It's the worst snowstorm Steve's ever seen. The wind whistles loudly in the masonry and makes the blond man shiver, but it doesn't move. So he just doesn't try to concentrate on the cold and instead just sit on the hard stone floor. Silently, he turns to the footsteps his escaped friend Bucky had left behind after Steve had protected him. And how did the ex-sergeant thank him? He ruthlessly hurts the people who are important to the first Avenger. Thinking of the betrayal of his former best friend, he bites his teeth and does not immediately try to ram his hand into the next wall. He could lose him because of Bucky. He could really lose Tony.
"Steve," his colleague's voice sounds smoky and broken. Immediately the person addressed turns his gaze to the man among himself. He cautiously dropped to his knees next to Tony and put his head in his lap when Bucky had simply disappeared into the snow. Unconsciously, he had a hand gently buried in his friend's dark hair after contacting Fury and asking for help, as Tony was not doing well. "Tony", Steve's voice is full of pain and worry: "You're awake!" In great pain, he stretches out his hand, covered by his red metal gloves, and carefully places it on Steve's cheek. This behavior was completely atypical for the billionaire, which is why Steve shrugs slightly when he touches him, but then he puts one of his own hands on it and carefully crosses his fingers with Stark. He wants to feel Tony's skin on his own and hopes to feel his body heat, but he knows the Playboy's hand is ice cold. Finally Steve also freezes and he himself is not injured. How must the injured person feel?
"Where does it hurt?" Steve almost whispers. Carefully Tony looks at his belly and lays his free hand on a gaping hole in his hard armor. When the first Avenger had tried to protect his old friend from Stark, he had put up with hurting the man, but he wouldn't have thought he could put something like this on him. When he sees that part of the armor has dug through his clothes into the flesh of the man under him, he has to hold back to not shout out loud. He can't even lose Tony now that he has already lost Peggy and thought Bucky was dead. Tony's death would completely unhinge his life again, as always when he loses someone he loved too much. "I'm sorry," he says, saying what he thinks: "I didn't mean to hurt you."
Slowly Tony nods as a wave of pain rolls over him: "All right, Rogers. You're just protecting your friends." Steve nods, but doesn't think he really means it, but then Stark adds something else: "That's what I love about you." Steve Roger's eyes widen: "Did you just say that ..." "That I love you? Yes, I do," he replies, still plagued by pain. The words sound again several times in Steve's head until he has really realized them, but whether he can also reciprocate his words, he does not know. He had wanted to hear it for so long, but never thought about what he would say if Tony really said it.
Since Stark also seems to notice that his counterpart is not in a position to answer something at the moment, he raises a new topic with a rough voice: "Will someone come to get us? In his words his tense body relaxes slightly: "Yes, despite the storm I was fortunately able to reach Maria". "Maria? Steve looks at him questioningly: "Maria, Maria Hill." "Oh well, you mean Fury's assistant", he manages to bring about a painfully distorted grin. It is precisely this smile that almost breaks the ex-soldier's heart, because although Tony is injured, he still tries to cheer Steve up and show him that he is doing well, even though it is apparently not so. "You know, when I thought about following you, I didn't think it would be like this," he admits honestly: "I thought, ..."
But before he can finish his sentence, Steve pushes his arm under Tony's head to pull him up a bit and pushes his cool lips onto the icy cold of his colleague. Steve hopes in vain to feel the warmth of Tony's body, showing him that it's not too late to save Stark, but there's nothing there. Only the passion of the kiss of two men who have lost sight of love through the many wars, and her in the middle of a snow flurry in deep Siberia.
"Rogers? Can you hear me", suddenly Maria Hill's voice sounds in the ear of the person being addressed and ensures that both men separate from each other. For a moment there is an expression on the faces of the two men that shows how caught they feel right now, but then joy sneaks onto Roger's face and pulls his lover with him. "Yes, Hill. The energy in his voice surprises both men equally, but that doesn't stop him: "Are you there?" "Yes, the Quinn Jet is waiting for you outside," the woman replies and then interrupts contact with the men again.
"Can you stand up if I help you," Steve asks anxiously, but with his quiet confession of love, equally hopeful. "Of course I can. I am Iron Man", the self-confidence he is accustomed to has returned to his voice.
The Avengers doesn't need more approval to put an arm of his colleague around his shoulders in order to be able to support him properly. As if it were nothing, he lifts his friend and his heavy armor onto his feet and looks around the landscape with his eyes for the grey plane. With a free hand, he points to the point in the distance to turn the spark of hope in their hearts into a blazing fire.
