Bruce stood in front of Steve's desk, his usually subdued demeanor alight with sympathy and concern. "Things aren't always what they seem," he said.

Steve refused to look up. He couldn't bear to face the sadness in Bruce's eyes or the costume draped around his shoulders. "Things are exactly as they seem," he said while he focused on the paperless type writer in front of him.

The other Avengers stood in the doorway of Steve's apartment, dressed for the show and ready to head out. They'd all offered to drop the production entirely, to leave Spectacular Spectacular without a cast as a form of protest for the Duke's harsh treatment of Steve, but he'd refused. What was the point in losing his play when he'd already lost everything else? The show must go on—that was how the saying went, wasn't it? He might not be acting in it any longer, but those were still his words on stage. Anyway, the Avengers needed the money; Tony needed the money.

"Steve, are you sure—" Clint began, but Steve stopped him with a wave of his hand.

"I'm sure." It wasn't a lie, not really. He was sure that he wanted the play performed, sure that he wanted the Avengers to have their success. It was the more…difficult part of the situation that had him lost. He wasn't sure why Tony'd eyes had looked so cold just half an hour after they'd been filled with so much love. He wasn't sure what the Duke—or Fury, or any other member of SHIELD, really—had said make Tony change his mind. He wasn't sure if the ache in his heart would ever disappear. But mostly, he wasn't sure if anything he'd felt was ever real; of course, he'd meant it when he'd said he loved Tony, but had Tony meant it when he said it back? Had any of it—the time spent together, the moments shared, the love—been real at all? That he was quite unsure of. The play was an easy topic in comparison.

"Steve, I can't pretend to know what you felt or what you two shared, but I know love. If only because I long for it with every fiber of my being," said Bruce. He leaned against Steve's desk, bending until they were nearly at eye level. "He loves you. I know it. I know he loves you."

Steve tried to smile, tried to thank Bruce for the kind words even if they didn't help—couldn't help—but all that came out was a nod and a half strangled, "Hum." He cleared his throat and waved at the door. "Go. You're going to be late. All of you."

The Avengers watched him with varying expressions of worry and sorrow, then finally they turned and left one by one.

Alone in the deafening quiet of his barely used apartment, Steve set his hands upon his typewriter and seriously contemplated throwing it out the window. He'd gotten everything he'd ever hoped for—love, passion, a good story—and it had left nothing but an empty hole in his chest. He wanted desperately to believe Bruce's words, to fight through the sorrow and doubt and find some inkling of hope, but how? Yes, Tony was an excellent liar, but was anyone that good?

Perhaps he'd been forced, perhaps he'd been bullied or blackmailed into breaking Steve's heart; perhaps this was all the Duke's doing. It was a nice thought, but where did he draw the line between hopeful and simply naive? Tony had all the right in the world to leave, to change his mind about Steve. Steve only wished he knew why.

There was really only one way to find out. It was time to return to SHIELD and see the ending—the great finale—first hand.

Bruce had never been the type to meddle. Quiet by nature, he often took the backseat in his friends' affairs and was only known to speak up when directly asked for his opinion. He cared—of course he did—but he never saw himself as much of a help, and he was certainly no expert on love. Still, he couldn't help the gnawing suspicion that something was wrong here.

Making friends with Tony had been easy. Both men of science stuck in the wrong profession, they'd gotten along from the first second they'd met. Tony was brash and talkative where Bruce was reserved and quiet, but he'd brought out the best in Bruce, gotten him to open up, to unravel from his shell, and for that, Bruce was endlessly grateful. With Tony and the Avengers by his side, Bruce had finally felt appreciated—finally felt like he was somewhere where he belonged.

Now, everything was falling apart.

As he paced backstage and awaited his part in the play, he tried to think of an answer, a rational explanation to pull them out of the mess in which they'd fallen. Blackmail and wrong-doings were an easy explanation, but why, over what, and by who?

Just minutes before Bruce was to take the stage, two men appeared at the back of the room. The Duke was easy enough to recognize with his blond hair and crude sneer; the second man appeared to be some sort of body guard—Bruce recognized him only as someone he'd seen in passing.

