Archive of Our Own

Steve could go back.

That's the only thing he can think.

As the night wind gusts bitterly cold past the hem of his trench coat, as his shield rattles in its portfolio case, as every step down the pavement takes him farther and farther from Tony, still the only thing he can think is this: he could go back.

Right now, he could turn around. He's maybe fifty feet from the hotel. Tony's probably still in the shower. Tony doesn't even know he's gone yet. Steve imagines easing the door silently open, slipping back inside just like he slipped out, picking up the wallet he left on the table, crumpling the note underneath, the note Tony wouldn't need because he'd have Steve, rather than a list of Steve's promises. Tony would never know he'd left at all.

They'd be together. Whatever this would be, they'd be in it together.

It's a strange fantasy. In his head it feels hollow, disjointed. The empty shell of something some other man is supposed to want. A cheaply-manufactured flight of fancy, and he can map out its seams, the places where it falls apart.

The rest of the inside of his head is blank, empty. He's not sure where his feelings went. He used to have other fantasies there, filling him up, warming him. A fair few of them were about Tony. He imagined tenderness, affection, love. He imagined commitment. Permanence. The taste of Tony's mouth in the mornings, coffee-bitter. Tony's body, strong, muscled, warm, curled up against him as Tony sleeps, perfect and trusting, in his bed, at his side. He imagined lazy evenings cuddling with Tony, the two of them together in the mansion. In their home.

But it's not Steve's home anymore, and it's sure as hell not Tony's home anymore, and every fantasy Steve ever had about him has been carved out of him with a dull knife, his dreams scraped down to the bone, and all that's left is pain.

Steve smells like sex: sweat, lube, and come. He smells like men. Like Tony. Steve's mouth tastes like Tony's mouth, which is to say that Steve's mouth tastes like cheap whiskey, nothing but the burn. The scrape of Tony's beard stings Steve's cheeks. He feels the ghost of Tony's bruised body against his palms, Tony's narrow wrists and protruding ribs, like Tony's only made of sinew and bones. Tony's too thin, now. Steve thinks he's lost the right to have an opinion about the matter. He's not sure he ever had the right in the first place, but clearly that never stopped him.

The fantasy, the one where Steve comes back to Tony -- it doesn't go on after that, and Steve knows why: it can't. Tony steps out of the shower and back into the room, towel wrapped around his hips -- or, if Steve's monstrous libido would like, wearing nothing at all -- and Tony says... what, exactly? What does he say? Nothing. There's nothing he can say.

There's nothing Tony can say, because Tony will never say it: I care about my life more than I care about liquor. I care about you more than I care about liquor. He's made his choice, and Steve isn't it.

When Steve was six, his da died. In Steve's blurry childhood memories, he remembers one of the last days, his da's eyes and skin tinged yellow after his liver had gone. Steve's ma had called him to his bedside, knowing the end was soon, and Steve had waited, trembling, in terror of what might happen next, and then he'd realized his da couldn't hurt anyone anymore except himself. He had stared at something beyond him, something that wasn't there, trembling even more than Steve had been, and then he'd vomited blood.

His da had never smelled like whiskey, not in Steve's memory. He's sure his da would have liked to, but in 1926, real liquor was for folks who could afford it, those rich enough that the laws couldn't touch them, and so his da had been sick on moonshine and bathtub gin, blind on wood alcohol. Steve doesn't think the quality of it would have made a difference, in the end.

He's a good man when the drink's not in him, his ma had always said. Steve had waited, eagerly, to see the good man, the one his ma loved. Steve had wondered, with a child's foolishness, if his da was better in the morning, before he started drinking, but in the morning, he'd only ever wanted the first drink. The good man had never come back. Maybe he'd never existed.

So, yeah, Steve knows exactly how this story ends.

He walks further down the street. He knows he should go home. Home's not a word that feels good right now.

When he first awoke into the future, he used to go out at night. He told himself he was patrolling. Looking for supervillains. Mostly he wasn't. Mostly he was trying to accustom himself to this alien world, the noises of the city at night, music he'd never heard blaring from radios, languages and accents new to him. It was easier at night, when he didn't have to see as much, when it was only sound. When he could take it one sense at a time.

He can't say why he wanted to go out tonight, why this was the night he wanted to roam the city. He's been restless since Bernie left him. Lonely. And Times Square is as grimy as ever, even now; it seemed like a good place to start. Familiar, even in the future, in its seediness. Expected.

He never expected Tony.

It was random, an act of happenstance in a relationship Steve had once pretended was fated. If it had been ten minutes later that Steve had walked down that street, they might never have seen each other again. Tony might have been sucking some other guy's dick.

Maybe it would have been better that way.

He imagines that even now Tony is stepping out of the shower, is finding the note and the money. If Steve's lucky, Tony won't find the active identicard tucked into the wallet. Steve can't imagine Tony wants to talk to him right now, but the card is the best tracker he's got. Tony will probably find it. Tony's not stupid.

Tony's not stupid, which makes his current life choices inexplicable. He knows exactly what he's doing to himself. He can probably recite every single thing the alcohol is doing to his body, the chemical composition of his downfall.

And Steve's sure Tony knows the other risk he's taking, the one Steve can barely think about, the one that's even worse than the drinking. Tony must know. He must know that men are dying. Men like him, men doing the exact thing he's doing, are dying every day, and no one who can do anything about it gives a fuck. It's not on the nightly news. The president's never breathed a word about it. Because who cares, right? Who cares when it's just the faggots?

And yet Tony's still doing all this. He's still drinking. And he's still -- Christ -- out on the streets, prostituting himself for liquor money.

Steve can't save Tony. Tony has to decide to stop drinking. That's all on him.

Steve offered Tony a choice: liquor or him. Liquor or a home. Liquor or survival. Liquor or anything else in the entire goddamn world. Tony's a drunk. He picked liquor. That's what it means to be a drunk, isn't it?

Steve gave Tony close to two thousand dollars. Cash.

He knows Tony's going to spend it on liquor. That's the point. If Tony has money to spend on liquor, then he doesn't need to make money to spend on liquor, and then he doesn't kneel for strangers in dark, fetid, icy alleyways. If Tony has more money than even he can spend on liquor, he'll spend the rest on hotel rooms and warm coats, things that mean he won't freeze to death. He'll be safe.

Well, safer.

It's a matter of risk assessment. It's a kind of strategy. Tactics. Steve understands tactics. Alcohol will kill Tony if he keeps drinking like he's drinking now. But if he ever quits drinking, it's no longer a death sentence. At least, not a guaranteed one.

The other thing Tony's doing -- well, that's a death sentence, these days.

Tears sting at Steve's eyes, and he pulls down the brim of his hat to hide his face, even though no one is there to see him. He'd cried when he'd seen Tony, too. He doesn't want Tony to die like this.

Every day, Tony's putting a gun to his own head. All the ways he could have made money, and he picked this.

Steve doesn't know much about AIDS.

He doesn't think a lot of people do, but his ignorance now galls him. He'd skimmed the newspaper articles about AIDS, barely paying attention on his way to the more interesting stories. The things he thought were relevant to him. The newspapers didn't know much, either. There's a virus. It's in blood. Bodily fluids. Possibly semen. Until recently, it was called GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency; the name was a cruel and brutal summary, a reassurance to the rest of the world that they didn't need to worry about it. Gay men get it. Through sex. As far as Steve knows, no one knows exactly how or why anyone gets it, or what the exact risk factors are. He doesn't even know if kissing is safe. There are no tests. You find out you have it when you get sick. Then you die. There's no cure.

Shame makes Steve's throat lock up, because he knows he thought he was above this. He thought he was better than this. He thought he was more moral than this, because until tonight he hadn't fucked a man since 1945, back when VD was all curable with a shot of penicillin, back when the idea of paying for sex wouldn't have crossed his mind, even though he knew it crossed the minds of his fellow GIs a hell of a lot. He thought he was more moral than this, because the goddamn super-soldier serum means he can't catch or carry any disease, not even this one, and he decided that somehow that reflected on his own personal morality. He thought, somehow, that his charmed life had made him good, not just lucky. He thought that he wasn't one of those people. He thought that his life didn't intersect with any of that. He thought he was a better man, surrounding himself with better people. He thought it was never going to come up.

Congratulations, asshole, he thinks, and he's crying again. Your best friend's a gay prostitute. And you paid to fuck him. Looks like you're not who you thought you were, huh?

He doesn't know what it looks like when you're sick with AIDS. He hasn't ever needed to know. He hasn't bothered to find out.

Tony had been skinny, sure. He didn't think Tony had looked sickly, just underfed and living rough. But Steve wouldn't know, would he? And he doesn't know, anymore, whether Tony would have told him if he were sick.

He might already have it and not know. He might catch it tomorrow.

Steve doesn't think Tony was lying when he said he didn't let them fuck him. Steve doesn't think Tony was lying about anything. But Steve doesn't know if what Tony has already done is safe. And neither does Tony.

Tony, the smartest man Steve has known in his entire life, decided that it was worth risking death on a daily basis -- and not for anything heroic, the way he used to, not all that long ago. Tony ran the same numbers Steve is running -- the knowledge that there's a disease out there killing the men doing this very thing -- and decided that it's all worth it if he gets a drink out of it. The smartest man Steve has ever known has decided to run an experiment to see which lethal habit kills him first.

There's a saying: statistically, all marriages end in either divorce or death.

Steve feels like he really understands that, right about now.

Tony's not going to stop drinking. But Steve's going to do everything he can to make sure Tony has only the one thing to worry about. The least fatal of Tony's deadly risks. It's not safe. Nothing is safe. It's just safer. It's all Steve can do.

That almost makes Steve sound noble. It is, of course, a lie. Like everything else about him right now.

He keeps walking. He still doesn't know where he's going. Home is what he wants the answer to be, and he knows in his heart where he wants the answer to be. But the man who makes it Steve's home isn't coming back. And Steve doesn't want to walk into the mansion when he's smelling like sex, when there are tears clinging to his face, when he knows he's nothing like the paragon of virtue he always wanted to be.

Brooklyn, then. The loft isn't home, not by a long shot, but he has fewer nosy neighbors there. And they don't even know he's Captain America. They won't know he's supposed to be a better man.

Steve reflexively pats his pants pockets for his wallet before remembering that he left it for Tony. He took his credit cards, his bank card, and his driver's license, because Tony doesn't need Steve's ID, and Steve's sure Tony isn't frequenting the kinds of establishments that accept credit cards. If Steve had been thinking -- or not thinking -- with whatever part of him is currently masquerading as his mind, he might have left Tony the bank card, so Tony could have a source of funds. But $2000 ought to last Tony a while.

His cards and license are wedged in his pants pocket, and he didn't even take a single dollar. He gave it all to Tony and left himself nothing, which is how he feels about his entire life right now. At any rate, a taxi to Brooklyn Heights from the Village is a monetary impossibility.

He pats down his coat pockets and finds three subway tokens, a fourth fallen through a hole in the pocket, stuck in the lining of his coat. He grimaces. That'll have to do. At least he's not in uniform. If he keeps his head down, no one will notice him.

Tony did, Steve's traitorous mind whispers.

Tony saw him walking down the street with his hat pulled low, saw him trying to hide everything about himself, and he offered him his body. Had Tony known Steve wanted him? Had he always known? Maybe Steve was fooling neither of them.

There are no illusions left now.

He turns at the next corner, finds the station entrance, a flickering beacon in the night. Steve lies to himself: he tells himself everything will be better in the light. He's always been able to stand in the light. He's always been righteous.

He jogs down the stairs. His shield case hits the backs of his legs with every step. He wonders if maybe he should have left it behind, too.

The subway has always felt like another city to Steve. Another country.

