Light filled Steve's heavy eyes as he saw the first bit of movement from Tony Stark since the explosion.

It had almost been twelve hours now, since Steve was finally able to be parked at Tony's bedside. Not that Howard was at all opposed to the idea; he needed to get back to a few things for running the company, so having a lookout for Tony was helpful.

Steve knew that he would be the first thing Tony would see, after his eyes fluttered open and he adjusted to the bright white lights of the infirmary.

The smile on Tony's face was priceless. "I'm glad to see you're right here, Cap."

All Steve could do was blush and put his head down, a big goofy grin spread widely across his face. "You're-" he started, tears welling up in his eyes and a lump forming in his throat, "you're alive," he croaked out.

Tony was confused. Or maybe it was just the excess amount of painkillers he was on. "Of course I'm ali-" he stopped mid-sentence, looking down at his body.

The makeshift solution Howard had designed was a large, circular piece of metal, inserted into a chrome-plated cylinder that was now a part of Tony's chest. The hunk of metal was clipped to a Stark Industries car battery, giving off enough power to keep the small pieces of shrapnel away from his heart. For now.

"What the fuck-" Tony shouted, jumping up in his bed. In the process, he just about ripped the cords off from the car battery to the electromagnet.

Steve reached forward and grabbed his shoulders, somehow throwing his entire body on top of Tony's. "You've got to keep calm. We don't know how much pressure this thing can take."

Tony breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. "As long as you stay right where you are," he stole a kiss from Steve, since he was just in the vicinity, "I should be fine."

"Ah, but there's the problem," Steve started pushing himself up, "I can't just stay here forever."

Tony pulled him back by the collar of Steve's usual plaid shirt. "Who says?"

Just then a throat cleared in the doorway. Howard stood there, with a tray of tea ready to bring to both the sleepy attendant and the recently awoken patient. "Tony, nice to see you awake," he said casually around the couple.

Steve jumped off of Tony. Tony made grabby hands at him, and Steve made a mental note to satisfy that need for him later. But now, caffeine was pretty high on the priority list.

"So," Steve started after Howard left the room, "I expect that you already have an idea of how to get rid of the car battery?"

Tony nodded tersely, and slowly raised himself to a sitting position, learning from the previous time. "I created this thing... well, I helped my dad create this thing... ok, my dad created this thing called an arc reactor."

Steve's blank look gave Tony no promise.

"It's this thing, that is made from overheated palladium. And just a little bit of it should help me develop something enough to fit..." Rather than admit his problem aloud, Tony just sort of motioned to where his heart was.

"Right. What do I need to do?" Steve asked.

"I need my dad's toolkit, I need to get down to the labs. And I need you to get my dad to give me a small sample of palladium. That's it." Tony started to turn his feet off of the cot, grabbed the car battery, and stood up.

And immediately started to fall to the ground.

Steve ran to Tony's side, acting as his human crutch. "You've got no strength to start walking now. I'll go get a wheelchair. Sit down."

"No, no, Cap," Tony said, holding onto his strong shoulders, "you're going to walk me down. There's not a snowball's chance in hell that you'll get me into a wheelchair."

"But, in hell, a snowball would-" Steve was taking a bit too long to get Tony's joke.

"It was a joke, Cap. C'mon, don't want your brain to fry over. Let's get to the lab, alright?"

"I suppose, but I still don't get-" Steve started, still stuck on the joke.

To stop him from thinking too much, Tony somehow craned his neck around Steve's arm and planted a kiss on him. "Shh. Come on. You're my crutch, remember?"

Steve shook his head, to recover from the surprise kiss. "Yeah. Yeah. I know."

Once they were in the lab, Tony got situated in a rolling chair so that he could just drag his battery around with him in his lap, and he reminded Steve of his sciencey grocery list.

"Remember, I need my dad's toolkit. And a sample of palladium. And something hot enough to melt it."

Steve nodded tersely, and disappeared upstairs.

Tony leaned back in his chair, and sighed. "I really gotta call Barton and get him over here."

"Shall I dial his number for you?" A British voice asked from the walls.

"Holy sh-" Tony jumped from his chair, almost making the battery short out, when he sat back down and took a deep breath. "Fuck, JARVIS. You keep doing that, just starting to work whenever you feel like it?"

"Sir, I'm almost positive you've told me to 'shut up' on multiple occasions. I was simply following orders. Shall I call Mr. Barton?"

"Fucking sarcastic AI," Tony muttered under his breath. Then he threw his hands in the air and shouted, "why the hell not. Call up Barton. Tell him to get down from his nest at the archery range and give me some comfort because I've been traumatized."

"Yes, sir. Shall I tell him those exact words?" JARVIS asked, a sarcastic bite to his computerised voice.

"What the hell," Tony said, swinging himself around the lab in his chair, "why not?"

