Cat: *taps my shoulder*

Me: No, I can't scratch you. I'm in the middle of doing something.

Cat: *meows sadly*

Me: *sigh* You're lucky you're cute. *scratches cat*

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Natasha pivoted on her left foot and brought her right around to strike the inside of Steve's knee. If it wasn't for the sheer surprise that she could kick that hard, Steve probably wouldn't have fallen forward and let go of her arm. Not that he wanted to keep holding her back anyway. Tony was already gone, and it was just the sheer shock of what had just happened that kept him rooted to the spot and his hand tight around the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent's arm.

Now it wasn't the fact that Tony left that came as a huge shock to him, Steve knew that he had been probably planning that from the start. What came as such a shock was that he had stopped Natasha from stopping Tony. He didn't know what had come over him. Natasha hadn't been in a position where she could get hurt – after all, the lab had a lot of open space, especially towards the garage area where the platform was located. Tony could have easily gone around her – so the only reason he could logically come up with was that he wanted to get her out of Tony's way.

It didn't make sense, seeing as he agreed with her. Tony needed to go back to the hospital, ASAP. He did seem a little better after spending some time resting, but the fact that he was struggling to even walk on his own told Steve that he was in no shape to go running into a fight. In the end, it didn't really matter. He made an impulsive decision and now Tony was going to get hurt or worse. Even if he wasn't wrongly attracted to him, Steve would still feel horribly guilty for that. He could have stopped Tony from doing something stupid, but instead, he let him get what he wanted. He looked up at Natasha, who had a fire in her green eyes.

"What the hell was that?" she asked.

"I don't know," Steve said honestly.

"What do you mean you 'don't know?'" Natasha asked. "You just let Stark fly off to who-knows-where to do God-knows-what. Did he even say where he was going?"

"As I said, he's going after the guy who robbed him. He didn't say exactly where that was." Natasha shook her head in exasperation. "I did get a name, though," Steve offered, causing the agent's eyes to perk up. "Vasyl Can-nez-a-vick? I might not be saying that right."

"Vasyl Knežević," Natasha said flawlessly. "Eastern European."

"Right," Steve said. "Is it enough for you to figure out where he's going?"

"It's enough for me to give S.H.I.E.L.D. so they can go find him," Natasha said. "We need to get back to New York. We wasted enough time already." Steve took a step back from the redheaded agent, narrowing his eyes.

"No." Natasha tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. Steve stood his ground. "Tony's going to get himself hurt or killed if he tries to fight anyone in his condition."

"Then why did you let him go?"

"I don't know," was the only thing he was willing to offer the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Mostly because he was still so confused by what Tony had said. Honestly, the man seemed genuinely surprised when Steve suggested that they could get arrested for being gay. Tony had said people didn't "think like that now." He shook his head. There was no way this was thought of as "normal." It was an unfixable disease. People who were unfixable either went to jail or the asylum. That's just how it was. He wasn't going to tell this woman that he was attracted to Tony, especially when it seemed she already had it out for the guy, given the incredibly inconsistent misleading character assessment she wrote of him.

Despite this, Steve could feel most of the anxiety that had been ravaging him all day slowly sliding away, being replaced with a sense of self-confidence that he hadn't felt since he crashed the plane into the Arctic. He had to stand up for Tony here. The man clearly wasn't running at one-hundred percent and he was going to get himself hurt. Steve looked Natasha clearly in the eyes and stood tall.

"Listen," he said. "I know I probably could have done more to stop him, but I don't think it would have mattered anyway. Tony had his mind set on going after this guy and nothing was going to stop him. Just like how I have my mind set on helping Tony and nothing is going to stop me."

"I can't let you do that, Captain Rogers," she said. "I'm under strict orders to extract you and return to New York immediately. You've already been out here too long."

"Too long?" Steve said. "I've been out too long? What, does S.H.I.E.L.D. think I'm it's property now?"

