Steve stops being able to cry.

His body stops. His brain stops.

His heart aches.

It is what it is, he decides. There's nothing he can do. Tony will – or he won't, it's – nothing he can change.

It's not ever going to be like it was.

He tries to keep his eyes open, he tries to watch, tries not to think, tries to be the guardian Tony deserves to have and doesn't want. He thinks maybe he's slipping, that maybe he should patrol, but there's nothing he can hear outside, just the quiet fall of snow and Tony's harsh breathing and the puppy's occasional yawn as it nestles itself deeper into Steve's parka. Steve doesn't need it. He's used to the cold by now.

He watches Tony sleep. He looks at the ugly cuts etched in under his eyes and the purple bruise spreading out from his right cheekbone and the brown smears of older ones on his jawline. He looks at the corners of his mouth rubbed raw and the grey hairs coming up on his temples that were never there before.

Tony would hate that, if he were still Tony and not this wretch of a man.

Steve thinks about how he's never going to have grey hair. How he's never going to grow old with anyone. He thinks about Sharon, dead in the ground. He thinks about watching Bucky die the first time. He thinks about Nick and Jan and how there was never any time to say goodbye. He thinks about watching everyone he loves leave him behind.

He wonders if Tony is going to live through this. He wonders if Tony is ever going to speak to him again. He wonders if he wants him to.

He's already old. It's just that no one can ever tell.

Steve tries. He tries to be a sentry, but if he's honest, he can't bear to be awake any longer, he's barely got the energy to hold himself upright. So he lets himself nod, lets his eyes fall shut, lets his helpless charges slip from his mind, and sinks, his head throbbing with regret and hurt and guilt.

If someone shoots them both while they sleep, well.

Steve's not going to struggle.

Tony is kissing his neck.

He must want something. A favor. Tony will do a lot for a favor.

Steve pulls him in closer, and Tony shudders under his hands. He tries harder, mouths along Steve's jaw, scrapes his teeth along his collarbone. "Steve," he mumbles into Steve's shoulder, and then he's pressing the dagger into Steve's hands. "Do this for me," Tony says, nipping at his ear. "I want it to be you."

Steve knows.

"I want you to beg first," he says. He runs his hands over the broad expanse of Tony's bare skin, scrapes his nails over his shoulder blades.

"I can," Tony says. Steve expected him to argue, but he doesn't, he just softens and sighs, pliant and sedate and so responsive under his hands. "Please. Do it. I want you to."

"That's not good enough," Steve murmurs into his hair. "Do better."

Tony sinks to his knees, lowers his eyes, slides out of Steve's arms and into something like supplication at his feet. He spreads his legs wide, bites his lip, bows his head, docile like he never is, and grateful, so grateful, he needs Steve, and Steve is happy to do it –

Steve smiles.

"I'm yours," Tony says. He's mumbling, though, and Steve wants to see, so he tilts Tony's chin and forces him to meet his gaze. Steve wants to see him, wide-eyed and desperate and terrified. He wants to see him fall apart, and the feeling runs through him like lightning in his veins – vindication. Tony is just there, all his, Steve's for the taking, for the hurting, for the saving –

"I know you are," Steve says. "Beg," he whispers, and it comes out as a hiss.

"Please," Tony says, and it's a plea this time, and Steve tangles his fingers in Tony's hair, drags his head back, and his neck is all shadows and lines and curves, sloping muscle and pulsing blood. Tony closes his eyes, opens his mouth in a gasp, and that's what sends Steve over the edge, really. He feels the weight of the dagger cool in his hand, tightens his green fingers on the hilt, presses the blade gently, so very gently to his throat –

"Steve, wait," Tony says, "I have to tell you –"

Steve doesn't wait. Because it doesn't matter, this is more important, this is what Tony wants (what he wants) and he cants his wrist, drags the blade across his perfect skin, and Tony's blood bubbles up on the silver.

"It's ok," Steve says. "I know."

Tony's breathing turns wet, and he clutches at Steve's biceps as he sinks. Steve kneels to catch him, and watches, entirely enraptured, as Tony gasps and splutters, as his heart pumps blood out of his body, as it drips red through Steve's fingers.

Steve thinks that maybe this is all he's ever needed.

It's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, watching the life leave Tony's eyes.

Steve claws his way out of sleep, half-hard and utterly terrified.

He tries to be rational and tries not to feel, but sleep is far too slow to leave him, he might as well be waking to another nightmare, in this damp cave that smells of ash and blood and the harsh bite of iodine. He lies there, his face mashed into the ground, his eyes frozen open. He thinks no andoh god and what have I done and he looks at his hands to make sure they aren't green.

