AHHH! I'm sorry this is a day late. I thought I had this chapter Beta'd but I didn't. One more chapter and its all over. OMG, I can't believe its almost over!

CH13

It was Saturdaymorning; Tony sat at a table in the quad at NYU grading papers from the week. Mostly ignoring the loud sounds of laughter and joy around him. It was still early in the morning, but people were up and about, getting breakfast and enjoying a cool fall morning. He had flown in from Boston the night before.

He was grading papers so that he could enjoy his weekend. It had been a while since he had seen Steve and he wanted to make sure that the man had his undivided attention. He was almost finished when a football came out of nowhere and caused his papers to go flying.

"Sorry!" The blond said before noticing who sat at the table. Tony hadn't told Steve that he was coming. He had planned on finishing up his papers, and then surprise his boyfriend in his dorm. He should have known Steve would already be up, the guy was always up much earlier than any other teen Tony had ever known.

"You are always messing up my papers. It's a good thing I love you." Tony said trying to scoop up the papers before the wind of the chill October air caught them and swept them away. They had come full circle, one year since the first true run in, in the parking lot and yet Tony couldn't be happier.

Steve smiled and kissed Tony on the lips, "I love you too."

Tony woke up groaning in pain. His whole body felt like it was on fire. His throat burned, his head throbbed, his chest felt like it had been torn open and the insides were about to fall out. But the pain he was feeling in his heart, masked all of that. Steve wasn't with him, wherever he was. Steve was gone and it had been him who caused that. He had pushed Steve away.

"Don't try to move. You won't be going anywhere." Stane's voice broke through the fog in Tony's mind and he started to panic a bit.

Blinking, Tony tried to focus on the room he found himself in. It was bright, stark white and clean. It smelled like disinfectant.

"Oh god! Tony you're awake." Pepper's voice and a click of heels on hard flooring, told him she had entered the room. Tony relaxed slightly having Pepper near him meant his life wasn't in any danger from Stane.

"What happened?" Tony asked Pepper. His body was sore, there were tubes sticking out of bandages and his chest was wrapped tight, probably to prevent his insides from falling out. His leg was encased in a black boot.

He remembered the explosion and being trapped, but he wanted to know exactly what happened. What blew up, what caused it and who.

"We aren't exactly sure," Stane said. "But it's lucky you were in the penthouse and not your lab."

"The authorities think someone tried to have you killed." One sentence reminded Tony why Steve wasn't with him, why he had pushed the blond away. He missed Steve, missed his voice, his touch, his smell, but his life was not something Tony was willing to put in danger. "We have you in a high security area of the hospital in case someone tries again."

"When can I get out of here?"

"It will be awhile, you took some shrapnel to the chest. They got it all out but it caused some serious damage." Tony huffed, he had expected that answer, and still, he would leave when he felt he was able to, not when they told he was. He needed to get back to the tower. He needed Jarvis and to figure out what had happened.

Under cover of the dead of night, Tony slipped out of his hospital room and into a black town car. He was not going to be sitting around doing nothing.

"Take me to the tower, Happy." Happy was his driver. Tony had handpicked him years ago as his bodyguard and nothing had changed. The man was fiercely loyal and devoted to Tony. In recent years, Tony hadn't had much need for him, but after the attack on his life, he had put in the call. He had also decided that getting out of the hospital without Stane knowing, was the best choice he could make. He wasn't sure how he knew, he just knew that Stane was involved in the attempt on his life.

Getting out of the hospital had not been easy and the boot on his foot had made it harder. The security around his room was more lax than he had expected given what Pepper had said, but he was thankful. There were a few close calls with the nurses stations but lucky for Tony nights were slow and the nurses made their rounds with less frequency.

Happy had been waiting in the shadows of the building, it hadn't been that hard to find him and he was grateful the big man never asked questions. He just showed up and drove Tony where he was told.

Back at Stark Tower, Tony felt a numb disconnect. The whole of the top floor was destroyed but it was nothing compared to the state his lab was in. Jarvis, his AI wasn't online, which didn't really shock him, considering the damage the lab had taken. He had been shocked to find that the security on the main floors had been working, but that was good news for Tony. That meant that the hard drive was still online and maybe, it would give him an idea of what had happened. It looked like the attack had centered where Tony typically spent his days. The lab had been ransacked, from the looks of it, even after the explosion.

