Steve is numb through the entire battle. Fighting with Tony in the lab had torn something inside him that he doesn't think he will ever fix. Fighting beside him as they tried to restart the engine broke him even more and Steve doesn't even know why. The fight in New York is a decent distraction for what he is feeling. Fighting, defending those around him, trying to protect civilians – he pushes himself into it only so he doesn't have to think about the red and gold figure flying through the sky.

Flying that twice-damned nuclear bomb through the portal.

Steve feels himself shatter the moment the Iron Man suit disappears into the void. He barely feels strong arms wrap around him and bring him to the ground. The army around them all hesitate at the move and he is sure they are confused because they do not attack. Steve does not care. Steve wants to die. Steve cannot stand to suddenly be in a world without Tony Stark, whether he had him or not.

In the end, it is Thor who voices that the portal should be closed. Steve hears himself cry out and the sound that comes from his throat is so unlike him that he doesn't truly believe that it is his. Thor holds him tighter, murmuring words in a language Steve cannot begin to comprehend. It doesn't help and Steve can feel his asthma returning. He can feel the organs in his body finally dying as they should have in the ice.

There is no Tony, there is no reason to live. It is as simple as that.

Thor suddenly goes still. Steve does not look up until Thor calls out Tony's name. Steve looks up then, looks up to see the achingly familiar suit plummeting to the ground. The broken body he had felt is suddenly gone, and Steve is back with his muscles and his strength and his damned inability to help. Because Tony is falling too fast, and they all know it.

Steve never thought that he would see the day that he is glad to see Hulk, but today has proved that he and the Hulk should become best friends. Hulk not only helped with the invasion, but Hulk has now saved Tony's life. First by catching him, second by waking him up. Steve just wishes that he really did kiss Tony because he is sure that it would have been his only chance to do such a thing.

Steve barely remembers grabbing Clint and meeting a still broken Loki. He doesn't notice when Fury finally arrives and places the cuffs on the god's wrists. He doesn't notice when Thor threatens Loki's guards with bodily harm if his brother were to come into any distress while with them. He doesn't notice.

He doesn't notice at all because Tony is by his side, making snide remarks about everything. Tony is living and breathing and simply there. If Steve reaches out, he could touch him, and he does. Tony doesn't feel it through the suit, but Steve touches any place he can get away with. It is mostly the suit's arm or back, but he doesn't care.

All he can see is Tony disappearing into the black and then there's nothing but pain and heart ache.

Tony is given the Tesseract after they eat and proceeds to disappear into his building. It locks them all out and Steve spends three days simply staring at the front door, hands in his pockets while he ignores the people cleaning the streets. He should be helping, but he can't bring himself to do so. Thor distracts the workers from noticing too much, but Steve still feels guilt when he stares at his ceiling at night.

From what he knows, the only person allowed in the building apart from those that actually work there, is Pepper Potts. She is Tony's secretary and girlfriend and Steve hates her on principle. According to Natasha, Pepper's Intended hasn't been found and her desires on where to go are too weak to follow, so she stays with Tony because Tony needs her.

No. No, Tony needs Steve. Tony needs someone that will hold him when he has nightmares – and Steve knows he has nightmares because he can feel when the ache starts. He can feel when Tony wakes up screaming and it takes all he has not to break the door to the tower and rush up to comfort him.

Tony has made it clear that he wants nothing to do with Steve when he lets Bruce into the tower. Natasha and Thor are next, and finally Clint. It is Clint that drives the stake into Steve's heart because he knows (from several people) that Tony has trust issues, and Clint had been the enemy through most of this fight. Steve has been there from the beginning, but it is Clint who gets to walk through those doors.

Steve decides to stay on the SHIELD temporary base because he knows that if he is allowed to wander any more, he will simply sit at the base of the tower like a kicked puppy and not move. Steve wishes that he stayed in the 1940's because surely it was better to never have known Tony than to suffer this.

They send Thor and Loki back home after two months, plenty of time for the streets to get cleaned and for Thor to feel as if he had made progress in proving that his realm held no ill will toward the people of Earth. It has been two months of Steve staring at ceilings, passing out when his body needed to, and very little thought of anything but Tony.

Fury and Hill have already convinced Steve to take a bike and travel as far away as he can so that the hook in his chest, the one trying to connect to Tony, will eventually relax. Too much time in the same city is twisting his mind and killing him, serum or not, because it had already begun to bond with Tony. It is Tony that cannot complete it, so Steve feels everything.

That one last meeting, the one last time that he is able to see Tony, is torture. Tony shakes his hand (Steve forces himself to let go). Tony gets into a car with Bruce. Tony drives away and Steve stands there until he can't see him anymore.