He's fallen over. He's lying next to Tony.

He feels like he's going to vomit.

He squeezes his eyes shut, he doesn't look at Tony's face, he doesn't imagine Tony on his knees and begging and naked, (why would he dream that) and he drags his body away from Tony's.

That's what they're doing now.

Tony is completely still, and even though his face and his neck are exposed to the bite of the cold, he hasn't moved an inch from where Steve arranged him. He's right there, and it takes everything Steve has not to touch him to make sure he hasn't died sometime during the night.

But he doesn't. That would be indulgent. He's not permitted. He can't. It's his body that's done this. Tony's breath is fogging in the air. It's fine.

If Steve is honest, he hopes it's hours yet before he wakes. This way, he's quiet, and Steve doesn't have to listen to the awful shit that comes out of his mouth when he's awake, the please's and use-me'sand shoot-me's, the things he's never going to be able to unhear.

Steve levers his body upright. Consciousness is the last thing he wants right now, really, but he putters around, shakes off his miserable excuse for sleep. He makes himself put more pine branches on the fire, makes himself jab at it with the poker until it erupts into something moderately strong again, and then he peels himself out of the blanket and wraps it around Tony as well as he dares.

He can't have slept for more than a few awful hours, it's not light yet. This is – good, better, at least, his concussion is resolving itself, he'll be agonizingly clear-headed now. Alert enough to feel every second of his wounds healing, alert enough to feel every one of his nerve endings regenerating and screaming with pain. He's already feeling it around his wrist, where it was just a glancing blow. His muscle is knitting itself back together, his skin is creeping back, pink around the edges. He can feel it prickling, knows it's going to be excruciating in about an hour.

Steve realizes he's starving. He thinks so, and then he feels guilty, because Tony probably hasn't been fed real food in months, but Steve doesn't have the heart to wake him, and 20 percent of his body is covered in rapidly healing plasma burns, and if he wants to have any hope of getting them both back to the farmhouse, he's going to have to carry Tony and he's going to have to eat. He rummages in the pack, finds the 2 MREs, scarfs them both (he gives the biscuits to the puppy). There's a few protein bars left, but he should save those, and he eyes the AR-7 lying disassembled at the bottom of the pack and thinks that maybe he's going to have to go hunt if they have to camp somewhere else tonight.

He sits back on his heels, weary already, and the dog comes nuzzling up to his leg, wagging its filthy tail.

"What," Steve says.

It bites at his ankles, smears grease up the sides of his pants, and Steve sighs and hoists it into his lap. It stands up on its hind legs to look at his face, presses a warm, damp little paw into his chest. Opens its mouth in a grin and pants and cocks its head to the side.

"I fed you," Steve says.

It should look like a dog instead of a greaseball, he thinks. He can put it in Tony's sleeping bag while he goes to get more wood. It looks so happy, even covered and slick with filth and obviously underfed like it is. It wags its tail.

Steve thinks maybe he should be grateful that he has a living being that doesn't expect anything from him but food.

He wonders what he was thinking, and then he sticks the puppy under his arm and sighs and digs in the pack for the last of the soap.

Tony is waking up and he wishes he wasn't.

He doesn't notice much, but what he does notice is he hurts.

He hurts, and he doesn't remember what it's like not to. It's under his skin and crawling like slow fire in his veins and dug into his marrow. It's stinging where K'arr'n has slipped his blades in and burning where he's landed the bullwhip and the phantom jolt where he's driven an electrical current through his flesh. It's a searing network of nerve endings he wishes he could still turn off.

He's a canvas now, not a man. K'arr'n's blank slate.

He's aching and dizzy, his head is full and heavy and his forehead prickles in the open air. He's cocooned, somehow, for some reason, sweating bullets, warm. K'arr'n is maybe going to take him in a bed today. He wonders if crawling away is advisable (it's not, it's not) but it doesn't matter because he doesn't think he could crawl if he tried, so he lies there like a stone instead.

K'arr'n will kick him if it's not what he's supposed to be doing.

"Stay," K'arr'n's voice says.

There it is.

Tony wonders what it will be today. Because it's always something, it's never nothing, K'arr'n's voice always precedes pain and humiliation. It's his cue. Now is the time to bury himself. But Tony's not in control, he can't manage it, he's nowhere and his mind is nothing, he's feeling and darkness and pain that never subsides. A body, nothing more.

Tony thinks that maybe bodies should die more easily than this.

He tries to remember. He thinks he's been crying, because his eyes feel sticky and puffed, he thinks K'arr'n might have taken him outside, he thinks maybe he remembers begging, but there were drugs, it's a hazy nightmare (everything is a nightmare) and Tony doesn't need to remember. It's irrelevant. It was awful, whatever it was.

