Apologies for the short update! The next one will be longer :)

Steve was sitting on the cold marble floor in one of Tony's many hallways, staring angrily at the door in front of him. He had spent the last hour taking phone calls from a viciously angry Director Fury, who was currently jetting back from New York to resolve the matter in person. Fury had made it abundantly clear that Steve had royally fucked up, and had made their jobs exponentially more difficult.

But the longer Steve sat there, the more confused he felt. Only an hour ago, he had stormed out on Tony, outraged and hurt by the other man. Maybe he was being naive, but he never imagined Tony would have reacted so negatively to the truth. If anything, he thought Tony would be able to relate to his story because, in a way, they had both gone through something similar. They both had bodies that would eventually betray them, and they had both decided to take their destiny into their own hands.

Not to mention, Tony had been drunk when they confronted each other. No man should be taken at their word when under the influence of alcohol, a lesson Steve thought he had already learned the hard way. Apparently not.

He sighed and stood up, feeling increasingly restless. He couldn't just sit here and wait for Fury to arrive, but he also wanted to be here in case Tony felt at all inclined to try and hash things out with him. He thought longingly of the gym that was only two floors beneath him, and his arm's twitched at the thought of expelling some of his pent up energy.

Well he might as well try. "Jarvis?"

"Yes, Mr. Rogers?"

Steve sighed in relief. At least Tony wasn't completely shutting him out. "Uh...when Tony's ready to talk to me again...or even when he's ready to leave his room, can you tell him that I'll be in the gym? It's just..." he wrung his hands, feeling like he needed to justify himself, "I don't want to leave things like this. We both deserve to talk to each other once we've calmed down and sobered up. I want to be here if he needs me."

Jarvis' reply was immediate, "I will do as you request."

Steve let out a long breath he didn't know he was holding and gave a shaky smile. "Thank you, Jarvis. Thank you so much."

"You're welcome, Mr. Rogers." Was there a hint of sympathy in his voice? Whatever it was, Steve felt like if he was making some progress. If Tony's AI could still trust him after breaking into the mansion, maybe Tony could eventually trust him again as well.

Tony watched Steve on a video hologram as he allowed himself to become progressively drunker. The other man had spent the last hour pacing back and forth in front of Tony's den, much of his time spent having angry conversations on his pathetic excuse for a phone.

Tony had gleaned some satisfaction from making Steve so angry, but that satisfaction had quickly worn off when he realized he was stuck in his den unless he wanted to actually face the other man again. Which he most certainly did not.

So he spent the time drinking back the rest of the bottle of brandy, feeling himself grow less and less lucid as each minute passed.

And he had also been trying to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that told him he was overlooking something important. The more he drank, the stronger the sensation grew, until finally he was yelling at Jarvis in a horrendously slurred voice, "Jarvis! What am I forgetting?"

Jarvis replied in a scathing, judgmental tone that had Tony both marveling at his own genius and regretting the latest updates he had made to his AI. "Sir, you are forgetting many things. Most predominantly, that you had the intention of remaining sober during your recovery on the behest of Doctor Banner and Miss Potts. Today's schedule was left open with the exception of your meeting with Agent Coulson and Mr. Rogers at 4:00pm."

Tony waved his hand in the air, "Neither of those are important anymore." He looked back at the projection of Steve, who was now sitting with his back to the wall, staring straight at the closed door that separated the two of them.

A sudden thought occurred to Tony. "Pull up the footage of him breaking into the building."

When Jarvis had informed him of Steve's forced entry, he had only a moment to feel shocked before Steve was already banging on the door to his den. The part of his mind that was alway solving problems had briefly wondered how Steve could have managed it so quickly, especially considering the many precautions Tony had against SHIELD tech, not to mention the fact that Steve had never come across as particularly tech-savvy.

Despite having a contract with them, Tony had never fully trusted the agency. He had made it quite clear, before he committed to anything, that he was not going to share his Iron Man or arc reactor tech with them.

He already had the tightest security systems in place in his properties that held anything he valued. It was virtually impossible for anyone to hack into his system, unless the person doing the hacking was Tony himself, or God forbid, it was someone even smarter. Despite this, he had taken further measures against SHIELD-specific technology from gaining any sort of leeway into his system. Any breaking-in had to be done by sheer overwhelming physical force - a feat only attempted once before when three of his homes had been broken into that horrible night over two months ago.

He looked back at the video display when he heard the audio give a terrible mechanical sort of squealing, and felt his jaw drop.

Steve was kicking in his front door. His front door made of titanium-reinforced steel. His front door that weighed almost a ton.

And Steve was kicking it in like it was made of rubber.

He watched, transfixed, as the door finally gave way, the thick metal locks completely bent out of shape. Steve used his bare hands, then, to push the door to the side so it left a space large enough for him to fit through, and then he made his way into the building, looking like he hadn't even broken a sweat.

What.

The Fuck.