Just then, Steve came back into the room, his arms full of supplies. "I've got the... let's see..." he dropped the huge toolkit on his toe. "Fu-" he cut himself off.

"Serum not doing you any favours today, Cap?" Tony asked sarcastically, spinning himself over to grab the smaller stuff out of his hands. He was particularly cautious about handling the small petri dish that held the precious Palladium. That was staying within Tony's reach.

"Shut up, Stark. That piece of sh-" Steve took a deep breath, "that toolkit is much heavier than it looks." Now that his hands were relatively empty, Steve grabbed the kit again, hoisting it up to his chest. "Where should I put it?"

Tony deliberately took his time. "well, you could put it over there on that table..." So Steve started to head the direction he pointed.

"No, wait. Put it..." Tony mumbled, twisting his finger in midair. Steve was struggling to keep himself up.

"Damnit, Tony!" Steve shouted, and dropped the toolkit on the floor, making a loud thud. "I am not your dancing monkey, and I am not your lab-maid. Where do you want the toolkit?"

Tony's eyes filled with regret. "I'm sorry, Cap." He secured the car battery to his lap and spun over to a vacated desk, patting the empty counter space. "I need everything here. And then I'm going to need some favours... I'm not exactly able-bodied at the moment."

"Understood," Steve nodded as he brought the toolkit over. Tony started to arrange the tools in a specific way, having the blow torch at one end of the desk and a small, round cup sitting right next to it.

As Tony settled stuff out, he seemed to start muttering to himself, as geniuses at work normally do. But one question was definitely aimed at Steve. "Any chance we could get an electric scale over here?"

Steve helped Tony look through the toolkit and realised that, sure enough, that was probably the one most important thing Howard overlooked. He ran back to the other genius Stark and returned with a scale. By then, Tony's desk looked like a full blown science lab. Every square inch was strategically covered in science gear, ready to be put to use.

"Use that scale," Tony said, pausing to hoist the battery into a more secure place on the desk, "to measure out some palladium. I need 1.6 grams, at least. Can you do that for me?"

"I, uh-" Steve rubbed the back of his neck. If this was for saving Tony's life, he knew that he definitely shouldn't try to take the reins here. "You've seen me in chemistry, Tony."

"Jeeze, you're right!" Tony grabbed the palladium in a mockingly protective way and snatched the scale out of Steve's hands. "Can't have a clumsy Cap handling my life-or-death situation, now can we?"

Steve nervously laughed and pulled up a chair next to Tony, sitting there only in case of excessive need. Oh, and to watch Tony work. Because, to be honest, it was something that reminded Steve why he was so enamored with this crazy genius.

Meanwhile, Tony was setting his mind to work. He was quickly and efficiently moving his hands around the table, grabbing one piece of equipment that somehow flawlessly segued into the next step in the process of... well, Steve couldn't quite tell what. But he was flawlessly doing whatever it was. The only time he looked at Steve was after a small cup of Palladium had been sitting under the hot blue flame of the blow torch, and now the molten metal was glowing a bright azure-so bright, in fact, that Steve wasn't even sure it was from any sort of natural element. But then again, what did he know about chemistry?

"You have steady hands, right?" Tony asked, grabbing Steve's hands and holding them lightly in his own. Steve could tell that Tony's hands were shaking more than normal, probably because of the weak state of his heart. "Yep," Tony confirmed, taking Steve's hands and opening them near the molten metal. He placed a sturdy pair of gloves in one of his hands, and a pair of light but somehow heavy-duty clamps in the other.

"You're going to be pouring this metal into what's going to keep my heart pumping," Tony joked, and patted Steve's shoulder, "nothing too big to worry about, right?"

Steve flashed a sarcastic smile at Tony as he donned the bulky gloves and grabbed the small clamps. "Yeah," he laughed sheepishly, "no pressure."

"Good," Tony nodded, and started telling (and showing) Steve how to pour the metal. "Grab the little cup with those grabby things," he started.

Steve gave Tony a look that was followed by an obvious sentence. "I'm not five, you know. I know they're called clamps."

"Yeah, well," Tony shrugged, "put you in a chemistry lab and..."

Steve punched Tony in the arm.

"Ow! Ok, ok. Grasp the metal cup with the clamps. Make sure your gloves are on." Steve carefully did so, and looked up at Tony, eager for more instruction.

"This circular object here," Tony held up a small yet intricate piece of metal, "is what is your target. Get the Palladium in here," he traced a small moat in the structure that was lined with glass. Inside, there were small black squares spaced evenly around the circle, each covered with copper wire.

Steve took a deep breath, closed his eyes, opened them, and let the breath out. Carefully, very carefully, he moved the cup of molten Palladium over the reactor's frame and tilted. An eerily beautiful stream of the light blue liquid gently wrapped itself around the nooks and crannies of the small metal. It seemed almost too soon by the time the cup was empty and the arc reactor was full.