"No, stop – fidgeting, come on."

Tony cracks his eyes open and pain slices through his head. There's barely light, it's – a fire, there's a fire, but everything else is dark, and black, and this isn't the tower at all –

"Stop." K'arr'n sounds as miserable as Tony feels.

That's not right.

K'arr'n is sitting, cross-legged, bare-backed, in front of the fire. His shield (Steve's, Steve's shield and Tony gave it to him) is set in front of him, upturned, and he's doing something, moving his hands around. Tony can't see his face, but he's wearing his human skin, and Tony's stomach twists, because K'arr'n is going to play with him.

But K'arr'n isn't talking to Tony.

He's talking to the puppy that's splashing around in his shield, the puppy he's running his filthy Skrull hands over, the puppy that he doesn't need to hurt, because Tony is already going to do whatever he says, Tony was always going to do whatever he says.

Tony thinks –

Tony thinks leave the damn dog alone and what game is this and I'm willing.

"I wouldn't like it either," K'arr'n murmurs, and his voice is hoarse and tired and rough. "I'm almost done, ok, I have to, you smelled like shit."

Tony thinks maybe he's hallucinating.

"I guess you need a name," K'arr'n says, and he reaches an arm up and around, because the puppy is wagging its tail and trying to climb out of the shield, and there's an enormous plasma burn all over his bicep and down his left forearm, what has he been doing, he always lets his grunts get shot for him and it looks like dead muscle and charred flesh and skin knitting back together –

It's a real burn. Real, not for show.

Tony thinks –

"I'm not good at names," K'arr'n says. "I'll think of something, ok?" Tony watches him reach out a hand, watches his muscles flex and fail to do what K'arr'n wants them to, watches him wince. He hisses in pain, comes back with a ratty white t-shirt that's been torn all to fuck. He scoops the puppy up into his arms and scoots closer to the fire and shifts into the light and then Tony sees his back.

There are scars on his skin. They shine, in the dim light of the fire, and Tony knows every one, where they come from, knows how they look in bedroom lighting. But they're wrong, there are dots, there are tiny circles of pink through his lung and his stomach where Sharon –

Where the bullets –

They're pink. They're pink, they're not like the one's he's been reproducing for months.

These look fresh. Barely healed.

The puppy growls and yelps out what it probably means to be a ferocious bark, and K'arr'n stops, bends over, puts a hand on its snout, leans in to murmur in its ear. "Sh-sh-shh," he says. "You're gonna wake him up." The puppy responds by gnawing on his hand, and he sighs and presses his lips together and looks at the ceiling, and why is there stubble on his jaw –

Oh no.

He stands, and Tony closes his eyes, Tony plays dead, but he doesn't think it matters, because he would've been on him by now if he wanted to, he would have fucking flayed the thing in front of him by now, he would have –

He hasn't.

Tony opens his eyes, and he's kneeling there, next to him, the puppy in his arms.

It's Steve's face, and he's filthy and he's dirty and there are deep dark shadows worn in under his eyes. He looks utterly weary, and old, older than Steve has ever looked, harrowed, and Tony doesn't know what to do, because he looks like he's been crying.

That wasn't a dream.

His eyes.

It's me, please believe me –

(Tony doesn't dare believe.)

"Here," the man that isn't K'arr'n chokes out, and dumps the puppy on his stomach. It crawls on him, sprawls out like a blanket, yawns a tremendous yawn and falls right back asleep. "She'll keep you warm," he says quietly. He crosses back to the fire, dumps the water out of the shield. Shrugs on a parka that's leaking feathers everywhere. Hoists an AR-7 over his shoulder. "I'm going to get us more wood," he says, and he doesn't look at Tony. "I know you don't –" he starts, his voice is tight and he has to suck in a shaky breath before he continues. "It's ok," he says. "I don't – I don't expect anything, ok."

Tony thinks he sounds disappointed.

He finishes lacing his boots, slings the shield over his back. "I'll leave this here," he mumbles, and he puts a pistol on the ground next to Tony's body before stepping an entire meter away. "In case anyone shows up." He stands back, lowers his eyes, scrubs a torn-up hand through his filthy blond hair. "I won't be gone long," he says. He turns away, slowly, deliberately, and Tony thinks that maybe his breath hitches a little, but then he's walking away, he's ducking out and he's not coming back.

Tony is alone.

Tony tries to remember the last time he's been alone, and can't. He lies there, stares at the place where he was standing, tries to push away the feeling that's crawling around inside him, because this is a thing that can't be true, this is –

This is impossible.

