Part 3 of the story starts now. I know you all want to kill me and I totally get that. I'm sad to say the desire to murder me wont be going away for the next few chapters. This story is 14 chapters long and is fully completed so all you have to do it wait for me to post them.

Ch 11

Tony's life was a mess, he had lost the best thing he had and there was nothing he could do. Steve wasn't coming back. The for sale sign in the yard of his mother's house was enough to cement that belief.

Tony didn't have a direction anymore. He felt lost. Drowning his sorrow in a sea of distilled liquid always sounded like a great idea until he woke up the next morning, in the bed he and Steve had shared. He hadn't even bothered to change the sheets. Tony clung to the pillow Steve used at nights when he would sleep over, slept on Steve's side of the bed and refused to move from that spot most days.

He did go into Shield the day Steve left, but he didn't stay long. Just long enough to hand in his resignation and clean out his office. He had no desire to stay in a job that physically pained him. The idea of standing in front of a class full of old and new faces and knowing that the one face he wanted to see more that anything wouldn't be there, hurt. He didn't need to work, he had more than enough money to survive five lifetimes without the first time in his life, he was ok with doing nothing.

He had watched from afar while Stark Industries was run. He didn't like what was happening, he wasn't the heartless bastard the tabloids made him out to be. He knew he needed to do something to stop Obie he didn't know what. Instead, he did nothing. He let the issues that had come to his attention, the things that could put him and Steve in danger, continue.

He talked to no one the rest of the summer, though both Clint and Thor had shown up at his house after they had found out about him quitting. He had refused them entry; they had come back every day until school had started. They were persistent, Tony would give them that. However, out stuborning Tony Stark wasn't an easy thing to achieve. Only one person had ever gone up against Tony in a stubborn mood an won, and that one person was the reason Tony was in the emotional state he was.

That wasn't actually true. Tony was the reason he was in the emotional state he was in. If he had just explained to Steve his reasons. If he'd helped Steve see that what Tony was doing was for Steve's safety, maybe things would have be different. But Tony hadn't been able to find the words to explain any of it. He had let Steve leave and he had fallen apart because of it. He had paid for his mistake with his happiness. No one had ever been able to say Tony Stark was a fool, but that changed the day he let Steve walk out the door.

"Edward Anthony Stark!" The blankets were pulled from his body and the harsh light of day burned his eyes. Tony blinked trying to focus on the male voice that belonged to the blurry creature at the end of his bed.

"How did you get in here?" He asked abandoning the desire to see the man, instead buried his head in Steve's pillow.

"I hacked Jarvis."

"Why?" Tony's voice was muffled through the pillow and he wasn't sure Bruce heard him until the man laughed. It wasn't a happy laugh, it was hard and mirthless and bitter.

"Why, he asks. Why would I hack his AI in order to see if he was still alive...? Yes, I can see how that would be a hard thing to understand."

"It's too early in the morning for that much sass, Banner."

"Its 3pm Stark." Tony heard Bruce sigh and felt the bed dip. Tony turned his head to the side and saw Bruce laying on the pillow Tony typically used.

"I'm alive, you've seen me, talked to me, all that jazz. You can leave now." Tony wasn't sure he could handle Bruce being there. Everything that happened with Steve was playing out in his head, wanting to break free of his mouth. He didn't want to give voice to it. His own personal hell belonged on repeat for him to see, but he didn't need to put it into words.

"What happened Tony?" Three little words had Tony crying like a baby.

"I messed up Bruce, I messed up so bad."

"What did you do?" Bruce's voice didn't hold a judgement, or shame.

"He's gone Bruce, I pushed him away. He wanted me to go with him to see NYU and I couldn't do it. I couldn't let him be seen by the media. I didn't want his face in the paper."

"Are you ashamed of him?"

"WHAT! How could you even say that?" Tony shot up in bed, pulling Steve's pillow into his lap.

"Why didn't you want the media to know about him? If you weren't ashamed of him, or your relationship with him, why wouldn't you be willing to tell the world about him?" Bruce sat up too, his brown eyes meeting Tony's. There was no emotion in them.

Tony gaped at Bruce. Did Steve think Tony was ashamed of him? Was that why Steve had been pushing so hard to be seen in public as a couple and not just as friends? Tony felt hollow.