"No," Natasha said. "Director Fury is worried about overwhelming you with too much of the world at once. Things have changed a lot for both the better and worse and given the fact that you only woke up four days ago… You haven't had time to process this; this world, what happened, all of it. It's a lot to take in at once and it's confusing…"

"How would you know?" Steve asked. "You haven't been through this. Nobody's been through this and instead of helping me out or trying to make me feel welcome or anything, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been keeping me locked up in an apartment with no one to talk to and nothing to do but read a few outdated, half-redacted files. Tony's the only one who's tried to help me so far despite being so sick and I'm grateful for that. Now, I'm not just going to let him go jump into a dangerous situation and hope for the best. I'm going to find him, and I'm going to help him. You can try to stop me, Agent Romanoff, but no matter what I'm not going to stop until that I know that Tony's safe and getting the care he needs."

He stepped away from the redheaded agent, not bothering to try and read the expression on her face. Taking a moment to organize his thoughts, Steve got a rough idea of what he needed to do in no order. One, find out where Tony was going. Two, figure out a way to get to Tony. Three, figure out how to protect Tony. Those three things were simple, but the resolutions were hard to come by.

One, Los Angeles was huge and trying to find one single person would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Two, as far as he could tell Tony only owned cars and while he had driven a few times, he was nowhere near confident enough to try driving in a high-density area and having not had time to become familiar with the modern controls. Three, S.H.I.E.L.D. had his shield and while he had the physical prowess and improvisation skills to make due without it, he had a feeling that it would be safer to have an actual barrier to put in-between Tony and this psychopath. Maybe he had just grown overly reliant on the shield.

Almost immediately after the thought occurred to him, a shiny glint of red caught his eye. Walking over to a series of tubes, wires, and metal parts that Tony had stacked up in one corner, Steve could see a familiar(ish) shape amidst whatever disassembled mess this was. Reaching in and freeing the piece of metal from the pile, Steve could see that it was his shield. Well, at least a replica of it. It's heavier weight and the layers of ripped-apart metal made it clear that it wasn't made of vibranium. Inspecting it carefully, Steve realized that it probably wouldn't work in the flying discus way he usually threw it, but it would still at the very least hold up if somebody tried to get between him and Tony.

With one task struck down, Steve turned back to see Natasha standing just a few feet behind him. He jumped a bit in shock and realized that even with his enhanced hearing, he hadn't been able to hear her coming up behind him. She was good, he'd give her that at least.

"Alright," Natasha said. "I'll help you find Stark, but only because part of our deal was to get him back to the hospital, understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," Steve said.

"Natasha," she corrected. "So, do you seriously not know where he's going."

"No clue at all," he admitted.

"Alright," she said. "Don't worry, I know how to find him." That didn't make Steve feel reassured at all, but he accepted it as he and Natasha began to make their way out of the lab and back upstairs. "So, did I miss something or was Stark just trying to get to me back there?"

"What do you mean?" Steve narrowed his eyes at the sudden, unspurred question.

"That stuff he said about 'compulsive tendencies' and 'textbook narcissism.' Did I miss something there because I don't know what he was talking about?" Steve stopped in his tracks and did the best "are you kidding me" look he could give in the situation.

Pepper slid the elastic band back into place as she got off the elevator. She had just spent the past few hours arguing with various board members and negotiating between the hospital and police to devise a plan to keep the media away from the area. The last thing Tony needed right now was cameras in his face while he was trying to recover. It was a long and grueling process, but eventually, they worked out a plan. That at the very least was good.

Currently, she was heading back up to Tony's room to let him know that she had gotten off the phone with Col. Rhodes, who was being held up in Kuwait now but was going to visit him as soon as he was back on U.S. soil. She felt bad for the guy, but at least his visit would cheer Tony up. That's what she told herself as she tried to suppress a yawn. She also needed to be heading out. It was a long day and tomorrow was promising to be even longer. She wished she could stay a bit longer, but her eyes were growing heavier with each passing second. Pepper knew if she didn't get on the road now, she'd be liable to pass out behind the wheel and start a forty-two-car pile-up.

At least he won't be alone, she thought. That Steve there sure seems to be determined to stick by him no matter what. Although she had been suspicious and wary of Steve at first, his concern for Tony seemed to be nonetheless genuine. She didn't get entirely what was going on there, but if Tony was happy and wasn't in any immediate danger, then she supposed she had no right to complain. Tony was moving on and believe it or not that took a huge weight off Pepper's shoulders. She knew they wouldn't work as a couple, but she still wanted to be Tony's friend and it lessened the strain not to have the "break up" (if you could even call it that) hanging over their heads. She honestly wished them both the best of luck. Tony deserved to be able to smile like that at least after all the stuff he's been through today alone, never mind the rest of his life.