Natasha shoves him into a car and she drives (Clint on the bike behind them) until they are out of Manhattan. She drives until night falls and then she drives until the sun peeks above the horizon behind them. Steve has not stopped crying since the highway that carried him out of the city.

"We need you," Natasha says when she finally stops the car. "I know this is hard and Fury won't call in Tony unless we're desperate, but we really need you, Captain."

Clint opens the passenger door and kneels, knees resting on the lip of the car. "She's right, Steve. You have an eye that's rare on the base and, if you're willing, Fury wants you on full time. You'll get to pick and choose your missions, but you'd be paid even if you don't take it."

That's too much. Steve shakes his head. "I can't—"

"Drive and think about it, Steve." Clint pats his knee. "Fury's tracking you, so he'll be able to tell if you turn your ass around. I suggest you don't."

Steve looks to Natasha and finds comfort in her slow smile. "I'm a liability."

"No, you just got handed a very short stick. Grab a different one." Natasha pushes his shoulder. "Go."

Clint hands him the keys to the bike and shows him (unnecessarily) how to run it. He then hands over a card and says, "For gas, hotels, and food. Fury says he expects a lot of money to go on this thing, so don't disappoint him."

For once in his life, Steve wants to be selfish. He takes the card and tucks it into his jacket pocket, right by his heart. "Thank you."

"When you're ready to come back, just find a Holiday Inn and stay there for four nights." Clint salutes him and steps backwards to the car. "Any shorter than four and we'll assume you're okay. Holiday Inn, remember that!"

Steve does remember. Every time he stops at a Holiday Inn to rest, he kindly asks the desk clerk to not allow him to stay past three nights, just in case he gets cold feet. He knows he is making some in SHIELD worried when he stays at three consecutive Holiday Inns, each one for three nights, but he can't help himself. Part of him always wants to go back and just stare at the tower. He wants to see Iron Man flying again. He wants so damned much and he can't have any of it.

Steve misses Bucky most of all because Bucky can keep him grounded. Bucky can keep his mind distracted and free of the mess that Steve has thrown it into. But Bucky is dead and won't ever be able to slap Steve across the head and call him an idiot. Bucky died following him.

Maybe Tony is better off without Steve.

It is that thought that gets Steve to check out of the hotel on Day Three every time. It is that thought that pushes him from town to town, state to state. He uses the card SHIELD gave him to immerse himself in things a normal tourist would do. He avoids the television. He avoids crowds were possible.

Steve actively runs from any store selling Iron Man merchandise.

The ache in his chest lessens until it becomes a dull, but ignorable hum. In Colorado, he feels normal for the first time since he woke up. He decides to go South because he suddenly wants to see the coast. South doesn't exactly feel right, but he thinks that it is closer than going West. He just wants to slide his feet into the sand and relax.

Steve passes the boarder to Oklahoma when a pain laces through his chest so fast that he loses control of his bike. Instinct kicks in and he manages to steer it to the side of the road, but then he is on the ground, hands and knees scrapped in the dirt, and the contents of his stomach emptying in front of him. A car has pulled off behind him and the driver, a woman, calls out and asks if he is okay.

Steve can't answer that because he is not. He knows this ache. He knows this pain. He has only felt it once, but it is Tony. Tony, Tony, Tony. Something has happened to Tony. Oh god he can't breathe. The woman behind him screams something and Steve doesn't hear it over the roaring in his own ears. The coast, he needs the coast. West coast. Why would he need that one? Tony is in New York. Tony lives in the tower with Bruce.

Tony is dying again.

Steve picks himself up and waves a hand at the hysterical woman. He doesn't care that she is demanding to know if he is all right. He doesn't care that she looks scared and worried. He needs to get to Tony. Steve picks up his bike and starts it again. West Coast, West Coast. He can get there in a day or two. A day? Steve doesn't know anymore.

He doesn't think of anything but Tony until his stomach growls loud enough to distract him from driving. When he stops for a quick bite to eat, he looks up and stops at the images on the television.

Tony is in California. There is a pile of wreckage on the side of a cliff that is labeled as "Stark's Malibu Mansion." The reporter questions whether or not Tony (and Pepper, but Steve doesn't care about Pepper) is dead.

Malibu. West Coast. Tony.

November is National Novel Writers Month and this if my "day one." Another 1k and I'm done for the day! What does this mean for Changing Tides and Finding Fate (and my boatload of other fic)? Well, I'm not doing an official novel this year – I'm just using it to get my butt in gear and get me back to putting words on paper every day. In the long run, this could possibly mean faster updates because I'm making more time for writing! We'll see how it goes.