When Steve woke gasping from yet another nightmare concerning Tony he rolled over and screamed into the pillow. Then looked at his clock. Only 3:47.

But he rolled out of bed anyway and headed to the bit sitting room, hating the fact that the one person he could usually count on to be there was currently on a business trip and the subject of his torturous dreams. So he went back to his room for his cell phone and called Tony's number.

Hello beautiful. If you're listening to this, I'm obviously not available, because I'm probably doing something like saving the world or inventing something to save the world. It's what I do. But hey. When I've got the time, I'll get back to you. Probably. Now get on with it and tell me what you have to say! -beep-

"Hey Tony... It's Steve. I just was calling..." Because I can't sleep? Because I miss you? He inhaled deeply. "I was just calling because I'm up late. Early. Whichever, and I thought you might be up." He laughed. "You usually are, and you're not here to talk to me. So I just...figured I'd call. Um. Give me a call back when you get this message. You've been pretty uncommunicative. That's not like you. Everything okay over there? Let me know. I uh...Look forward to having you back at home again." He shook his head at the stupid comment. "Uh, talk to you later. Bye." And then dropped the phone into his lap. Sighing, he curled himself up on the couch and pulled one of the throws off the couch to tug over himself while the TV flickered quietly before him. He switched it to some infomertial turned down low so he could sag back into the cushions and pretend there was life going on around him.

Tony was shouting at him.

"What are you saying?"

Tony shouted louder, banging on an invisible barrier between them. He gesticulated wildly.

"I don't know what you're saying!" Steve just shrugged, his shield heavy on his back. "What do you need, Tony?"

Tony did a little turn, fingers tangling in his hair. Then he faced Steve again and stabbed a finger in his direction and made a neck cutting motion.

"I miss you."

Then Tony's voice at his shoulder, "Because you're an idiot."

"What?" He spun and Tony was right there. Grabbing his biceps.

"You gotta help me, Steve."

"I can't. I'm not in costume." He gestured down at his uniform.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Funny, soldier. Now get your ass down to the street and help me!"

"But you're right here."

Tony growled and shoved him.

Steve flew back into the barrier, bouncing and when he blinked, they were in a car, Tony's hands cuffed in his lap. "What's goin—"

"Shh!" Tony said immediately, dramatically. "We're getting kidnapped!"

"What?" Steve cried.

"Yeah, buddy. It's me they want. Not you." Tony shrugged apologetically.

"What do—" He was cut off by a dagger in his gut. Groaning as he bled red, white, and blue, Steve hunched over his wound and pleaded wordlessly to Tony. "I need—"

Tony chortled, gave him a kiss, and then shoved him out the door.

Steve woke with a shout, falling onto the floor, tangled in the blanket. He cursed and dug his palms into his eyes, seeing stars.

"You alright there, soldier?" Jan asked, standing over him, already dressed and holding a mug of coffee while the sun streamed weakly in through the windows.

"Jan..."

Something in his face must have put her off because she set the coffee down and offered him a hand. "Are you okay, Steve?"

"No. Yes. I'm fine. It was just..." He looked away as he got up without her help. "Just a dream. Disturbed me, I guess."

"A dream?"

"Yeah. Hey, listen. Have you heard from Tony?"

Jan smiled. "No, Steve. I've not heard from Tony."

"And that isn't...odd. To you."

She frowned. "Not really. Tony and I don't... talk the way you do."

He refrained from rolling his eyes. "That's not. I mean. Has anyone heard from Tony while he's been gone?"

"Steve, do you think he's in trouble?"

"I don't know!" He threw his hands up, startling her. "I just... I've got a feeling."

Jan nibbled her lip. "Well. I mean, I guess we could look into it."

"I feel like I'm missing something I shouldn't be. Things are just..."

"Hey, Steve! Calm down. If Tony's missing, it's easy to call and see if he's really been in conference with the Japan plant. We can call Pepper. She's always talking to him."

Steve nodded, following Jan to the kitchen.

"Get some coffee, sweetie, and we'll call her up."

"You don't believe me." But he grabbed a mug and poured himself some coffee.

"Steve. You slept on the sofa. You never sleep on the sofa."

