Steve acknowledges. "I can't promise that. You're right. But—" he adds, as Tony opens his mouth— "I can promise I'll try. I want to stay."

A sad smile flickers across Tony's face. "I know. You're a good man. Far better than I deserve." And he steps back. "You're all done here. You want to, uh—?"

"—have this conversation somewhere else?" Steve offers.

Tony nods, and the smile now turns grateful. "I don't really want you to dump me in my own infirmary."

I won't, Steve wants to say, but Tony doesn't want him to say that.

He's beginning to think he doesn't understand anything at all.

They end up in the library. Steve can tell Tony wants to pick somewhere he feels safe, but the house isn't lived-in enough that any of it would feel comfortingly familiar. Steve was half-expecting to end up in the basement workshop surrounded by half-molded armor parts, but then he realized that Tony only has the one suit here and even the workshop is still unused. So they're here in the library, which is at least intended to have a homey feel. Bookcases tower above them, and chairs and couches are scattered around the room. They sit at opposite ends of a couch next to the unlit fireplace.

Tony fidgets awkwardly, interlacing his fingers again and again like he wants something in his hands.

Steve wonders if he's thinking about drinking.

"I— I—" Tony stammers. He swallows hard. "Okay. Let's do this."

Then he says nothing. Steve wonders if Tony's waiting for him to talk.

"You told me it wasn't like I think it was," Steve ventures. "What did you mean? Did they— did they hurt you more than I knew about?"

Tony breathes out, an incredulous half-chuckle. "Still on my side, huh?"

"Always," Steve says, and Tony's eyes soften just a little.

Tony looks away then, gaze fixed somewhere over Steve's shoulder. "You know how mind control or brainwashing usually feels, right?" he asks, and then before Steve can reply he keeps talking, barreling on. "You feel like your will has been replaced with someone else's. You're just doing what they want you to do. There's no room for your own thoughts. There's no ability to... act on your own desires. They tell you to shoot, you raise the gun, you pull the trigger. You literally have no free will."

"I know." Steve nods. "I've been mind-controlled before."

Tony smiles faintly. "The life of an Avenger, huh?" He sighs. "You keep telling me it wasn't me. You were telling me that then. In— in that room. I remember. I know you've been trying to make me feel better. Even though I'm the one who hurt you."

"It wasn't—"

But Tony holds up his hand. "This is what I'm trying to tell you," he says, and he squeezes his eyes shut. "It was me. You keep trying to tell me it wasn't, because you think that's what it was like. You think I had no choice. But I did, I did. Everything I did—the bombs I was building, everything I did to you—I chose that, Steve. I chose all of it."

"Bullshit," Steve growls. It's just like he'd thought—Tony's blaming himself. It's not Tony's fault. "I know you. I've known you for ten years. You're one of the best and kindest men I've known in my entire life. You don't just decide to be a supervillain of your own accord. They did this to you."

"They set it in motion," Tony says, meeting his gaze. "I'll give you that. But where it ended up—that was all me."

Tony's eyes are hard, his face sharp and cold. He believes this. He believes what he's saying. He must have spent the days since his return repeating it to himself, searing his own guilt into his mind, over and over and over. But it's not true.

But Steve supposes that doesn't matter; it only matters that Tony believes it.

Steve sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. When he looks up, Tony's still looking at him like there's a barrier between them, another wall of ice.

"Okay." Steve takes a breath. "You say I have it all wrong. That I don't understand what it was like. Then what was it like?"

Tony folds his hands together. Steve wants to hold his hand and tell him it will be okay. He's here. They can work through this. "Maybe I should start from the beginning." His mouth twists. "I— I did actually tell you most of this before, but you... weren't really in a position to trust me."

"You mean, while you were—?"

"Yeah," Tony says flatly. "Then."

This is what I was born for, Tony had said, and he'd smirked, and it hadn't been him then. It hadn't. It can't have been him.

Steve swallows. "All right."

"So there I was, inspecting the factory," Tony says, "and they jumped me. Three goons, one with a knife, one with a syringe. I couldn't get to the armor in time. They didn't know about it, anyway. I think maybe they even left it behind."

"They did," Steve confirms. He feels like he has to say something.

"I woke up," Tony continues, "and I was in a room with Number One and Number Three. They'd tied me up, of course. They gave me the standard villain speech, Secret Empire, blah blah, getting to Captain America by hurting his loved ones. You know me—I told them to go fuck themselves." He half-smiles and looks off into the middle distance. "And then they told me what they were planning on doing to me. I was supposed to be bait. The new kind of brainwashing they had—they had a spell that would, as Number One put it, 'return me to my true self.' As well as, ideally, instilling some goodwill toward the Secret Empire."

"So it wasn't you—"

But Tony shakes his head. "Just listen. What they thought they were doing—well, they based their plan on who they thought I was. They thought that under everything else I was some kind of amoral, uncaring bastard, deep down in my soul. Heartless. Only out for myself. Only out to make a buck, in the end. And probably not smart enough to have invented half of the patents my names are on. I guess they thought I stole them." He grimaces. "I don't really know what they were thinking there at all, actually."

Steve blinks, confused. "But that isn't you."

"I know." Tony's smile is thin. "But that's what they thought they'd get. They thought they'd lure you to their lair, get you in captivity, bring in one of their torturers to work you over, and dangle this horrible version of me in front of you as bait. And as part of the torture. Forget the Avengers, they'd say. Forget your life. And this boyfriend of yours? See, here, he doesn't even really like you at all. He's just an asshole." Tony's mouth curls wryly. "Probably they'd offer to give me back to you if you joined up with them, and then they would delight in knowing that you knew I secretly didn't give a fuck about you." He shrugs. "I mean, it's not a bad plan, as these things go. Better than a bunch of people we've fought. Better than trying to cover the Avengers in industrial adhesive. It might even have worked... if every assumption they'd made about me hadn't been wrong."

"Because you care about me," Steve says, very softly.

"Yeah." Tony's voice is bleak. "Turns out, when you take everything else about me away... there's still you." His face is pain-wracked. "So they brought someone else in—I can't remember the number now—they said a few words, and then I was— I was— I can't even describe what I was."

He can't put Tony through this. "You don't have to," Steve tells him. "I remember."

"No," Tony says. He sounds weary. Like this is something he has to explain over and over, until Steve gets it. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. You don't remember. You don't know."

"Then tell me."

Tony scrapes his hand over his face. "It was like being drunk," he says, and Steve can hear the awful longing in his voice, and suddenly he understands why the first thing Tony did was head back to AA. Dear God. "All day, every day. And at the end, when I was actually drinking on top of it all—Christ, Steve, it was like nothing I've ever felt. I was out of control. I couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop. I did whatever I wanted. I did everything I wanted. I didn't care what the consequences were. I didn't— I didn't care who I hurt." His voice falters. "And I was so happy."

"Tony—"

"They were pretty surprised by what they got, but they adapted quickly. They said, did I want to build bombs? Sure!" He laughs. "I love building things. They said, did I want to torture Captain America? Actually, they didn't even have to ask. I volunteered."

"They put those ideas in your head, Tony," Steve says, urgently, because Tony doesn't see. "They made you think you wanted this. So they didn't make you into a mindless automaton. You know as well as I do that they were using you for your knowledge, for your genius. They had to keep you self-aware. They made you think these were your choices. It's not your fault."

"No," Tony says, and his voice is raw and awful, raised in anger. He's yelling. "It didn't work like that. They took what was there, what was already there inside me, and they built on it. They exposed it. I made them weapons, because I've built weapons before. It's a thing I can do. All I had to do was... not care about the target. But they couldn't make me do anything I legitimately didn't want to do." He looks away. "They couldn't make me want to rape you. For example."

And he's grateful for that, God, is he ever. But Tony just doesn't seem to understand. He wants to take all the blame, when he's a victim here. They made him into a goddamn supervillain, and here he is telling Steve it's all his fault. It's not right.

"It's not your fault," he repeats. "They made you want to do the things you did. They made you think you wanted it, don't you see? So you can sit here and tell yourself, oh, you were a weapons designer, oh, you were an arms dealer, when we both know you'd never build a bomb again if it were up to you. Which it wasn't. You're innocent, Tony."

Tony's on the verge of tears. "You don't get it. You really don't get it." He's shaking. "If I were— if I were a good person, really good, I'd never have hurt you. The spell wouldn't have been able to touch me. They wouldn't have been able to make me do anything to you, because I wouldn't have wanted to."

"You're a good person," Steve insists, leaning forward. "They made you believe you're not, Tony. I know you'd never want to hurt me—"

"I've always wanted to hurt you!"

The words echo around the room. Tony stares at Steve, wide-eyed, like he can't believe the words that just came out of his mouth, like he can't believe he was the one who said them. His face drains of all color. He claps one hand over his mouth. And then he starts to cry, silent and agonized. Tears trickle down his cheeks.

Steve's first thought is that Tony can't mean it. Tony can't possibly mean it the way Steve wants him to mean it. Want isn't even the right word. He feels like he's back in that room, terrified, getting everything he ever dreamed of but not like this. It was better when he'd thought it wasn't Tony, when he'd thought it couldn't have been Tony. At least then it was only him being tortured with his fantasies. If it was real—then the Secret Empire ripped Tony's most private desires out of him and used him, violated him, took everything that he'd wanted to do to Steve and made him do it in the worst way possible.

It can't be true. It can't be true because it means they could have had this before, they could have had everything, if Steve had just said something— but now it's all gone—

All he can hear is the roaring of blood in his ears, and the harsh rasp of his own breathing. He can't think of anything to say. "Tony, what—" he begins, and then he stumbles on the words. "Why—"

"Because I'm sick," Tony spits out. A tear rolls down his cheek. "Because I'm a sick fuck. I'm a freak. I'm disgusting. Is that what you want to hear?" He laughs like he's dying, a harsh rattle. "Did you think the whips and chains were a coincidence? How about the outfit? Steve, I wanted to push you around. Hit you. Tie you up. Beat you. Make you bleed. I've wanted to for years."

It's real. Dear God, it's real. It was always real, and Tony never told anyone, and no one told him it was okay to want what he wanted, and he's been hating himself for his fantasies for probably as long as he's had them. He remembers how gentle Tony was with him in bed, how careful—and how he never once hinted at anything that he wanted. He imagines Tony trying to push all his desires back, to repress them, to try to be vanilla.

And he imagines how Tony feels now, with the memories of having done all these things to him, part of him helplessly liking it, part of him hating himself more, oh God, Tony—

"It's okay," he tries.

Tony looks at him like he's insane. "It really, really isn't."

"You've never told anyone this, have you?" Steve's voice is practically a croak.

"Why the hell would I?" Steve guesses that's a no. Tony's eyes unfocus. "But now you know. That's it. That's everything. All of it. My fucked-up turn-ons." He raises a hand. "The door's that way. A helicopter can be here for you in—"

Steve grabs his hand. "Tony." He looks him in the eye and summons every bit of strength in him. He needs to get this right. "This is normal. What you want... it's normal. You're not fucked up, or sick, or wrong."

Tony just stares at him. He blinks a few times. Then he laughs, incredulous. "Yeah. Not buying that one. Not unless 'normal' has a new definition."

"So maybe it's not common," Steve says, determined, "but normal? Sure. People do this all the time. I know you know that."

He wants to tell Tony his own secret. At this point, though, he's not sure it would help. It might even make things worse.

"They don't actually torture people," Tony counters.

"You're right," Steve says, because he has to concede that much, and Tony's mouth twists. "What the Secret Empire did to you—what they made you do to me—that was wrong. They hurt you." He squeezes Tony's hand. "But what you want, Tony—that's not wrong."

Tony's face is almost gray. "It's the same thing. What I did, what I want—it would be the same thing." He bites his lip. "I don't know what people who live like this do, what they really do, rather than what's in their head. I don't think they actually do what they want. Either that or they want so much less than I do. Because I know what's in my head, and now you know, because I've done it. And it's reprehensible." His expression is utterly bleak. "I don't see how you can sit there and defend me. I tortured you. And I loved it."

