Part 3

Steve doesn't notice the passing of time as he drives. He knows he stops (the gas tank is always full when he looks at it). He knows he eats (there is a constant taste of something on his tongue). Steve knows a lot happens while he is unable to pay attention. The distance between Oklahoma and Malibu closes until his bike parks outside of the ruined mansion. There are no more reporters, no one to bother him as he gets off the bike. His heart is beating fast in his chest as he looks over the damage.

An Iron Man helmet rests by where Steve assumes the front door used to be. He picks it up and frowns at how it cracks in his fingers. He has never known something that can actually pierce through Tony's armor (other than constant wear and tear), but this doesn't look like Tony fought in it. There is no blood on it, no sign of anything but the destruction.

Steve can't breathe properly, but he steps across the broken doorway anyway. He shifts through the wreckage with his feet, trying to find something other than broken walls and suit parts. From what Fury told him once upon a time, Tony keeps all of his suits in a special chamber. A garage underground so he can hide them from the elements. How did they end up out here?

Tony is not dead, Steve can feel it, but he knows that Tony is not completely okay either. He sucks in a breath and closes his eyes, tilting his head to face the sky. For the first time since he was a little boy, Steve prays. He prays to God and whoever else might be listening. He needs Tony, completely and whole, more than he needs anything else. He needs to know that he is okay.

He needs so damn much that he has no idea how to handle it. Steve wants to cry.

The air turns around him and Steve opens his eyes to see a somewhat-familiar suit hovering over the middle of the wreckage. The mostly-gold suit is facing him and Steve clutches at the helmet still in his hands. It cracks further, part of the chin falling. "Tony?"

The suit is silent and Steve isn't used to that. Tony is all about noise and sound and making sure he is heard. This is eerie. This isn't what he expects out of this. When the faceplate disappears and he can see the broken and battered face of the one person who completes him, Steve feels as if the world is okay. The world will continue as normal because Tony is here. Tony is alive.

Tony is landing right in front of him and taking the helmet out of his hands. "What are you doing here, Rogers?"

Steve wants to kiss him. Steve wants to hold him. Steve wants to wrap Tony in his arms and never let go, never let someone take him away and harm him. But he isn't allowed to do that and his heart breaks. It shatters more than the destroyed mansion. Steve wants to cry all over again.

"You don't believe me, so let's just say I'm here because you need a friend."

"What I need," Tony says, walking around Steve, "is a warm bath and to sleep for a week. Maybe two."

Steve turns, following Tony with his eyes. "I have a hotel close by. You could—"

"Yeah, veto. I'd rather not stay in what you think in a hotel." Tony seems to hesitate and he turns to face Steve, face still void of emotion.

But Steve can read him. Steve knows that he's hiding the pain and the grief. Steve knows that Tony wants nothing more than to curl in a corner and sob until nothing comes out. The part of him already attached reaches out, trying to latch onto Tony and Steve can't seem to stop himself from doing it. He steps forward, resting a hand on the armored shoulder.

"I'm in whatever hotel you want to be in, Tony. Courtesy of Fury and your new and foreign form of payment in the plastic form."

The joke does what Steve hopes and a small smile twists at Tony's lips. "Is that so?"

Steve reaches into the pocket on his chest and pulls the well-used card out. "That's so."

"Good, because I'm going to need everything I have to rebuild this." The faceplate returns and one of Tony's arms slide around Steve's waist. He can't breathe. "Hang on, we'll be there soon."

Steve doesn't know why Tony had come back to the destroyed out and he doesn't ask. Tony doesn't offer to give any explanation in return. There is so much Steve wants to know, but he is too scared to ask. He has been given a gift. He is in the most luxurious hotel room in Malibu, sitting on the bed and watching as Tony moves around the room. He is still in the suit and Steve can't help but notice how much smoother the movements are.

He has more questions once Tony drops the suit and walks into the bathroom. Steve has seen Tony remove the suit before (and there are several bad videos online showing how it came off at the top of Stark Tower), but this is new. Tony simply spreads his fingers and the pieces lift off his body, hovering in the air before assembling in the corner of the room. There the armor stands, as if on its own, and stares at Steve.

Steve stares back and, after a moment, gives it a nod. He had long ago accepted that certain things were normal around Tony, so why wouldn't this be? Security armor or something, Steve doesn't care. Tony is alive, Tony is safe, and that is all that matters.

He does not question it until that night while he attempts to sleep. The armor wakes him and Steve thinks its Tony at first. But there is no sound of breathing, of anything, and the armor is pulling him out of bed. Steve follows it until they come to the larger bedroom of the suite. Within the over-large bed, Tony thrashes and cries out.

Steve is next to him before he can think. He takes Tony in his arms, saying whatever words happen to come out of his mouth. He doesn't know what he says, he doesn't care, because Tony does eventually relax. He calms until he is sleeping peacefully again. Steve looks at the armor, questions coming to his mind again.