"I just fell asleep there..." he protested. "Can you get Pepper on the phone?"

Rolling her eyes, Jan pulled her phone out of her purse and dialled. "Pepper! Hi, it's Jan. Yeah, nothing wrong here. Just Steve and myself. We were wondering... Have you heard from Tony recently?" She paused and gave Steve a look. Then frowned. "You haven't heard from him?"

"What do you mean she hasn't heard from him?" Steve pushed his ear close to Jan's phone. "Pepper?"

Jan rolled her eyes and sighed, putting the phone on speaker.

"—that Steve?"

"Pepper! Hi, you haven't heard from Tony?"

"No, the call-dodging bastard."

"Have you talked to the people in Japan?" Steve demanded.

Jan put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a look.

"Um, no. I've been a little busy, keeping up on things for him back here. Steve, do you know something?" Worry came over the line in Pepper's voice.

"I don't..." He frowned, cutting himself off. Because he didn't know how to present something when there were no facts. There was no bad guy. There were only dreams and feelings and suspicions. And any good soldier paid good attention to those, but never acted on them alone.

"Steve, if you think something's up, please tell me so I can do something about it," Pepper said, promises in her voice.

Jan murmured agreeing sounds.

"I think... I think Tony might be in trouble. I don't know why, but I think something happened. I know it sounds a little crazy, and I know it's not enough to act on, but I—"

"Steve," Pepper interrupted, amused. "I deal with Tony Stark and superheroes—sometimes mutually exclusive. Strange is part of daily work. Let me give Japan a call. He's supposed to be home in three days, but I haven't heard from him at all. And you're right; that's weird."

"Okay," he breathed in relief. "Call right back, please."

"Of course. Talk to you soon."

Then Pepper hung up, and Jan looked at him.

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" Steve picked up the phone.

"For doubting you. That was... That was kind of silly of me. You know Tony better than any of us, and I should know better than to doubt you, Steve."

He could feel his face heat. "That's not it. I would have been sceptical if I'd come to me with as little info as that."

"But you would have looked into it."

"Maybe. I don't know."

"You know," Jan said lightly, "you're always more careful when it comes to Tony."

"I don't play favourites," he said immediately, looking at the screen of the phone.

"Of course you don't, Captain America. But Steve takes extra care with Tony."

He looked up at Jan. "I don't."

She smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Yes, dear, you do."

"I don't mea—" But then the phone rang and Steve answered it. "Pepper?"

"Steve, the Japanese haven't even seen Tony, and they're really pissed off that they've been stood up. So I put them on hold and I have to apologise to them and ease things over and—"

"Pepper!"

"Steve, if Tony's missing, it's not by choice. He doesn't do that. He's—"

"Pepper, we'll find him," Steve assured, relieved that he now had a direction to go towards.

"Yes. Of course, Steve." He could hear the smile in her voice. "Thanks. I have to go. Apologise to the Japanese."

"Of course. Go ahead. We'll find him."

"Thanks, Steve. Jan. Let me know—when you've found anything."

Steve nodded. Then, "Of course."

Looking up at him when he hung up the phone, Jan folded her arms. "Now what?"

"Now we find Tony."

He'd amassed the Avengers and assigned everyone a task. Jan and Hank and Peter were looking through street cameras and security footage. Carol was doing aerial reconnaissance. Logan was out pounding the pavement, trying to pick up any sort of scent that was available. Clint and Natasha were doing their on reconnaissance, talking to contacts and people in places who might know where someone would take a captured superhero. But after three hours, Carol returned, tired, and said she had nothing. After six hours, Logan trudged in and shook his head to say he had nothing. Steve had hovered around Jan, Hank, and Peter until they became annoyed and made him leave. So he ordered pizza. Called in favours from everyone he could think of. Fury had heard nothing. Xavier had heard nothing. Richards heard nothing. Just when he was about to burst, reorganising the coffee table for perhaps the tenth time, he was startled by shouts from the other room.

"What? What!" He was behind Peter in seconds, looking over his shoulder at the computer screen.

"Steve," Jan said quietly. "You said you didn't see Tony off."

"I didn't."

"But you did," Hank said, looking up at him.