"That wasn't you. It wasn't your choice," Steve repeats. "What they made you do happened to be based on... something you'd wanted. That doesn't make your desires wrong. You're not a bad person."

Tony drops his hand.

He watches as Tony's lip curls, as his face hardens, as he lifts his chin—and he knows exactly what Tony's doing. This is what Tony does. He thinks Steve's going to leave him. He thinks it will hurt less if he can shove him away first. This is Tony pushing.

"You say that, but I'm not really sure you're entirely clear about what I mean." There's a ripple of cruelty in Tony's voice now, a tension that makes Steve shudder and think of the Tony who wasn't Tony. But Tony now is trying to hurt himself; his eyes are hooded, pained, haunted. "Before I even knew what sex was, I knew I liked this. It was you, actually." He chuckles. "All those Captain America comics. You were always getting tied up and roughed up, and that— it made me feel good. Then I got older, and well." He half-smiles, cold, lonely. "You were always my favorite fantasy. I'd jerk off, and I'd think about you. Tied up. At my feet. Covered in blood. Lots of different choices there, really. I got off on hurting you."

"Tony—" he tries to say, but Tony's still talking.

"I tried to stop when we found you," Tony continues. "I couldn't handle it. You were real, you were alive, you were my friend, and that made me... just a sick, twisted pervert. I shouldn't want to hurt people. I really shouldn't want to hurt you. So I didn't think about it. I tried not to. Mostly succeeded. Tried not to think about it with anyone I ever dated. They wouldn't want this. No one wants this." His gaze is dark, resigned, layered with years upon years of self-hatred. "And then it turned out you wanted me, and it's you, after all these years, and I— I touch you and I think, what if you let me hold you down? I kiss you and you lift up your head, all trusting, and I think, what if you let me put my hands around your throat?" His mouth twists in another sneer. "So when you say it's not wrong—tell me, are you picturing that? Because I am."

"Yes," Steve says. His throat is dry. He wants that. He wants it right, the way they could have had it. He's not sure they ever can, but God, that's what he wants. "Yes, Tony, I'd do that, all of that, any of it—"

Tony interrupts him. "Don't," he says, and okay, that hurts. "I get that you're trying to be supportive. It's who you are. But I don't want you doing this for me, because it's not what you want. You'd endure it all, for my sake. And we've been there. We've done that. You've suffered. You've endured. And if I did it all to you again of my own free will, even you'd have to admit I was a monster."

"You're not a monster." Steve takes a breath. This is really not how he ever thought this conversation would go. This wasn't how he wanted to talk about it at all. "I want you to hurt me. I like it."

Tony looks at him like he's not even speaking English. "What?"

"I'm a masochist." Steve's voice catches. "I'm a masochist and a submissive and— and what you want, I want that. I want that, Tony."

"You can't," Tony says, in pure, instant, terrified denial. "You can't and you don't and I tortured you, I think I would have noticed—"

"I keep telling you," Steve says. "That wasn't you. I didn't consent to that. There's— there's a context. You've seen my day job. It's not like I get off on Sidewinder punching me in the face. It's different in the right situation. It's different if I want to be there. If I'm with someone I trust." Tony's bleak, desolate face makes it clear that he thinks he shouldn't be included on that list. Steve sighs. "I was going to tell you. Not because I thought you were into it, but because I thought you deserved to know. About me. I had it all planned out. And then you were kidnapped."

Tony runs his hands through his hair. "God. I can't believe this. You— really— really?"

"When we go back to New York," Steve offers, "I'll show you the toybox in my closet." He tries to smile. "Yes, really." His throat's tight. "I mean, I understand if you don't want to, when it's your choice. I know you've... been through a lot. But you're not a freak. There's nothing wrong with you. You want what you want, and there are people out there whose own desires are... complementary. I happen to be one of them. Even if you don't ever want to act on them with me, or even if you don't want to be with me at all, I want you to know you're a good person. That's what's important to me."

Tony's looking around, wildly, like everything Steve has just put on the table is too much to take in. He springs to his feet, and he's pacing the room, back and forth. He's stopped crying, but tears still glint on his cheeks. He pauses by the fireplace and rests his arm on the mantel, like it's the only thing holding him up. "You can't trust me," Tony says. His chest is heaving. "You don't. You can't possibly. Not after what I did."

"Well, tough." Steve smiles a little. "Because I do."

"Okay, then," Tony counters, "but— but— I can't. I can't do this." And then he stops. He sits down. He takes a staggering step and falls back into his chair, a puppet with its strings cut. "You're asking me to hurt you. It doesn't matter if I want it. It goes against everything I believe in." His gaze is despairing. "And I think we both know that the things I really want... tend not to be very good for me. Or for anyone else."

His hand goes to his pocket then, and Steve knows he's clutching his sobriety coin.

"You hit me when we spar," Steve says. "Sometimes you've bruised me pretty good. And you don't feel bad about that, do you? How is this different? Because I want you to? Because I like it? I do like it," he adds. "I'm not lying."

"I know you're not lying," Tony agrees, hastily. He withdraws his hand from his pocket. "I just— we don't hurt people. Not like that. We don't. That's the bad guys. That's the villains." He swallows hard. "That was me. That's always been me, and now you know—"

He grabs Tony's hand again. Tony's fingers are shaking. His free hand clenches the arm of the sofa and relaxes, again and again.

"Tony."

Tony's nostrils flare. He doesn't speak.

"Do you trust me?"

Tony nods.

"Do you trust my judgment? Do you think I'm a good person?"

Tony raises his head. "I see where you're going with this," he says. He smiles weakly. "You're going to ask me if I think you're sick, and of course I don't. You couldn't ever be. But— but what you want, that's different from what I want. You want pain, you want exertion, you can probably even get that without involving anyone else. Or, at least, not in the same way. Train hard. Run a few miles. Let one of the other Avengers throw you around the gym." He blinks, and Steve sees when he realizes that Steve actually does do those things. A lot. "I can't hurt people without there being a victim." His mouth curls around the last word. "So just because you're not sick, it doesn't mean I'm not."

"Actually, that's not what I was going to say," Steve says, very gently, and Tony blinks a few more times, open-mouthed. "I was going to say that I've done this before," he says. "I'm not new to this. And I've done this with people who I have cared about, very deeply, just as I care about you. Not everyone I've been with," he adds. "I didn't do this with everyone. But some of them? Yeah. This has been part of my relationships before."

"They hurt you," Tony says. The quiet words don't sound like a question, but Steve knows they are.

He nods. "They hurt me. Because it made me happy. Because it made them happy. Because we cared about each other." He meets Tony's eyes. "And you know me. You know me probably better than anyone else ever has in my life. So tell me, do you honestly, truly think that I would ever want you or anyone else to do this if I thought it was bad for you? If I thought it was harmful or dangerous? Do you think I would want that for you?"

Tony says nothing at first, but Steve can see fragile hope growing in his eyes. He wants so badly for this to be okay. No one's ever told him this was all right. "No," he whispers. "I know you don't want that, but." He leaves the objection unfinished.

"It's not like drinking," Steve says. "It's not. I promise. It's all good. It's so many good things."

It's pleasure. It's joy. And it's love too, of course. With Tony, it's definitely love.

Tony's expression now is pure longing. "We can't. I wish— but I can't. I can't do this to anyone. I'd hurt you. I could really hurt you. I have hurt you."

He's thinking about it, though. He's really thinking about it. Steve doesn't know if this is right, if this is the right thing to do, if this is the right way to work through any of this. He's flying blind. But it feels right. They can have better memories. They can make it right. They can do it all the right way. He can show Tony what this looks like with a willing participant.

And he wasn't lying when he said he wanted this. He does. He wants this so much.

"I am probably the absolute safest person in the world you can do this with," Steve tells him. "Unless you actually circumvent the serum, I have a healing factor. You can't permanently harm me. And I'm stronger than you. You'd find it very difficult to make me do something I didn't want to do. If you want to do this, you won't hurt me in any way I don't want. You won't be able to. I promise."

"I want to do this," Tony says, in a low, ashamed whisper. "I want to, but I can't just— I don't know how— I don't know what it's like— you don't—"

He has to do something. Words have gotten them this far. But Tony can't trust himself to go further.

Steve stands up.

Tony looks up at him. "Steve, what—?"

He drops to his knees.

He does it properly. Not the way Tony had asked for, the way that was meant to hurt him, but the way he's practiced for years, the way that's meant to be graceful. His knees sink into the carpet. He points his feet, so that he's touching the floor in one unbroken line from knees to toes. He sits back on his calves. He puts his hands behind his back. And finally—though he knows full well this isn't submissive—he looks up.

Tony's mouth is half-open. He says nothing.

"You asked me," Steve begins, voice scraping roughly in his throat. "You asked me once to trust you and let go. You wanted to know what it was like. When I gave in. When I stopped resisting. When I surrendered." Tony looks like he's about to cry again, but Steve keeps his gaze steady. "If you still want to know, it's like this. It starts like this. This is me, surrendering. And I can show you what it's like. We can find out. Together."

Tony's mouth works. And then he flails a hand out, reaching for Steve's shoulder, drawing them together until Steve's head is leaning against his leg, until Steve's cheek is pressed against the warmth of his thigh. Tony's hand slides to the back of Steve's neck. Tony's fingers are shaking.

"I'm not saying no," Tony says, slow and hesitant. "But this is a lot to take in. I'm not even entirely sure this is real. I've— I've spent my entire life convinced anyone who knew would hate me, and most of all you, and then the past week convinced that I was only biding time until the moment you'd tell me to get out, and I never thought I'd ever tell you this and— and now—"

"Take your time," Steve says, softly. "It's not a one-time offer. I meant it when I said you don't have to. If you're never going to be comfortable with it after— after everything, that's all right, too. Everything is an option." He makes himself say it. "Leaving is an option too, if you—"

Tony shakes his head violently. "Not that. But everything else—" His eyes are wide. He looks more than a bit dazed, overwhelmed, a man given a permanent stay of execution. "I just— I need to think, but—" He smiles a little, finally, a real smile. "Maybe you could stay there like that, for a bit? If it doesn't hurt."

"It doesn't hurt," Steve assures him. "And I'd love to."

He leans into Tony, and deep inside, he feels something cracked and broken start to heal.

The rest of the day has an odd atmosphere—not unpleasant, not strained like it's been lately, just different. Like they need to figure out who they are now, how this works now, between them. Tony's still on an Italian comfort-food kick, so tonight dinner is lasagna, with the sauce leftover from the spaghetti. Steve grabs the tub of ricotta, turns, and finds Tony inches from him, eyes wide and dark and solemn.

And then Tony chuckles, a little self-consciously, and plucks the container from Steve's hands. "I keep thinking— I keep thinking I can't tell you. And then I remember I told you. And you're still here." He shakes his head.

Steve puts his hand on Tony's, slides it up the outside of his wrist to Tony's forearm. "Still here."

Tony laughs again. "I feel like... when you found out I was Iron Man." He breathes out. "I just—" He laughs again, awkwardly. "Now you know. Everything. All my secrets. It's... kind of terrifying, actually."

Now that Tony's said it, Steve's remembering that day, Iron Man stripped out of his armor. And he'd turned around, and Steve hadn't even known he'd been hoping for it until Tony had smiled at him. And it had been perfect. Exactly right. Iron Man couldn't have been anyone else. His closest teammate, always at his side, and the man who'd opened his home and his life to the Avengers—of course they were the same.

"You know what I remember about that day?"

There's the tiniest bit of trepidation in Tony's eyes. "What?"

"How happy I was," Steve says, with all the earnestness in his heart.

Tony smiles, broad and relieved.