He saw the body.

(People come back all the time.)

The dog licks his face, and Tony stares at it, and Tony thinks about what K'arr'n would do to a puppy if the things he's done to Tony are any indication at all.

This is impossible, and absurd, except it isn't, maybe, except no one's tried to hurt him or force him or drag him out to shiver in a snow bank for 2 hours and there's no reason for K'arr'n to manufacture facial hair or new wounds or change the color of his fake scars or –

It's Steve. I swear, Tony –

There's no reason for K'arr'n to have sobbed over him while he slept.

There's no reason for K'arr'n not to have touched him.

(This is worse, this is worse and not better, this is –)

Tony sends the puppy tumbling, he tears at the sleeping bag, he grits his teeth and cries and swears because he can't fucking grip the zipper because his fingertips hurt so much. He gets it, finally, and his arms ache and the puppy keeps sniffing his fucking face and Tony looks down and –

And there are bandages all over his body. He's still naked, but he's not chained up like a slave, and he's clean, and he's warm, and there's iodine smeared yellow all over his skin and someone's stitched him up–

Someone.

It's Steve. It's me. Please, Tony –

No one has violated him today.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

Tony sits up, and there's nothing in his head but panic, and his whole body is screaming to do it. He feels the warm rush of blood seeping into the gauze on his stomach, but it's nothing, it's a splinter when his whole body is a gaping wound, because Steve was dead, Steve was dead and that was Steve and Tony is just a miserable fool and a disgrace and a waste and –

No, no, no –

No.

Tony –

Steve knows what he's done.

Steve knows everything he's done. Knows what a traitor he is.

He knows, and Tony is going to have to look him in the eye, and he won't be able to do it, and Steve is going to be disgusted, he's going to hate him, he's going to hate him (still) and everything he's done and everything he is and Tony can't –

Tony thinks that maybe he could bear this kind of shame if it were anyone else.

But it's not, is it.

It's his hero. It's what he wanted, it's Steve he's been imagining these long months, every kiss and every fuck and every mouthful of come was supposed to be with Steve, it was supposed to be Steve bursting in through that fucking cell door.

(Everything Tony wants, everything and nothing, he gets.)

Tony looks at his hands and looks at the gun on the ground next to him and thinks that maybe Steve left it there for a reason.

Tony isn't going to argue with reason.

Steve ducks in, his arms full of wood, his hair dripping wet with melted snow, and he feels the briefest moment of control. A split second of calm.

Then he drops the wood all over the place.

Because Tony isn't there.

Tony's sleeping bag is empty except for the dog, who's nestled down into the foot of it, apparently unconcerned and sound asleep. Steve's heart is racing already, he's such an idiot, he never should have left, he should have –

Steve tears out of the cave, ignores the fact that this is dumb, and he has no compass and no shield and none of it fucking matters because Tony is out, in the snow, and what if K'arr'n –

No, Steve decides. No evidence. He's going to go insane if he thinks that way.

It's snowing, but it's not wild gusts of wind, it's soft, and quiet, and eerily appropriate for this dead world he's woken up to. He traipses through trees, and Tony's left footprints, dotted with red specks of blood, unevenly spaced, like he's stumbled and caught himself. He must be alone then (he has to be), and Steve should be relieved, but he's cold and terrified and Tony is alone in the night somewhere. Steve follows his trail, and there are places where he's obviously tanked, Tony-sized marks left in drifts from last night, and Steve makes himself jog, clutching at his stomach, because it's snowing and it's dark and he can't lose him –

Steve rounds a thicket of rhododendrons, and there he is.

Tony is kneeling in a clearing of sorts, his purpling skin stark against the white, some of his bandages already soaked through with blood. He's still naked, he must not have found the clothes in the pack (how could he possibly, his fingers), but he's not holding himself, he's not bracing against the cold, he doesn't even seem to notice the cold. Steve thinks maybe he's in shock. There's snow on his elbows from where he's fallen. He's here because he couldn't make it any further.

"Tony," Steve says.

Tony doesn't move, but Steve can hear him shivering, can see the goosebumps on his arms. He toes around him in a wide arc, and his boots sound in the inch or so that's fallen, and –

And Tony is holding the Glock in his lap.

"I can't," Tony says, like that's explanation enough, and it almost gets lost the flurry of snow.

"What," Steve says, "You can't what." He sinks, terribly slowly, takes the strap off and sets the rifle in the snow. Because Tony thinks he's – him, and Tony is going to point the gun at him, and Tony is going to shoot him, maybe.