When he was a kid, the subway was where Steve got to see people who weren't from the tenement slums like him. Everybody rode the train -- well, not people rich enough to have a car service, usually, but everybody else. It was an equalizer. Everybody could scrape up a nickel for the train, or jump the turnstiles if they couldn't. The straphangers would be businessmen, who wore suits that weren't darned and patched at the elbows, and to Steve that was wealth. They'd yield the seats to women, who wore elegant dresses and, in the years before the war, silk stockings. Awed, he imagined this was high society.

In the summers, Steve and Arnie used to take the train to Prospect Park, to see the Dodgers play at Ebbets Field; there was no way Steve was going to root for the Yankees or, God forbid, the Giants. He'd always liked the ride. On game days there would be families, families with kids like him, all headed to Flatbush. Steve always looked at the other boys, the ones who weren't wearing castoffs and hand-me-downs, the ones who had the luxury to be more than skin and bones, and he wondered what it was like to be them. What it was like to have enough food every day and never go to bed hungry. What it was like to live somewhere that had heat and water all the time. What it was like to look at something in a store and know he could buy it. They had lives he could never have afforded.

Steve wonders if Tony looks at people like that now.

The subway these days feels like another world. Another dimension. Possibly Hell.

No one likes to ride the subway in New York City anymore, here in the glorious modern 1980s, especially at night, unless they'd like to get mugged, stabbed, shot, or raped.

Steve descends to the main concourse. His boots resound against the cold concrete floor, his steps echoing off the tiled walls. The tiles used to be white. It's gritty, grimy, filthy. Almost every square inch of the station, including the signage, is covered with graffiti. Paint flakes from the railings of the stairs in sickly, scabrous patches. The station smells like piss, because every station in the city smells like piss. It's worse in the summer, but it's still noticeable now, especially to Steve's senses. His nose wrinkles. He steps in something sticky. He doesn't want to know what it is.

The few lights that work are long fluorescent tubes overhead, and they hum with electricity as Steve walks under them, a low buzz that sets his teeth on edge. Some of the lights are failing, flickering, strobing in flashes that make him wince. A fair number of the lights are entirely gone, and much of the station is dim, though not yet pitch black. Steve supposes it could be worse. It can always be worse.

There's a rustling sound and a twitch of movement in one of the darkened sections of the concourse: a rat skitters by.

Just before the turnstiles, there's a man passed out on the floor, lying against the wall, under an unreadably mangled poster that once provided tips for not being mugged. His body is a shapeless pile of dirty rags. He's probably not dead. His midsection shudders with a breath. He's alive. His head is turned away; Steve doesn't look closer. The man is nobody.

This is who Tony is now, isn't it? Nobody. Invisible.

If Steve were the man he claims to be, he'd stop. He'd ask this stranger if he were okay. He'd give him a dollar.

He has no money on him. Tony has it all.

He keeps walking.

This is who Steve is now.

He ponders jumping the turnstile for the hell of it, because tonight seems like a night for bad decisions. Will it make him a good man if he pays the fare? Probably not.

He feeds the token in, more out of an unwillingness to get caught than out of any keenly-felt sense of ethics, tonight. He's already demonstrated that he has none of that anymore. If there are cops around, Steve definitely doesn't want to explain who he is or what he's been doing.

Who he's been doing, more like.

He adjusts his grasp on his shield case and heads down to wait for the F train. Almost all the signs have been obscured with graffiti, but Steve knows where he's going: down and down, the lowest level of the station. Deeper into the earth. He imagines himself sinking into quicksand.

What would happen, Steve wonders, if he never came up?

The platform is a concrete island between two train lines. The lights aren't flickering as much down here, but the bright lights on concrete and tile are disorienting, industrial. It could be any time of day down here, a time that bears no relationship to reality. Steve thinks about sleep deprivation as torture. Steve thinks about prisons.

He walks to the edge of the platform and peers down onto the tracks.

It wouldn't take much, would it? All anyone would have to do is touch the third rail. Electrocution. A lethal voltage. An amateur execution.

That's how Steve killed a man for the first time. Barely a minute after the serum had taken effect, he'd grabbed the Nazi spy who'd killed Erskine, thrown him into some of the lab equipment, and watched as the man convulsed.

It was fast. So fast. And then it was over. He'd never once thought he hadn't done the right thing.

He thinks things used to be simpler, then. Black or white. Right or wrong. Maybe he just doesn't know the difference anymore. Maybe it's all him. Maybe he changed.

He stares at the tracks. He doesn't think about jumping.

He's not suicidal. He's never been suicidal. And that's a problem, actually, because Tony is.

Tony either wants to die or doesn't care if he dies, but either way the end is the same. Tony's just taking the scenic route to the grave. If Steve knew how that felt, if he'd ever known how that felt, maybe he'd have a shot at understanding Tony. At helping him. At finding the answer, if there's an answer. If there's a right thing to say. But Steve's not the same kind of man Tony is.

Instead, Steve only knows what he knows: suicide is an unfathomably selfish act. A mortal sin.

He doesn't understand why Tony wants this. He doesn't understand, at all, why Tony's the way he is. For God's sake, he has so much to live for. The life he was born into is one anyone would envy. And yet, he doesn't want any of it. Even life itself. He's rich, brilliant, handsome. Or, at least, he was; now he's only the last one of the above, and even then maybe it's only Steve who thinks so. Steve and any man with twenty bucks and a hard-on.

No. He's not thinking about that.

Life had given Tony every possible goddamn advantage, and Tony threw it all away to drink down poison in unending cups.

Up until he decided to do this to himself, a scant few months ago, Tony had everything money could buy -- and everything else, too. He had friends. He had teammates. He had people who cared about him. People who loved him. People still love him, surely. They must.

Steve loves him.

For whatever it's worth, Steve loves him.

There's an answer to that. What it's worth. It's worth two thousand dollars.

You can put a price on anything, can't you?

Steve pushes the thoughts away, pushes them down, into the same cramped and cobwebbed space in his head where he used to hide everything he felt for Tony. He doesn't want to think about what they did together. What he did to Tony.

Because it was him, wasn't it? Sure, Tony said yes, but it wasn't Tony's idea. It was his.

This was never how he wanted it to happen.

It's so recent that he feels like he could change it, correct it; it feels like he's still watching himself make a mistake. Watching an accident happen, he thinks, now shirking his own responsibility. A knife, perhaps, slipping out of his grasp and falling to the floor. In the half-second in which it's losing its battle with gravity, Steve might think I could catch that.

He couldn't catch Tony.

He exhales hard, steps back from the edge, and looks up and down the platform.

He wishes he had a cigarette. He's barely smoked since the war; he hasn't touched his pipe in years. But he needs it. Not the way Tony needs liquor, but he needs it. He needs something in his hands, something else to focus on, something else in his mind, anything other than what he did.

He shuts his eyes. Memory comes to him in lewd, bright, washed-out flashes, like overexposed film pulled at too low a speed. Cheap pornography. The bony, protruding line of Tony's vertebrae. Steve's own rough, callused hands on Tony's narrow, jutting hipbones as he slides inside him. The dark bruises other men had left on Tony's body. Tony's pale, flat ass, lacking any padding under Steve's questing fingers. Tony hadn't let him see his face until the end. Tony had been crying.

No. He's not thinking about that either.

If the world were kind to him, he'd be alone right now. He wouldn't have to be in the presence of a single other human being until the morning. Not that things will look better in the morning. But, in an ideal world, Steve would have the space to regroup. To get himself under control with no one looking at him, so that tomorrow he can be Captain America again, a man who is much better than Steve Rogers.

But Steve knows what sort of world this is, and so even at this time of night there are still other people on the platform.

No one's paying any attention to Steve right now, of course. There's an older man in a disheveled business suit, reading a newspaper, ignoring the world. Further down the platform, a surly teenager with spikes on his jacket, neon orange hair, and a portable cassette player is subjecting everyone else to his music, which to Steve mostly sounds like drums and screaming. A dozen feet away from Steve, a man in worn, dirty clothing is holding a loud and obscene conversation with himself about the government tracking him. Off his meds, they say, nowadays. A few years ago, they closed the mental hospitals and let everyone out onto the streets.

When Steve woke up in the future, the Avengers -- Tony -- told him about the wonders of the modern world. There are so many medications now, so many cures for ailments Steve grew up knowing that you just had to live with. Or die from. There's a polio vaccine. Asthmatics have inhalers now; with just a few breaths of medication, an attack can be averted. There are antibiotics now that treat some kinds of pneumonia. Steve's mother died of pneumonia when he was a teenager. He nearly cried when he found out that these days she could have just taken a pill. She could have lived. The future doesn't know how good they have it.

But even the best medication in the world does you no good if you don't take it. If you can't take it. If you fall between the cracks of the system. If no one makes sure you've got a roof over your head and your daily medication and everything else you need to stay healthy and sane.

The glorious bright future is a sham. It lets people down. There are probably half a dozen medications that could make that terrified stranger's paranoia vanish, and no one cares enough to put them in his hands.

Tony has fallen between the cracks. Tony practically jumped there. But it's not like any of these amazing drugs can bring him back up, either.

Steve's mother could have been saved, if she lived now. But Steve's father would still have been dead.

Even in this miraculous future, they can't make a pill for alcoholism. Steve asked Strange about it once; the best they've got, Strange said, is a drug that gives you an immediate hangover if you take a dose and then try to drink. It doesn't make you stop wanting it. Nothing would have made his father stop wanting it. Nothing can make Tony stop wanting it.

Steve's just not going to think about the things he wants, right now. It's not technically addiction when the thing he wants is a person, is it? Lucky him.

There's an announcement over the loudspeaker. It doesn't actually sound like words.

The train comes.

There's a rush of wind down the tunnel. The light. The screech of brakes. The train is just as graffiti-covered as the station. The car closest to Steve has at least three windows broken, but most of the lights still work, and there are a couple people inside it, which is better than nobody. You're more of a target if you're alone. Steve's not a great target, but no one else knows that right now; the shield's in a case. He'd rather not have to use it.

When the doors open, Steve steps inside the train. The man who's been muttering to himself follows him, giving Steve a suspicious once-over.

"Fucking SHIELD agents following me," the stranger spits out. "They're fucking everywhere. They're on this train. They're trying to kill me."

Steve, who is technically, at this moment, a part-time fucking SHIELD agent, smiles politely and adjusts his grip on his portfolio case. He doesn't know what to do. What the hell can he do? He can't do anything.

The man squints and then heads to the other end of the car.

Steve hopes no one on this train gets themselves stabbed. He wants to go home already.

There are probably rats in here, too.

He takes a seat under one of the completely-unreadable maps as the doors close. The speaker crackles and the conductor says something staticky and unintelligible. It doesn't matter. Steve knows where he's going. It's not far. Six stops until Brooklyn. Until home.

It's not home, but it's home for tonight.

The train picks up speed.

Steve's always hated this part of a train ride. Everything outside is dark; there's the occasional burst of light past the windows. The windows are still broken, and there's a terribly cold wind on his face as the train judders through the blackness, strobed with a too-bright light. It feels like a bad dream. It feels unlike reality in some terrible, soul-deep way. They're arrowing through the night and the next place they reach won't even be safe, because nothing is.

He shuts his eyes and braces himself against the seat as they decelerate. The speaker crackles again; the announcement's meant to be Broadway at Lafayette but right now it doesn't even sound human.

Steve's not doing well. Steve wonders what a break with reality is like.

Maybe he could ask the guy at the other end of the train. Hi, I'm with SHIELD, he'd say, extending his hand, and the most awful thing about that is that it would be nowhere near the worst thing he'd have done tonight.

The train stops. It's probably Broadway at Lafayette. The doors open. And because this is Steve's night, isn't it, isn't it, the three men who stagger into the car are all drunk off their asses.