And then the mood shifts, and the grin goes mischievous. "Because, let me tell you, I remember that the Molecule Man stole my armor and made me a goddamn ugly leisure suit. A leisure suit, Steve."

Steve can't help but laugh. "Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"I adore you," Steve tells him, and he kisses him right there in the middle of the kitchen as Tony's laughing against his mouth, and he knows this is going to work.

"So," Tony says, a little hesitantly. "I'm not asking, but." He pauses. There's a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "Okay, yeah, I'm asking."

Steve smiles up into the darkness. Their hands are linked, and he's squeezing Tony's fingers. "Gonna be any more specific?"

He should have known when Tony would want to talk about it: in bed. It's easier to talk about the tough stuff in the dark, when the world has narrowed to the two of them, when everything else seems so distant. That, and Tony's probably spent the entire evening mulling it over.

"Not sure I know enough to be more specific," Tony says, and there's a bit of shame in his voice—Tony the genius, Tony who knows everything about everything, knows so little about this. "You made it sound like you had a lot of... experience... with this, and I, uh. Don't." There's another ashamed pause, and Steve rubs his thumb over Tony's wrist. "I was just wondering what. What you've done. What you like." He pauses again. "I mean I'm not asking you to kiss and tell, but." Tony's voice is getting smaller and smaller. "There's kissing too, right? There could be kissing?"

Oh, God, Tony. He doesn't even know—

"Come here," he says, roughly, and after a moment Tony rolls toward him and lets Steve wrap his arms around him. Steve feels like somehow, if he could hold him enough, he could just pass on everything he wants through touch, all the confidence and caring and safety he wants Tony to have. "There's definitely kissing," and then, because he doesn't know what Tony's heard, what ideas he has, he adds, "There are a bunch of people who will tell you that there's only one way to do this stuff, and that everyone else is wrong. You ever hear that, you remember this: fuck them."

Tony's laugh is startled.

"No, seriously," Steve says, because this is important. "There are things people do for safety, and that part you should pay attention to, but if people start saying there's one true way for the rest of it, they are absolutely wrong. If it makes everyone involved happy, then it's right. No one else gets an opinion."

Tony chuckles. "That was your Cap voice." He laughs again. "I— just— sorry. Captain America wants me to have kinky sex. Imagine that on your posters."

"Captain America wants you to be happy," Steve says. "But, yes, that too."

He knows that Captain America isn't him. Captain America's bigger than him. A symbol. An ideal. But surely one of the rights he's fought for is for consenting adults to do whatever they want.

Tony's silent for a few moments. "I don't know much at all. I mean, the leather, yeah, that's... that's popular culture, isn't it? And I— I saw some porn. A couple times. When I let myself." His voice tightens, embarrassed. "I always figured, you know, it was porn. They were acting. They were only pretending to like it. And those were the ones where they liked it. Sometimes they pretended to hate it." His voice goes up, and Steve can feel Tony's heart pound against his, where they're pressed together. "You don't want me to—"

"I don't," Steve says, and Tony relaxes. "Not my kink."

Tony sighs in relief. "Okay. I don't think I could, anyway. Not with—" he waves a hand— "everything. Not sure I could have before."

"Then we don't," Steve tells him. They're talking about an us now, like this is surely, definitely, for both of them together, and his heart soars. "We do what we both want. We figure out what we both like, and we do that. That's how it works. It's a lot less complicated than people make it out to be."

In the dimness, he thinks he can see Tony smile. "Okay. So, what do you like? Or what else don't you like? If you want to tell me."

"The second list is probably shorter," Steve admits, and Tony grins.

"Saw that coming."

"I don't have a lot of limits. Not hard limits, anyway." Steve waits for Tony's nod; he must have heard that concept, or at least can piece together the words. "Some of that's a function of being Captain America; practically speaking, you can do a lot to me that you can't do to other people, things that would be unsafe for them. From a more... emotional... standpoint, I really like doing things that my partners enjoy, so even if it's not something that personally drives me wild—if it was something that you really wanted, I'd probably like it a hell of a lot because you wanted it. If that makes sense."

"You always want to take care of people," Tony murmurs. "Make them happy."

He does. They both do. They didn't run the Avengers together for a decade because they hated it, after all. And there are a lot of ways they could have run it that would have been more professional, more remote—a base, a tower, a SHIELD complex, somewhere no one lives, somewhere they only come to for missions—but they've been spending most of these ten years living in Tony's actual home. Taking care of everyone. Sometimes Tony does their taxes. Sometimes Steve makes midnight grocery runs. It's been a family from the beginning. So of course they'd take care of each other, too.

"So do you," he says, and Tony chuckles.

"Guilty as charged."

"But since you asked—I really don't like ice," Steve says. He knows Tony can figure out why. "For the same reason, I'm not too fond of blindfolds, earplugs, sensory deprivation. And like I said, I don't do consent play." Tony's brow furrows. "I mean, games where I say no but don't mean it, or pretend I don't want it. I don't like humiliation, and I don't like insults. Those are the big ones."

Tony nods. He twists to look back at Steve, and his gaze is intent, thoughtful, like he's committing it to memory, adding it to the list of important things he needs to remember, passwords and armor overrides and the blood types of all of his teammates. And now, what Steve doesn't like.

"Okay. Got it." His voice is determined, but also a little sad, and Steve wonders if starting out with the no list was demoralizing. Even if Tony didn't want at least some of this stuff either, hearing no at all has got to be a disappointment.

Then again, they've already physically done most of his favorite items on the yes list, and pointing that out might be... traumatic. That would be worse.

"There are a lot of things I do like," Steve offers, and maybe if he doesn't mention that Tony's already done them to him, this will work out.

"You like bondage," Tony begins, surprising him. "You're not crazy about gags, but you'd do it for me if I were. You like kneeling. You like being praised. You like begging. You like being fed. Not sure how knives would work with your healing factor, but you probably like the idea of it, or at least you used to. You like being hurt. Beaten. Marked up." He stutters and corrects himself. "Not just marked up. Marked. Belonging to someone. And you really, really—so much there are probably not words for it—you really want a collar." He's tense now, bracing. He's waiting to see what Steve's going to do. "Did I miss any?"

Oh, God. He knows.

Of course he knows. He knows Steve. And he's a genius.

"You already knew," Steve says, dully. He knows they need to talk about it. This is them talking about it. His heart is pounding. "Did you— did you know then? No, you said—"

He breaks off, confused. Tony hadn't known about him earlier, until he'd said. He's positive of that. Tony's reaction was genuine.

"Not back then." The response is quiet. "Just figured it out this evening. I thought about how I'd done what I wanted, and you said you wanted that. You told me you wanted what I wanted. And you knelt for me. And I thought about how you reacted to everything, back then. And I thought—" his voice cracks— "I thought about how you never took that damn collar off even when you had so many chances. I didn't know why, at the time. I thought you hated it, so I thought it meant I was breaking you."

Steve shuts his eyes. "You were." Tony shifts and turns in his arms, and now Tony's hugging him back. Steve sighs. "Actions can have more than one reason."

"I'm sorry." Tony whispers the words against Steve's shoulder. "I know that nothing I can say or do will make it better, but... I wish I hadn't taken that from you."

Steve strokes up and down Tony's spine. "It's all right. I keep telling you, it wasn't you. Just because they were things you wanted doesn't mean it was your choice." He takes a breath. Not quite a full one, because Tony's lying on him, and he's sure Tony feels him move. He feels himself tense. "And you missed one, by the way."

"Oh?"

This one's especially hard to say. "Breathplay." Tony doesn't say anything for a few moments, and he realizes then that Tony doesn't actually know what that means. "Choking. Uh. Being choked. Really— really good for me. Either with your hands on my throat or. Or your cock in my mouth. Or both at the same time. I like deep-throating. You could fuck my face. Until I can't breathe."

"Jesus Christ," Tony says, very softly. There's a pause. "Okay, so I think you should know I'm having two extremely contradictory reactions to that, and one is a definite yes and the other is absolute terror. Given the way this, uh. Ended." He makes a soft, helpless sound. "And also I want to listen to you saying every dirty word you know." There's another pause. "But if you haven't been with a man before me, how do you know you like—"

"Strap-ons," Steve says, and just to lighten the mood, he adds, "Now picture that on a poster."

"Oh, I am," Tony replies, and then he sighs. "I— yeah. That. About that," he adds, but then he doesn't say anything else.

"It's all right," Steve repeats.

Tony's response is slow, hesitant, like he's trying to recall something in a dream and sort it out from reality. "If it helps, I don't think I was trying to kill you. I wasn't really very... aware... of consequences. I just— you were trying to leave, and all I could think was that I didn't want you to."

Steve tightens his arms around Tony. "Easier ways to go about that." But he knows his heart's beating faster, and he knows Tony can feel that, too. "And I'm not leaving now."

"I know," Tony says. "Trying to get myself to believe that, anyway." The next question is even slower. "But how can you still want that? This? Any of this, with me?"

"Well, if I said I wasn't afraid, I'd be lying," Steve admits. "But I liked it before, and I'd really like to try it with you sometime. And it would be different. Because this is you, and I trust you. I trust you to stop if I tell you I don't want it, and you know me well enough to know what my limits are. You know how much I can take. And you'd take me right to the edge, and hold me there, and bring me back. Like a trust fall."

Tony half-smiles in the dark. "I've seen your version of a trust fall. It involves you throwing yourself off airplanes."

"And you catch me."

He watches Tony's smile grow wider. "Yeah," he whispers. "I guess I do."

They're silent for a long time in the dark, holding on to each other. Steve watches Tony's eyes fall, watches him turn his face into Steve's shoulder and slowly fall asleep. His arms tighten around Steve even in his sleep, and he smiles. Maybe, finally, it's a good dream.

It must be a new world, because Tony's up before him. The first thing he's aware of is Tony moving around the room—and some part of him must expect it to be Tony, because he doesn't even start to evaluate it as a threat. It's just Tony. He opens his eyes wider and sees that Tony is showered, shaved, already wearing most of a (very flattering) suit, and frowning as he stares at himself in the mirror and fixes his tie.

Steve props himself up on his elbows and smiles. "Leaving me already?"

Tony smiles at him in the mirror. "Coming back, don't worry. But yeah, leaving to get some business done while we're here. Morning meeting. Time to talk airplanes." There's interest gleaming in his eyes. Steve's happy to see him starting to get back to work. It's a good sign.

"You like those."

"I liked them more before yesterday," Tony says, with a raised eyebrow that invites Steve to laugh. He smiles instead. "I'm glad you're awake, though. Didn't just want to leave without saying goodbye."

"I like the suit," Steve offers. He feels pleasantly fuzzy. He suspects Tony let him sleep in.

"Oh?"

Tony comes back over to the bed; Steve grins up at him, pulls Tony down by his newly-adjusted tie, and kisses him. Tony kisses back, slow and sweet and lingering, until he finally pulls away.

"You look good," Steve murmurs, because, well, he does. And he's so happy that they're here again, that they can say these things to each other. He feels warm all over, just looking at him, pleasant little embers of attraction kindling with him. Tony's here, and they've got each other, and he still feels like the luckiest fella on earth.

Tony huffs a little and Steve can make out the faintest blush on his cheeks. "Well, now I'm definitely going to be thinking about airplanes one hundred percent of the time, I can promise you that."

Steve gives Tony his very best innocent look. "I can't imagine what else would be on your mind."

"No?" Tony asks. "Maybe we can discuss it when I get back. Continue our conversation from last night."

And now it's Steve's turn to heat up, because there's flirting and then there's flirting with intent, and even beyond that there's what they were talking about last night, and the idea that they might talk about it again, that they might someday actually do it—well, that's something else entirely.

"I. Mmm. Uh," Steve manages to say, and Tony just grins, wolfishly.

"I'll take that as a yes." And then his face darkens into something serious. "I will be back, though. By early afternoon. And if you don't see me and start to worry, feel free to call. Or message me on my identicard. I'd rather you call than worry. You won't be a bother."