"I didn't want the media to tear Steve apart. It's not easy being Tony Starks girl of the week, being Tony Stark's former student turned boyfriend would be even harder. There are things going on at SI that could put me in danger if I can't figure them out... I didn't want Steve to be part of that." Tony couldn't go into details with Bruce about the double dealings, about the things Obie and possibly other people, people he had trusted.

"Let me guess, you didn't tell him any of that did you?" Tony buried his head in the pillow and groaned, giving Bruce the answer he didn't actually need.

"What am I going to do Bruce? I tried calling Steve, he changed his number."

"I think you need to worry about what's going on at SI before you deal with Steve. I hardly think ignoring whatever you think would put you and Steve in danger is the right thing to do."

"But... What if Steve finds someone else while I'm cleaning up SI? I don't know if I can handle this. I don't care about SI, I only care about Steve."

"Well then, you need to believe that he cares about you just as much. I can't see Steve jumping into another relationship very fast. After he and Remy ended, it was months before you and he got together. You need to focus on taking the danger out of your life before you can find Steve. He's not going to take you back if he has to stay hidden away." Tony nodded. He knew Bruce was right.

"Where do I even start?" Tony said talking into the pillow.

"By taking a shower, you stink."

"Thanks Bruce. I meant about my company."

"Well... I don't really know what's going on with your company but I think it's time you figure out the direction YOU want YOUR company to go in. It's not your dad's company anymore Tony, if you aren't going to be a teacher, you should take over the company." Tony grimaced, he really didn't want to, but Bruce was right.

"Thanks Bruce," Tony said making up his mind.

Steve sat in the coffee shop drinking his tea and working on his homework, as much as his overly emotion brain would allow him.

His life had taken a turn he had not expected. Of course he had expected him and Tony to have some issues when he went off to college. A long distance relationship wasn't easy, he had seen more than a few people break up because of it. He had thought he and Tony would be different. He had thought what they had had been special. He hadn't expected it to end the way it did.

Life at NYU wasn't what Steve had expected and he was having a hard time adjusting. Football hadn't gone so well at first. His head hadn't been in it and he'd been benched a few times during practice. He'd never been benched before. He couldn't stop thinking about Tony and everything that had happened. He had gotten to New York and changed his cell number. Which was perhaps a bit rash. He had also called and had his house put on the market. He wasn't going back to Boston. Nothing was waiting for him back there and it only held bad memories.

Being benched had been one of the driving factors of his desire to pull out of his funk. If he couldn't preform on the field he would lose the scollarship and he couldn't afford that.

His roommate had been the one to help pull him from the mourning stages.

It hadn't been easy for Steve the first month at NYU, he only had Bucky and Sharon at the time and with them being a couple, he just didn't want to be around them all that much so he kept to himself and to his room.

Ben had helped with that. The big guy didn't exactly understand what had happened but he had somehow - with the help of his friends Sue and her brother Johnny-, get Steve back into a frame of living. It wasn't a happy state, but it wasn't the state of despair that he had been in.

Steve went to class, trained for football, did his homework and went to sleep. That was his routine and there was nothing that changed that. He didn't hang out with his friends outside of class, he didn't even really classify them as friends. They were people that took up his time so that he wouldn't have to think about Tony.

Not thinking about Tony however, was impossible. He had heard that Tony quit his job and moved back to New York. The media had been abuzz over the prodigal son returning to Stark Industries. Steve tried not to care, but he wanted to know why Tony was back in New York when he had been so unwilling to come with him. It had hurt but Steve hadn't shrunk back into himself, they had been broken up for two months when news of Tony's life change had reached him and he threw himself into his football training. Johnny Storm had been a big help there. It had been hard at first to deal with Storm because he reminded Steve a lot of Tony but there were parts of Johnny that made him endearing and eventually those qualities won out.

It had been nice to have Johnny around to help him train and eventually even being around Bucky and Sharon didn't hurt, as much. It was more a dull throb at the back of his head that he could forget about most of the time. The only time it hurt was when he thought about it.

So, he didn't think about it. Which had been a great way to deal, until the attempt on Tony's life had happened...

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