Tony looks up at Steve, and he can barely hold his head up. It's not dark at all, really, the moon's out and the sky is all polluted and Steve can see the blue of his eyes shining with tears. "I can't do this again," he rasps, and he doesn't have his voice back yet. He's screamed it all away.

"Do what," Steve says, and he realizes too late that he's whispering.

"It's really you," Tony says, looking at his lap, turning the gun over in his hands.

Steve thinks maybe his heart would be leaping if he could feel it.

"Yeah," he says. He inches forward, step by terrible step. "I'm me, Tony, put the gun down."

Tony doesn't say anything, there's just the sound of his labored breathing, the slide of metal on skin, the soft fall of snow and the wind in the dead trees, and then Steve freezes, because he's racking the slide, with bleeding fingers, and Steve doesn't even know how he's managing it, because he doesn't have any fucking nails on that hand –

"I thought you were him. When you came for me," Tony says, and Steve is calculating weight ratios and how much force it would take to wrestle the gun away from him –

"No," Steve whispers, harsher than he means to be. "I'm really me."

"You were really you last time, too," Tony says quietly. He keeps his eyes open, and Steve thinks he sees a tear running down his cheek, but his face is miserably resolute.

"Tony," Steve says, "It's cold, please, come on," and Tony screws up his face and closes his eyes and his hand is quaking –

"There's no reason for you to be here," Tony says, and it sounds like he's choking.

"Tony -"

"There's nothing you could possibly want to say to me," he says. "You could only be here because you had to be."

"That's not – "

"You're Captain America," Tony mumbles, like he's said this thousands of times already. He's thought this before. He already knows how this is going to end. "It's what you do."

"I'm Steve, too," Steve says, and he realizes he's holding his breath. "It's what I wanted to do."

Tony breathes out a sigh that might actually be a sob, and he shifts, he looks up again, and his face is wet, his eyes are spilling over with silent tears.

"No, it wasn't," Tony says.

Then he puts the gun to his temple.

Steve doesn't think.

(He should have expected this, shouldn't he.)

Steve doesn't think, and so he lunges forward, and then he realizes he needs to think, that Tony's fucking life depends on his composure right now, and he just barely stops himself from tackling him to the ground. He's had training on this sort of thing, but it's Tony who's doing it now, not some random person on a bridge, or a tower, and he's shaking, and he can't do this, he needs Carol or Maria or someone levelheaded, someone who can talk him down in a level voice and pretend their world isn't falling apart–

"Tony, please," Steve says, and he knows he has to keep his voice level and calm but he doesn't know how. "Just, please, please, don't, ok, I don't –"

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" Tony says, and his eyes snap open, rimmed with red and terribly, terribly lifeless. "You were gonna do it yourself before they pulled you away."

"The war is over," Steve whispers. "Please, Tony."

"Do you know how I knew?" Tony says.

"How," Steve croaks, because he'll do anything to keep him talking, because this cannot be how this ends, not after – not after –

"You didn't rape me," Tony says, like that's a normal thing to say. "You didn't try."

Steve feels like he's been shot.

"No, I would never," he chokes, ashamed and guilty and heartbroken. How could you think I would, he thinks.

Tony shuts his eyes, and his mouth falls open in a terrible jagged grimace. "I'm tired," he gasps, his body so slight in the snow, his eyes sunk in dark circles. "I didn't want you to see me like this."

"Tony," Steve says. "I've already seen you, I don't care, I just want you to be ok – "

Tony chokes out the barest of laughs.

"I'm not ok," he says, "I'm really not."

"I know, just, please, put the gun down, ok, you're bleeding again –"

"Why are you here," Tony says.

"Because I had to get you out," Steve whispers.

"No," Tony gasps. "Why are you here. Why is it you."

Steve doesn't know how to answer that. "Who did you want it to be?" he croaks.

Tony stares at him, and Steve can't read him, because how do you read a face that's so tired and sad, that used to be alive. "It had to be you," Tony says finally, and his voice is so flat and desperate and cold. "It had to be you, because you're the only one who would do it, weren't you."

"No," Steve says, and the word barely makes it out of his mouth.

Something like a laugh makes its way out of Tony's mouth, choked and twisted up in tears and shuddering gasps. "You're a shit liar," he says. "I should have known because you're a shit liar and he was, he –" He's not breathing right, he's sucking in air and staring at his knees, and his lip is trembling and he squeezes his eyes shut –

"You couldn't have known," Steve says, but it's harsh in his mouth, and he doesn't believe it, not really. Tony looks, and looks, and then his hand is shaking and Steve realizes, too late, how unnecessarily bitter that sounded.

Tony though, Tony didn't miss it.