And if something happens to him again, Steve fills in, he'd rather have people looking for him as soon as possible.

Tony leans down and kisses him once more, and then he's out the door. A few minutes later Steve sees Iron Man take off, a flash of bright metal disappearing into the sky.

He's got the place to himself again, and he decides to make the most of it. He goes for another swim. He helps himself to some of the leftovers, and sets to tidying up the common areas of the house. If Tony were watching, Steve thinks he'd probably object and want to hire staff, but Steve doesn't see any reason to. It's just them, they're not making a huge mess, and he finds the routine of having chores calming, especially when right now he has no team duties.

An hour later, he's scrubbed down the counters, is running the dishwasher, and is halfway through polishing his boots when the screen on the wall lights up—with the Avengers signal. Incoming video call, Avengers non-priority: Scarlet Witch, the screen says. Steve breathes out. At least it's not another emergency.

He drops his boots, heads across the room, and pokes the Accept button with his thumb. The screen promptly displays Wanda's face. She looks rested, with a brightness in her expression that Steve hasn't seen in a long time, and Steve can see the edge of a bandage at the side of her neck, covering her collarbone, just barely sticking out from under her shirt. Even with the obvious wound, she's undimmed; her eyes are brilliant emeralds, and she's smiling. Good news, then.

"Hi, Cap," she says, sitting back and tilting the card. The room behind her is briefly visible, the living room of a small apartment. Carol's, maybe.

Steve smiles back. "Hey, Wanda. What's up? How's everything? Are you feeling better?"

"I'm healing," she says, "but I called because I just wanted to update the two of you on Carol." She cranes her neck as if to see around him. "Is Tony there?"

"Not right now," Steve says, "but I'll let him know. Or you can call back. Or I can call him now, if it's urgent."

She shakes her head. "It's not, but... Carol would like to talk to him, I think." Her lips thin and she looks away, nervously. "If that's something he's willing to do right now."

"You mean about— about drinking?"

Wanda nods, even more awkwardly. "I know it's been hard for him lately, but they've always been close, and Carol— she—"

Steve can barely get the words out. "What happened?"

She smiles. "No, it's good." Her lips purse thoughtfully. "Well, it wasn't at first. She woke up, demanded that I leave the room, and then checked herself out against medical advice. And then went to a bar."

Well, that sounds like Carol. Or Tony, in the old days. They've always had a lot in common. "This is good?" Steve asks, skeptically.

"The way she tells it—I wasn't actually in the bar—is that she ordered a beer, and the TV was on, and then the TV news mentioned the incident with the airplane, and it all came back to her at once." Her mouth twists. "Crashing back, I suppose."

"Is she—"

"She's fine," Wanda says, hastily. "She called me, she told me she had a problem, she didn't want to drink again, and she wanted to know if I could come get her. I did. She's been mostly asleep since. Alternately asleep and very apologetic, after she saw what she'd done to— what my shoulder looked like, and honestly I don't—" she ducks her head. "I know I want to help, but I'm not really sure what to do."

"Boy do I know that feeling," Steve says, with all the heartfelt empathy in him, and Wanda smiles.

"Tony is...?" she ventures, and she lets the question trail off.

"Getting better," Steve says, and she smiles again. "A lot better."

"Glad to hear it."

"He's been feeling a little rough about drinking lately," Steve says, and surely this much is okay to share, "so I don't know if he'll feel that he's in a place where he can sponsor Carol formally. But I know he's been going to AA meetings and I'm sure he'd want Carol to go with him, if that's something she wants. I can ask him. This is probably a conversation for the two of them, though."

"She does want to talk to him," Wanda says. "She asked me a couple times, in between the apologies. So I called."

An idea strikes Steve. "This is probably the sort of talk they should have face-to-face. I'll run it by Tony, but maybe the two of you could come by for a meal? Maybe tomorrow? I'm sure we can come up with something to feed you. That would give them time to talk. And you can see Tony's new place. It's swell."

Wanda breaks out in a grin. "That would be great, Cap! Thanks!"

"No problem," Steve says. "I'm looking forward to it."

"And you're doing well?" Her eyes narrow a little, as if she thinks he might minimize his problems. Well, he probably would.

He tilts his hand from side to side. "Getting better. Slowly. Like Tony."

"I'm also glad to hear that," she says, and then she glances off to the side. "I should go. I suppose we can schedule this later when Tony and Carol are around. Talk to you then." She moves to disconnect, but Steve raises his hand and she pauses. "Cap?"

"If you think she'll want to hear it— you can tell Carol I'm proud of her," he says, and she smiles. "And you, too. Thank you for everything."

Another smile. "You're welcome."

The screen goes blank.

Steve lets out his breath and realizes he's smiling. Well. Carol's sober. Good news, indeed.

The computer systems in the house switch the music that follows him around to more uptempo big-band, and he grins wider. Either Tony's made his house computer take a stab at guessing moods—and he wouldn't be surprised—or it's coincidence, the serendipity of the universe. It's nice.

Tony gets back just when he said he would. Despite his hints earlier, he doesn't broach the topic of their earlier conversation for the rest of the day; Steve tells him about Wanda, and what she said about Carol, and that has them both in a pretty good mood, and it's hard to mention... other things, after that. Tony says he's looking forward to seeing them tomorrow; he's noncommittal on the topic of sponsoring her—which makes Steve think he was right about Tony's confidence level—but he says he'll be happy to talk to her.

They'll all be happy. They will.

He's expecting to wait until they're in bed for the conversation to return to kink, so it's a little surprising when, as they're finishing washing the dishes from dinner, Tony turns and smiles and says, "So I want you to know that I was very distracted during my meeting."

"Oh?" Steve asks. "Airplanes not interesting enough for you? For shame."

He manages to keep a perfectly straight face, and Tony cracks up.

"I thought maybe we could talk some more about it," Tony says, finally. "In bed."

He knows it's easier that way. He doesn't want to push Tony.

"I'd like that."

He's even more pleasantly surprised when Tony turns to him in the bedroom, puts his hand on Steve's shoulder, leans in to kiss him, and starts unbuttoning Steve's shirt with his other hand.

"Nice talk," Steve murmurs against Tony's lips, and he feels Tony smile.

"I do actually want to talk," Tony says. "I just— it felt like it might be less awkward this way. If you don't mind."

"I absolutely don't mind," Steve assures him. "But you're taking this off too." He tugs at Tony's shirt. "Fair's fair."

After exchanging a few more lazy kisses, they both end up shirtless on the bed; the room is dim around them, but Steve knows what Tony looks like well enough. The bruises from the Kree fight are starting to lighten on Tony's skin, going green-gold, and he's careful not to touch them. Tony's lying down, sprawled on his back, and he slides over until he's using Steve's stomach as a pillow. Steve has to admit that he likes it.

"I want to try it," Tony says, into the dark, and Steve holds his breath. He reaches out and strokes Tony's hair, then his neck, down into the dip of his collarbone. He knows that must have been hard to say. "But I don't know what to do."

He doesn't say we don't have to. He doesn't ask if Tony's sure. Tony doesn't need to be second-guessed.

"I'm glad you want to," Steve says, because he is, and Tony deserves to know that. "What do you want to do?"

He realizes they didn't talk about this last night. They talked about Steve's kinks, Steve's limits—and sure, if Tony's description of the mind control is any indication, he knows at least some of the things Tony likes, because Tony did them to him. But it's possible that he doesn't want to do any of them now, that he doesn't want to think about them anymore, that any positive associations are gone and he'd rather try something he doesn't have unpleasant memories of.

But Tony evades the question. "There are so many different things. How much can we do?"

"As much as you want, eventually," Steve says. "Or do you mean at once?" When Tony nods against him, he has to pause to think of how to phrase it. He's never really had to explain this; everyone else who'd topped him had done it before. "It depends what you want to do, I suppose. Some things combine pretty well. You want to tie me up, there's a lot of things you can do with me." He feels Tony's heart speed up. That's a yes, then. "Though unless you have some restraints and furniture I haven't seen around here, there are no guarantees that I won't break the bed."

Tony laughs. "Maybe later on that, then."

"And then there are some things I like but that are basically the only thing you can do if you start off with them," Steve adds. "You want to make me kneel, hand-feed me, pet my hair, tell me how good I am—I love it, but I'll be so far under by the end of it that there's not much I can do if you want me to be an active participant. You can turn me over and fuck me, but that's about as much as I can contribute."

Tony shudders when he says fuck. "Feel free to keep talking dirty."

Steve smiles. "Can do."

"What do you mean by 'under?'" Tony asks, and he sounds honestly curious. He doesn't know about any of this.

"Subspace," Steve says, and he doesn't quite have a good explanation but he's going to try. "It's a thing that can happen, if you really get into it, when you're... not quite in your head anymore. Another state of mind. A trance, maybe. Everything feels... nice. I don't really want to talk much, when I'm there. I'm told I get pretty sweet and easy. Pliant, maybe. Calm. Obedient. Not like the bad kind of mind control," he adds, in case Tony's worrying. "It's good. Really."

"That sounds nice," Tony says, on a sigh. "I want you to be that happy. I'd like to see it."

"You almost did," Steve says, hesitantly, because they might as well talk about this. "When you were— with the knife. The pain was starting to— well, it was feeling nice. Really nice. But you kept snapping me out of it."

There's a silence then. "Yeah, I— I thought you were passing out on me, I—" The pause this time is agonized. "Jesus, Steve, what am I even doing, thinking I can do this? Thinking I have the knowledge, or the right, after what I've done?"

He squeezes Tony's shoulder. "You have the right because I'm giving you the right. That's the difference. And there's not so much to know. You know exactly where all my physical limits are, anyway, and that's a hell of a lot more than most people can say about anyone they do this with."

He thinks Tony's smiling. "You taught me hand-to-hand, and now I'm finally taking it out on you?"

"Something like that," Steve allows.

Tony's very quiet in the dark. The next sentence is almost too casual. "Remember when you taught me chokeholds?"

Steve swallows hard. He thinks about Tony pushing the cowl back, Tony kissing his throat, and more than anything he wants Tony's hands there, Tony holding him down, Tony holding his breath for him, Tony in control, because he loves him, because they love each other. "Yeah," he says, softly. "Yeah, I do."

"You could show me," Tony says, just as softly. "You could— you could teach me. This way. If you wanted."

"I'd like that," Steve says, and his voice is rough with desire. "I'd really like that, Tony."

Tony shifts awkwardly against him. "Is that a thing we can do? I mean, you taking charge, showing me how, but me doing it to you. Is that weird? Do you like that? I'd— I'd like to take charge too, but maybe not for the first time with that—"

"We can do everything," Steve assures him. "We can do that. Any way you want it."

"But do you like it like that?" Tony asks, and that's when he figures out how nervous Tony is.

"Yeah." Steve smiles. "The things I like intersect in ways like that, sometimes. You don't have to be topping me for me to like breathplay. Or you can top me but nothing needs to be painful at all, like I was talking about earlier. Or you can just hurt me. I like that too." Tony makes a tiny little noise at that, a small catch of breath. "Or all of the above."

"Okay." Tony exhales. "Okay."

"Is that what you were thinking about, during your meeting?"

"Maybe," Tony says, shifting against him. "God, I spent so long trying not to let myself think about it, and now— now I can just— now it's all okay, you know? Now I can want this." He sounds a little uncertain, or possibly uncomfortable.

"You can definitely want this," Steve says.

Tony makes a noise that's sort of like a laugh. "Yeah, I'm uh. Definitely wanting this. At this very moment."

Steve lifts his head off the pillow and looks down the length of the bed, casting his gaze over Tony. Tony... is visibly hard, even through his pants, and getting harder. Oh. Oh.