The first thing Pepper had noticed was off was that she could hear the TV on in Tony's room and the volume on it was blasting. Tony was supposed to be resting and he never turned the sound up that loud. The second thing she noticed that was off was that someone was speaking French in the room. Tony knew French, but Pepper knew his voice wasn't that feminine. Pushing the door open, Pepper saw Lara sitting on the edge of the bed, talking on her cell phone while inspecting her nails. The sensor on her right index finger made it clear what she was doing.

"Oui, Angelina Jolie essaie de tuer Brad Pitt maintenant," Lara rattled off to the phone. "Pourquoi? Je ne sais pas! Je pense qu'ils doivent s'entretuer maintenant qu'ils savent qu'ils sont des espions ou quoi que ce soit. Si vous cessez de poser des questions, je pourrais mieux vous expliquer le film." Lara looked up to see what was going on on-screen when she finally took notice of Pepper standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. Lara's face blanched. "Hey, J.P., I'm going to have to call you back. Oui. Je t'aime aussi, mon frère. Au revoir." Lara hung up the phone and turned back to Pepper. "In my defense, Tony was the one who asked me to do this and he said to be completely honest with you when I tell you that he's doing an Iron Man thing and he's going to come right back once it's taken care of."

Pepper huffed in aggravation, turned and left the room. She couldn't believe this and honestly had to wonder whether Tony had an actual death wish. As she walked down the hall, looking for a nurse she could notify of Tony's sudden disappearance, she heard Lara call out "I'm not fired, am I?"

Police chatter and records disclose a lot. For example, if there was a psycho going around killing people by turning them into stone, they'd take notice of it and be scrambling to try and stop it. Tony had no idea how that was even possible – in fact, he was worried that he had passed out back at the hospital and this was all some sort of crazed fever dream – but apparently, that's what was going down.

First and foremost, once he left the house, Tony asked JARVIS to find whatever he could on Vasyl Knežević. Apparently, the man had previously been arrested for possession of illegal explosive components and child endangerment (lovely) and was recently released. Now, he was suspected of murdering his children, sister-in-law, and about three dozen others. The only guess that Tony had now as to how he was able to pull all this off was that he had somehow enhanced himself using the chemicals he had stolen from Stark Industries. He could figure out the exact specifics later once the guy was locked away for good and Tony could once again think at a speed faster than four words-per-second. (Yeah, leaving the hospital wasn't the best idea, especially since JARVIS was giving him warnings that his temperature was rising back up into the danger zone.)

The BOLO stated that Knežević had been last seen wearing "only a soiled pair of underwear" and as having the ability to "turn anything he touched to stone." So, when reports of several 911 calls complaining about an intoxicated Asian man clad in only his underwear throwing rocks at people and screaming at them to get off the beach started to come in from the Vista Del Mar area, it was pretty much an obvious give-away as to where the wanted man was located.

By the time Tony got there, police cars had already shown up, however, it didn't seem like the cops had managed to connect the dots as he did. Only two patrol cars had shown up at this point and it looked like they were more concerned with interviewing the aggravated beachgoers than doing anything to contain the suspect. JARVIS's facial recognition systems quickly identified Knežević. He was sitting by himself on the edge of a stone jetty. He seemed to be perfectly content even though waves were flying up and drenching him about every ten seconds. That did make Tony nervous, though. He had to remind himself that he was in the suit – which was waterproof – and had no immediate way of drowning. (If the suit's emergency air supply failed and he was at the bottom of the ocean, he'd be screwed, but he tried not to think about that.)

He landed in a somewhat even spot on the rocks just a few feet from Knežević. The criminal didn't even look behind him as he took a swig from the crystalline bottle he was holding.

"You know, Oswin tried to warn me about this," Knežević said. "She said by robbing you we'd essentially be asking for you to show up in your Iron Man armor and kick out asses. I'm just surprised it took you this long."