Steve can smell them from here: they've been drinking a dive bar's finest swill. They're talking to each other, boisterous, loud, slurred. Their faces are flushed. One of them, loose-limbed, has his arm slung over his friend's shoulders. The third guy is upright, but from the tone of his voice, it looks like he's sliding hard into the typical mean drunk. Steve can feel himself reflexively tense.

As the train starts moving again, the three of them wobble in Steve's direction. The guy leaning on his buddy's shoulders, dark-haired, blue-eyed, looks a lot like Tony, Tony as he should have been. Healthy. Happy.

"Hey!" the drunk says, brightly. To Steve. His voice isn't at all like Tony's. Too nasal. His face is the wrong shape, too square, too soft. He has the same mustache Tony has always had; Tony himself is now hiding behind a disheveled beard. And this guy's smiling at Steve, which Tony definitely doesn't do anymore. "Hey, big guy!" He wobbles again, catches himself, leans harder on his friend. Laughs. "Trench coat! Nice coat. How y' doin'? C'n I sit here...?"

Oh. A friendly drunk.

There's an empty seat next to Steve. But there's a hell of a lot of empty seats on this train, and he can damn well pick somewhere else. Steve swings his portfolio case onto the seat next to him and scowls up at the guy.

"It's taken."

"Fuck you," says the third guy, as he chivvies his laughing friends another few rows down. Away from Steve, thank God. "Nobody in this city's got any fucking respect anymore. What happened to human kindness?"

If Steve were in uniform, if he were Captain America, he'd have let the guy sit next to him. He'd have come up with platitudes about believing in each other. He keeps a few of those on the back burner. It's who he is. Part of who he is.

But tonight he's just Steve Rogers, and he sold every scrap of kindness in him to another drunk already.

He grits his teeth. He doesn't answer.

The train accelerates, and the drunks noisily take their seats, with even more raucous laughter. Steve's transgression is already forgotten, carried away in the haze of their inebriation.

The thought is unexpected: he wishes this were Tony. If Tony drinks, if Tony has to drink, couldn't it be like this? Other people can go out with their friends, a night on the town. Other people can drink socially. Responsibly. Other people know when to stop.

The thing is, that used to be Tony.

Before Steve realized Tony had a problem -- hell, before Tony realized Tony had a problem -- he used to see Tony drinking at parties. All the time. At the Foundation's galas. At dinners with the team. Tony almost always had a glass in his hand, sure, but he didn't overdo it. Steve never saw him with a hangover afterwards. He never saw him having overindulged; he never saw him sick, or passed out, and he never saw him drink enough to black out. He always remembered everything.

Steve doesn't think Tony ever drank in the armor, or when he knew he was going to need to suit up. He never showed up drunk to a mission. He knew how to behave. He saved the drinks for meals, for celebrations. Social events. Steve's almost certain he wasn't drinking alone in his room. Or his armory.

And when Tony was drunk, he used to be fun. Chatty. Witty. Articulate. Intelligent. He was all those things sober, but it was different when he was drunk. He looked like he was happy. He looked like he liked himself. And maybe he did. Maybe the liquor gave him that.

And then the Carnelian ambassador died, and that was the beginning of the end.

The train's paused at another station. Maybe they already passed one. Steve hasn't been paying attention.

Steve just doesn't understand how that started it. Yes, it was a tragedy. Yes, a man died. Yes, he died with Tony's armored hand against his back, after Tony's repulsors had been remotely activated by Justin Hammer. It was bad. Steve's not saying it wasn't.

But it also wasn't the worst thing that's ever happened to Tony.

They've survived so many other tragedies, the Avengers. And Tony has, too, on his own. He didn't fall into the bottle when he came back from Vietnam with shrapnel perforating his chest, thinking he'd have to wear the armor for the rest of his life, thinking that any day his heart would give out on him. He didn't drink too much then. He didn't. Steve knows that. So why was it this? Why, of all things, was it this? What was different?

And Indries Moomji? Steve got the whole story from Jim Rhodes after Tony disappeared. It's preposterous. It's not like Tony hasn't had rotten break-ups. Half the women he's dated have tried to kill him. He's dated Madame Masque, for God's sake! This shouldn't have been anything he couldn't take. And Steve knows that, because Tony's taken it before. He was fine, he was fine, he was fine, and now a girl doesn't like him and all of a sudden he's lost his company and he's homeless and he's drinking rotgut whiskey from a hip flask.

So what the hell went wrong with him?

Steve used to think he understood Tony. But maybe he never has.

He never thought of Tony as weak. But that's alcoholism, right? A failure of willpower. Isn't that how it works?

Ebullient, drunken laughter echoes from the other end of the train car.

Steve hears snatches of their conversation: Fuckin' A. Can you believe that? Hell of a night. The whole gang was real happy tonight, huh? You could tell. What are you, Joe, a telepath? Oh, you'd know, you're the one with a mutie cousin, ain't you? Aww, go fuck yourself, asshole! More laughter.

It's just so... normal.

He wishes Tony were like this. He thought Tony was like this, but he was wrong. He wishes Tony could have had this, the same thing almost everyone else is strong enough to have, and he doesn't think he'll ever understand why Tony can't.

How is Tony not strong enough to have what everyone else has? How can Tony go up against the Mandarin or Ultron or Kang, saving the world, day in, day out, risking his life for the forces of good -- and he can be felled by something so insignificant as a glass of wine?

It doesn't make any sense. Tony should be better than that.

He's not, though.

Steve knows he has some goddamn nerve judging Tony about anything, right now. But, hell, his own stinking self-righteousness hasn't ever stopped him before, so why should he let it start now?

Steve lets his head tip down. He's staring at his lap. He lets his eyes unfocus. He wonders if he needs a drink.

Behind him, the drunks are still laughing.

You don't kiss whores, Tony says, precise and accurate in Steve's flawless memory. The sentence is half an hour old. A rebuke. Tony's gaze is blank, dead, emotionless. Empty. A drained, discarded bottle. Light filtering through warped, thickened glass. Don't you know that?

It's the last thing Tony said to him. Steve will remember it for the rest of his life. Tony, staring back at him, is standing naked in the doorway of the hotel bathroom, one bruised and scraped hand braced against the doorframe. Traces of tears glimmer on his cheekbones. His beard is long and unkempt; he's unrecognizable to anyone who doesn't know him well. Steve knows him better than anyone, now. Steve's come is dripping down Tony's thighs, filthy and sticky, an artist's obscene signature, because Steve paid for the right to do that to him.

Steve's clean. He hasn't killed Tony. But he doesn't know if anyone else already has.

Maybe it'll be the last thing Tony ever says to him.

Steve shuts his eyes and tips his head back, instead. The train jolts onward.

It's no good. In the blackness, all he sees is Tony.

He grits his teeth. He knows he's just barely holding it together, and he doesn't know what will happen when he lets go. He'd rather not be in public when that happens.

Another stop. No one gets off. No one gets on. The graffiti at this station is -- oddly -- nice. A mural. He used to paint subway murals, before the war. Back when he thought he was a good man. Steve looks out onto the platform, taking in the details of the mural: pop art, with half a dozen little stylized human figures, rendered in thick dark outlines and bright primary colors. It's pleasant. It's cheerful. It's supposed to make you feel happy.

Steve resents this intensely. It's a sign that something's wrong with him. Not that he needs any additional signs.

The drunks are still having a great night, and Steve hates that too. The laughter behind him is even louder, the men's voices still slurred. They've moved on to talking about women. Offensively. Did you see the tits on that waitress? Agreement. Admiration. Oh, like she'd ever fuck you. More laughter.

This is where Captain America would stand up, isn't it? This is where Captain America would tell these assholes not to talk about women like that. Not to talk about anyone like that. But Steve stays seated. What can he say? He's ceded the moral high ground.

Except cede isn't really the right word, because cede means there's someone out there he's lost it to. Someone who made better choices. A version of him out there in the infinite multiverse who didn't fuck Tony tonight. He doesn't think that man exists.

He knows in his heart that he'd do it all again. All of it.

Brakes screech. The train slows. Half of Steve is wishing that someone like the Armadillo will decide to attack at this very moment and give him something else to do. Save him from himself.

But he doesn't get what he wants.

Steve's not sure if he'd describe his night so far as him getting what he wanted, as awful as that is. He laughs under his breath. His eyes sting. It was a hell of a thing to do if it wasn't what he wanted, wasn't it?

He bought the only thing that was for sale. Nothing else was on offer.

The doors open at the next station and Steve tells himself a lie. He tells himself Tony will be there, somehow. Tony will step onto the train, here at the last Manhattan stop. The East River feels like an impassable boundary. He'll never see Tony on the other side of it. It doesn't have the same ring as the Rubicon.

But it's all a lie, even his dream. Steve knows it's a lie, because here in his mind, Tony is healthy, well-fed, animated, bright-eyed, everything he actually isn't. Tony has shaved his tangled, messy beard, trading it for his usual neat mustache. Tony slides into the seat next to him, pressing up against him from thigh to shoulder, liberally helping himself to Steve's body because he wants to. In his mind Tony smiles and means it. In his mind there's more in Tony's soul than the hollow, empty thirst that's devouring him whole. In his mind Tony remembers how to be human, how to be alive, how to want anything other than the thing he wants most.

No one gets on the train. He's left Tony behind.

One of the drunks -- the one who looks like Tony -- separates from his friends, standing up. They holler their goodbyes at each other. The man laughs and waves and steps out onto the platform. He's only a little wobbly. Steve watches him head for the stairs as the train accelerates again, a stranger moving on with his own life, with his own cares.

Steve sucks in a shaking breath and takes a grip on his portfolio case. The train hurtles through the tunnel, and there's nothing but darkness around him.

If they wrecked, if they derailed, he'd deserve it. If they never came up again, he'd deserve it. He's still not suicidal. He's just not a good man.

He's not a better man than Tony. At least, not in any way that matters. He's acutely aware of that. He's just differently selfish. Differently greedy. He's sunk to Tony's level.

He doesn't know if Tony knows what he thinks. He doesn't know what Tony thinks about him now, not really.

His throat locks up again and he chokes it all down.

Steve shouldn't want Tony anymore. He shouldn't. He should have ignored him. He should have kept on walking down that street. He should have forced himself to feel nothing. He feels everything. He's been ripped apart, cut open somewhere sickeningly deep inside him that was never meant to be touched at all, horrific and visceral. Tony's gone. Steve is one side of a stab wound. He's half of a ragged, bleeding suture.

Sound attenuates and comes back, slowly. Steve is lightheaded, dizzy. When he was six, he had the flu, and his ma said later that he started to seize from the fever. His memories are hazy, shattered images. He feels like that now. Like his mind can't be trusted.

The conductor's announcement crackles. Twitchy, Steve jumps at the sound like he's coming off the front lines: everything is a threat. He's the worst of the monsters.

Reality is a smeary blur of light and colors. Brooklyn. York Street. His stop.

Steve stands up, stands up tall, like he still has something to believe in, and as he heads up and out, all he knows is that he's even farther from Tony.

The residents of 569 Leaman Place, where Steve keeps his studio apartment, are a close-knit bunch. Steve hadn't consciously realized he was looking for that when he rented the place, but he's not surprised; it's not like he didn't know he liked the camaraderie of the Army, or the closeness of living at Avengers Mansion, practically in the pockets of a half-dozen superheroes.

Yeah, you liked Tony real close, didn't you?

Steve's on good terms with his neighbors. Anna, the landlady, often has everyone over for meals -- him and Josh and Mike, and Bernie back before she left. God, he can't think about Bernie now, either.