"The boy is here," said the guard. "The writer kid. He's here."

The Duke growled—an animalistic, murderous sound that vibrated from his throat to fill the small room. Neither he nor the guard seemed aware of Bruce's presence. "I told Stark if the writer came near him, he'd be killed!" Tiberius snapped.

The guard nodded. "He very soon will be." His hand twitched over something in his jacket pocket—a long, gun shaped something that sent Bruce's heard thudding in his chest.

That was it. That was the answer. Tony had only pushed Steve away to save him. Now, if he could just find Steve before the Duke and the guard found him—

Clint said his last line—Bruce's cue to take the stage. The rope was already around his waist, and before he could even think to untie it—to throw the rope aside and run off to warn his friends—one of the crew members yanked at the pulley, and Bruce went flying. He rose up, up, up into the air, through the curtains and into center stage where he hovered, suspended above the crowd and unable to do a thing to help.

Panic rose in his chest like bile.

"I've come to pay my bill." Steve stopped before Tony's work station. The engineer stood backstage, overseeing the technological aspects of the play's production. He turned around, his expression dropping when he saw Steve with an envelope full of money in one hand.

"You shouldn't be here," he said. He ushered for one of the crew members to take over the pulley system; in a millisecond, the man had hoisted Bruce up into the air.

"Just leave, Steve." Tony turned away and hurried off to the next section—adjusting the lighting and instructing the crew members on how best to do their varying jobs.

"I'm an honest man. You did your job. Gave me one hell of a convincing show. I'd just like to pay off my debts." Steve took another step forward until he and Tony were only inches apart. Back behind the curtains, the room was dark, leaving criss-crossed shadows to fall over Tony's terrified face.

"There's no point. Just go. You really, really can't be here," he said.

"Everyone else pays. If you don't love me, and it wasn't real, why can't I pay?" Steve folded his free hand—the one not holding the money—into his pocket. Only then could he hide the trembling in his fingers and keep a straight face. Only then could he keep from breaking down the moment his eyes met Tony's.

He'd thought it over for hours—days really, ever since Tony had broken things off—and this seemed the only rational course of action. If Tony accepted the money, then Steve would know for certain: it had been a job all along. If that was all it was—all it ever had been—Tony would be expecting nothing less. Steve was nothing if not a man of his word—a man who paid his debts.

He'd just never thought, even for a second, that Tony would ever be a bill to him.

"Steve just go," Tony snapped. He stepped around Steve, placing several feet's distance between them. "Get the hell out of here. Just…go!" He was pale—paler than Steve had ever seen him—and his hands shook at his sides. Was it fear from seeing Steve—that awkward heart stopping panic of seeing an ex—that had him so riled, or something else? Something worse?

For not the first time, the thought drifted back to him, the idea that all of this—the breakup, the heartache—was some elaborate scheme that started higher up than he could ever know. Fury's doing? The Duke's?

"Just tell me you never loved me, and I'll go." Steve crossed his arms over his chest; for once, he figured, his stubbornness might do him some good. He'd go mad if he didn't get some answers. He could live knowing that Tony didn't love him—not happily, not fully, but alive all the same—but he couldn't go another day wondering. Was it real, was there a bigger meaning, was he missing the point?

Before Tony could say a word, several of the backup dancers came rushing by, dragging Tony and Steve with them in their mad rush to get on stage. Next thing he knew, Steve was standing before a crowd of eight hundred paying guests with eight hundred pairs of curious eyes staring up at him. Tony stood by his side, looking equally surprised and just as out of place—both in their civilian, costume-less clothes.

"Ah! The two brave warriors return home—neighbors of the great king!" Thor announced, settling the crowd's confusion and giving reason for Steve and Tony's sudden appearance; he winked at them both.

Steve turned to Tony and whispered, so only he could hear, "Thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love." With that, he turned on his heels and stepped off stage. As the dancers behind him started their theatrical version of the cha-cha, Steve walked down the aisle between the two sections of the crowd. Eyes followed him from every direction until they realized where the real show was and turned back to the stage.