In all honesty, it surprised Tony that it took him this long, too. He wished he could use this sudden onset of a medical condition as an excuse, but, he knew he had to admit that he got a little distracted by Steve. After all, why waste time tracking down a nameless, faceless criminal when you can spend it with a good-looking super soldier that you might have conflicting feelings about? Tony wanted to beam himself off the head for that. He supposed that's why karma had kicked in and he was now getting pelted by the spray of the waves every thirty seconds; death by dramatic irony.

"Listen, I don't want to do anything to hurt you," he lied. "Just go to the police over there and turn yourself in. End this all right now before more people get hurt." Knežević laughed in response.

"Do you really think I'm going to do that?" he said. "Hell no. I spent the last decade in jail and I swore to myself I wouldn't die there. I swore that I'd make it back to Audrey and Stephanie…" He tried to take another swig from the bottle but found that it was empty. He threw it out into the ocean in anger and it sank rather than float back up to the surface. "Nah, man. I'm not going back to jail, and you can't make me."

Tony rolled his eyes. He offered Knežević the path of least resistance and if the man was fool enough not to take it, that wasn't his problem. Tony grabbed Knežević by the upper arm and hoisted him upwards. He was about to make some snarky, sarcastic remark when Knežević turned and twisted in his grip, placing the other hand on Tony's armor covered forearm.

What happened next astounded Tony. He watched as the red-shaded gold-titanium alloy changed to clear, see-through stone. Although some pieces of wiring and a few inner components were now visible, the inner layers of armor and everything else he could see appeared to be unharmed. Knežević smirked.

"Guess you weren't counting on me to have a special party trick, were you?" Tony had to admit, he was hoping for those claims of "turning people to stone" was just a mass delusion created by terrified witnesses to a brutal murder.

"JARVIS," Tony said.

"The left-side gauntlet remains fully functional," the AI responded. "But I would not suggest allowing Mr. Knežević to touch you again. Continual conversion of the entirety of the external plating would render the armor completely useless."

"Yeah," Tony said. "That's what I thought." Tony jerked his arm back to get Knežević to let go. Knežević fell to his knees but sprung up quickly, scrambling past Tony and back towards the beach. Tony flew over to where the jetty met the shore, intending to block his path of escape. "So, what are my options here?"

"Very limited, Sir," JARVIS responded. "Direct contact with the repulsors will render them non-functional, contact with the armor's joints will cause it to become stuck, and contact with the housing for the Arc Reactor will cause the armor to power down."

"Right," Tony said. "Avoid direct contact with his hands. The only problem with that is if I want to fight him, I'm going to have to do it hand-to-hand."

"I can lower the repulsor blasts to five-percent their normal strength." Tony wasn't entirely sure that was a good idea. Even at only five-percent those repulsor blasts were pretty strong, especially when you consider the fact that this guy wasn't wearing any clothes other than his underwear and had no protective gear to speak of. Best case scenario, the guy ended up badly bruised with a few second-degree burns. However, Tony didn't have much of a choice given that Knežević was going to be upon him in less than mere seconds.

"Do it." Tony raised his left arm and fired a repulsor blast at Knežević just as the man was going to lunge for him again. Knežević was knocked back, hit his head on one of the rocks, and fell into the water. Tony legitimately thought for a second that he killed the guy, but he was quickly proven wrong. Knežević's head bobbed up out of the water and he appeared to be doggy-paddling back to shore. Tony began running across the shoreline after him.

When Knežević finally emerged from the water, he was only a few feet ahead of Tony. Tony once again fired a low-powered repulsor blast at him. Knežević landed face-first in the sand with a loud, wet smack! Tony restrained his arms before he even had a chance to think about getting up.

"Why don't you just give up already?" Tony asked. "You have to know that you're significantly outmatched here."

"True," Knežević said. "But it's pretty hard to give up when you've got nothing else to lose." Tony rolled his eyes and hoisted the man to his feet. He was careful to keep his grip firm around Knežević's wrists and avoid touching his palms.

"Well," Tony said. "If you really have nothing to lose, then you wouldn't mind a short stay at San Quentin. How does twenty-five to life sound? Fair, or should we take away the possibility of parole?" Tony turned his attention to the cops that had gathered in the beach's parking lot. Quite a few more had shown up – probably spurred on by Iron Man's arrival at the scene – but no one had approached to help him with Knežević yet. "Hey, wouldn't mind a little help here! It's not like I can handcuff him or read him his rights!"

