[A/N meh.]

Part 17.

"We've got to bring this back to Tony's, have Natasha have a go at hacking into JARVIS' system." Clint said, inspecting the suitcase and letting his fingers glide over the beautifully polished surface. Now that I took a better look at it myself, I too could see that this whole thing had Tony written all over it. From the perfectly chosen color combination, to the neatly finished edges and the stylish design.

"Sir," I said to Fury through that weird device that was even scarier than cell phones. I wasn't sure if I should worry about Tony now, because Tony did dumb stuff all the time and I never knew when there was something serious going on. "We sort of found Tony.. but not really Tony."

"What in the devil's name are you talking about?" Fury asked, and I couldn't help but picture Loki for a second.

"We found his suit. I mean, his suitcase-suit, if that makes any sense at all."

"Well that depends on where you found it, Rogers."

"Near a church in Manhattan. It was laying a few meters away from the street, but when a ray of sunlight hit it, it caught my eye."

"And you are sure this belongs to Tony Stark?" I confirmed this, and he made a humming sort of noise for a while, probably thinking. "When was the last time anyone came into contact with Stark?"

"As far as I know, sir, the last time any of us came into contact with him was when mrs Romanov sent him out of the Tower. That was.. one week ago. I wanted to text him," I said, suddenly feeling guilty for not talking to Tony in a week, "but I didn't know how to." I admitted. "We should phone Mrs Pepper and ask if she has any clue of his whereabouts."

"If she doesn't, contact me immediately. Stark is too important to lose." Fury answered and broke the connection. He might have sounded cold, but I'm sure he wasn't just thinking about Tony's fighting abilities. Not even his important, binding role in our team. I think Fury might have actually sounded concerned, and it worried me. Because up until then, I hadn't even considered that Tony might be missing. His words echoed through my head.. 'don't just believe everything that comes out of my mouth. I say the stupidest things all the time'. For the first time since he left, I actually considered that what he had said might not be true, and I instantly felt guilty for relying on a few words he'd said instead of on all his actions over the past weeks.

"Let's just hope he hasn't done something idiotic." I mumbled, and followed the others back to what was now called the 'Avenger's Tower'.

"Alright, Natasha, have a go." Barton said, throwing the suit on Tony's desk. We were in his workshop, and the funny thing was that now that Tony was gone, JARVIS didn't respond anymore. It was quite something to get used to him, but it was another thing altogether to get used to his absence. We had to open our own windows again. Go. Figure. Natasha took hold of the case, pressed a few buttons and part of it actually unfolded. It didn't form into an entire Iron Man suit yet, but there was.. some form of electricity going on.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing to the middle where two sides had parted, allowing us to see the round hole where Tony's Arc Reactor was supposed to go through. There was a sort of.. I was running out of descriptions because I couldn't name any of the difficult technological parts of Tony's suit, and I just realized that Tony was even cleverer than I originally thought.

"This is JARVIS' software," Bruce explained, taking out what I knew to be a computer chip. "If we can hack through the mainframe, and thus get into the commands history, we might be able to see what Tony commanded last to JARVIS, and Tony might even have been storing video-material of the search for Loki on here. We won't be able to get as far as to be able to control JARVIS, but a command list shouldn't be too difficult." Bruce looked up at me, "Something might have happened that caused him to say what he did, Steve. He might not have walked out on you after all." I didn't know whether I should be glad to know that Tony might still love me after all, or whether I should be afraid that something bad had happened to him.

"While you do your.. computer-chip business, I'm going to call Pepper." I said hurriedly. I hadn't called Pepper right after Tony had gone because I was too ashamed to talk to her. While she ought to be the one ashamed because she slept with my.. boyfriend? I couldn't help but be embarrassed for assuming that Tony could be different when it came to me. But now that I knew there was hope that he hadn't actually slept with her (though I highly doubted it), I wanted to hear it from Pepper herself.

"Alright." Bruce said dismissively, already having started to type things into Tony's floating computer screens. I walked up the stairs, past the by a tantrum-throwing Tony broken glass planes, and hopped into my bedroom. I dialed the contact 'Pepper', which Tony had, by a miracle, put into my phone in case of Arc-Reactor emergencies (According to Tony, she had a small hand with which she could easily replace a defect one for a working one).

"Hello?" I didn't think I had ever seen or heard Pepper before, but I had certainly imagined her voice to be as soft and sweet as it was. If you can stay by Tony's side so long without him throwing you in the trash-can like a piece of garbage, that meant you had to have excellent self-control and patience.

"Hello eh, Mrs Potts. I'm Steve Rogers." She fell quiet for a while.

"Steve. Did Tony do something outrageous? If you need me to I'll slap him across the face for you." She said, and I could tell that she was serious business. That meant they hadn't slept together, right?

"I think mrs Romanov might have taken care of that." I chuckled, but then blurted out, "Did you, did you guys sleep together?" I face-palmed, frustrated at my own awkwardness, "I mean- I don't mean." I took a deep breath. "I meant recently." Pepper groaned.

"Oh God, what has he told you?" Did she mean that he had said something about them sleeping together that he wasn't supposed to say, or did she mean that he had once again said something stupid just so that we wouldn't worry about his well-being and he could suffer in silence? I couldn't tell.

"Pepper, I need to know."

"Of course not, Steve!" She said, like I was extremely unintelligent for even considering it, "He loves you, why would he do that? Tony might not be good with relationships, but he is smart enough to understand that cheating isn't part of the deal. How could you even expect that to be true?" She sighed, "You two really need a handbook on how to deal with feelings. Look, Steve," She paused, and I heard the sound of her drumming her fingers on the table, "I don't know why Tony would say such nonsense, that's for you to find out. But don't listen to his words, look at his actions."

"Yes, I figured that out, alright. Have you seen him lately?"

" No, not in months. I'm on holiday in Venice, so we only text now and then. He hasn't answered my texts in a week or so, so I figured he was either being busy, or being stupid. Turns out it was the latter." She mumbled.

"Ok, thank you" I turned to hang up, but Pepper broke the silence.

"Steve.. did something happen to Tony?"

"I'm not entirely sure yet, Pepper. We still have to find out."

"Call me when you've got news." I agreed, and we both hung up at the same time, probably equally worried and confused.

Later that night, when I went to bed (in Tony's bed, because I liked his smell) , I was undressing in front of the mirror when I noticed something. The mark. It wasn't there. I was terribly confused because yesterday when I changed I was sure it was still there. I stared at myself in the mirror for some time, then tore my gaze away and looked down to be sure that I wasn't imagining things. I touched the spot where it used to be, and it was just smooth, white skin.

My brain was making over-hours that night when I was trying to sleep. Nothing was making sense. Tony disappears, telling me that he cheated on me and that I was just his boy toy. A week later we find his abandoned suit laying around a church, and it turns out he was lying. Which didn't make sense because Tony had been so damn proud that he had made a relationship last this long without any sexual intercourse whatsoever. Why would he try to smear this great achievement of his? Why would he try to make me dislike him? And more importantly, where had he gone now? And then there was the mark that had miraculously disappeared.

I could only guess what was going on here.

[A/N Oh our poor babies! Thank you TheDreamerLady for pointing out my plot-hole. ehhe.]