That is, until Tony made him part of the real show.

"Spoiler alert, folks, but she's going to choose the writer," he said. The music stopped. The dancer's came to a screeching hold, bumping into each other in their haste to stop. Tony stepped to the center of the stage as the play and all their hard work fell apart around at the seams. "Why would she ever choose the King? Because he's got money? She doesn't want money. She wants to live. That's all she's ever wanted. And you know what, she feels fucking—sorry uh, freaking—alive when she's with the writer. That's the person she's supposed to be, the one she wants to be with. Come what may."

Steve, who had already frozen halfway down the aisle the second Tony began to speak, now turned around. Tony met his eyes and shot him a small, hopeful smile. Steve returned it, though tentatively. If Tony was saying what he was thought he was saying—and it was always hard to tell with Tony—then that meant he still loved him. There were still no answers, no explanations to why he'd ended things, but it was a start, and Steve would take it.

He crossed the room and stepped back on the stage in two easy strides. With no thoughts for the audience—confused and befuddled as they now were—and no cares for the consequences, Steve took Tony's face in his hands and kissed him for every day they'd had to go without. The audience gasped.

With that one simple move, the room exploded—dancers clearing the stage, audience members jumping out of their seats, the Avengers crowding protectively around the couple, while a man with a gun jumped on stage and pointed it straight at Steve's head. A woman screamed, and a man yelled for someone, anyone, to call the police. At that same moment, Bruce came swinging down on his rope and knocked the man and the gun to the floor.

"They were trying to kill you. This whole time. That was their big plan. That was why—" Gasping for air, Bruce gestured for Tony to finish the story before he buried his head between his knees.

"Is that true?" Steve asked. He watched as Natasha's high-heel stomped down on the man with the gun, effectively pinning him to the floor.

Tony nodded. "I thought it was the only way."

Steve shook his head. "You didn't have to protect me. I could have—"

"Could have what?" Tony raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Looked that gun in the eye? Fantastic plan. Real rational. Oh look, he's getting arrested." Tony smiled gleefully as authorities burst into the room and made a beeline for the Duke's guard who Natasha was still holding captive. A few other officers began escorting the crowd from the building; Tiberius slinked off out the back door. All the while, Tony clung to Steve's hand; if he never let go, that would have been perfectly fine with Steve.

For one brief moment, everything made sense. For that single second, as Tony leaned into his side and Tiberius disappeared for what Steve hoped was the last time, while their last kiss still hung, heavy and perfect, on Steve's lips, he felt blissfully happy.

And then Tony was falling.

Steve caught him on instinct. He sunk to the floor as the man collapsed into his arms, gasping for air and clutching at his heart. Tony laughed shakily, his eyes unfocused. "Fuck, I actually forgot," he said.

"Forgot what?" Steve's voice was more desperate, more hysterical than he ever could have imagined. How could life yo-yo so fast, bad to good and back again in less than an hour? Steve could hardly keep up. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"I'm dying." Tony's fingers stilled against his chest. "I'm sorry. Fuck, Steve, I'm so sorry. I was trying to—"

"I know. I know, it's okay." Steve shook his head. Apologizes weren't necessary, not anymore. He simply couldn't find it in him to care. "You were trying to protect me, I understand. You're fine. You're going to be fine."

"I'm so sorry," Tony said again.

Steve held on tighter, his fingers digging into Tony's arms as though he could will him to stay—awake and alive beneath his touch. "It's alright. You'll be alright. I know you'll be alright."

"The white light is bullshit. I don't see anything." Tony was shaking in his arms now.

"That's because you're not dying," Steve said stubbornly.

Tony smiled. "Write it down, okay? Tell everyone there's no white light. Tell them about us. I don't want to be the damsel in distress this time. Tell 'em the real story—" He broke off, coughing hard. Blood trickled from the corners of his mouth.

"Okay, okay. I promise. Just stay with me."

But it was no good. With one last squeeze of his hand, Tony's eyes closed and he went limp in Steve's arms. The last fleeting moment in the life of the great Tony Stark.