"Hey, no, that's good." Steve lets his palm glide over Tony's shoulder. "Did you think we were having a purely intellectual discussion? If it turns you on, we're doing this right."

Tony laughs another awkward laugh. "You actually get off on this too, right? This isn't just for me?"

"Sometimes I don't want to get off at all," Steve admits. "Sometimes it's not about that. But most of the time that's something I get out of this, yeah. It's not just for you, I promise. I really do get off on it." He waits a beat. "I can come from pain alone."

Tony makes a small, desperate whimpering noise. "Steve."

"You could touch yourself," Steve suggests. "And think about it. It's only thinking, and that way you can stop if it gets to be too much. I won't ask you what you're thinking if you don't want me to."

The silence stretches for almost too long, and he worries he's pushed Tony—that this is too much, too fast, that Tony's going to retreat. Then Tony clears his throat. "You could... talk to me?"

"Talk dirty to you?" he asks, even though he knows that's exactly what Tony wants; he just wants to savor Tony's reaction to him saying it.

Tony shudders against him. "Yeah." He's teasing himself, running his fingers over the obvious bulge in his pants, rubbing back and forth.

Steve's smiling. "Why don't you get your cock out, then? Why don't you show me how you like it?"

There's a sharp breath at that; he's pretty sure Tony likes that idea. It's not actually something they've done before, so it has that going for it, too. And Tony doesn't need much in the way of encouragement. His fingers fumble with his fly, and then his cock's in his hand, so hard already. Steve can feel his own body stir, taking an interest, as Tony leans over briefly for the lube, and then settles back down, curled against Steve, head on his chest. Steve's pushed himself up against the headboard so he can see better, so he can watch Tony's left hand begin to tease his slick cock. It's a very nice view.

"You like that, huh?" Tony asks. His voice is low. "You like watching me?"

"Do I ever," Steve says, fervently, and he can feel Tony laugh against him. He doesn't have the words for it. It's profoundly intimate, wanting to know what brings Tony pleasure, and there's something that makes him go hot and dizzy all over at the idea that Tony's thinking about him, that Tony's been doing this and thinking about him for years.

"Mmm," Tony says, dreamily, swiping his thumb over the head of his cock, then letting the shaft slide through his fist. He has such long fingers. "Tell me more."

"I really want to go down on you right now," Steve admits, and he watches Tony's fist tighten. "You're so big, but I bet I could take you all the way down. You'd fill me right up. I wanted to the first time we slept together, you know?"

"You did?" Tony's voice is raspy, dark with lust.

Tony's hand is moving faster on his cock. He has his pants pushed off his hips, and he thrusts up into his grip even as his other hand reaches down to stroke his balls, then even further back, and Steve realizes Tony's fucking himself with his fingers and suddenly forgets what he's going to say.

"I wanted you to hold my head down," Steve manages to gasp out, and Tony moans, and Steve can feel his own cock ache and press against his pants. "Pull my hair. Fuck my mouth, as hard as you wanted. I bet you'd like that. You could use me, as much as you like. Come down my throat. Or pull out and come on my face. I know you've never done that to me," he adds, as Tony gasps, "but I think I'd like it. I like it in porn. Sometimes I'd watch them and imagine it was you, coming all over me."

He can feel Tony tense and flex against him, as he thrusts into his own fist, arching upward, and he knows Tony's close.

"You think about me when you do this, huh?" Steve whispers in Tony's ear, and Tony shivers. "You think about tying me up, holding me down? You like looking at me. I know. Maybe you'd mark me up a little. Handprints. Bruises. You'd get me ready. Imagine watching your cock slide into me. I'd choke on it. You come when you think about that?"

"Christ, Steve," Tony breathes. "You're so—"

And then he cries out, almost surprised, as he comes. Steve bites his lip and watches come spatter Tony's stomach as his own neglected cock throbs in sympathy. God, if he could just rub up against something he could come. Maybe Tony will let him rub against him. Or the bed. He'll take anything.

Tony sighs in contentment and sprawls against Steve.

"You okay?" Steve asks. "You're not worrying? Feeling bad about that?"

"I feel pretty great," Tony says, his voice thick with pleasure. He tilts his head back at Steve and smiles. "You're wonderful. Want me to, uh, lend you a hand?"

Steve smiles back. "Sure."

Tony rolls over and stretches out on his side, face furrowed in nervousness even as one hand settles on Steve's hip, just at the waistband of his pants. Steve imagines Tony trailing his fingers lower and can't quite stop himself from pushing into it.

"Can I—" Tony starts to say, and then stops, and then starts again. "Could I maybe hold you down a little? If that's something you want."

Steve's heart is pounding so hard he wonders if even Tony can hear it. "Please," Steve says. "Please, yes."

Tony smiles. "Okay. But if I do something you don't like, or if you want me to stop...?"

Oh. They didn't actually talk about safewords. "I'll tell you," Steve says. "I'll say no, or stop. You'll be able to tell. Don't worry."

"I think I'm incapable of worrying right now," Tony informs him, and he leans in and kisses Steve.

It's a thoroughly dirty kiss, just the way Steve needs it right now, messy and wet, with Tony practically fucking his mouth with his tongue. All he can do is moan. Then Tony undoes his fly with practiced fingers, still a little slick with lubricant, and Steve shudders as Tony tightens his fingers around his cock. And then— well, then Tony shifts position on the arm he's lying on, grabs both of Steve's hands with his free hand, and raises them above their heads so he's got Steve's wrists pinned to the bed. Tony throws a leg over both of Steve's. Tony's got him.

And Steve just melts, everything within him fuzzing out and floating, and oh, he didn't expect that—

"You okay there?" Tony asks. "You look a bit—oh, this was the thing you mentioned?"

Steve tries to nod. His head lolls. "Mmm. Yeah. Starting to feel it. Not— not that far down, though."

Tony smiles at him. His thumb strokes the inside of one of Steve's wrists. "I like it. You look so happy." And then the smile is brighter. "Still want to come?"

"Please," Steve says again.

Tony sets up a nice, slow rhythm so that Steve doesn't even have to move his hips; Tony's fingers slide over every sensitive spot, tightening just how he likes it, going lighter around the sensitive tip, dragging the pad of his thumb over the head. Steve can imagine how it looks, his own cock flushed dark, sliding through Tony's long fingers.

This is nothing like the other day, when it was obvious that Tony was panicked, that he didn't want to be here. Tony's smiling, wide and relaxed; his body against Steve is loose-limbed, easy with pleasure. He wants this. They both do.

Steve lets his head fall back—and Tony kisses his throat, exactly where he likes it. There's the scrape of teeth against his skin, and he gasps and snaps his hips up into Tony's hand, and his hands flex and Tony has his wrists, and it's so good he almost can't stand it—

"Just think," Tony murmurs. "This could be my hand right here instead. I'd wrap my hands around your throat, and I'd get to watch you. I'd get to decide when you breathed. You'd be so starved for air you'd come as soon as I let you, wouldn't you?" Tony's voice is cruel, but it's the kind of cruelty Steve wanted, the kind of thing Tony would want because he loves him. He sounds so bright. So happy.

"Yes," Steve gasps, and he's close, he's so close—

"I could fuck your mouth after you come," Tony adds, and God, there's something even Steve didn't think of. He'd always been picturing getting fucked at the same time; that was how he'd done it before. The serum would heal him fast, of course, but he imagines how it would go. He'd be raw, still gasping, light-headed, and Tony could fuck right into him.

"Oh, yes," Steve breathes.

"I could fuck your throat," Tony says, and he can hear the beautiful, sadistic smile in Tony's voice, and this is what he's always wanted. "And I could choke you. You'd get it from both sides, then. Maybe I could feel my own cock inside you, with my hand on your throat, feel you surrounding me." His voice sounds dazed. "Fuck, that would be hot. I like that."

"Please," Steve gasps out. "Please, please, please, oh God, Tony."

"I like when you beg," Tony says, his voice dark and intent and so, so, delighted, and his hands tighten again, one on Steve's wrist, one on Steve's cock, and that's it, that's it, he's gone—

When he's finally aware of reality a little later, Tony's wiped them both up and is curled around him, and at least Steve's not going to need to explain that part of aftercare to him. Tony already likes this part.

"You really liked that, huh?" Tony asks. His face is slack, soft, open, easy. Steve likes him like this. He's smiling, and Steve smiles back.

"You bet," Steve says, a little fuzzily, and Tony leans in and kisses him again.

Tony smiles. "Still want to actually do this? The choking?" The smile is a bit nervous, but his face is so bright. He wants this too.

"Mmm," Steve agrees. "Not tonight, though."

"Not tonight," Tony says. "I want to— I want to see your face. When we— when we do it."

They won't do this in the dark. This is something real, something that exists outside this time they've carved out, outside this room. Steve smiles and pulls Tony close, and Tony holds him right back.

They're good. Tony's not running. No one's running. They can have this. They can have everything they want.

While Steve works out in the morning, Tony calls Carol and Wanda back, and by the time Steve's done Tony reports that they're coming over for dinner. After they go through and make sure the whole place is clean enough, they spend some time rummaging through the shiny new kitchen appliances; Steve finds an industrial-sized rice cooker of intimidating complexity. They settle on peanut curry, mostly because feeding the Avengers necessitates recipes they can easily double or triple. And Steve knows Carol sure doesn't look like it, but she can eat almost as much as he can.

"I've got the potatoes," Steve says, paring knife in one hand and sack of potatoes in the other. "Don't you worry."

Tony, chopping carrots opposite him, looks up and regards the scene in a kind of awe as he takes in the very large amount of potatoes Steve has already managed to peel. "You've got a talent."

Steve grabs the next one. "Thanks."

"Is that because you're Irish? Grew up on it?" Tony sounds honestly curious. Steve knows he doesn't talk much about his own childhood.

Steve smiles. "Little bit. Mostly it's that I had a heck of a lot of KP duty in the Army. No one would ever suspect that insubordinate, clumsy prankster Private Rogers of being anyone out of the ordinary if he were the worst soldier in the company, you know?"

Tony laughs. "I can only imagine how much you must have hated having to pretend to be awful at your job."

No one's ever put it quite like that before. "At least Iron Man doesn't have to play dumb, huh?"

"I try to remember to attribute anything particularly incisive to Tony Stark, though," Tony adds. "Not sure I do a great job of that. But at least both of them are me." He pauses thoughtfully. "And you... you like being good, though."

Steve can feel himself flush, and he knows Tony doesn't mean it like that, but now he can't help but think about it. He pictures dropping to his knees. He pictures obeying. "Uh."

"I like when you're good," Tony says, softly, and when Steve looks up his eyes are dark, and maybe he means it that way after all. "I'm glad you want to be good for me."

He puts down the knife before he accidentally cuts himself. "I really do," he says.

Tony walks around the kitchen island to stand next to him, sets down a cutting board full of carrots, and leans in and kisses him. "I liked last night, too. In case you were wondering. Liked it a lot."

He had been wondering; they hadn't done much, true, but it had been something different, a dynamic consciously enacted. And it wouldn't be unusual if Tony had some discomfort. "You can let me know if you didn't," Steve says. "Please let me know if you didn't. I mean, it is new. We can take it slow."

He'd trust most people to let him know if they weren't having a good time; the thing is, he's not entirely sure Tony would, in any context. Tony's the kind of guy who will bleed inside his armor on the field, who will let the charge on his battery run down and never tell his teammates he's unwell until the heart attack takes him out, and even then he'll be insisting he's fine, right down to his last remaining moments of consciousness. The only reason Tony's ever going to safeword is if he's worried about Steve. Not himself. Steve's got that figured out.

It doesn't necessarily mean they shouldn't do this, even though for most people this would probably be a bad sign. It just means he'll have to pay a lot of attention to Tony's reactions. He would have had to anyway—he's always had to—because whether Tony decides to offer up his own happiness as a sacrifice is independent of whether their relationship is kinky, or even romantic. So Steve's already had a fair amount of practice at this part.