Tony probably should have seen it coming. How he missed it, he wasn't sure. As he moved Knežević in the direction of the parking lot, the man twisted his wrists and pulled his hands up so his palms came into contact with Tony's.

"Shit!" Tony pulled his hands away. Knežević started running back down the beach. Tony flipped his hands to look at them. Both the repulsors and the metal surrounding them started to turn to clear stone.

"Both the left and right-hand repulsors have failed," JARVIS informed.

"I can see that." Tony shook his hands as if that would do anything to get rid of the stone. Obviously, that didn't work. Realizing he had no choice but to face Knežević hand-to-hand, he muttered another curse to himself and began to chase after Knežević again. His chest hurt, he felt overly hot, and he was having trouble breathing, but he tried to ignore it as he powered through.

He had just about caught up to Knežević when the man turned his head and shot his arm out behind him. He was trying to reach for the Arc Reactor's housing, but Tony realized this and threw his arm in the way before Knežević could touch it. It worked, but unfortunately, it caused another piece of the armor's outer plating to turn to stone. Tony growled in frustration and sent a punch straight to Knežević's gut. He fell backward onto his back, clenching his stomach. After taking two repulsor blasts to the torso, Tony could imagine he was in quite a bit of pain right now.

"Just give it up already," Tony panted out. "You're not going to win here, so just give it up." He swallowed hard. His throat felt like it was on fire. Another warning came up on the display indicating that his fever had once again crossed the 105-degree threshold. Tony told JARVIS to "mute" before he could express his concern.

"Give up?" Knežević questioned. "I don't know how." He tried to sit up, but with his injuries, it proved to be difficult. Somehow, though, he managed to do it. "If I just keep at it, if I try hard enough, things will go the way I want them to. They always do."

"Yeah, well not this time." Tony turned back to the cops again, who was still in the parking lot, sitting on their hands. He let out a sigh of exasperation. "Seriously? You know I could really use some help down here!" One of the cops shouted something unintelligible. "What?" The cop shouted again, but Tony's attention was pulled away by the sound of feet kicking up sand and bare skin slamming against metal.

Turning around, Tony expected to see Knežević standing there, smirking after having had turned another piece of the armor to stone and preparing to lunge at the Arc Reactor's housing again. Instead, he saw Steve standing between him and Knežević holding up the old replica of his shield that Tony had cannibalized into other projects. (Most notably, using it as a stand for a particle accelerator.)

Yup, Tony thought. Definitely some kind of weird fever dream.

"What the hell?" Knežević said. "What the hell are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" Knežević growled and tried to lunge after Steve, but Steve slammed his now stone-reinforced replica shield into his side. Knežević groaned upon hitting the ground. Natasha appeared beside him and bent down to restrain his arms.

"Don't try to resist," she said. "You'll only make it harder on yourself."

"Oh… Screw off… Bitch…" He tried to reach for an exposed part of Natasha's skin but ended up touching her gloved hand instead. Natasha used this mistake to her advantage, clenching her fist before the glove completely turned to stone and once the process finished, struck Knežević nice and hard on the temple. He fell back, unconscious.

"He's out," Natasha shouted to the cops down the beach. "He's not going to get up! Cuff him but try to avoid actually touching his hands!" With that, two of the cops came running. Tony let out a sigh, glad that this was all finally over. He lifted the armor's faceplate and turned to Steve.

"Hey," he said. "Are you alright?"

"Of course, I am," Steve said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"He didn't touch you or anything, right?" Tony said. "You're fine?"

"Yeah, I am." Tony noticed that Steve's eyes were slowly tracing the armor up and down. Tony smirked, and Steve's face turned white the second he realized he'd been caught. Yeah, they needed to finish having that discussion from before. "What about you? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Tony assured. "I mean, my head hurts, and my throat hurts and the beach is tilting funny, but other than that…"

"What do you mean the beach is…" That's all Tony heard coming out of Steve's mouth before everything went dark.

As you can see, I'm kind of distracted right now, so I'm going to keep this short. Be sure to like, favorite, follow or whatever and don't forget to leave a comment or review!

Remember kids, your cat is adorable. He deserves scratches.

Originally posted to FFN on 9/24/18.