The screaming didn't stop for just under an hour. But for Steve, it felt like an eternity. He thought about letting Tony go, making him stop looking into the mirror and to just breathe.

Bruce though was determined. Tony needed to ride out his trigger, let it all come back to him and then deal with the 'worms' after. Bruce wouldn't let Clint or Steve let him go until he stopped.

Soon the screams subsided, and Tony cried, and cried. It was a horrible sight for Steve to see. Tony Stark, cocky, insufferable Tony Stark was broken into pieces in front of him.

He fell asleep after. Steve didn't let go of him, instead he held the genius in his arms and just didn't let go.

He promised he wouldn't.

Sail

XI

Epiphany.

Natasha had worked day in, day out on this damned case. She hardly had time to go see the genius, even as he made progress – causing her frustration to grow on a series of unexplainable events.

The thing that aggravated her the most was there was always a clue. Always something to help uncover the truth, whether it was the last known co-ordinates of where Tony was (But when he went missing in the first hour, the place was checked and he wasn't there.) to where he could have been for 4 weeks.

There was 4 weeks of Tony Stark's life unaccounted for, and these were the most important weeks of his life.

Natasha sipped at her coffee, a bad habit she'd picked up when trailing through every single inch of paperwork of what they had based around Tony's case. She read everything, their last logs with Hill. His last words given to her.

"Stark? How's it looking?"

"Creepy, usual setting for a bad-guy get together."

A beat.

"Stark? You're slipping off my radar. What's going on? Are you out of range?"

"Fzzzt—I need to—fzzzt—Stop! Get—Fzzt—I'm blee—Fzzt—I need to go."

Thing was, when they investigated for the signal blind spot in that broken and burnt down house, there was nothing. Tony was in the Iron Man suit and Natasha knew it took more than a hit to make him bleed behind it.

They found nothing. The scene only held a few footprints that belonged to Tony. There was no one else there.

Again, she found herself sitting at her desk, a headache ebbing in her temples as she tried to catch an assailant that just right out didn't exist.

Then.

It clicked together.

Natasha felt the cogs of her mind turn in the right direction for the first time since this whole thing began. Her face, a usual stony exterior mingled with nothing but flawless emotion had her brows knit together, her hands curl at the paper and quite frankly, she felt like she was going to cry.

Her phone bleeped by her side, causing her to jump. (Not many things made Natasha jumped, but the fact she was tired, stressed and now upset made her more than jumpy.)

Clint.

She answered it, pressing it to her ear. Her voice didn't shake as she looked down to her paperwork. "Romanoff."

"We found the trigger," Clint whispered exasperated. "Tony should be able to tell us things pretty soon. Bruce said we have to see how he is when he wakes up, but he's there, Nat."

Natasha should have felt relieved. A few minutes before hand, she would have been. Finally, an answer. But she was quiet, she said nothing. She could hear Clint looking towards the phone in a sense of questioning towards her. He knew she wasn't one for jumping-from-walls excitement, but he knew she cared.

"Nat, what's wrong? This is good isn't it?"

"I hope I'm wrong," She whispered, eyes tracing across her paperwork. "But I think we should have never, ever let Tony come out of that shell he locked himself in."

She could hear Clint's breath stop, she knew he was angry. She could always tell.

"What the hell are you saying!? You want Tony back, don't you? We're getting there!"

"Clint-"

"It's taken months for us to just crack his code, crack this idiotic, genius plan that I'm sure will be admired in psychology books for years to come – But we're getting him back!"

"Clint." She said more sternly this time. "I think Tony didn't want to come back."

Another silence. She took that as an urge to simply continue.

"I've been looking into this case since day one. I've been relentlessly looking for the bastard that did this. Make him pay. I don't like Stark, but he's one of our own. He's important in his own way." She paused; maybe somewhere she did like him. But she was too busy shaking her head at the smart idiot to notice.

"There was no assailant."

"…What?"

"The only person there was Tony."

"Wait. You're telling me that Tony wasn't tortured? They broke his mind, Nat. Why the hell would Tony do that to himself? That's the only logical explanation in your theory, right?"

"I… I don't know. There was physical injuries… But they can all be self inflicted."

"Nat, what you're saying is crazy. Tony went missing by his own accord, broke down somewhere, hit himself and then came back after 4 weeks? Even I think that's a bit far-fetched."

"I know. But what if he did? What if something happened, he saw something in Long Island that made him do this?"

"… I don't believe this, Nat. I think you need to go get some sleep. Look at it from a new perspective."

"I need you to come to Long Island with me tomorrow. We'll take Tony."

"Whoa, wait. He's just been screaming for over an hour. I'm not taking him there so soon after we pulled the trigger."

"I think this is our one shot, Clint. To get answers."

Steve occupied himself with a number of things. When they got Tony to bed, Steve didn't sleep all through the night. He thought about working out, but he didn't get further than the elevator. He thought about watching TV, but couldn't really focus. He wanted Tony awake, wanted him to talk.

But Bruce insisted on him sleeping. Bruce retired, Clint went to report. And that left Steve, alone, his legs moving quickly as he thumbed the remote trying to concentrate on everything but Tony.

He watched Tony look at himself, watch him scream and fight against them. He was strong, but not as strong as he used to be. Tony was desperate and Steve had no choice but to watch him activate his own trigger. Bruce wanted to move him too somewhere where he could be monitored; Steve refused, offering to keep an eye on him himself. He knew what Tony was like.

But this was hard. Steve was tired but there was no way he'd sleep. He needed answers. He needed something.

A noise was heard; Steve jolted up – stood up out of being on edge. His eyes settled through the dimly lit room, to Tony. Who stood, eyes bloodshot, clothes messed and hair curled from being damp earlier.

"… Tony?" Steve whispered. Tony looked at him, but he didn't speak.

Steve's stomach dropped.

That pain Tony was put through seemed like it didn't work. It could have caused him to regress, or to be broken for the rest of his life – Steve actually wanted to scream, cry or something. These months had been for naught.

"Steve," Tony said hoarsely. "I'm so sorry."