Clutching his keys so they don't jingle, Steve lets himself in the front door, creeping down the hallway and up the stairs. His studio's a fourth-floor walkup and it takes up the whole floor. Sometimes he bypasses the front door entirely. He would have gone to the roof and come in the window tonight as well, but for the fact that it's hard to do if his shield is in his case and not on his back. He needs two hands to climb.

Luckily, no one else is awake. He'd be able to tell. He hears nothing. No creaking floorboards. No televisions murmuring through the doors. It's better this way.

His neighbors aren't as nosy as the Avengers, but they are curious about everyone else's business. And if any of them were awake, they'd wonder what Steve was doing out and about at this time of night. He has no excuse to be up, not that they know about, and at any rate no one has any excuse to do what he's actually done. But it's not as if any of them -- other than Bernie, who figured it out -- know he's Captain America. She's not here anymore.

Don't think about Bernie, he tells himself. She's long gone.

Tonight's the first time that's actually a good thing, because at least he wasn't cheating on Bernie with Tony.

He never understood, before tonight, how you could cheat on someone you were with, as if promises meant nothing to you, as if you didn't care about their feelings, as if the love you felt mattered less than fleeting carnal pleasure. He thinks now that he understands perfectly. He'd have done the exact same thing tonight whether or not he'd been single, and he hates that he knows this about himself now. He'll take Tony over anyone else. With the right motivation, anyone can be unfaithful.

Everyone's for sale for the right price, he remembers telling Tony.

He'd say it was the worst thing he's ever told Tony, but this evening has produced a lot of contenders.

He loves Tony, and Tony comes before every other oath he's ever sworn. Tony shouldn't. No one should. Nothing should. But Tony does. Somehow Tony does.

Tony's made him like this, he thinks as he heads up the last flight of stairs. Tony's done this to him. Tony's brought this out in him.

He expects the thought to make him angry. He'd like the thought to make him angry. He understands how to be angry at Tony.

Oh, he didn't always. Not at first. He opened his eyes, thirty-five years gone in an instant, and the Avengers were there. Iron Man was there. Tony was there, not that he knew that particular fact until a bare few months ago. And he'd fallen in love. With Iron Man. With Tony.

Tony had been easy to love, then.

Steve knows that people -- the ones who don't know them well -- look at the two of them and wonder what in the world they have in common. Even as friends, not as-- as whatever the hell they are now. They see Captain America, a paragon of virtue, a quiet, unassuming man who keeps his private life private, and Tony Stark, a flashy, loud, dazzling millionaire who lives his life in the headlines and likes world-changing feats of engineering, fast cars, and even faster women.

It's not an untrue description, but there's so much more that doesn't make it to the printed page of the gossip rags. Tony's kind. Generous. A good man. Someone who's always wanted to do the right thing. They're different people, true, but they've always agreed on the important things, the things that don't get column inches in the Daily Bugle. How to help people. How to run the Avengers. What they want the world to be like. They got along astonishingly well, right from the start. The differences between them weren't about anything that really mattered. They're a lot alike, where it counts. At the end of the day, they always made each other happy. It's more than a lot of people have ever had.

It was easy to let Tony in, to let him slide under his skin and live there. They'd grown closer. Their lives entwined. He thought there were no secrets. He thought they knew each other. When he thought about being with Tony, it was with the dreamy soft-focus of a movie, all the imperfections smoothed away. Intimate. Romantic. Perfect.

And then he learned some other truths about Tony.

Tony kept secrets.

Steve's still walking up the stairs. He hits the second-floor landing too hard; the floor creaks under his steps. He grits his teeth. He keeps walking.

Tony is Iron Man. Steve had denied his feelings to himself, then, but the betrayal had stung him, just a little. Tony had never told him, and if Tony had told no one that would have been understandable. But other people knew. His friends, Happy and Pepper, they knew. Thor knew. They all knew before he did. Tony had trusted them more than him, and he hadn't even known.

And Tony has a drinking problem. That one was even a secret from Tony at the beginning, so it doesn't quite feel like the same kind of betrayal. But it had hurt, too, to have thought that they were so similar, like minds in almost perfect agreement, and in reality Tony's first and best allegiance is to the bottle. They're not the same after all.

Third floor. Steve's head spins. The world seems unreal. Everything real is in his head, and he'll never have any of it again.

Tony hadn't even told him when he'd started drinking again. Steve had to find out from Jim Rhodes.

And Tony hadn't told anyone when he started living on the streets. When he started sleeping with men for money. Steve had to discover that one all by himself, tonight.

Steve would like very much to be angry. If he's angry, he doesn't have to feel anything else. If he's angry, everything in him feels right, because he's right, he's righteous, he has all the answers in the world, in the perfect clarity and conviction of his rage.

Maybe this is why Tony drinks.

His eyes are hot. He's at the top of the stairs. His floor. He's standing at his door fumbling for his keys and he can hardly breathe, as misery consumes him. Sorrow. Pitch-black regret, as cold as the early-winter wind outside.

He definitely prefers anger.

Finally, he gets the door open. Steps inside. There's a disorienting moment, in the shadowed half-light from the huge skylight, that the darkened apartment doesn't look like his at all. It's not right, it's not home -- and then he realizes exactly what his heart knows home is and his stomach twists.

He shuts the door. Locks it. Flips the lights on. Drops his portfolio case and his coat and his hat in a pile by the door, and then on top of it the pile of cards that are the only things he has left from his wallet. He doesn't even have a wallet anymore. He'll need a new one. It's not his most pressing problem.

Usually he'd hang up his hat and coat, put his shield with his uniform. Neaten it all up like his sergeant's coming for an inspection. A habit of war.

Tonight he just leaves everything on the floor.

He'd been thinking of moving back to the mansion, or maybe taking a road trip. It's been hard to be here by himself, without Bernie, with only his lonely memories for company. But he knows now that he has to keep the place. The one scrap of fantasy he stubbornly clings to is that Tony will change his mind, and that means that if Tony wants to find him, Steve needs to be here. He can't be somewhere Tony doesn't know, and Tony's not going to want to come back to the mansion. Not in the state he's in. So it has to be here, where Tony can find him, where no one will look for Tony Stark.

Tony's never been here, true, but Steve also knows what Tony's memory is like, especially for numbers, and Steve's address and phone number here have been in his Avengers file for a year. He gave Tony a business card once, when he first moved in. Tony remembers the address. He's sure. If Tony ever wants him -- wants him more than the drink, anyway -- he'll come here.

It's the only dream he's got left. He's not much of an idealist anymore.

Steve takes a breath and presses the heels of his hands against his closed eyes. He has things to do, now. He has his duty. He has a not-inconsiderable problem he's made for himself.

"Right," Steve says, to himself. His voice is raspy. He doesn't sound like himself. "Pull it together, Avenger."

It sounds like something he might have told Tony, once. Back when his little speeches actually did Tony some good.

He needs to call Jan, he thinks, as he takes a step toward the phone, but he goes somewhere else in his head for a few seconds, the world around him hazy and unreal. His ears rush with sound in a way his brain would like to pretend is Tony's whispered voice. When he comes back to himself he's crossing the threshold into the bathroom, and he has his sweater off and over his head, tangled in his arms. He doesn't remember moving at all. Distantly, he thinks maybe he should be concerned. He wonders if this is shock. Shell-shock, maybe.

But he does need to shower. He might as well shower first. He didn't bother with wiping himself off before getting dressed; he's a sticky, disgusting mess of sweat and drying lube. Maybe he'll feel more like himself if he's clean. It's a thought.

He doesn't look at himself in the mirror. He proceeds mechanically through the motions of hygiene. He turns the shower on. The water always takes a while to warm up but he gets in anyway, while it's still cold. Self-abnegation. Apathy.

In the hotel room, Tony is probably long since out of the shower. He's found everything Steve's left for him, the money and the identicard and the note. He's probably drinking.

Maybe he's out on the streets again. Steve wouldn't know.

Steve shivers in the chilly water and soaps up. He's actually never minded the cold as much as most people think he might, what with his history. He doesn't remember the ice. He wasn't awake.

But Tony would mind the cold, wouldn't he? He's skinny enough now. Less insulation. Steve used to run colder when he was a hundred pounds lighter. So he turns up the hot water a little, for Tony, Tony who isn't here. There's enough room in his shower for another person -- well, assuming him and the other person like each other a fair amount. He knows this from experience. There'd be room for Tony. Right here.

The water's warming up. He thinks about kissing Tony. Touching Tony. He just wants to touch him again.

If Tony were here, Tony would tip his head back and let Steve wash his hair. He'd let Steve touch him anywhere he wanted, because Tony would want what he wanted. He'd let Steve touch him for free.

It's funny how the last part of Steve's dream is the most fantastical, now.

How much?

His own question, the one that ruined everything, echoes in his mind. How much how much how much--

Steve takes a shuddering breath.

All right, he was angry. He can admit that. Tony was standing there, looking at him, his eyes harsh and cold and bleak. Tony told him that any man who wanted him could have him for twenty dollars, Tony who used to think so highly of himself, who used to believe he was worth something. He used to bill by the hour for consulting, for engineering. It cost people hundreds of dollars to be in his presence for an hour. He was a millionaire a few months ago and now any man with twenty bucks to his name can have him. This is what Tony thinks of himself.

And if any man with twenty bucks can have him, why can't Steve? He's just buying what anyone else can buy, isn't he? Steve loves him. Steve cares for him more than any stranger ever will. Why can't it be him? Why couldn't it always have been him?

But if money is all it takes, his money's as good as anyone else's.

Everyone else got to fuck Tony. The thought is almost vicious. Petulant. This isn't him. This isn't who he thought he'd ever be. But this is him, isn't it? Steve closes his eyes and lets the water cascade over his face. Everyone else got to fuck Tony, so why not him?

Except they didn't get to, did they? I don't do that, Tony said. Steve didn't think he'd been lying, but they both know Tony can lie to him. They both know what Steve wanted to hear. That he was special. That Tony would do this, just for him. He doesn't know what the truth is, but he knows Tony must have done it before, at some point. Tony's no innocent. Tony knew what he was doing.

Steve falls, again, into memory. Tony was good at it. Tony was very, very good at it. He remembers Tony shaking as he licked him open. He remembers sinking inside Tony, feeling the heat of him, slick and shuddering, responsive to his every movement. He remembers Tony's body tight around his cock like they'd been made for each other. He remembers Tony finally letting him hold him, at the end. That was when Tony kissed him. The first time. The only time. God, he wants it again. He wants Tony again.

The best sex of Steve's life cost him two thousand dollars.

Putting a price on his feelings is something he never thought he'd be able to do.

The water's getting cold. He rinses, turns the shower off, steps off, towels off. Walks toward his bedroom. He blinks. Time disappears. The next thing he knows, he's got his pajamas halfway on. It never occurred to him to put the uniform on, even though he has one more official task to do. He's not doing well. He has no right to complain about that. He's not the worst-off one.

He has to be Captain America once more tonight. The uniform's not necessary, but it would have helped. He doesn't want the help. He doesn't think he deserves to go any easier on himself.

He steps lightly into the living area, grabs the phone, glances at the clock. It's -- God, it's one in the morning -- but Jan will still be awake. She's on duty. The team chair has always taken their turn on the monitors just like everyone else. At least someone here knows their duty. It's sure not him.

He punches in the familiar number for the mansion, and then the extension. He twines his fingers through the spirals of the phone cord. After a couple rings, the call is picked up.

"Monitor room," Jan says, crisply. There's no sign of fatigue in her voice, just the tinny crackle of the phone line. She's ready for anything, even in the middle of the night. "Wasp here."

"Hey, Jan." He uses her name deliberately. He needs her to believe that this is informal. Casual. Nothing worth thinking too hard about. "It's Steve."

"Steve!" Jan says, much more brightly. "What's up?"