"It's..." Steve stood in awe for a few moments, "it's beautiful."

Somehow, Tony managed to get his arm around Steve, and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you," he whispered in his ear, and then pushed himself back. "But the hardest work isn't done. I need you to wheel me over to that chair over there..." Tony motioned in a general direction.

"You mean that one that looks like a dentist's chair?" Steve said, putting the cup down and taking the gloves off.

"Yes, sadly. I-" Tony began, but Steve cut him off.

"I thought the 'Great Tony Stark' didn't get wheeled around," he said mockingly.

"Yeah, well..." Tony rolled his eyes and waved Steve over. "My arms are tired. And I'll make an exception for you."

Steve rolled his eyes in return, and pushed Tony over to the chair. He hoisted Tony's body and battery up into the chair, positioned Tony just so, and then walked back over to the desk.

"Right... now what?"

"You may notice that while you were busy mocking me, I put a back on the Palladium mechanism that you just poured. So grab it," Tony started, and Steve simply put a strong, super-soldier hand over it, "lightly!" Tony screamed, and Steve almost dropped it.

Tony's arms were feeling well enough to bring his hand to his head. "If we have to re-do this because you drop it, I'm going to consider committing murder. Just for you."

"Right," Steve said, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.

"Bring that over here. Oh, and how big are your hands?"

Steve looked confused, and after he put the arc reactor in Tony's hands, he held out his own.

"Huh. Surprisingly small for such a big guy. Don't take it offensively, I need your small hands right about now."

Steve's eyes shifted around the room, not sure what Tony was planning. "O... Kay..."

"I need you to help me pull out this dinosaur of a contraption that my dad has in here right now," Tony started fiddling around with the bulky electromagnet, "and then I'm gonna go into cardiac arrest."

Steve simply stared at Tony, his eyes wider than they had been in a while. Well, since the grenade explosion.

"Don't worry," Tony said, holding out his free hand, "I'm not gonna die. My body's just gonna freak out on me for a sec. My dad did say that I have a piece of shrapnel trying to get into my heart, right? Well, now it's relying on this," he tapped the electromagnet, "to keep it out. Losing that assistance is going to scare it for a moment. Like a little kid losing his mom in a grocery store. This," he pointed to the arc reactor, "this is going to be like Natasha coming over and sweeping the kid up, taking him over to this lovely place and giving him a life supply of ice cream."

"So..." Steve said, closing his eyes and moving his hands in a pattern that wasn't really a pattern at all. "This new blue one is supposed to be the super version of what's in there right now. And I need to do it."

Tony nodded with a terse nod and a "yep."

So Steve set to work. He lifted up the now loose electromagnet and bravely stuck his hand down the metal tube that was now a part of Tony's chest. He swallowed back the bile that came up his throat as he touched... whatever the hell that was in the metal tube, and finally reached the bottom.

"Good," Tony said, grabbing the arms of the chair for stability and huffing and puffing, his face twisted into a painful grimace. Steve couldn't stand the fact that he was putting Tony through anything of this caliber. Tony sucked it up and let out a deep breath. "You need to pull out the base of that electromagnet. The copper wire. The copper wire!"

So Steve pulled. Followed by a not-so-good-sounding snap. And Tony's grunting got worse as Steve lifted out a small washer wrapped in copper wire.

"Damnit," Tony shouted, his teeth grinding together.

"Oh, god," Steve was flailing his hands around, confused about what was happening. "What did I do?"

"Oh, it's not that big of a deal," Tony said, teeth still grinding, yet still being as sarcastic as ever. "You just pulled that washer out of my chest. And now I'm going into real cardiac arrest."

Steve continued to panic.

"No, no," Tony grimaced, attempting to keep calm. "Just take the blue one out of my hand and plug it back into that little area at the bottom of the tube. Quickly, just... do it!"

Luckily for Tony, Steve's soldier side already had working quickly in high-stress situations down. He swiftly grabbed the arc reactor out of Tony's tense hand, grabbed the plug end, and gently lowered it into the cavity that was Tony's chest.

There was a pop, and Tony lowered his back onto the chair, taking slow, relaxed breaths. "Thanks, Cap." He raised himself up to push the car battery off his lap (which landed with a large thud), but Steve gently placed a heavy hand on Tony's new arc reactor and smiling.

Tony's grin was one of epic proportions.

And then they both laughed. Not from comedy, but rather from relief. And as they laughed, Steve just kind of looked at Tony. Just stared at him, with Tony staring right back. Both of them were communicating, just silently.

Tony made the first bit of motion, grabbing Steve's shirt and pulling him down, tracing Steve's ear with his mouth, and Steve leaned into it, breathing a sigh of relief before his breath was taken away by a meaningful kiss.