Dum-e and U were trashed and left in pieces, his workstation had papers chard and water logged from the sprinklers strewn all over, papers he had not left on the desk. But the most interesting part was small bit of something lodged in the metal of the desk that caught his attention.

A small serial number on a melted piece of metal. The black metal of the rocket from SI didn't blend well with the chrome. Tony knew the minute he saw that serial number exactly what happened. It was one of the missiles he had marked to be destroyed when he shut down the weapons manufacturing part of his company. Tony knew every single serial number, he was blessed with an eidetic memory, which basically meant everything he read was committed to memory. Lucky him.

He moved as quickly as he could through the wreckage of the lab to the fire proof, waterproof lock box he kept hidden behind a picture of his bots. The lock box was in perfect order and Tony opened it and pulled out the hard drive that housed Jarvis and his security system. He would need the information stored on that to deal with Stane.

"I knew you wouldn't stay in the hospital. You know, sometimes you are just so predictable Tony." Stane's voice was low and menacing. Tony froze; the hard drive was thin, one of his own designs, no bigger than a credit card. He bent down on the pretense of pulling his booted foot free of some debris and slipped the hard drive into the boot.

"I wasn't expecting to see you here Obie, I thought I made a clean escape." Tony's voice was casual, not wanting to let Stane know he was on to him, that he knew or could deduce everything.

"I put a tail on Happy, I knew you would rabbit the second the tubes in your chest came out." Stane moved slowly around the room, not caring about the debris, simply kicking it and disrupting the crime scene in the process.

"You know me so well," Tony, said pulling on the sleeve of his jacket and activating a distress signal he had implanted in most of his clothing after he had learned of the double dealings. He had had reason to believe his and Steve's lives were endanger. For God's sake he had pushed Steve away because of it, he wasn't going to take any chances. He was glad for his forethought.

"Yet, you clearly don't know me all that well, Tony." Stane laughed as he reached Tony. "My little bomb failed to kill you the first time; I won't be so careless a second time." He grabbed Tony by the throat and slammed him against the wall. "This time, I'll just have to watch the light in your eyes go out. To think, your father actually believed you would be good for the company. Killing him was a thing of beauty. Too bad your mom was there, she didn't need to die. That was all your father's fault and so is this." The grip on Tony's throat tightened and his vision started to blur.

"You should have stayed in Boston, taught at that piddly shit high school you love so much. You should have never gone looking at the books; it was none of your fucking business." Stane slammed Tony's head into the wall; Tony could feel his body losing the fight for air. "Arrogant little jackasses have no business playing with..." Happy tackled Stane to the ground and Tony slid down the wall to the floor coughing and gasping for air.

"You ok boss?" Happy asked reaching Tony.

"Ye.." Tony nodded unable to really speak. He glanced at Stane to find a giant piece of debris sticking out of the man's chest. Eyes open wide; unseeing. A look of shock on his face. Tony crawled to the body of his godfather and just stared. It was over, all the danger to his life everything was over.

How was he going to explain to Pepper that she was a widow? How could he tell her that he had caused all of it?

The crunching of broken crap made him look up and to his shock, he found not only Happy, but Pepper and some guy he had never seen before standing over him.

"We'll take it from here Mr. Stark." The man said, but Tony was looking at Pepper.

"Pep? I'm..." Tony didn't really know what to say, sorry wasn't really good enough for helping kill her husband.

"I knew he was into bad things, but I didn't know how far in he was. When Phil contacted me..." Pepper stopped talking; the sob that broke through was enough to rip Tony's heart out. He loved Pepper; she had always been more of a mother than his actual mother had.

"Happy, get Tony back to the hospital, Phil, get rid of the body." Pepper turned around and left.

Steve walked back to campus, it was a long, time-consuming walk but it allowed him to think. He missed Tony, that much was clear to him, but the severity of his sorrow had only just made itself known.