Here's the thing: Steve's a shitty liar.

He knows he's a shitty liar. And so does everyone else. He's lost enough poker games to the rest of the Avengers that every single teammate he's ever had knows exactly how bad he is at lying to their faces, Jan included.

But the truth isn't an option. He can't tell Jan what he's actually been doing. And this isn't a game. This isn't a game at all, but nonetheless he has to win. Anything else is unthinkable.

So he's got to keep it simple. Say something as close to the truth as possible. Don't embellish it. Don't offer extra information. He swallows hard.

"Nothing serious," he says, which is the first lie. "I was just wondering if you could run an identicard trace for me. I need a card location."

It's a perfectly reasonable request. Any Avenger might ask for this. He feels like he must be giving it all away with his voice, that something about his very speech is blaring guilty. He clutches the phone cord tightly.

Jan hasn't noticed. Thank God. "Sure thing. Whose card?"

"Um." Steve coughs. It's okay to sound awkward right now. She would expect that, with what he's about to tell her. "Mine, actually."

No need to go into details. No need to make up some bullshit story. It fell out of my pocket as I was crossing the street and a truck ran right over it. No. Jan will assume that he was doing something perfectly innocent, and the best story, the one she's most likely to believe, will be whatever she thinks up herself.

If the card pings back as active in Greenwich Village, he can come up with a story then. But right now, he doesn't need to.

Besides, he doesn't actually think it's still active.

But if it is-- if it is-- God, he can barely let himself hope for this--

Jan chuckles, a ruefully sympathetic sound. "Oh, geez. One of those nights, huh, Cap?"

She has no idea whatsoever.

"You bet."

Steve's eyes are stinging, hot with unshed tears. With effort, he keeps his voice light. He holds his breath, so he makes no sound that will betray him.

At any rate, Jan is too distracted to listen closely to him, he hopes. He can hear the noisy clatter of the keyboard next to her; she's logging into the system and pulling up the team's identicard locations. Jan's humming to herself as she waits for the computer to respond. There's a distant electronic beep. The sound of an error.

"Oof," she says, companionably, the tone of someone delivering information they think is, at worst, mildly unfortunate. "It's not coming up, Cap. Looks like it's toast. Sorry I don't have better news for you."

His heart sinks. The world is insubstantial, unreal. Jan's voice echoes in his head.

It was what he expected, he tells himself. It was absolutely what he expected. Tony's smart. Tony found the card. Tony disabled it. Steve has no reason to get upset about a thing that he already figured must have happened. Jan's not telling him anything he didn't already know. It can't hurt him when he already knew it.

He repeats this to himself even as his throat tightens up, as his eyes sting even more fiercely.

This is Tony, rejecting him.

Why should he be surprised? He shouldn't be. He was the one who walked away. If he wanted to stay with Tony, he should have goddamn well stayed with Tony. He doesn't get to complain that Tony doesn't want to be found now. Not when Steve found him and then left him.

He couldn't have stayed. He knows he couldn't have. Tony doesn't want to get sober, and Steve doesn't want to watch him commit suicide. But at the same time, it hurts. It hurts to know that tonight is all they'll ever have had, when it's so far from what Steve really wants.

He bites his trembling lip, hard. He has to say something to Jan right now. Something a normal man would say. She needs to not suspect that anything is wrong.

"That's fine," Steve says, the lie punched out of him. He feels like half a person.

Jan just chuckles, which makes Steve feel even worse. "Good thing it happened tonight rather than tomorrow, though, isn't it?" The keyboard clicks; she's typing something. "I'll just add it to our tab for the morning."

That's something else that Steve's been trying not to think about, for more than one reason.

Tony's not an Avenger right now, and that actually has repercussions greater than Steve's broken heart. Repercussions that should be greater, anyway.

Jim Rhodes is Iron Man now, and while he's not as good as Tony -- and no one would expect him to be, with only a few months of practice -- the rest of the Avengers have enough experience among themselves to cover him until he picks it up. They all remember what it's like to be new to superheroing.

No, the problem is everything else Tony did for the Avengers.

The funding situation and the housing at the mansion are all taken care of, because Tony has had the Avengers' financials set up for a long, long time in such a way as to ensure that the team would still have his money and his home even if he wouldn't be there to pay for them personally. Steve suspects Tony was envisioning a situation where he was dead.

Steve suspects Tony's working on that.

He chokes back a noise that wants to be a sob. He can't let Jan know.

The problem is actually that Tony is a genius. And Tony's not here. And genius is very, very hard to replace. So much of the gear the team uses -- computer systems, comms, identicards, a lot of the other Avengers' actual weapons -- has been personally made and maintained by Tony for years, from the very beginning. His specifications are exacting and his methods and materials are proprietary. They can't just hire any old engineer from a stack of resumés to do Tony's job. No one person can do Tony's job.

Not even Tony can do Tony's job, right now.

The Avengers don't go easy on their gear. They break stuff. They break stuff a hell of a lot. Steve's identicard isn't the first that's ever stopped functioning. Over the past several months they've ruined half a dozen comm earpieces and they're down to their last two spares. God knows what will happen if Rhodes' armor needs repairs. They need their gear in working condition.

So they talked it through at a team meeting, and eventually he and Jan turned to the only viable solution: Wakanda.

The Wakanda Design Group made the Avengers' original Quinjets, once upon a time -- designed by T'Challa himself, though Steve suspects Tony had a hand in some of the redesigns -- so if anyone else other than Tony is going to be conversant with Avengers technology and has the facilities to produce what they need, it's going to be T'Challa's people.

Sure, they're not Tony. And it takes an entire team to replace Tony, because somehow Tony fit the work of a dozen people into a single day, every day. But they are very, very good.

The Avengers don't need more Quinjets yet, thank God. Everything they need is relatively small, in the grand scheme of things; they aren't spending thousands of dollars on a new mainframe quite yet, either. But they still do need the small things. Just because they're small doesn't mean they don't need them. Their computer systems can't work without regular maintenance. The Quinjets can't fly without fuel.

The Wakandans have all the connections the Avengers don't, all the working relationships that Tony had once cultivated and maintained for them. They know all the suppliers. They have all the right credentials. All the proper licenses and endorsements. No one's going to sell Captain America and the Wasp jet fuel, not when Steve can't even put his real name on the paperwork. But they'll sell to Wakanda. And then Wakanda will turn around and sell to the Avengers.

Steve and Jan are scheduled to meet with them tomorrow morning, which is why it's a good thing that Steve needs a new identicard tonight, since that means it can go on the initial requisition list and be replaced in a timely fashion. And Steve's always had an amicable working relationship with T'Challa and his engineers -- so even though Steve isn't the team chair right now, he's showing up anyway, as moral support. That'll be good, too.

Nothing else about this situation is good.

Steve's stomach is in knots. "We've still got that meeting with the Wakandans tomorrow morning, right?" he asks, hopefully with the unconcerned voice of a man who wants to doublecheck his calendar.

"Yep," Jan says, briskly. "Ten o'clock sharp. Wakandan consulate."

"That's what I have," Steve agrees, pretending he's reading his appointment book.

Ten o'clock is the checkout time at the hotel. The clerk had told Steve that as he handed him the key, as Tony had stood at his side and stared at nothing. Tony hadn't been listening, then. Steve had told him again. He knows.

"And you've still got the money, right?" Jan asks, with a laugh. She's making a joke of it. Of course he's still got the money. Why wouldn't he still have the money?

"Of course."

It's a lie.

"Always reliable, huh?" Jan asks, and for one horrifying instant, his chest tight with his misery and shame, Steve thinks he might actually start crying, right now. He can't control himself anymore.

Neither can Tony, Steve's hateful mind choruses. At least Tony admits it.

T'Challa's people, the ones Jan had spoken to, the ones they'll be meeting with -- they wanted a down payment. They wanted to know that the Avengers had the money. In previous years, it might have been the Wakanda Design Group putting up a surety bond, but now, without Tony, the Avengers' own reputation had changed for the worse. No matter how many times Jan explained to them that the Avengers' funding situation was solid, the people Jan was dealing with were still concerned about Tony's absence. So they wanted a percentage up front, in cold hard cash. Steve can't blame them for that.

Jan hadn't wanted to take the chance that they might forget to get the money out, day-of. So earlier today Steve withdrew $2000 from the Avengers' petty cash fund. He signed the receipt. It was a lot of money to be walking around with, sure, but it wasn't as if anyone was going to mug Captain America. It was going to be safe with him.

Steve no longer has the money.

He imagines telling Jan the truth. Actually, I spent it all. On Tony. So he'd let me fuck him. He's a hooker now.

It's not like he didn't know what he was doing. He just didn't let that stop him.

He hadn't really thought about what it meant, though, that it wasn't his money to spend. He imagines the headlines: Captain America embezzles Avengers funds for tryst with male prostitute.

It is exactly as bad as it sounds.

Maybe it's worse than that, even, if the media finds out that the prostitute in question is Tony Stark.

Everything in him is tight, coiled, a crumpled-up ball of indeterminate emotion that probably should have been fear, but Steve's beyond fear now. He's numb to it. He's almost to acceptance in the stages of grief. He knows he'll lose everything if anyone else learns the truth. Tony's already lost everything. So this is fair, isn't it? It's Steve's turn to fall from grace.

He had money and Tony needed money.

He knows he's trying to justify his actions to himself. To make it sound like this was solely generosity. There are a lot of words in the English language for paying someone for sexual favors. Generous isn't one of them.

He can't think about this. He's going to lose it. And Jan's still on the line, so he has to pretend, just for a little bit longer, that he didn't-- that he and Tony didn't--

To his horror, he hears his breath catch, a traitorous little gasp. He's losing control.

"Cap?" Jan asks, curious, concerned. "You okay there?"

No.

"I'm fine," Steve says. His voice is raspy. Another lie. He has to have another lie ready. He has to have an explanation. Groping blindly, he finds one. "It's just-- it's just that it's so damn frustrating, you know? My identicard breaking, and everything. Just one more thing to deal with. You know how it is. It's never great when things don't work right."

That sounds good. That sounds like a thing he might normally think.

Jan makes a sympathetic humming sound and thank God, she believes him.

Steve's mind is blank. He has no strategy. No tactics. He can't think any farther into the future than surviving this conversation, sentence by sentence. So he's not expecting, in any way, what she says next.

"Yeah," she says, softly, sadly. "I miss Tony too."

His breath catches as sheer terror swamps him, freezes him where he sits. She knows. But she can't know. There's no way she can know what he's done. It's impossible.

After a few agonizing seconds, he realizes the truth. She doesn't know. It's just that he was talking, indirectly, about Tony. Things don't work right and Tony's not here to fix them. Jan just knows they're friends. She thinks he misses Tony because he hasn't seen Tony in weeks, same as everyone else.

Jan has no goddamn idea how much he misses Tony.

He imagines telling Jan exactly how much he misses Tony, and why. They've got so much in common. Jan and Tony dated, just before Indries Moomji ruined Tony's life.

It's actually Steve's fault that Tony and Jan broke up, now that he thinks about it. He told Tony to come clean about his identity to Jan, knowing that Jan would leave him. He wonders if his brain was trying to tell him something. Clearly he had his own agenda.

He thinks about all the crude, cruel things he could say. Did you fuck him too? Do you know how he likes it? I do.

They've barely talked about Tony, him and Jan, since Tony's been gone. Back when Tony still had an apartment, he and Jan went to try and talk some sense into him, head the whole thing off at the pass. Tony didn't listen. At least we tried, he told Jan afterwards; she'd agreed. And that was the end of that. Back when Tony still had any kind of roof over his head, Steve found Tony -- and then lost him -- at a Bowery flophouse. He logged a report. He knows Jan read it. She never said a word about it to him.