But right now Tony is absolutely, perfectly sincere—and he was last night as well. Steve would stake his shield on it.

Tony looks at him like he knows exactly what he's thinking. He sets his palm against Steve's cheek and then deliberately lets his hand slide down, thumb under Steve's jaw, where Steve's pulse beats, suddenly hot and wild. Tony has to know what he's doing to him.

"If I didn't want this," Tony says, very quietly, "I wouldn't do it. Trust me on this one. Okay?"

"Okay," Steve repeats.

Tony smiles. "Good."

Tony's hand moves, and he's gripping the back of Steve's neck, low, just where a collar would sit, and Steve feels simultaneously calm all over and more than a little weak in the knees. Yeah, Tony definitely knows.

"That's dirty pool, Tony," he murmurs.

Tony rubs his thumb over the tendon on the side of Steve's neck, and Steve barely suppresses a moan. He half-remembers Tony who wasn't Tony, touching him like this, but then it drifts away. The memory doesn't hurt. "I have no idea what you're talking about," Tony says, but his smile is dazzling.

"You will if you get me to drop to the floor," Steve points out. "We're not done cooking, and our teammates will get a heck of a show."

They're not exactly their teammates—none of them are on the team, at any rate—but instead of pointing that out, Tony grins and sighs an exasperated sigh and lets his hand fall. "Your loss, Captain Responsible."

"I'll make it up to you later," Steve retorts, and he turns back to the potatoes.

The food's still not quite done when the house security system announces flight, incoming. Steve's expecting another helicopter, like the one that brought him to the island in the first place, but as the system continues to announce Avengers identicards detected: Scarlet Witch and Warbird and then cleared for landing he realizes he wasn't taking into account just what his friends are capable of.

There's a golden and black blur in the sky—that's got to be Carol—and next to her is Wanda, surrounded by a red haze.

"I didn't think Wanda could fly," Tony says.

Steve squints out the window. "She's not, I don't think."

As they come closer, the arrangement becomes more and more visible: Carol's holding Wanda's hand and flying both of them. Wanda's just floating along. Steve's a bit jealous; he's had to hold hands with fliers when the catch didn't quite work out, and he's ended up with the dislocated shoulders to show for it. More than once. Still, it's better than hitting the ground.

They go outside, waiting on the path up from the helipad. Tony raises his arms in the air like he's ground personnel marshalling an aircraft, directing them downward, and Carol starts laughing as they land. Carol touches down first, gracefully, and then Wanda after her, as the energies around them fade.

Carol's looking a lot better already, better than Steve would have thought after the way she looked two days ago. Maybe it's the Kree DNA. She still looks a little rough around the edges, but she's smiling, a real smile, nothing like any of the callousness that's been on display while she's been drinking. This is the Carol Steve remembers.

Wanda is still bandaged up, but is likewise smiling.

"Good flight?" Tony asks.

"Pretty good," Carol says. "Nice place you got here." And then she's hugging Tony. "God, Tony," she says, low enough that Steve suspects he wasn't supposed to hear. "I'm so sorry about everything. How the hell do you get through the first couple days of this?"

Tony wraps his arms around her. "It gets better. It's gonna get better. You're gonna be okay. You don't have to do this alone."

Carol smiles a little mistily.

And then Wanda's hugging Tony, and somehow they're both hugging Steve, and it's a giant group hug. Steve is very careful not to jostle Wanda's shoulder.

"Well, come on in," Tony says, swinging his arm in an exaggerated gesture toward the door. "The rest of the place is nicer."

The house computer picks what Steve suspects is Transian folk music in honor of Wanda, and they get through as much of the house as will take them to the kitchen, where there's still a few minutes left for the rice to cook.

"Do you need help with any of the cooking?" Wanda offers.

"No, it's okay," Tony says. "You're our guests, and besides, I think we're—"

Steve interrupts him. "That would be great; thanks, Wanda." He smiles at Tony. "Why don't you show Carol the rest of the place?"

He sees when Tony gets it, because Tony brightens and nods. "Can do. Come on, Carol, you can check out the theater setup."

They're chatting animatedly to each other as they disappear down the stairs; as soon as they're gone, Wanda turns back and crosses her arms over her chest. "You didn't really need my help, did you?"

"Nope," Steve says. "But I figured they were going to want to get the difficult conversation out of the way first."

"Prudent of you," Wanda says, with a smile.

"That's me, Captain Prudent," Steve says. Tony's nicknames are really catching. "So how are you holding up?"

He motions to the most comfortable chairs in the room, overstuffed leather numbers facing the floor-to-ceiling windows, facing out onto the lake, and Wanda sits down and gazes out at the water for long moments, fingers tapping against the armrests.

"I've been worse," she says. "Though, with the Avengers, that's almost always true, isn't it?" She sighs. "She's getting better—a lot better—and I'm grateful for that, but right now I am her support system. Just me. Well, until today. It's... more responsibility than I'm used to. Or maybe a different sort. One I don't have a lot of experience with. Not a problem I can just hex away."

"Not a problem I can punch, either," Steve agrees.

Wanda's mouth twitches. "If only." She sighs. "How did you handle it, when it was Tony?"

"Poorly," he admits. He's said as much to Tony, but it's different to admit his own failings to someone else. Captain America should be better than that. "When he was drinking, when he fell off the wagon, I— I yelled at him. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn't. I just wanted him to stop hurting himself, you know?"

"I was tempted to yell at Carol, I'll admit," Wanda says. "But at least Tony didn't shoot you, huh?"

"Well, not then." Carol had managed to blast all of them, hadn't she? "No, he basically... avoided me. If you want to know more, Rhodes managed to stick with him for longer. Even brought Tony to his family home. Of course, Tony sneaked out and got drunk. Afterwards, after he hit bottom, I didn't even see him for months. Not until that mess with the Guardsmen, really." And that had been... almost as bad. Maybe worse.

Wanda leans over and pats his hand. "But you two seem to have patched up your differences nicely. About everything."

"We're working on it." He smiles. They're getting better. They are. "I think we always figure it out, in the end. It's hard to talk. We don't do much of it. Not as much as we should. But I think we're better for it."

"Carol and I talked a lot too," she says. "There are a lot of things she's... wanted to forget about. Maybe losing her Binary powers was what set it off, but it's been building. There were a lot of times she needed help, and there wasn't any."

Steve wonders if Wanda's talking about Rogue, or Marcus, or something even more awful, maybe something Carol never mentioned. But it's not his business. If Carol wants to tell him, she will. Maybe she's talking about it with Tony, right now. He hopes so.

"But she's okay? You're okay?"

She nods. "Like you said, working on it. But... looking up." She smiles. "I think Carol likes looking up. Aiming for the stars."

Steve feels something in him lighten. It's going to be okay. "Yeah," he says. "I think Tony does too."

Tony and Carol's tour of the house takes longer than Steve's had, and when the two of them come back, Tony's eyes are red-rimmed, and Carol's face is a little blotchy. He knows Wanda just said they were fine, but—they've clearly been crying.

"We're good," Carol says, and then swiftly changes the topic. "What's for dinner?"

"Curry," Steve says, standing up and hoping like hell Carol's telling the truth about being okay, while Tony grins and heads for the plates.

Tony brushes up against him as he passes him, in a way that's a split-second too lingering to be accidental, and his fingers slide to the soft, vulnerable hollow of Steve's wrist, where he'd held him down last night. "Breathe, Winghead," he whispers in Steve's ear as he steps past him. "Everything's fine."

Dinner is served, and Steve relaxes as Tony slides into the chair next to him, and, for good measure, nudges his feet under the table and briefly sets his hand on Steve's thigh. He's smooth about it, of course, but Carol's gaze tracks them, and Steve's pretty sure she notices; she just smiles, though.

The meal is a little subdued. If they were in New York, with the team, they'd be talking shop, trading good-natured jabs about the last mission or the next one, gossiping about whatever unfortunate small-time villain had held up the bank that morning. Because they're not there—and because they know all too well what the last major incident there was—the conversation is light, with the occasional reminiscence about the last time they made this, about the first time they fed Thor curry, speculation about how much of this Tony could have slurped through a straw, and so on. ("Probably most of it, with a blender" is Carol's verdict.)

"Glad I don't have to, though," Tony says, spearing a piece of Steve's chicken with his fork. "That's why Steve here is officially dating me and not Iron Man. Since that's a secret. My worst-kept secret, but still. Sorry, Carol."

"Eh, I'm over it." Carol waves a hand. "Sorry I gave you both a hard time. It's weird to imagine you just telling Cap about your secret identity, though."

"Oh, I didn't," Tony says. "There were... unexpected circumstances." Steve's watching for it; he can see Tony's cheeks start to flush.

"He means nudity," Steve helpfully supplies, and Tony, even redder now, nudges him in the side.

"Shh, you."

"Oh, this I definitely want to hear," Carol says, putting her fork down and leaning forward. "Come on, we're all legal adults here."

"I wasn't actually naked," Tony says. "Technically, I was wearing clothes. Sort of."

"You can't not tell the rest of a story that starts like that," Carol says. "Back me up on this, Wanda."

So Tony grins and tells them the whole story—since the full mission reports were locked down due to identity reasons, Carol hadn't known—and Tony clearly doesn't actually mind it, and that sets them all off on tales of their strangest missions. Everyone agrees Steve wins with the werewolf thing, although honestly he thinks that one isn't even that weird.

Time passes unexpectedly quickly. Soon it's dark out, and they're all heading outside as Carol and Wanda prepare to fly home.

Tony looks up at the clear, star-studded night, then around at the trees, then at the rest of them. "It's not too bad here, huh? We could be the new West Coast Avengers." But even as he says it he must know it's not right. "I'm looking forward to going home, though."

"Same," Steve adds. He looks at Carol, then at Tony. "When do you think Jan will let us back in?"

"We're on the honor system." Tony shrugs. "I think if we call her up and say we can get along now, she'll tell us to come on back."

"You seem much improved," Wanda puts in, and Tony smiles graciously.

"As for me," Carol says, "I suspect the team would be happier if I were in treatment before I went active again. And I'd agree with them." She meets Tony's eyes. "Thanks for the phone numbers. You'll go with me?"

"Of course I'll go with you," Tony says. "Here, New York, wherever. Whatever meeting you want. And you call me if you need me. Anytime. I mean any time. I am dead serious. Don't worry that you're bothering me. You won't be. Middle of the night, if you need me. Any time at all."

Carol's wrapping him up in a hug, then, a hug that takes them at least two feet off the ground and then floats them both down.

"Are you sure?" she asks. "I mean, you and Cap seem a little— I wouldn't want to interrupt anything romantic," she adds, and now it's Steve's turn to blush and be grateful for the darkness.

"I am absolutely sure," Tony says, and Steve nods. He's glad Tony's feeling comfortable enough to support her. "If you need me, I'll be there for you."

"Thanks, Shellhead." She kisses Tony's cheek. "You're one of the good ones."

"Aww, come on, 'bird, you'll ruin my reputation," Tony says, and in the moonlight he might be blinking back tears.

She turns to Steve. "Cap, I just wanted to say I'm sorry. For blasting you the other day, and for, uh— for being... not so great to you in general, recently. It won't happen again." She holds out a tentative hand.

He shakes Carol's hand and then pulls her into a hug. She doesn't make him float. "It's all right," he tells her. He smiles. "I forgive you. I'm just glad you're feeling better and that you want to do something about it."

She smiles back.

More hugs and goodbyes are exchanged, and soon enough Carol and Wanda are gone, into the night sky.

Tony sighs. "Well. That was a hell of an evening."

"Are you going to sponsor her?"

"Not sure yet," Tony says, as they turn, as they walk back inside. Tony puts an arm over Steve's shoulders. "I wouldn't be my first choice, but... until superheroes run their own AA group, I feel like there aren't going to be a lot of people who Carol will be comfortable with. And she trusts me."