He falls asleep while watching the suit and Tony throws a fit the next morning. When Steve explains, Tony glares and turns on the armor.

"You're supposed to protect me," he tells it. "You are, not him!"

"It came to get me," Steve tells him, voice weak.

Tony turns to Steve, his eyes widening. "Why would it to that?"

Steve shrugs and gets out of the bed. "I don't know, Tony. What happened here?"

Tony sucks in a sharp breath and storms out of the room, the armor following him.

Steve doesn't see him for four days, but he stays in that hotel, glad that it isn't a Holiday Inn. He's sure SHIELD has already sent someone out to spy on him anyway since this is Malibu and this is Tony and they try to keep them separated after what happened with Loki.

When Tony does return, he looks as if he has been run over by a tank. His eyes are tinted red, the skin below a blue-ish hue that tells Steve just how much sleep Tony has managed to avoid. Steve is surprised that Tony has even bothered to come back to the room.

Tony offers no apologies, he simply tosses a pair of keys to Steve and says, "We're going back to New York. Are you driving or are we flying?"

Steve doesn't think he can not look at Tony. He doesn't care about the bike and says as much. Tony wrinkles his nose and loads it into one of his private planes an hour later. Steve sits with Tony and his friend (James Rhodes, a military man that eyes Steve with a pitying look that Steve doesn't want) on the plane to New York. The way they sit, the way they subtly interact, reminds Steve so much of Bucky that it hurts to think on it. He can't even think of the man as 'James' lest he cry into his hands.

Rhodes has his own suit and Steve tries not to get jealous of how it looks. It should be his suit, it looks like his suit, and he sort of wants to wear it. Before he can voice it, Rhodes takes his suit and flies away to D.C. where he has to brief a bunch of people on what happened in Malibu.

Steve still doesn't know what happened in Malibu and he has kept away from media and other news areas. He wants Tony to tell him, silently begs Tony to tell him, but Tony stays silent. Tony doesn't say a word except to bring Steve to the tower and shut the doors behind them. Then Tony disappears into his lab and Steve doesn't see him again.

Steve finds Natasha in the penthouse one morning, sitting at the table as if she belongs there. She is disappointed, but does not require an explanation from him. She tells him that she understands, but he should know what he is getting himself into.

She leaves a newspaper, dated the day before Steve got to Malibu. He turns it over and doesn't look at it, not caring. He wants Tony to tell him. That night, he goes to Tony's lab and coaxes him upstairs. Tony doesn't fight as Steve helps him change into a comfortable pair of sleep clothes. Doesn't fight as Steve puts him to bed. Doesn't say a word as Steve slides under the covers beside him.

He only fights when he is in the middle of a nightmare and Steve has to ignore the flailing arms and kicking feet. Steve only holds on tight and tells Tony useless words of "it's okay" and "I'm right here." He is sure Tony doesn't hear him. He is sure, though the sobs and the sweat and the pain in his own damned chest, that Tony simply cannot hear him.

Steve holds on as tight as he can, ignoring when his heart breaks in the morning. When Tony wakes up and disappears from the bed so fast that Steve's head spins. When Tony goes to the lab and ignores everything and everyone. When Bruce returns and Tony lets him into the lab. Steve thinks his heart can't break anymore, but it does every single day.

Still, Steve is the only one Tony lets hold him at night. One night, Tony tells him that Pepper couldn't take things. Tony tells him that Pepper left him after Malibu because Pepper is tired of being in danger, of Tony being in danger, and of her own feeling of helplessness. Tony let her go, a full-paid trip to find the one her heart aches for.

Tony apologizes for not being able to answer Steve's own hold. Thor had told him, after the war and before he left, of the thread coming from Steve. Tony says that he hates that Steve has been burdened with this because Steve deserves better.

All Steve wants is for Tony to stop apologizing and he says so. He says that all he needs is to be able to do this, to protect Tony from things. He just wants to be by Tony's side. Tony sucks in a breath and tells him. Everything.

The Mandarin.

Extremis.

Pepper.

Malibu.

Sentient armor.

Steve holds tight during Tony's speech, staring at the armor that hasn't left Tony's side since they arrived. It accepts Steve, he knows that, and it tolerates Bruce. He doesn't know about the others because the only other he has seen is Natasha and she is gone before Tony knew.

Tony doesn't speak to him after that, not completely. He lets Steve sleep next to him to keep away the nightmares, but otherwise he keeps as much distance between them as possible. Steve finds himself speaking to Jarvis more often than not and, though the AI, he speaks to the armor. He feels as if he has made progress because the next suit that comes out of Tony's workshop, anther sentient armor (despite what Tony insists to him while in bed), follows him around to offer protection.

Steve doesn't need it, but he is glad for it. It gives him something solid to talk to and all he does is pretend that it is Tony within the empty casing. If he curls next to it while watching television, or leans a little too close to it, well… nobody has to know but himself and Jarvis.