Maybe everyone else talks about Tony when Steve's not there. Maybe they just don't talk about him to Steve.

Steve's never made a secret of how much he cares about Tony in general; he's just never gotten specific about the depths of his feelings. Everyone knows he likes Tony. And everyone knows he disapproves of what Tony's been doing to himself. They all know he's concerned. They probably just don't want to upset Steve. It's not like Steve can do anything about Tony and his problems.

He'd worried about Tony, before he'd found out Tony was living on the streets. He'd assumed Tony had had another apartment somewhere, because Tony's always had another apartment somewhere. It never occurred to him that Tony would ever be on the streets. Steve's never seen the money run out before.

After Bernie left him, Steve went through his wallet. He pulled out the pictures he'd had of her. Following an impulse he hadn't wanted to examine too closely, he tore apart a picture of the Avengers. He slid the half with himself and Tony into his wallet. He created a fantasy of them together.

You could have stayed with him, a voice in his head whispers, and God, he wishes he had.

Tony found his identicard and broke it. Tony wouldn't have wanted him to stay.

Jam expects him to still be worried about Tony. He's allowed to say he's worried about Tony. That's not suspect. That's not queer. Except it is, of course. That's the truth.

He remembers how Tony's lips felt on his. He's spent years dreaming about that moment. Tony was crying. They'd both been crying.

All the words he wants to say jumble up, piling up like a car crash, and when he opens his mouth his throat clicks and there's only air. He has nothing.

"Jan, I--" he forces out, and then he stops. "I--" He has no idea what he's saying. "I'm sorry."

It's nowhere near close to what he needs to say.

Jan isn't the one he needs to apologize to.

There's a tear trickling down his face. Just one.

"He's going to come back," Jan says, with a conviction Steve wishes he had. "He got sober before. He's going to do it again, and he'll come back to the team."

"You think so, huh?" Steve asks. His throat is tight. He wants it to be true. He knows it's not.

"I know so," Jan says, firmly. "It's late, Cap. Get some sleep, okay? You'll feel better in the morning."

He wishes that were true too.

Steve will say anything to get off the phone right now. He's trembling. He can feel his lips quivering, compressed, trying to force everything back just a little longer.

"Okay," Steve says. "Okay. I'll see you in the morning. With the money."

The money's gone. That'll be a problem for Steve in the morning. Right now he has to get through the night.

"Great," Jan says. "See you then."

The line clicks and goes dead. Steve numbly holds the headset to his ear until the dial tone hums. His hand falls away from his face, and he stares at his fingers against his thigh like his hand belongs to someone else. It takes him three tries to hang the phone up.

The money.

Words arrange themselves in his head. He feels like he's reading someone else's life story on an impersonal printed page. A tragedy. The hubris of a flawed man.

He paid Tony two thousand dollars that didn't belong to him to sleep with him. He's expected to show up at the Wakandan consulate tomorrow, mid-morning, with cash he doesn't have, and be completely normal and ordinary, the perfect unblemished hero, so that no one else knows any of this happened. He's supposed to smile. He's supposed to shake hands. He's supposed to be himself.

This is who he is now.

He clears his throat and draws a whistling congested breath through his nose.

"You could have just given him the money."

He says this, almost conversationally, into the silence. A conversation with himself. A conversation with his memory of Tony. A conversation with his own burning, selfish guilt.

If he'd really wanted to help Tony, he'd have just given him the money. No strings attached. He had the money. Tony needed the money. Setting aside the fact that Tony's using every penny he has to poison himself, it would have been the right thing to do. A gift. Because he loved him.

But he'd wanted Tony for so long, and the idea, the idea that he could just have him, have what everyone else had already had, have what he'd already been selling to countless other men--

The thought makes him viciously angry, once again. It makes him burn hot, makes him yearn, harsh and cruel, for something that feels like justice. Retribution. It feels like his due, but it isn't, because Tony doesn't belong to him. But that was what Tony was offering: possession. Tony could be Steve's, even for an hour, and Steve wanted that with every fiber of his being. He still does.

Tony had never been on offer before. Tony had never been an option. But tonight he was.

Tony wanted him. Tony said so. And that was the truth. Wasn't it? Isn't it?

What if Tony hadn't really wanted this?

It's not a thought Steve has had all evening, but now that it slides into his mind with all the ease of a rusty serrated knife, he knows the question has been lurking just out of reach of his consciousness the whole time.

He offered Tony an amount of money Tony couldn't say no to. That was the point. That was, in fact, why he had offered that much money: to get Tony to do this. That was why Tony did this, wasn't it? It wasn't like Tony had ever offered to sleep with him for free.

Everyone's for sale, Steve said. For enough money, anyone will do anything. Steve got Tony to name his price, and then Steve paid it.

Of course Tony told him he wanted this. Steve paid him to want this. Tony would have said anything Steve wanted to hear, because Steve put a thousand dollars on the table and told him what he wanted to do to him. The right answer was whatever Steve wanted it to be. Isn't that how it works? Steve was paying to hear what he wanted to hear. He was paying to do what he wanted to do. And what he wanted to hear was yes. He wanted to hear that Tony wanted him. He wanted Tony's body. And he got it. It was Tony's job to please him.

What if Tony felt like he didn't have a choice?

There's something cold and awful in the pit of Steve's stomach, knowledge he wants to take back. His heart hammers against his ribcage. What has he done? God, what has he done to Tony?

Coercion, something in Steve's mind says, distantly, like even now he's trying to play up his own innocence, justify his unconscionable actions, when he's the only one here.

There are other words for this that aren't coercion. He can't make himself name them. He can't apply those words to himself. He's a good man. Isn't he? Isn't he a good man? He wouldn't hurt someone he loved. He wouldn't-- he wouldn't--

Except he would. He did.

"Oh, God," Steve rasps, wretched.

He folds his arms over his torso, doubles over where he sits. He wants to be sick.

Hot tears slide down his cheeks, everything he's been holding back since he turned around on a grimy sidewalk and saw Tony staring back at him in the fading twilight. He cries ugly tears. His chest heaves in huge, racking sobs. He doesn't have any right to cry when he's the one who did this, and knowing that just makes him cry harder.

Tony had been crying, too.

In that light, all the ground rules Tony had set for their encounter -- the ones Steve had thought were meant to be punitive -- make an awful, hideous sort of sense. Tony hadn't wanted Steve to kiss him. Tony hadn't wanted Steve to hold him. Tony hadn't wanted Steve to say anything kind or loving. He'd barely let Steve touch him in any way that wasn't strictly necessary for the act Steve had paid for, and if Steve hadn't paid Tony extra to let him open him up, Tony almost certainly wouldn't have let him do that either.

Tony, in fact, had made it abundantly clear that he wanted Steve to do exactly what he'd paid for and no more -- and for that matter, that he hadn't even wanted Steve to do what he'd paid for.

Steve's goddamn perfect memory serves up Tony's curt answer, when Steve had asked to fuck him: I don't do that.

He heard Tony say that, and he fucked him anyway.

Say it, Steve thinks, between sobs. Say what you did, coward. Say what you are.

They call that rape, don't they?

And even that violation wasn't enough for him. He battered his way past all of Tony's boundaries. Tony told Steve not to touch his dick, and Steve didn't, but he knew perfectly well what Tony had meant by it: Tony didn't want Steve to get him off. And Steve licked him open until Tony was sobbing with need, and he fucked Tony until Tony came. And then he held him. He held him and he talked about how he loved him and he kissed him, and he knew Tony wanted absolutely none of those things, because he'd said no to all of them at the outset, and yet Steve did them anyway.

Oh, he didn't hurt him. He didn't cause him pain. He told himself he was being kind, being gentle -- hoping, in his secret heart, that he could give Tony something he'd like better than the liquor -- and he was kind, he gave Tony only pleasure, but none of that matters because Tony said he didn't want it. He said he didn't want any of that, and Steve thought he was so goddamn special that the rules didn't apply to him. He thought he could make Tony like it. And maybe Tony even did like it. But he should never have done it.

He's wrong. He's wrong, and he's wronged Tony. He has no idea what to do about it. How does he make this right?

Maybe he can't.

It's not as if he can find Tony and apologize. Without the identicard, Tony can't be tracked. It's a good bet that he's still in that hotel room tonight, but even that's not a certainty. And after tomorrow morning, after he checks out of the hotel, he'll be in the wind. Steve has no idea how to find him, how to find one man among thousands of homeless drunks. He doesn't know where Tony sleeps. He doesn't know where Tony spends his days. Tony can find him, if he wants, but that is in no way reciprocal. Tony doesn't want to be found.

What would he say, anyway? I'm sorry and I won't do it again? How does he even begin to apologize for this? And what good will that do? It won't change what he did. Nothing can.

He can't just sit here and feel sorry for himself. He doesn't deserve to feel sorry for himself. If it had been earlier in the night he might have gone patrolling -- but, hell, that was what had gotten him here in the first place, wasn't it? He's not going to make the same mistake twice.

He has to move. He has to do something. Anything. Anything that isn't sitting here like this, because he can't do anything about any of it, no matter how much he regrets it, and he has to wake up tomorrow and be a goddamn Avenger.

He doesn't even regret it, he knows, and that's the most reprehensible part. Not enough. He still wants Tony, and he knows how wrong that is, on top of everything else. He knows he shouldn't feel this way. But he still wants him.

Miserable, unsteady, Steve lurches upright. He's on his feet now. His muscles quiver with sickening, overwound energy. He wants something to punch, someone to fight--

Someone to fuck? He did that one already. God.

He hears himself make a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob, and he wipes his disgusting face on his arm. His cheekbones throb. It's just him hurting himself now.

He can't do anything, because there's nothing he can do to escape himself. He paces the length of his studio, crossing the patchwork of light and shadow that the skylight makes on the floor.

All he can do is hurt Tony. All he can do is hand Tony a bottle. All he can do is make Tony sleep with him. All he can do is coerce him with stolen money.

Steve spins and paces the other direction, fists clenched. The boards creak beneath his heavy footfalls. All he knows is force, and he shouldn't have done it, he shouldn't ever have done it, but he did. This is who he really is, underneath the cowl.

And Tony's never going to sober up, because no one Steve loves ever does, do they? This is it. This is how it goes. This is the way Tony looks now, ragged, half-starved, a drunkard's broken blood vessels speckling his nose and cheeks -- gin blossoms, they used to call them, and he wonders if they still do. Alcoholism almost seems déclassé among Tony's set, in this bleak, brutal decade. Not the fashionable addiction. The rest of the beautiful people are in the back room at the club with their mirrors and their razor blades and their unending lines of white powder.

But Tony's always been a traditionalist, of a sort, and it's the traditional end that's coming for him. The way Tony looks now, he doesn't have all that much farther to go. The drink's ruining him.

Tony can't keep his habit up much longer before his body fails him entirely. Either of his habits. Steve's not expecting to see him alive again.

Tony's going to die.

The thought hits him hard, a blow to the solar plexus. His heart.

He's known it since he saw Tony on the street corner, but he hasn't let himself think about what that means. There will be no moment of clarity, no absolution, no forgiveness. Tony won't ever come back to the Avengers. He won't come back to Steve. No apologies. He'll just be... gone.

And the last thing Tony will know about Steve is that Steve is the kind of man who will do whatever he wants to Tony, will make him just lie there and take it, and isn't that true? Isn't that just who he fucking is now? Isn't it? Isn't he the kind of man who will rape his best friend?

Steve punches the wall.

He doesn't realize he's done it until he hears the drywall crack. He doesn't even realize he wanted to do it. All he knows is the drive to do something, to make something better, but it's all warped and contaminated by his filthy soul.

