Hello, everyone! I was feeling the angst mood and thought I'd warm up my Marvel writing skills again. This story will be told backwards…sort of. You'll catch on quickly to how I like to do things.

This isn't slash, just some good old fashioned buddy buddy, so please don't take it as such. And I'm still pretty new to writing Marvel verse so please be gentle in corrections if you see any.

"Tony…..Tony, I don't feel so good."

Tony held his breath as Steve once again doubled over in pain and started to vomit blood into the plastic container waiting by the hospital bed.

"Steve? You ok there, man?" Tony steeled himself and walked across to the other side of the bed where the Captain's heavy breathing blocked out the sound of the incessant heart monitor.

He was losing weight so quickly. Down twenty pounds already. The athletic, Tony would have said Ken doll, physique of his father's best friend was now down to a yellowed, stretched tight frame and some skin all in a matter of months.

It was gross, and he had to admit, frightened him a little bit.

"Yeah, yeah. All good." Steve wiped at his mouth and looked at him with red rimmed eyes that were going blank with exhaustion. To top it all off, he gave a crooked smile through cracked lips before reaching shakily for the water on the bedside table. Tony snatched it and handed it to him.

"You're freaking me out."

"Sorry…"

Tony shuffled his feet and fiddled with his phone before looking up to see the kid watching him. And that's what he really was: a kid. Tony had hated him before- still did actually. It had taken several months for them to get along and to have a real conversation that didn't include barbed remarks about being frozen in ice or having a battery run your heart.

But he was twenty five, no family and still under the control of SHIELD. Captain America, the star spangled man with a plan and spandex tights to go with it, was still alone in the twenty first century, unable to use Twitter and now hospitalized with a disease that could potentially kill him. Two weeks ago, Tony would have been nowhere near that hospital. Sent a card maybe, or a fruit basket. But after Fury had pulled him aside and said that he had better suck it up and play nice, Tony had to reconsider.

He still sent the balloons to be sarcastic- thirty red, white and blue ones filled with helium-Pepper had told him the Captain would like that better than his original idea of a nurse dressed more like a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.

He would have wanted the cheerleader. But it wasn't up to him.

Steve had smiled and looked happy about a bunch of plastic balls filled with air. Tony had rolled his eyes and left as soon as he could.

"Don't you have a meeting to go to or something?" Rogers said hoarsely, pulling Tony out of his self pity party.

"Yep," Tony bounced to his feet; eager to get out of there. "I'll catch you later kid. Maybe Romanoff or someone will come babysit you." He practically ran to the door, but the quiet voice stopped him.

"Thanks, Tony. For being here. You're a real friend."

Tony mumbled a response and closed the door.

He hated hospitals.

And he hated sick people.