He bursts into tears and curls over in half, the barrel still pressed to his temple, and his mouth falls open, slick and red and bleeding from where he's bitten into his lip. "I should have," he sobs, and then he's breaking apart, the gun is falling out of his hands. He folds in on himself, clutching his mangled fingers in his hair, and Steve can see every single one of his vertebrae under his skin. "I could have known," he sobs, "what did I do. What did I do."

Steve sinks to his knees, slower than he should, snatches the Glock and his rifle up out of the snow.

He wants to say something. He wants to say a thousand things. He wants to apologize. He wants to yell. He wants to say something that isn't going to make Tony want to eat a bullet.

But nothing that comes out in his voice is ever going to be the right thing to say. Not now.

"Tony," he tries, "I'm." His voice is cracking, he doesn't know how to be anything he has to be right now, because he's terrified, because Tony doesn't care and Tony cares too much and it scares him how much that scares him.

"I'm sorry," Tony gulps. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"You didn't do anything," he mumbles, utterly lost. How could you, he thinks.

"I did," Tony sobs. "You don't understand what I've done."

Steve thinks he understands entirely too well.

"Tony," Steve says desperately, "stop crying, ok, please, it's 20 degrees, you're freezing out here."

Tony gasps into his hands and rocks back and forth and howls. "Let me freeze," he says, "how can you even look at me."

"No, Tony, come on," Steve says, because he thinks Tony's hyperventilating. "Ok, ok, please, it's ok, just." He's not even sure if Tony hears him or not, and it's never been more not ok –

"Shoot me," Tony says between sobs, and Steve's heart clenches in his chest.

"No," Steve breathes, "I'm not gonna shoot you, I'm not going to hurt you, ok, you're safe –"

"Please," Tony sobs. "I'm asking you, please."

"I'm not shooting you," Steve says, feeling mildly hysterical, "No one is shooting anyone –"

"I CAN'T DO IT," Tony wails, and he's sobbing and spitting and there's snot all over his chin. "I can't do it because I'm a coward and I, I let, you have to, god, just –"

"I just got you back," Steve says, and he's yelling, wound too tight and and terrified and hurting, and Tony. "I just got you out, you selfish fuck, how can you ask me that, how can you, Jesus –"

Tony is falling over, he's lying in the snow, he's sobbing and his skin is all pebbled goosebumps and patches where the hair on his arms won't stand up because there's too much scar tissue. "I know," he's sobbing, "I know I'm selfish, I know, I –"

"Oh, Jesus, no, I didn't – stop, ok," Steve says, and he's forgotten that he can't be cruel, he forgets that he can't touch Tony, and he goes to pick him up, to wrap him in his jacket, and Tony wails when Steve's fingers touch his skin.

Steve can't hold himself together anymore.

"Tony, just, please," he says, and he's begging now, because there's nothing else he can do. "Please, I'm sorry, I have to, you're so cold. Look, look at your fingers, come on, it's 2 minutes, ok, that's all it is, please, let me, ok, I'm sorry."

"I don't care," Tony cries. "I don't fucking care. I'm a waste, I don't, I –" Tony can't say anything else, then, because he's sobbing too hard, and Steve doesn't understand how they could let this happen –

"Tony, please," Steve says miserably, because he cares, he cares and he wishes he didn't, and Tony is going to freeze and Tony wants to kill himself and Steve isn't crying, he can't be crying right now, he's going to be the strong one. Then it doesn't matter, because his vision is going blurry, his eyes are welling up and it's beyond his control and hot and wet all over his cheeks anyway. He bends, and doesn't want to, he runs his terrible undeserving hands over Tony's trembling body and scoops him up, absolutely certain he's going to hell for this.

Tony stops making noise entirely, and it's because of Steve, it has to be, and he wants to sob and wants to scream and doesn't do anything but bite it back. Steve dares to look down, and Tony's still crying, he's just choking back his sobs now, swallowing them down in silence, staring off into space. A ghost.

Steve fixes his gaze straight ahead, feels the tears rolling off his face. "I'm sorry," says. It's hopelessly inadequate, but there's nothing better he can think of. "I didn't mean for this to happen," he chokes out.

He's not sure what he meant to happen.

Not this.

He thinks he expected to throw some punches and part ways, bitter and angry and done. He thinks he meant to hurt Tony, because Tony meant to hurt him (didn't he?) and Tony beat him down and Tony threw him out and Steve wanted to hate.

He thinks that he wants to be angry, and can't be.

He thinks that's probably the wrong way to feel.

He feels his stomach twisting and thinks that maybe they're both paying.

"Forgive me," Tony is sobbing.

Steve can't say anything, so he doesn't.

Steve ducks into the cave, and he refuses to think about anything but getting Tony warm again.