"That's good," Steve says. He reaches up and puts his hand over Tony's hand, where it rests near his shoulder. "I trust you too."

Tony's smile is soft and a little awed. Like he can't believe they're here again after everything, here where Steve can say it and believe it.

"You know how much that means to me?" Tony asks. His eyes are wide, full of hope.

"I think I have some idea," Steve says.

Tony tips Steve's head down, pulls him close, and kisses him. And Steve stands there, held fast in the circle of Tony's arms, exactly where he wants to be.

That night they end up naked and in bed—but that's as far as it gets. A week ago, two weeks ago, Steve wouldn't have been able to imagine having this again. Tony doesn't seem to be in a hurry to take it anywhere farther tonight, and Steve's fine with that. He'll go as slowly as Tony wants. And besides, he likes this. Tony's warm and sleepy and curled up against him. It's nice.

"Tomorrow," Tony murmurs, and he'd thought Tony was asleep. He sounds almost asleep. Steve's not quite sure what he means.

"Going back to the Avengers?"

"Probably should," Tony replies, not even opening his eyes. "We've been gone long enough. But, no, I want to try— can we—"

His eyes slit open, and he traces one finger up the side of Steve's neck.

It's soon—it's awfully soon—and it's a hell of a thing to start with. Still, Steve wants this. Obviously Tony wants this. It won't be the riskiest thing either of them have ever done, not by a long shot. Most of the safety considerations for baseline humans don't even apply, both because Tony can't harm him and because Steve's significantly stronger than him. All he's doing is letting him.

"I'd like that," Steve says. "I'd like that a lot."

He's positive that Tony is smiling.

For once in his life, Steve deliberately sleeps in. He wakes at six, looks at Tony still soundly asleep next to him, smiles, and then lets his eyes fall shut. He's where he wants to be.

When he wakes again it's a little later, bright morning sunlight streaming in through the windows, and Tony's propped up on one elbow, watching him, eyes half-open, drifting somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. Steve's conscious of the sheet now pooled around his hips, and the way Tony's unapologetic gaze is taking in all of his body, like Steve is the best present he's ever gotten. Steve's half-hard already, under the sheets, and the thought makes him a little harder. He belongs to Tony, the way he's wanted to for so long.

"Thought maybe I was dreaming you," Tony says.

He puts his hand on Tony's shoulder. The bruises Tony bore are fading now, green-gold into the gold of his skin. Tony shivers a little.

"All real," Steve says. "All yours."

Tony smiles. Steve wonders if the conversation is going to head somewhere more earthy, and is waiting for Tony's hand on his hip, Tony's fingers peeling back the sheet, but Tony only leans in and kisses him, very gently, morning breath and all. It's sweet.

"Don't worry," Tony says. "I still want to hurt you."

It can't have been easy for Tony to say, but he's still smiling.

"That's good," Steve tells him, "because I still want you to."

By the time Steve's gotten up and brushed his teeth, Tony's had enough time to—if not precisely second-guess himself, then start to feel a little intimidated by it. He's sitting on the edge of the bed when Steve comes back, watching him, silent and wide-eyed.

"Now?" Tony asks. The bedsprings creak as he shifts his weight.

"Works for me." Steve clambers back into bed and stretches out behind Tony, then curls around him. "But I honestly don't want to rush you. We do this when you're ready. When you want. Doesn't have to be now. You can change your mind. Now, or at any point in the proceedings."

"No, I'm ready." Tony's face furrows in a determination that's a little out of place, harsh enough to be covering for fear; he looks like he's going into battle. And then his face softens into something a little more unsure. "I just— I don't know where to start."

"You could kiss me?" Steve offers.

Tony nods once, jerkily, like he's obeying an order on the field, and then he twists back and turns over, bearing Steve back down to the mattress. His body against Steve's is tense at first, but Steve runs his fingers through Tony's hair, then down the back of his neck, rubbing over his spine, and Tony sighs, pleased, and makes a happy inarticulate noise against Steve's mouth.

"There we go," Steve murmurs. "Supposed to be fun. You get to hurt me."

In what has to be an unconscious movement, Tony rocks his hips against Steve, and oh, he obviously likes the thought of that.

"Fun and terrifying. Feels like the first time I ever tested out the boot jets in combat," Tony says. "Threw myself off a building. The second before the jets kicked in was the longest second of my life."

Steve tilts his head back and bares his throat. "Thought that was my trademark move."

"Mmm," Tony says, and he kisses Steve's neck as Steve shudders under him. "So it is. You're going to have so much beard burn when I'm done with you."

"I've earned it," Steve says, and Tony grins and kisses him once more.

They're doing this. They're really going to do this. He never thought he could have this with Tony, but he can, and Tony wants this too—it's more than he could have dreamed of. And they get it all.

Tony raises his head. "So, uh, how do we— how do you usually do this?"

Steve thinks about it for a second before realizing that his past experience might be a little much for a first time. "Honestly? I'm usually. Well. Getting fucked at the same time." The strap-ons had definitely been very useful, he thinks, fondly. "But I don't think you want to do anything that is going to distract you to that degree."

"Probably not. Not for the first time, anyway." Tony tilts his head to the side. "You could jerk off?"

Steve laughs, but he's already slipping his hand down to the base of his cock. He gives himself a few strokes. "You just want to see that."

"Can you blame me?"

Tony grins, and then there's something serious in his eyes. "The house computer has passive medical monitoring, by the way. In case you were wondering."

Ah, yes, they haven't actually had this part of the conversation. "I was going to let you know I'd tap out if I needed to, when I can't talk," Steve says. "Just like when I actually showed you chokeholds. I might push up, but it doesn't mean I'm fighting you. I won't really be trying to shake you off. If I were, you'd know. I can hold out for longer than most people can, so don't worry. You'll have to judge when to let me go. And even if I pass out, I will be absolutely fine. I will be safe. I have the serum."

"And you could break my wrist, right?"

He must have misheard. "What?"

"You could break my wrist, if you had to?" Tony's looking at him like this would honestly reassure him, to know that Steve could hurt him.

"We'd both be very unhappy if I had to break your wrist," Steve says, but this obviously isn't the answer Tony wants. He sighs. "Yeah, I could." He thinks maybe the only reason Tony will do this with him at all is that he isn't baseline human. But he's grateful for it. He wants this. His life in Tony's hands. Again. Literally.

"Okay." Tony's tongue flicks out; he licks his lips. "Okay. I've got this. I've got you. I'm ready when you are."

Tony pushes himself up to sitting once again, and Steve reaches out for Tony's left hand, running his fingers over Tony's palm, then to the well-worn calluses of his fingertips, then the back of his hand, rubbing his thumb over Tony's knuckles. He's always loved Tony's hands.

"Then put your hand on my throat, Tony." Steve smiles up at Tony. He lifts Tony's hand and tugs it toward his neck. "Here. Like this."

Steve tilts his head back into the pillow, exposing his throat right where he needs it. Tony's long, elegant fingers settle across Steve's neck, just below his jaw, bracketing his throat; his thumb sits on one side of Steve's neck and his index finger on the other. He isn't pushing down, isn't applying any pressure, but when Steve swallows he can feel the weight of Tony's hand on his skin, and he knows Tony can feel it too, because his mouth twitches into a smile. Tony's got him. Tony's in control here. He loves Tony, and Tony's going to do exactly what they both want.

The noise that comes from his own mouth is a whispery sort of moan, and he realizes his hand's still on his achingly hard cock, and he's fucking up into his own hand. His cock is unbelievably slick with pre-cum, wetter than he usually gets. He's already most of the way there, and Tony hasn't even done anything. He wants this so much. He's finally getting it.

"You really like this, don't you?" Tony asks, gaze roving over Steve's body before finally settling on his face. Steve doesn't know what Tony sees, but he must like it a lot, because Tony's smile is brilliantly gorgeous. "You really do," he says, amazed.

"I love it," Steve says. "And I'd love it if you choked me. Please, please, Tony, I'll beg, do you want me to beg, please—"

He knows he's babbling, he knows he gets incoherent like this, but Tony's not fazed. Tony's looking down at him with a soft tenderness in his eyes, and Steve knows Tony loves this too.

"Shh," Tony murmurs. "I've got you. Here. Let's go."

And then Tony's hand tightens around his throat. Tony's choking him. This is real.

Steve's hand is still around Tony's wrist; he can feel the muscles of Tony's arm contract under his fingertips as Tony squeezes, and Steve smiles. Tony's so strong. The thought drifts through his head that Tony would be even stronger with the gauntlet on, and his cock jumps in his hand.

He would moan, he would gasp, but Tony's holding him down. Tony gets to choose when he breathes. Steve might have led him this far, but now Tony's in control.

Tony's fingers press against either side of his throat, warm and steady, exactly where Steve wants them. He moves his head a little, the slightest bit of resistance, just to feel Tony's fingers not yielding against him. Tony's always been strong. Tony's hand isn't moving at all.

Reflexively, Steve opens his mouth and he tries to take a breath—and he can't. He can feel his throat working, he can feel his body instinctively searching out air, but there's none to be had. There's only Tony above him, Tony's body blotting out everything else he could look at, Tony's hand holding him down.

Steve's other hand is tight around his cock, moving fast, and he knows he's not going to last. He slows down. He wants to draw this out. He doesn't want to come until he can really feel it, until he's starving for it, until all he knows is that Tony decides what he gets.

"You're so wonderful," Tony murmurs, voice low and awestruck. "You're so beautiful like this. You're giving everything up to me. I couldn't have dreamed it would be like this. I can't believe you're letting me do this."

You're worth it, Steve would say, if he could speak.

The familiar dizziness is starting to set in; the room is spinning and swimming around him, and Tony's face, Tony's bright and smiling face is the one constant, his north star. He feels the rush of it, that buoyant euphoria, and, oh, it feels so good, so, so good, better than anything.

His world is gray and sparkling at the edges. It doesn't matter. He doesn't need to see. He doesn't think it's ever been this good before.

He's fucking his hand in earnest now, just the way he likes, fingers tight on the shaft of his cock, thumb swiping at the spot just under the head, and he feels like he's floating and he hasn't even come, oh God, he's going to come. He's wonderfully lightheaded. He wants to laugh. More than anything he wants to come. He's so close. A few more strokes, just right there, just how he likes it. He's pushing up and Tony won't let him up, he can't breathe, Tony's got him right where he wants to be and it's perfect, oh, Tony, Tony, Tony—

He strains up one last time, fighting Tony's implacable grip in a way that's not quite fighting at all, and Tony smiles the most beautiful, enthralled, perfectly, lovingly cruel smile and squeezes harder. And that's it, that's it, that's absolutely it right there—

His eyes fall shut, his mouth opens soundlessly and he's coming hard, maybe harder than he has in his entire life. The pleasure is rising, a tide of joy, a cresting wave, mixing with the dizzying rush of everything in him crying out for relief—and right at the peak, Tony lets him go.

He can breathe. He gasps, the air raw against his throat, and he arches up off the bed and is still coming. The sudden rush of air is another wave of unbelievable pleasure, a different kind of relief, cresting and breaking as he draws in a breath, holds his breath himself, and rides the feeling up, up—and he's still coming, again and again and again. There's nothing but pleasure, nothing in the world except the fire racing all through him, burning all conscious thought away.

Tony's hand is still resting on his throat, and he thinks Tony is talking to him, the words unintelligible to Steve, low and awed, and all Steve can do is shake and tremble as the ecstasy leaves him in a slow, sublime ebb, leaving warm contentment behind.

Steve sprawls back into the pillows, utterly relaxed. He's dimly aware that he's covered in come. He thinks he probably came all over Tony, too. There are tears trickling from his eyes and he can't stop smiling.

This is what he always wanted, the way he always wanted it. Just like this.

"Steve?" Tony says, his voice a little uncertain. "You're crying. Is everything okay? Did I do it wrong? Are you hurt?"