His fist is well into the wall; there's a sizable hole around his wrist. Paint flakes dot the baseboard below. His fingers throb. His knuckles are wet with blood.

He probably hasn't broken anything, but it's hard to tell. It doesn't matter if he did. He's going to heal, and no one will be able to tell under the gloves, anyway, even if he is hurt. He always looks fine from the outside. No one will ever know.

He wonders what it'll be like when they find Tony's body. He wonders if anyone will recognize Tony, or if he'll just be another nameless wino. Maybe, one winter morning, he'll just be another body on the street, lying cold and perfectly still under battered cardboard, the only armor Tony has left to him. Maybe they'll ask Steve to identify the body.

Shaking, Steve tips his forehead against the wall. Everything in him has gone numb again, numb and hollow.

He stands there for a minute, two minutes, his fist clenched, until the muscles of his hand ache. He draws his hand free, staggers into the bathroom, and washes off the blood and the plaster dust without bothering to turn the light on. He's a looming shadow in the mirror, head down, shoulders slumped.

He wanders back and flops face-down on the couch, contorting himself to fit. He doesn't fit. Nothing fits. He doesn't deserve the bed. Tony doesn't get one after tonight, does he?

He shuts his eyes.

If he dreams, he doesn't remember it.

"How can I help you?"

The teller is awfully chipper for nine o'clock in the morning; Steve was the first one in line, clutching a half-empty styrofoam cup in one hand, here first because he had to get here first. His other hand -- bruised, scraped, maybe fractured -- has been jammed in his pocket since he walked out the door, since Steve Rogers the comic-book artist has no convenient excuses for violence. Half-awake when he'd left his apartment, his breath fogging in front of him as he headed down the sidewalk, he'd begun the morning by fishing enough quarters from his jar of spare change for a cup of coffee. It was bad. He thought about Tony the whole time.

He's usually a morning person. Now he yawns and coughs and blinks the world into focus.

"Hi," Steve says. He smiles, because that's what polite people do. Today, he is a polite person. "I'd like to make a withdrawal from my savings account."

He has the money. His Avengers pay is generous, and Steve, a child of the Great Depression, is scrupulously frugal. Other than last night.

"All right," she says. "How much?"

"Two thousand," Steve says. "In cash, please."

The Avengers don't log the serial numbers of the bills they have. If he steps into the Wakandan consulate with two thousand dollars in his hands, an hour from now, it doesn't matter whose two thousand dollars it was before. It'll be the Avengers' money, just as if he'd never spent it. As if it never happened.

No one will know.

Steve's late.

Juggling his identities, he has to double back to his apartment to change into his uniform, since it's Captain America who's got a meeting with the Wakanda Design Group. He spends several minutes he doesn't have trying to find something more impressive than his portfolio case to put the money in. He wants the Wakandans to take him seriously. In the end he finds a plain leather cross-body satchel that used to be Bernie's, slings it over his shoulder, secures the shield over that, and gets on his bike, because like hell is he taking the train again today.

The Wakandan consulate is, of course, in Turtle Bay near the UN headquarters, with all the rest of the diplomatic missions. Unlike Latveria's massive concrete ode to brutalist architecture on the next block over, Wakanda has been comparatively more restrained: they have a townhouse. A very nice townhouse. Opulent, even. Not much New York real estate can put Avengers Mansion to shame, but the wealthiest nation on Earth has definitely managed that feat.

Steve's been here once before, a couple years ago, with the Avengers, when T'Challa was first beginning to bring Wakanda out of isolation. They'd spent an enjoyable evening talking, reminiscing about T'Challa's time with the Avengers. It has been him, Beast, Wanda, Vision... and Tony.

That night he'd been sitting next to Tony, he remembers, and something in him twists. It had been so perfectly ordinary. When he'd set his shield at his side and sat down, Tony had taken the chair next to him, chair creaking under the weight of the armor. He had been Iron Man that night, of course, even to Steve, who'd had no idea that the man beneath the mask was already his friend by another name. He'd been happy.

Steve hadn't known, then, that he'd have to save up these moments for later. With the sheer number of people in his life that he's lost, he should have known. No one stays forever. He thought he'd have more time.

He knows he's mourning a man who isn't dead yet. But it's a foregone conclusion. He pulls into a parking space -- or maybe it's not even a parking space, but it's not as if it matters whether he gets a ticket -- and wipes the tears off with the back of his glove. He needs to behave himself. He can't do this.

The memory changes, and Tony's sitting on a hotel bed, staring at him with hollow, haunted eyes, and God, what has Steve done to him?

He knows damn well what he did to him, and there's nothing he can do about it.

He stomachs the grief and the guilt.

He parks the bike, grabs his gear, and when he gets to the consulate, he finds that Jan's been pacing the anteroom, frantic, in the waiting area, before the security checkpoint, a manila file folder bent between her clenched hands. Their requisitions list. Steve glances at the clock. 10:17. He's seventeen minutes late.

Steve's never late.

Seventeen minutes ago, across town, Tony probably checked out of that hotel and walked outside into the chilly morning. That was the last time, and the last place, that Steve knew where Tony probably was. Without the identicard, Steve can't track him. That was it. Tony's gone.

"Cap!" Jan exclaims, relieved. "Thank God! Where were you?"

She says it like she was worried something terrible happened to him, which would have been a good guess on most other days, because that's what it takes to make him late for something; it's just that today he's the terrible one. Steve is briefly, horribly thankful that he doesn't actually have his identicard anymore, because if Jan had pinged his location she might have wondered what he'd been doing at a bank in Brooklyn instead of heading to his very important meeting.

He almost wishes he could be caught. He doesn't deserve to get away with this.

"I, uh," Steve says. "There was traffic. Sorry."

Of course Captain America tells the truth. Everyone can trust him.

"At least you made it, huh?" Jan says, with a grin, putting a hand on his arm, tugging him toward the waiting security personnel.

Tony is no longer the last person Steve has touched. Already, pieces of him are slipping away. Steve can't keep him. He knows he shouldn't want to, but he also knows that's the least of his sins.

The security is brisk, no-nonsense. Jan offers to vouch for Steve, because he has no identification, but this is Wakandan soil now, and here his shield is enough. Most security guards get upset when the vibranium plays havoc with their scanners, but not Wakandans. They've seen all this before. And T'Chaka himself gave America the vibranium for the shield, during the war. No one here is going to gainsay their king.

The last of the guards waves the two of them through, and waiting for them on the other side of the barrier is a man Steve remembers seeing, the last time he was here. Omoro, yes, that was the name. He was one of T'Challa's servants. He clearly works here now.

"This way, please," Omoro says, curtly.

Steve also remembers having the impression that Omoro didn't think too highly of non-Wakandans. It doesn't matter. It's fine. Omoro's allowed to think whatever he wants about them.

Steve thinks that ordinarily he might have had more opinions about a thing like that.

Omoro leads them through the halls and into the exact same room that Steve visited a few years ago -- when T'Challa was in residence, it was his study, or possibly his library. The place has a homey, cozy feel, with heavy drapes, lamps lit low, and overstuffed armchairs. The bookshelves contain a surprisingly contemporary selection of choices. Steve realizes he's comparing it to the mansion. He wishes there were any part of his life that didn't make him think about Tony.

"Wait here," Omoro says, and he unceremoniously closes the door behind them.

Jan raises her eyebrows in Steve's direction. "He's friendly, huh?"

"Eh." Steve shrugs. He thinks he would usually have said something else. He thinks he can't manage anything else.

Steve takes the same chair as before, unslinging his shield and setting it next to him. Vulnerability washes over him. The less he looks like Captain America, the more anyone will see the flawed man beneath the cowl. He feels terribly obvious. He sets the satchel on his knees and fiddles with the buckles. He's not usually given to fidgeting. Tony is.

Silence stretches on for too long. Someone needs to say something.

When he glances up, Jan has taken the armchair opposite him. She's too short for her feet to touch the floor, and she's leaning forward, studying... him?

"Cap?" she asks, softly. "Everything okay there, Steve? Are you all right?"

He was late to the meeting. He was crying on the phone.

He's not okay.

He opens his mouth--

--and the door opens, sparing him the need to reply.

"His Majesty the King," Omoro says, and that's all the warning Steve has before T'Challa himself sweeps into the room.

T'Challa is the Black Panther today, but with his cowl pulled back, and he's grinning broadly. From the astonished smile beginning to spread across Jan's face in return, Steve can hazard a guess that she wasn't expecting him to be here. He certainly wasn't who she'd been dealing with, when she'd been talking to the engineers; she would have said as much.

But T'Challa is part of the Design Group. It looks like Steve and Jan both forgot that little fact.

Steve rises to his feet as Jan leaps up and embraces T'Challa, because Jan hugs everyone. T'Challa gestures to Omoro to leave them, then offers Steve a much more restrained handshake. T'Challa's hand is squeezing Steve's scraped fingers. It smarts. It's stinging like hell. Steve keeps his face impassive, so no one knows he's hurting under the glove. No one can ever know.

"Wasp," T'Challa says, in greeting. "Captain. It is very good to see you both."

"I--" Jan says, still shocked. "I thought-- I thought I was meeting Kobaru--"

"You would have been," T'Challa replies, with another grin. "If not for my intercession, that is. How could I pass up a chance to aid the Avengers myself?" He glances away, a little subdued. "The unhappy situation in which you are immersed is news even in the Golden City, my friends."

Yeah. The whole world knows Tony's a drunk.

Jan and T'Challa both look at Steve, then. As if Steve's opinion of Tony's choices is more meaningful than theirs. As if they expect Steve and Tony to be intrinsically connected.

Ha.

Steve offers T'Challa what he hopes is a rueful smile.

T'Challa seems to sense that Steve's not up for talking about this, because he smoothly redirects, gesturing instead at the folder Jan is still holding. "And that is the list of what you would like from us, yes?"

Jan passes the folder over. "Yes, and as Kobaru requested, we've brought a down payment in cash, to secure the contract--"

This is Steve's cue. Jan nods at him and he steps forward, satchel in hand.

Startled, dismayed, T'Challa looks up from the folder. "Certainly not!" he exclaims. "I shall have a word with him. He wanted money from the Avengers? My teammates? My friends? I could never demand such a thing. No, no, I will fund the work myself. You need not trouble yourselves with any of that. It is the very least I could do to repay you for everything you have given me."

"Oh, we couldn't possibly!" Jan says, instantly, as if this is a meal at a restaurant -- a very expensive restaurant -- and she's jockeying for the check.

T'Challa lifts a hand, the peremptory gesture of a man whose every word is obeyed. He smiles, a kind smile. "Please, Jan. I have no need of the Avengers' money. I would consider it an honor to lend the expertise and talent of the Wakanda Design Group for as long as it is necessary. For too long, Wakanda has hidden away from the world, and it would mean a great deal to me if you would let us aid you in protecting it. As an ally. As a friend."

It's a kingly speech. All Steve can think, though, is that he went to all that effort to get the money back for nothing. All wasted. All useless.

He pastes a smile onto his face.

Jan opens her mouth and closes it. "I-- all right. Yes."

"Good." T'Challa's smile is much more satisfied now. "And," he adds, aiming a reproachful look in Steve's direction, because Steve is still holding the bag out, frozen in place, "there is no talk of money between friends, hmm?"

It'd be nice, wouldn't it? It'd sure be goddamn nice if there were no talk of money between friends. It's a luxury enjoyed by the rich, the privilege to be able to say that and mean it.

And if it were actually true, none of last night would have happened.

His own voice echoes in his mind. How much?

He remembers Tony's mouth against his.

This is what he's become.

Steve lets his hand fall. The money is no longer on offer.

"Of course," Steve says, smoothly. He's a fraud. "Thank you."

Ever gracious, T'Challa inclines his head.