His lips are blue.

Tony is silent and cold and pale, so Steve mumbles apologies, puts him down and stuffs him back into the sleeping bag. The fire is almost out, and he grabs some of the wood and shoves it into the smoldering pile of ash, pokes it until it stirs up again. He finds the hopelessly inadequate stuff he'd stuffed in the pack for Tony, a grey Henley and a pair of black pants, and he wishes he'd thought to bring underwear. Tony should feel like a person again.

Tony gasps, and every time, every goddamn noise he makes is like a fucking knife to his heart, and Steve can't, but he has to, has to work faster, get him dressed, get him warm, get him away –

Then he turns around, and Tony is clawing his way up into a sitting position, looking absolutely terrified.

Tony is looking at the mouth of the cave.

"You've caused me a great deal of trouble, Captain," K'arr'n says.

Steve is overcome by the urge to rip his throat out and paint the walls with his blood.

He's standing just inside, the snow still melting on the toes of his boots. He's wearing black, and he looks like a Skrull today, not Steve, although he's still got tawny hair that's sticking up all over the place and Steve's eyes. There's a cut over his left brow, a darker green than his skin, already healing.

He's holding the puppy by the scruff of its neck.

He's playing with his dagger with the other hand, and the puppy's tail is between her legs, and she lets out a pitiful whimper and flails her paws. "You humans love to pick up strays," K'arr'n says, and he cradles the dog in his arms instead. He smiles. "It's precious."

Steve doesn't actually think about what he's doing until his shield is in his hand and he's tackling K'arr'n to the ground.

He doesn't think about the burns on his hip or his stomach, or the rifle that's falling off his shoulder and clattering to the ground, or the fact that his entire arm is searing with burning pain, or Tony hyperventilating and trying to crawl away in his peripheral vision.

Steve thinks die and burn in hell and I'm going to fucking kill you.

K'arr'n drops the puppy, and it yelps and rolls onto its feet and scampers away off into the cave somewhere. They fall together, hard, and Steve is already swinging, Steve's fist is connecting with muscle and bone and cartilage, and K'arr'n gasps, or maybe laughs, but it doesn't fucking matter, because this is what Steve does and he's going to bash his green fucking face in.

K'arr'n knees him in the chest. Steve wheezes, but he's grinning too, or maybe it's a snarl, because he's raising his arm, the straps of his shield slung over his elbow, and he's bearing down with all of his weight and K'arr'n has really fucked up because Steve is not in the fucking mood–

He hits stone, instead of Skrull spinal column. Steve swears a blue streak, because he's forgotten, K'arr'n is quick, and K'arr'n has his memories and his skills, and K'arr'n is possibly just as good at this as he is (better, maybe)–

Steve recovers, barely, grabs K'arr'n's wrists, his shield secure on his arm, and tries with all his might to force K'arr'n's hands up above his head. He means to send the dagger flying, he means for him to drop it, but it's not enough, his shoulder aches and his arm is burning and he can't get his breath because his stomach is bleeding again, and K'arr'n just smiles and pushes back, brings the hand clutching his dagger closer, closer to Steve's throat, where the zipper to the parka is coming undone –

"I don't think so," K'arr'n says, and Steve grits his teeth, and where is his strength now, when he needs it most, why is K'arr'n so much stronger than he is –

K'arr'n rolls them over, and then Steve is being pulled up and slammed into the ground, his head is cracking against stone and the pain is blinding and aching and stabbing all at once, and then K'arr'n is pulling the shield off his arm like it's nothing –

Steve rolls, blind, kicks, and he thinks he successfully knees K'arr'n in the groin because he gasps and Steve is mercifully free for a moment. He forces himself to his feet, blinks purple spots out of his vision, tries to hear around the ringing in his ears, and there's blood in his mouth, he's bitten his tongue –

K'arr'n is already back on his feet though, and then he's slamming Steve against the wall, swiping his knife in a wide arc and it rips through Steve's shoulder and he screams. This is bad, he thinks, and he feels faraway and mildly embarrassed and mostly bone-weary and ashamed, because K'arr'n is better than him, and he's bleeding a lot (too much), and Tony –

There's no one left to keep him safe.

Steve thinks he's falling, then, or maybe he's being dragged down, but K'arr'n is on top of him, K'arr'n is straddling him, wrapping a massive green hand around his throat. "I'm going to kill you this time," K'arr'n says. "Just so you know." He reaches behind him for something. "There's no tool more appropriate for the task, really."

K'arr'n brings the shield down, then, and Steve feels his collarbone shatter.