"No, I didn't," Steve repeated. "I missed him. I was in Central Park. I fell asleep."

"Yeah..." Peter said slowly. "That's not what the cameras say. Took us a while to find one, but this—well. Here; watch." He scooted the chair back to let Steve see, in grainy poor quality, himself walking next to Tony on the sidewalk.

"I don't... I didn't..."

"Just keep watching," Peter said. He switched views when Steve and Tony rounded the corner.

"Why don't I remember that?" His frown deepened when he and Tony stood waiting, Tony gesticulating and grinning at him. "What—oh God." He gaped at the screen as men burst out of the limo and caught them as they fell. "There! Back it up! What happened!"

Everyone squinted at the screen.

"Peter, enlarge it."

"Quality is bad, it won't give us anything better, Cap."

"Can you do anything about it?"

"Mm, probably not."

"Play it again." Steve watched carefully the third time around, jabbing his finger at the screen as both his and Tony's hands came up. "There. We were hit with something. They knocked us out with some sort of drug or paralytic." And then they were bundled into the car.

"But if Happy didn't pick Tony up. I'm sure he would miss something as important as not picking Tony up to take him to the airport," Hank said slowly.

"Unless he was drugged too." Jan met her husband's eyes and then Steve's. "You said you woke up in the park."

"Yeah."

"And you obviously have no memory of what happened."

"None."

"When did you get back? To the Tower?" Peter asked.

Steve frowned, thinking back. "I think... it was around 6:30 or so."

"And the time-stamp here says 3:12." Peter looked up at him. "So that's more than three hours unaccounted for."

"Well, obviously no one's found his body," Hank said. They all looked sharply to Hank who cringed back. "Well that's a good thing, right?"

Steve grabbed the back of Peter's chair, only thinking how Oh God how hadn't he thought of that possibility—he didn't want to think of that possibility—Jan was right—he thought of Tony as special, and he—

"Steve? You okay?" Jan's hand was on his arm.

"Fine. God. I didn't think..."

"He'll be fine, Cap. You know Tony. Can talk his way out of a paper bag."

"Who came up with that idiom," he growled. That didn't make the fear that it could be true go away. It just made it worse, because he knew what a smart-ass mouth Tony had.

Peter hunched his shoulders, looking back at the screen. "I can't identify them because they're wearing masks."

"What about the car? Can we get the license plate? Jan, contact Fury. Then Natasha and Clint and see what they've found. They're not back yet, and this is something that they might know. Or be able to help with. Forget that. I'll call Tasha."

Jan nodded and picked up her cell, immediately on the line with Fury.

Steve turned away and retrieved his phone from the kitchen table, making the call to Natasha. This whole situation was strange. Steve didn't remember anything, Tony kidnapped, no body (he shuddered), no ransom note, no phone calls, no threats, no harm to any of the other Avengers.

He filled Natasha in on what was going on and relayed the information, not getting anything new from her.

"Hey Steve," Hank called.

He waved him off, finishing his call with Natasha.

"Steve, you need to get this. It's Richards."

"Got to go, Widow. Thank you for all your help." He turned to Hank, who handed him a phone. "What is it?"

"Just..." He nodded at the phone.

"Richards?"

"I... I should have said something sooner."

"What is it?"

"I had... I was blackmailed into making some blueprints for a man a while back."

"Blueprints?"

"Yes. He...threatened my children. So I made them for him."

"Reed, what were they for?" Steve paced back and forth along the back of the sofa, Hank staring at him. Jan came to lean in the doorway, worry creasing her forehead.

"They were for a machine," the man's voice dipped quieter.

"Spit it out already!"

"That would put all of the superpowereds out of commission."

"Shit."

"Steve?" Jan said.

"Tony's making it for them." Reed swore on the other end, but Steve cut him off by ending the call. "We need to find Tony now. Reed made plans for a machine that would take out all the superpowereds, and this man is making Tony make it for him."

Peter's face paled as he inched next to Jan who turned away and swore long and low. Logan exited the kitchen, death on his face, and Hank sat heavily on the coffee table.

"We need to find him yesterday." Then barked out orders for renewed searches, more phone calls to make, more people to direct, and more information to be gathered.