He really wanted to talk to Tony, even just one last time. The way they had left everything, sat heavy on his heart. The dark cold streets of Manhattan, paved the way for realization. Steve wanted Tony back. He would give up the ability to be free, to show affections, if it meant he could have the man he loved back. He had been a fool to walk away from Tony over something as unimportant as public displays of affection.

The fact of the matter was, Steve loved Tony and wanted to spend as much of the rest of his life with him, as he was allowed. Yes, Steve was 18 and Tony was only 26, but sometimes people got lucky and found that one person right away. Tony was that one person for Steve.

Steve's bed was a welcome sight when he arrived back at his dorm, he didn't even bother taking his clothing off he simply landed on the bed and fell asleep.

"How long has he been asleep?" The voice was far away, but familiar.

"I'm not sure; he came back in the middle of the night and just..." That voice was deep, different from the first voice.

"Are we sure he's still alive? Maybe we should poke him." A third voice was added to the mix of voices in Steve's head.

"He's still alive, look you can see his chest moving." That was a female voice.

"You're not going to poke him, Johnny. If Steve missed his classes, he had a good reason."

Steve shifted on his bed, his whole body hurt. "Oh my god my head is killing me." He said grabbing his head with his hands and begging to all the gods that the throbbing would stop.

"Yeah, that sometimes happens when you sleep for 15 plus hours." 15 hours did she say? That couldn't be right, Steve never did that. Steve opened his eyes to find his four friends staring at him.

"You look like hell Steve."

"Thanks Johnny," Steve said dryly.

"What happened to you?" Bucky asked, "Sharon and I went looking for you last night, but we couldn't find you and you didn't answer your phone."

"Had some things I had to figure out." Steve sat up. His head hurt and his feet were killing him. Walking back was probably not the best idea he had ever had, but it had accomplished something he had been unable to achieve for a while.

"Had some things to figure out...care to share?" Bucky asked as Steve kicked his shoes off.

"Just some things, Buck. It's not that important."

"If it makes you miss class, it is." Sharon said.

"Yeah, well. I don't really want to talk about it." He really didn't, he hadn't told any of them about Tony. They knew about his broken relationship, but he had never given the guy a name and he had no intention of telling them.

"Ah man, is this about that guy that has your balls in a vice grip?" Ben cuffed Johnny on the head.

"Ow, hey!" Everyone looked at Johnny but Steve was the only one that laughed.

"What?" Johnny asked.

"Oh to lack the verbal filter like you Johnny." Steve said still laughing. "Yes, it does have to deal with him; no I'm not talking about it. How about we get some food? I'm starving."

The walk to the coffee shop was filled with Johnny and Ben bickering as per normal, they never really got along and yet somehow managed to be best friends. Bucky and Sharon talking about some class assignment they were dreading and Steve listening happily to his friends. The coffee shop was loud and filled with people, but Steve found a bench in the back and let his friends order dinner.

"God, I feel really bad for the guy, I know you said he was a jerk, but he's got to be having the worst week of his life." Sharon said sitting down and passing Steve a sandwich and coffee.

"Who's a jerk?" Steve said taking a long pull from his coffee.

"Stark," Bucky said.

"What about him?" Steve said choking slightly on the mouth full of hot liquid.

"Turns out, the person responsible for blowing up Stark Tower was his godfather." Ben said shrugging, as if a godfather trying to kill their godson wasn't that big of a deal.

"The news is saying that Stark snuck out of the hospital last night and went back to the Tower. Stane, I think the guy's name was, had tried to kill Stark again but his bodyguard had stopped it." The words his friends were saying were registering in his head but not making sense. Tony had snuck out of the hospital? Steve wanted to laugh, that sounded like Tony.

But what was messing with Steve more than anything was that he had been at the tower last night, just like Steve. The sound around him melted into the background as the pain of that knowledge wrapped around Steve. Tony had almost been killed again and he had been there. He had been so near the man, he loved and yet that man had been completely and totally out of reach. The world was laughing at Steve in its own way, mocking him for his rash choices and pointing accusing fingers at him. What could he possibly have done, had he known Tony was up there? Could he have prevented all of this by staying with Tony? Probably not, would he have willing stood beside Tony while all of it happened? In a New York minute.

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