"I know what you're doing." Steve's voice broke Tony's concentration on the new engine prototype he had been working on. Steve hadn't been down to the lab in a few days. Tony tried to remind himself that was the point of all this after his heart gave a little leap of joy at having him back. He wasn't supposed to want that any more.

"Even if you weren't born in prehistoric times, you wouldn't understand what I was doing." Tony smirked to himself twisting the schematic hologram to look at the engine from a different angle.

"You think you're funny." Tony could practically hear the eye roll as Steve slowly walked closer. Tony could feel his presence in the room, the comfort he wanted to curl up in despite himself, but couldn't allow himself to.

"I think I'm brilliant."

"I think you're an idiot."

"Excuse me?" Tony's head instinctively snapped up with a glare already in place.

"You think you can push me away, make me break up with you, if you act like a jackass. You think it will be easier on me if you act like this. You think it will be better if things ended now rather than down the line in what ever scenario your "brilliant" brain has convinced itself of." Steve huffed out. "You've done everything short of cheating on me."

Tony looked back down at his schematic when Steve didn't continue. He couldn't take the pain in the other man's eyes and voice at that, hating he was the one who caused it, even if the ends justified the means, "Are you done? I've got work to do."

"No I'm not done. We need to talk about this." Steve snapped. When Tony didn't acknowledge this, Steve forced himself to take a deep breath before continuing,

"This isn't you Tony."

"This is me. I'm sorry I'm not the perfect patriotic prince like you, but this is me." Tony splayed his arms out wide and spun his chair. "If you can't handle it, then it's not my fault you bit off more than you could chew."

"No. This is the you that you've been hiding behind for years. The genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist who is too scared to let anyone get close enough to see the crack in the armor. Well guess what, I've seen it." Steve paused and spoke again, softer, "I've seen it Tony, and I love every piece of it."

Tony forced himself to roll his eyes and returned to his schematic, ignoring Steve as best he could. There was a lump in Tony's throat preventing any smartass retort.

"No." Steve walked right up to Tony and swiped his hand over the hologram, effectively wiping away what Tony had been working on.

"What the hell Rogers! That was actually important." Tony stood out of shock. He had spent so long on those plans.

"Jarvis, was Tony's current project saved?" Steve didn't break eye contact as he asked the AI.

"Yes Captain."

"Pull it back up Jarvis, now!" Tony snapped maintaining his glare at Steve.

"I seem to be unable to at this time, sir. Allow me a moment to reboot."

"Traitor." Tony mumbled breaking eye contact and turning to walk away. He felt Steve's hand grab his wrist and hold him in place.

"No." Steve repeated when Tony returned eye contact. "This is important, and we are talking about it now. I gave you two months of space to work what ever the hell was going on in that brain of yours out, I'm stepping in now."

"What do you want from me Cap?"

"If you want to end this relationship, tell me now and it's done, I won't say another word and we can just be teammates. But you have to end it." Steve paused. Tony could see the pain behind his stony expression. He could see the vulnerability and the dread of what might happen next. When Tony said nothing, Steve continued with a softer expression.

"I know you've been trying to push me to end things with you Tony, but that's not going to happen. If this is something you don't want to be a part of any more, you need to do it yourself." Steve's hand tightened slightly on his wrist, Tony didn't know if Steve was even aware of it, "because I'm not going to do it for you." Tony couldn't stand the intensity of Steve's expression, the stony expression having melted away to the Steve he knew and loved. The Steve he had missed so terribly over the last two months. "If you want to be a child for another two months, fine. I'm still gonna be here waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass when you're ready."

"I'm not a child." Tony muttered looking down to his feet.

"You took the sofa out of your lab, Tony, how much more passive aggressively childish could you be?" Steve let a hint of a smile cross his expression.

"I'm broken, Steve." Tony tried to ignore the break in his voice and the tears beginning to well, "I'm broken, and not worth this, not worth you. I'm broken and I'm going to be too much for you and you're going to leave."

"Tony." Steve gently raised the hand not holding Tony's wrist to the man's cheek, hesitantly as if giving Tony the chance to pull away. When he didn't, Steve turned Tony's face towards him and took a step closer, their bodies less than a foot away now. Tony could feel the heat radiating from the other man's body, the warmth and the comfort he had been denying himself for months. Despite his better judgement, Tony leaned into the palm on his cheek.

"Tony, you are worth everything." Steve whispered with such genuine emotion, Tony had to slide his eyes closed at the overwhelming sensation coursing through his own body, "I want you. The real you. The you that crawls into bed at 4 in the morning and hangs on me like a koala bear after a three night marathon in the lab. The you that can't form coherent sentences before your first cup of coffee but can write a complicated equation for Clint's new arrows. The you that argues with me when we both think we are right about something. The you that can't take care of himself worth crap because he's so busy trying to take care of everyone else.

I know you've got your issues Tony, ones you probably haven't even told me about yet, but so do I." Steve leaned in, closing the gap, resting his forehead against Tony's, "I want to be the one there for you when you forget to take care of yourself. I want you there when I wake up from a nightmare about the train or the ice or the nuke. I want to be there when you won't let yourself sleep in fear of what memories are going to haunt you in your sleep. I want you Tony. Every last broken piece."

Tony shivered at Steve's words, only vaguely registering the tears escaping down his cheeks and the hand that at some point started griping onto Steve's shirt like it was his only life line.

"Why?" Tony's broken whisper barely audible.

"Because you're you." Steve shrugged as if was the simplest answer in the world. "Because when I wake up, you're the person I want to be around, all the time. You make me happy. You make me feel at home. You are the one I want to spend all my time with, even when we aren't doing anything. Hell even when we are fighting, I still want to be around you. I've felt so lost and lonely the last two months without you Tony. You give me peace, even with all your chaos."

"Are you sure?" Tony sounded more hesitant than he had since they had first got together

"I'm not saying it's gonna be easy or that the last two months haven't hurt like hell, and I know we both are gonna have to put in some work to get through this, but I know it will be worth it. I know you're worth it" Steve put as much sincerity behind the words as he could, hoping Tony would believe him.

"I'm sorry Steve." Tony whispered.

"Thank you." Steve pulled Tony as close to him as possible. The brunette instinctively fit himself to Steve, resting his head under Steve's chin. Steve breathed in the scent of motor oil, metal, and Tony, feeling truly at home for the first time in months

"You're stuck with me until I die, I hope you know that."

"You don't get to die before me." Tony mumbled into Steve's chest, "I call dibs on going first." Steve chuckled, tightening his arms slightly around the other man.

"When was the last time you ate? Or slept?" Steve knew for a fact Tony hadn't been to their room for more than a change of clothes in over a week, choosing instead to sleep in his chair or pass out on the couch in the common area, much to the teams annoyance.

"Uh. That depends. What day is it?"

"It is 8:30pm on Thursday sir, you've been working 52 hours straight as of the beginning of your conversation with the captain and you last ate half a sandwich 23 hours ago." Jarvis' voice rang out

"Tony."

"I thought you liked that about me."

"No. I said I wanted to be the one around when it happened. There is a difference." Steve scolded, but Tony could hear the warmth in his voice and smiled into Steve's chest.