Tony is screaming, he's yelling something and Steve can't even open his eyes to look, he's in so much pain. He thinks his throat is bleeding, he thinks he's choking, maybe, and then K'arr'n brings the shield down again and Steve feels at least four of his ribs fracturing.

"Tell me, Captain," K'arr'n says, throwing the shield down with a clatter, ripping his dagger out of its sheath to hold it up beneath Steve's eye. "Was it worth it?"

Steve opens his mouth to breathe in air, but he tastes blood bubbling up on his tongue instead.

K'arr'n drives his blade into Steve's stomach.

Then he twists, and Steve is gasping and someone is screaming (it might be him). K'arr'n pulls the dagger out, holds it up between them. Watches Steve's blood drip off the blade.

"What were you going to do," K'arr'n says conversationally, "once you'd saved your whore?"

Steve didn't think he'd die like this.

K'arr'n stabs him again. Steve can't keep the blood out of his mouth.

"Stay awake, Captain," K'arr'n says. "I want you to watch this."

Tony, he thinks, and then he can't think any more.

Tony is sure now.

Tony watches K'arr'n stabbing the shit out of Steve, flesh and blood and alive, and thinks that his heart wouldn't be ripping itself apart if he were another imposter.

Steve is dying. Right now. All over again.

Because of Tony.

"I want you to see what he is," K'arr'n is saying, and Steve is moving his lips, and no sound is coming out, and K'arr'n smiles, and he's getting up, fucking hell, he's getting up and he's wiping Steve's blood off on his pants –

Steve isn't moving. There's blood running out the side of his mouth. His eyes are open, his pupils are all strangled. He's gasping in pain. There's blood in his lungs.

(He's dying.)

"Did you miss me," K'arr'n says to Tony, and he's not bothering to change his face, even, and Tony looks at the rifle lying on the ground and thinks that he could, but it's a fucking .22, and it would be like a bee-sting to K'arr'n –

K'arr'n sees Tony looking, and he laughs.

Tony crouches, and Tony is panicking, he doesn't know what to do, he can't stop looking at Steve and he's already thinking ahead to the part where he kneels and begs and cries and the puppy is cowering behind him, as if he can do anything, as if he'll protect it –

K'arr'n snatches the rifle up, in one smooth motion, twists it around in his hands. Grins.

"No," K'arr'n says. "Nice try."

K'arr'n bashes his teeth in with it.

Tony falls, and he's too unsteady to get his hands out in time, and his head cracks against the floor of the cave. He blinks, and blinks, and the puppy whimpers and he can feel it shaking against his bare thigh. His mouth is full of blood. He thinks he feels one of his teeth rolling around under his tongue. The back of his head feels warm.

"See," K'arr'n says, "You have nowhere to go."

Tony lies there, feels the world going dim. He thinks he's not getting enough oxygen. He thinks he might pass out. He thinks he doesn't want Steve to see this happen.

"It's better this way, Tony, you're ruined. He doesn't want you. He never did."

Tony knows. K'arr'n doesn't need to say so.

K'arr'n kneels over him where he's fallen. Cups Tony's face in one of his hands. "Do your best," he says. "The Captain is watching."

Tony closes his eyes and hopes that Steve is dead already.

He waits, half-conscious. He feels K'arr'n touching his cheek, hears the puppy whimpering somewhere off to his right, feels blood sliding down his throat.

Then Tony hears the snick of blades extending.

K'arr'n is screaming. In pain or anger, Tony isn't sure.

The cave is on fire, he thinks, except he's not burning. It's terribly bright, and Tony lies there, thinking that maybe this is a botched assault, maybe Veranke's had enough of K'arr'n's bullshit and they're all going to be torched this time. He can't see, it's all light, he can feel the air humming with energy, and K'arr'n is gone, K'arr'n is screaming again –

Tony can't bring himself to care.

"Fucking Christ, can you, OW, just fucking stay down, you fucking cunt –"

The light turns purple, and Tony is certain he's hallucinating.

"Jesus FUCK," someone shrieks. "What the hell was that, he just –"

"Carol," someone says.

Tony's head feels warm. Soft.

"Carol, I need you, now –"

"Oh my god, Jesus, he's – is he even alive, oh my god, Logan, he's –"

"I know, Christ, ok, take him, you're faster, I'll get Stark – "

"Oh my god, Logan, Tony–"

"I know, I see, fucking fly him out of here, Danvers –"

Someone leans over Tony, and someone is fitting him into something soft. Tony can't see, but he smells like cigars, and it's Logan, it has to be –

"It's just me," Logan says. "Gonna take you back, ok, bub?"

Tony opens his mouth to say something, and only blood comes out.

"Stay with me," Logan says.

Tony is already gone.