A/N: Wow guys. Wow. I'm like…totally speechless at the reaction to this story. I am well and truly touched by your support, and I will endeavor to make this one of my best works. Thanks for all those reviews, and please keep them coming. They really do make me write faster.

Steve wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but whenever he walked into the lab to impart a message from Agent Coulson or ask Bruce about one technological conundrum or another, they always jumped apart and looked vaguely guilty, as if he had caught them kissing. It was happening with alarming frequency, and he was getting increasingly suspicious, because the last time they had acted like this The Great Night of Slime had happened.

It was a blistering Saturday afternoon when it happened again. Steve had just returned to the tower after his daily run, sweat dripping off him in buckets, and not even the cold sting of an icy shower had lowered his temperature and the heat seemed to pierce right through the air conditioners of the tower. Steve was thinking longingly of a dip in a cold pool composed of ice water and trying to get the blender to work because he was in dire need of a milk shake.

He walked down to the lab, pressed in his key with practiced ease, and the question was on his lips. He really meant to ask about the blender. He really, truly did, but an indescribable rage filled his chest when he saw them jump apart guiltily, as if he were some stranger they had to keep secrets from. He couldn't even begin to analyze the odd hurt and anger that coursed through him, and the heat of the day couldn't have helped at all.

"Would you two just stop already?" he snapped, a rough growl to his voice he had never heard before. "Nobody gives a flying fuck what you two get up to down here, so you don't have to keep jumping apart whenever I come down here like I'll even have the slightest fucking clue as to what you're doing!"

The two scientists blinked at him, looking flabbergasted and dumbfounded. Steve never cussed, not even in the middle of a battle.

"Steve, what-"

"Shut up, Stark. You damn well know what I'm talking about, and I'm fucking sick of it!" Steve spat, and turned on his heel and stormed out of the lab. He was slamming the door of his room before he realized there were tears in his eyes, and he flung himself at his desk, snatching up a pencil and his drawing pad. The familiar scratch of the pencil against paper calmed him slightly, and his hands were shaping harsh lines and dark shades before he really knew what he was drawing.

Tears blurred his vision, but his hand moved steadily, surely, over the white page, darkening it. Drops dribbled onto the paper, and he steadfastly ignored the growing hysteria he felt bubbling in his chest.

When his hand stopped moving over the paper, Steve actually looked at what he had drawn, and the sight of it nearly sent him into another rage. He flung the drawing of himself, before the serum and crouched in a dark corner, across the room where the sketching pad thunked into the wall dully. A choked, heartbroken cry escaped his throat and he threw himself on his bed, burying his face into his pillow.

This isn't fair, was his only thought as he sobbed into the soft, silk goose-down pillow. It wasn't fair that he had lost the only woman he had ever cared about. It wasn't fair that his best friend was thirty years dead. It wasn't fair that he didn't know anything about this century or its technology, and it wasn't fair that he couldn't have the intimacy and love he craved

It wasn't fair that he was alive.

That thought only mad him sob harder, great, wracking sobs that filled his lungs with phlegm and made his head pound. He hadn't cried since he was twelve years old, knowing crying in front of his bullies would only get him a worse beating, and now that he was started, he couldn't stop.

He didn't know how long he lay there, sobbing, his lungs burning and his face feeling slimy with tears, but he felt hands on his shoulders and back, vaguely heard soothing words whispered in his ear, pleading for him to calm down and talk about it.

X0x0x0x0X

"What the hell was that about?" Tony said, his eyes wide and confused as he watched Steve storm out of the lab. Bruce frowned, looking just as befuddled as Tony felt.

Of course, being the more socially apt of the two, he figured it out first. "I think… I think we've made him jealous. And sad," he murmured.

"What? Why? How?" Tony asked incredulously.

"Think about it Tony. He's seventy years out of his comfort zone. He's the only single man in a house full of couples. He probably feels alone and abandoned, and seeing you and I together all the time probably set him off," Bruce said reasonably.

Tony thought about that for a few moments and then nodded. "You're probably right…god I feel like an ass now."

"You are an ass, Tony," Bruce murmured, eyes glimmering with mirth.

"Oh, ha ha Banner. You're a real comedian, you know that? A regular Dane Cook," Tony said, nudging his lover with his shoulder playfully. Bruce nudged him back, a little more forceful than necessary, and then it was on.

Tony shoved Bruce against the workbench, his eyes narrowed and his lips parted slightly.

"So you wanna play rough with me, hmm, Banner?" he growled and Bruce opened his mouth to answer only to have Tony's hot, demanding tongue shoved down his throat in a bruising kiss. His retort died on his tongue, and he moaned, his long arms winding around Tony's waist to draw him closer,

Shirts were quickly discarded in favor or the rough drag of skin against skin, the harsh whir of the arc reactor a delicious friction against Bruce's chest. His nails dug into the billionaires back as he found that delicious spot just beneath his ear that was oh-so-sensitive, and gods Tony knew how to make him hard and aching in minutes. He tugged the billionaire's head away from the patch of skin he was bruising with the suction of his mouth and crushed his lips to his lovers, his teeth nipping at Tony's lower lip, his eyes a brilliant green that betrayed his arousal.

Tony's fingers were working furiously at at Bruce's belt, and he was cursing the contraption even as he palmed the hardness of his lover with a groan.

"Sir?" came the cool, collected voice of JARVIS.

"What?" Tony snapped. "I'm kind of busy here if you hadn't noticed."

"You told me to inform you if any of the Avengers showed excessively violent signs of distress. Captain Rogers had been sobbing for nearly forty five minutes in his room, and has bent his bedframe by punching it repeatedly."

Bruce pulled away from Tony, and the billionaire sighed even as he frowned in consternation. "Thanks JARVIS. We'll take care of it."

"We will?" Bruce murmured. Tony nodded.

"Yeah. Let's go comfort our future lover."