Steve opens his eyes. Tony's peering down at him, wide-eyed, concerned.

"I'm great," Steve says. He coughs. It hurts a little to talk. "You were the best. They're good tears. I'm just... happy."

"I'm glad," Tony says, and his voice is suspiciously hoarse. "I— I really liked doing that. God, Steve, you looked so happy. You should have seen your face."

Steve smiles. His face is starting to hurt from smiling. He doesn't care. Everything is wonderful. "I saw your face," he says. He reaches out toward Tony's face but doesn't quite make it. "You— I saw how much you loved it too, and that was— that was beautiful. You have no idea."

"That was all because of you," Tony says. He leans in and captures Steve's hand, meeting him halfway "I know I said I wanted to know what it was like. I didn't know it would look like that. That you would be like that. I can't describe it." He smiles. "Does that sound ridiculous?"

Steve smiles, still a little dizzy, still a little dreamy. "Nope. Sounds just right." And then he lets his hand fall on Tony's thigh. "Any other ways that you liked it?"

"Maybe one." Tony gestures down at himself. "You can probably tell how much I enjoyed that."

Steve looks. Tony's cock is very, very hard, thick, flushed dark. He's pretty close himself, and he never even touched himself. Steve can feel his mouth watering. He wants Tony to fill him up, every way he can.

Steve takes a full breath and he moves his jaw, testing. Okay. He's ready for this. "Let me thank you," he offers. "I have a few ideas."

And then somehow Tony's sitting at the edge of the bed and Steve's on his knees on the floor, pressing messy, wet kisses to the insides of Tony's thighs, to his balls. Tony's fingers sink into his hair and Steve breathes out, "Use me," against his skin.

Tony shudders all over, and his cock's in Steve's mouth, he's fucking Steve's face, he's holding Steve's head down—

"Oh, God, your mouth," Tony says, brokenly. "Oh, I'm not going to last—"

Steve's head is swimming again and he realizes he's jerking himself off yet again only when he hears Tony laugh.

"Keep doing that," Tony says. "Hottest thing I've ever seen, oh God, Steve, do you know how you look? So beautiful and you're all mine—"

The words are great, but what Tony does is better. He has one hand in Steve's hair and his other hand drifts to Steve's neck. He runs two fingers across Steve's throat, tracing a horizontal line across his exquisitely sensitive skin. Steve moans around Tony's cock. And then Tony's whole palm slides over his throat, resting in the lightest of grips. He's not quite choking Steve, but there's the suggestion that he could.

Everything in Steve just lights up, bright bright bright, and he moans again, trying to take as much of Tony's cock as he can, to thank him without words, swallow him down to the root, show him how much he loves him, how good he can be.

"You like that, huh?" Tony breathes. "I— oh, fuck, yes— I bet you do. Talked about that, didn't we? If I choke you, maybe I can feel myself in your throat from both sides." He pants. "Oh, God. You want me to use you, huh? That's the— that's the apex, isn't it? Using you. Literally using your body exactly the way I want it. Molding you with my own two hands."

Steve's floating, everything bright in his head, and he pictures that, pictures Tony just doing exactly what he wants, and his hand moves roughly over his cock, sending little sparks of pleasure-pain down his raw nerves, and oh, God, he's so close, he's so close, but Tony's closer.

"You first," Tony says, rough and somehow infinitely tender. "I want to see you come, choking on my cock—"

Steve moans and thrusts into his fist and he's gone. Tony gets exactly what he wants. He hopes Tony's watching. Steve's shaking as his release takes him, groaning around Tony's cock, trying to breathe, and he can feel the come dripping over his fingers. He thinks he might be crying again. His sight is blurry and his head is swimming and Tony's cock in his mouth is huge and hot and perfect.

"Beautiful," Tony murmurs. "Beautiful, beautiful, oh God, Steve—"

Tony's fingers lock tight against his hair, and he thrusts up, one, two, three times, pushing deep into his throat, and then he's coming, coming down Steve's throat and gasping, and Steve swallows it all, pulling back so he won't actually choke.

When he pulls off, Tony's legs are shaking. Steve looks up, wipes his mouth off, and grins. "Good?"

"I've never," Tony says, dazed. "I've never felt like this. This is the biggest rush of my life. I didn't even know. I didn't know it could be like this. It's not even the sex, really. I mean it is, but not entirely. I'm not making any sense."

Steve smiles. "It's okay. I know what you mean."

Steve lets Tony tug him up, and they topple over backwards onto the bed. Steve's a sticky mess, but he wraps himself around Tony anyway, and he pulls the covers over them both, because in a minute they're going to need them. Even Steve gets cold now.

"Welcome to kinky sex," Steve informs him. "You're going to like this part."

Tony blinks at him. "What part?"

"The part where we cuddle afterwards," Steve says. "We cuddle and I tell you how nice you made me feel and how you did it all perfectly right and you tell me how I'm yours and how I was so good for you."

Tony smiles and pets Steve's hair, fingers sliding through the fine hairs at the back of his neck, then back and forth over it. "I didn't know it was an official part."

"Mmm-hmm." Steve yawns and cuddles closer, throwing both of his arms over Tony. "It's got a name and everything. Honest."

"Well, you were very good for me." There's that soft tenderness in Tony's eyes again. "You were perfect. Everything I could have wanted."

"And I'm yours?"

"You're mine," Tony says, and he holds Steve tight. "You're mine, for as long as you want to be. I promise. You're so good, and I'm going to do everything I can to be good to you. I want you to be happy. You deserve that." Tony's throat works, then, a convulsive swallow. "I want to thank you for— for letting me, for trusting me. You were so amazing. I don't even have words for it. And I— I love you so much."

Tony's eyes are wide again, his heart beating fast. As if he thinks that Steve is honestly going to say no to that.

He'd been waiting for the right moment to say it again to Tony, after he'd said the words to that other Tony. That seems like another life now. He hadn't known when would be right, when they'd be healed—but it looks like Tony's ahead of him.

"I love you too," Steve breathes, and he knows now is the time. "I've loved you for years. I'm not going anywhere."

His vision's blurry. He's starting to cry again. He thinks Tony is too.

Tony wipes at his own face and smiles a small embarrassed smile. "Sorry. Didn't mean to cry on you. I'm just getting emotional. Sorry. I don't know why—"

"You're happy," Steve tells him. He puts his palm to Tony's face and wipes away a tear with his thumb. "It's because you're happy."

Tony's silent for long moments, and then he turns his face into Steve's palm and kisses his fingers.

"Yeah," Tony breathes. "Yeah, I think I am."

The quarter lands on the deck of the Quinjet. Heads up. For the fifth time in a row.

Carol thrusts her fists in the air. "Yes! I'm piloting! Take that, Tin Man!"

"Gosh," Tony says, as he bends down and picks up the quarter, offering it to Carol, "it's almost like someone here can manipulate probability." He turns and levels a very significant glance at Wanda.

Wanda smiles guilelessly. "That's an interesting observation."

"That's a very non-committal answer," Steve puts in, grinning.

Wanda folds her hands in her lap and keeps smiling.

Steve didn't even bother to join the coin toss; the recent moon mission—and falling out of that airplane—was quite enough for him. He straps himself into one of the passenger seats, next to Wanda, as Tony slides into the co-pilot seat next to Carol. Tony's still wearing the armor, but he keeps the faceplate pushed up. No one will want visual comms except the Avengers, and they already know who he is.

The radio chatter is comforting, familiar static—he's never managed to admit to anyone that radio static makes him feel nostalgic for Iron Man's old vocal modulators, because that would be far too sappy—and he hears Carol talking to the Sea-Tac tower. They're cleared for supersonic flight to New York, landing at Avengers Mansion.

Soon enough, they're taking off, the sky bright and cloudless around them, a perfect omen. Seattle dwindles away beneath them as they head east.

They're coming home.

It's been three more weeks. Tony and Carol are both still sober, and Tony's ended up sponsoring Carol after all—an unorthodox move, but he knows Tony wouldn't have offered, wouldn't have fought for it if it hadn't been the best thing for Carol. He's swapped his white chip for silver, and he's clinging to this one a little less, but Steve's still seen him a few times with his hand fisted around the chip, staring off into the distance, and those nights he's clung to Steve more tightly and then called Henry Hellrung in the morning.

There have been a lot of calls with Jan. Some of them Steve has been privy to, some he hasn't. Some have been just him. The first call they made together—well, Jan had looked at them, grinned, and said, "Oh, okay, well, you're all better." Steve had honestly worried for a few seconds that somehow what they did in bed would show in their behavior, but thankfully Jan had meant it exactly the way it had sounded. Somehow, now, when they were getting along, they just looked it.

No, the majority of the calls have been about Carol. They could have gone back, but they weren't going back without her. He and Tony hadn't even had to say it. That much was understood. They'd all talked to Jan. Wanda had talked to Jan. Even Carol had talked to Jan. Finally Tony had taken one last turn.

Steve still doesn't know what he'd said, but he'd walked out of the comm center to where the rest of them were sitting on the deck, grinned, raised his hand for a high-five, and said, "Congratulations, Avenger!"

In the resulting hug, Carol tackled both of them off the balcony.

The flight itself goes by quickly; while Tony and Carol are busy with the Quinjet itself, Steve grabs the laptop in the closest pocket. The team has thoughtfully given him access to the latest mission reports. So he logs in, and he and Wanda spend most of the flight catching up. A few small-time villains. Moses Magnum and the Avatars of Lord Templar. Nothing major.

"We're approaching New York," Carol says, and Steve blinks and looks up. That's Manhattan out the window already.

"Please stow your laptop and nonexistent tray table," Tony says, laughing. "Thank you for flying Avengers Air. Since this isn't the Savage Land, we will actually be landing."

"Are you the co-pilot or the flight attendant?" Steve asks.

"Yes," Tony informs him, and Wanda laughs.

They coast lower and lower, weaving through Manhattan in a flight path only the Avengers get, and then the mansion is in sight. It's so much smaller than Tony's sprawling Seattle home, and it looks almost quaint, with its beige paint and brown trim. But Steve wouldn't trade it for anything.

Carol deftly guides the Quinjet toward the hangar, and everyone unfastens their harnesses as soon as the Quinjet settles in a smooth, perfect landing.

Steve slides his shield onto his back. Tony flips his faceplate down and then up and then down again, like he can't decide who to be. The four of them gather at the far end of the jet. Carol's expression is wary, and even Wanda looks a little nervous.

"We're Avengers," Tony says, meeting their eyes in turn. Behind the mask, his own eyes are narrowed in determination. "We belong here."

Carol swallows hard, nods, and presses the ramp release.

The ramp lowers... and they're not alone.

The hangar is more crowded than Steve has seen it in his life. Jan. Thor. Clint. Hank Pym. Hank McCoy. Pietro. Angel. Vance. Vision. Sam. T'Challa. Jen Walters. Julia Carpenter. Namor. Hercules. Crystal. Tigra. Moondragon. There are more people beyond them, people who wouldn't even fit in the room. It's everyone they came back with from Morgan le Fay's realm, he realizes, everyone who had been an Avenger, everyone who had been in the running when they'd put the team together.

Wanda has her hands over her mouth in surprise. Carol's mouth has fallen open. Tony is masked, but his eyes are wide. Steve just stares, trying to take this all in.

"Is it someone's birthday?" Tony asks, and laughter ripples around the room, echoing in the cavernous hangar.

"Not mine," Steve says. "There'd be fireworks."

Tony turns back to him and laughs, that old radio static, and they walk down the ramp side by side. Steve's a little lightheaded. He wasn't expecting this. Tony leans in. "Breathe," he whispers, and Steve does.

Carol and Wanda float down behind them.

Jan steps forward. She's smiling. "Welcome home, Avengers."

Steve slips his hand into Tony's, and they step forward together.

They're home.