Steve wishes the rest of the world were like this. But it's not. Everyone has a price. And everyone has a breaking point.

So that's it, then.

He's getting away with this.

Following T'Challa's lead, Steve sits down. He sets the satchel with its two thousand dollars at the floor next to his feet, leaning against his shield. It doesn't matter now. It was the focus of his attention since this morning. Since last night, when he ruined Tony with it. And now it means nothing. It's the evidence of a crime that no one will ever know about, no one except Steve and the man he hurt, Steve and the man who every day takes another step towards his own death.

T'Challa hums quietly to himself as he flips through the manifest Jan prepared, a list of everything the Avengers are missing, a list of all the gaps Tony has left in their lives. He grimaces to himself and looks up.

"Your identicard, Captain?" He smiles a rueful smile, entreating Steve to join him, so they can make light of his minor misfortune together.

Steve forces a smile. "Unfortunately," he agrees. "It's... a recent casualty."

He checked to make sure it was in his wallet, before he left his wallet on the table. Tony had turned the shower on and Steve had wedged his card deep inside the wallet, trying to leave enough of himself with Tony to keep him safe. He knows now that it hadn't worked. Tony isn't safe. Tony doesn't want to be safe.

He left the wallet atop the note. He knows now that the note is the last thing Tony will ever hear from him. He hadn't thought about it like that. He hadn't agonized over every word. He'd just scribbled it down, thoughtless, a snapshot of his feelings, as if his feelings even mattered.

I love you, he'd written.

He's never said it to Tony, not like that. He told Tony, last night, at the end of it, that he'd fallen in love with him when he met him. But that wasn't necessarily a statement about now. Except it was, of course. It is. His feelings haven't changed. Or, rather, they have -- hasn't he proved that? -- but not that one. Not in any way that matters.

He wonders if Tony even read the note.

Something of what Steve feels must show on his face, because T'Challa blinks at him, and Steve is aware of the weight of Jan's gaze on him.

"I'll see what I can do," T'Challa says, gently, which is simultaneously too much and not enough. It's inconceivable that the king of the richest nation on Earth would spend precious hours fixing anyone else's things for them with his own hands. And yet, it's not good enough: he isn't Tony. He can't be. No one else can.

Even Tony can't be.

Steve clears his throat. "Thank you," he says, roughly.

T'Challa nods and turns back to the list, his gaze moving on to the next item.

Steve has passed. He shouldn't have, but he has.

Who is he now? What is he?

Steve stares down at his gloved hands and thinks about the bloody, broken skin underneath. No one can tell, from the outside. No one can see past the uniform. No one knows what he's done in the darkness.

Steve used to ponder villainy. Over the years he's faced hundreds, maybe thousands of villains, from small-time thieves to cosmic entities who could have crushed the entire universe with a thought. He wondered what drove people to do evil. To hurt others. To break all the strictures, both legal and moral, that bind the world together. He's certainly met a large number of people who have committed themselves to fascism.

He knows what they've said about the Nazis, since Steve woke up, decades after Nuremberg: they were only following orders. It's never made sense to Steve, but then, Steve's a terrible soldier. He casts aside orders he doesn't like, orders he doesn't trust, orders he doesn't believe in. He follows his heart.

When he thinks about it like that, it's not really a surprise his heart led him to Tony.

No one thinks they're evil.

Tony -- well, Iron Man -- had told him that, once. They'd been fighting-- God, Steve hardly even remembers now. A small-time villain. Not one of Steve's Nazis. The Wrecking Crew, maybe. It had probably been one of those days. Steve had been grousing his way down the halls of the mansion, with Tony trotting at his side, patiently -- hell, maybe adoringly -- listening to every one of his insignificant complaints, a pattern that Steve had naively thought would last the rest of their lives. Why do they even do this, Shellhead? What in the world are they thinking?

And Tony had stopped in the hallway. Tony had put his armored hand on Steve's shoulder and stared him down, his eyes a brilliant blue in the shadows of the mask. Steve had never noticed that Tony Stark and Iron Man had had the same eyes.

No one thinks they're evil, Cap, Tony had said, on a staticky sigh. Everyone's the hero of their own story. Everyone thinks their actions are right, or at least justifiable. They think they're doing the best they can. You might look at them and think that the worst thing they can do is hurt someone. They've got different priorities.

Steve remembers being offended. He'd probably made a face.

Tony had chuckled more static. I didn't say I agreed with them, Winghead. I just told you what they were thinking.

Tony's got different priorities now.

Hell, so does Steve.

He thought, last night, that he was doing the best that he could. He knows it wasn't right, though. He knows he's plastered over the flaws and the cracks in his soul with a flag, a uniform, with all the goddamn righteousness in him, the certainty that Captain America can't be wrong.

Tony's just filled all the cracks with liquor.

Steve's wrong. Steve loves Tony, and he's wrong. He loves him, and he-- he hurt him, and there's nothing he can do about it.

There won't be any apologies. No promises. No second chances. No closure.

Steve walked away. He walked away and he ripped Tony out of him and Tony's not coming back and they're both going to bleed.

He wonders if Tony's found another customer yet. He knows now, how Tony will stand, how he'll smile, how he'll offer the only thing he has left. Steve wants so much more than what Tony has left. He knows it's already too late.

He wonders if Tony thinks about him as he drops to his knees.

He wonders if Tony's dying right now.

"--with me, Cap?" Jan says, and Steve startles hard. "Cap?"

For half a second he doesn't even remember where he is.

The consulate. He's at the Wakandan consulate. He's in a meeting. An important meeting. It doesn't feel important. Right now, only one thing does. Only one man.

Jan's looking at him like she's been saying his name for a while. T'Challa's gaze has shifted from confused into something approaching concerned.

"What?" Steve asks, hoarsely, lost in his sorrow and grief. He has to pull himself together. He has to. No one can know.

He knows he should have been paying attention. Captain America doesn't get distracted.

Captain America doesn't do a lot of the things Captain America's been doing lately. Isn't that the problem?

"Your uniform," Jan clarifies.

Steve glances down at himself in utter bewilderment before he remembers that his uniform is one of the items on the list T'Challa is holding. Not the one he's wearing. Some other, future uniform.

"Oh," Steve says, too slowly. "Right. I, uh. Yes. This is my spare. I'm going to need another one."

He hopes that's what they were talking about.

He wonders if they'll see through him. If they'll take the uniform away. If Wakanda will want the shield back.

"Yes," Jan says, her voice wary, like that wasn't exactly the right answer. "That's what we established. T'Challa was just wondering how urgently you need another one, and when you'd prefer to see the tailors."

There's a soft chuckle from T'Challa's side of the table. "I'm good with machines, Captain," he says. He's smiling like he's trying to reassure Steve. "I can fix your identicard. But I'm no tailor."

"And I am," Jan said. "But I don't routinely work with bulletproof material, so I'd trust the Wakandans to do a better job."

"But--" Steve begins, then hastily cuts himself off when he realizes what he was about to say. Who he was about to mention.

Tony always made his uniforms.

Steve had never been sure why, and now he supposes he'll never know. It shouldn't have been anything Tony was good at. Steve thinks that back when the scale-mail was just regular scale-mail and not whatever secret alloy it is now, Tony must have considered it akin to doing his own armor work. And then he kept doing it.

A couple times a year, Tony would summon him for measurements and then a fitting. Tony had never been anything but professional, of course, but there was still a certain intimacy to it. Steve remembers Tony's deft hands wrapping a tape measure around his thigh as he talked about the improvements he wanted to make. He remembers Tony's fingers on his calf, his hip, his throat.

The last time had been just after he'd learned Tony was Iron Man. Before Tony started drinking again.

So now that you know I'm your teammate, Tony had said, with a faint smile, a nervous little twitch of his lips, I suppose I don't need to make a big production of how Iron Man told me he thinks you'd like a little more armoring here.

He'd tipped Steve's chin up with a shaking hand, and he'd run a finger up the side of Steve's neck, to show him what he thought needed reinforcing. They hadn't really talked about it, before then. What it meant that Tony was Iron Man. What either of them actually were to each other.

They still haven't talked about what they are to each other. And now they never will.

Steve had reached up and, for an instant, he'd caught Tony's fingertips. Hey, Steve had said. I'm glad you're my teammate.

Yeah?

Yeah, Steve had echoed.

He wonders now what would have happened if he'd held on. If he could have saved Tony from himself.

He'll never know now.

He wants that life back. He wants Tony at his side. He wants Tony to be the one touching him. He wants to say he'll wait for Tony to do the armoring. But Tony's never coming back.

Tony's not going to come back to a man who didn't listen when he told him no. Tony's not going to turn back from his walk to the grave.

Steve understands villainy now.

Steve clears his throat. "Whenever they can fit me in is fine," he assures T'Challa. His voice is still rough. "It's not the highest priority. What's important is anything that's broken."

So much is broken.

T'Challa nods and adds a note to his copy of the list.

"Jet fuel," T'Challa says, moving on to the next item.

"Right," Jan says. "That's a little more pressing. We're happy to take delivery--"

Steve lets the conversation wash over him, nothing but sound. They don't need him. No one needs him.

He pictures Tony turning away.

He doesn't know how long he's been sitting there, but the noise of a chair scraping over hardwood draws his attention.

"I must go," T'Challa says, finally. "It was good to talk with you both again." He brandishes the folder of requisitions in Steve's direction as he rises to his feet. "And I will have my people begin work as soon as possible. The identicard, I will address myself. It wouldn't do to leave Captain America without an identicard, would it?"

Steve imagines the broken pieces of his identicard in the trash can of a hotel room.

Steve's supposed to say something.

He can't.

There's only ice inside him, where his heart should be.

Jan cuts in. "Of course it wouldn't," she says, smoothly. "Thank you again."

"It's my pleasure," T'Challa says, with one more gracious smile, and he finally leaves. "I'll be in touch."

The door closes.

Jan regards Steve from across the room. The silence stretches on a little too long.

"Steve," she says, once again. "Are you okay?"

No. Absolutely not. No.

Steve summons up a smile. "I'm fine."

"Steve," Jan repeats, stressing his name a little harder.

"I'm fine, Jan." The smile is starting to fade. "Nothing's wrong. Really."

He's awful at lying to his friends' faces. He used to think that was something he'd never want to be good at. He used to think a lot of things.

"Steve--"

Suddenly everything in him is white-hot, incandescent fury, a bitter and terrified rage that erupts from him. He wants to punch someone. He wants to hurt someone. He wants to break something. There's nothing in his hands. He needs to rip this sickness out of him. He needs to lance the wound.

As it is, he can only scream.

"I said I was fine!" Steve snaps, rounding on her, half out of his seat, already beginning to tower over her, his voice raised. "I said I was fine, and I'm fine, so leave it!"

Why won't she take no for an answer? Why won't--

Why won't he?

Oh, God.

Everything crashes to a halt. He can't. He can't do this to everyone. Except apparently he can. Because he is.

Jan stares up at him. One hand is half-raised. The combat evaluation is automatic: she wouldn't be able to fight him off. Steve's seeing her like an enemy. Everyone's an enemy now. "Steve, what is this?" she asks. Her voice is steady. She's not afraid of him, and Steve wonders why the hell not, because he is. "This isn't you."

Steve trips back into his seat and sits down hard.

It is him, though. That's the thing. This is him now.

"I'm sorry," Steve says, hot with shame. "God, Jan, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have yelled."

That's not the only thing he's sorry for.

He imagines finding Tony. He tries to imagine apologizing. He can't picture it.

He pictures Tony, shivering in the cold, on his knees for another stranger. He wonders if Tony already is.

"Steve," Jan says, quietly. "Do you need a leave of absence?"

It's not a punishment. It's because he's unsafe. He knows he's unsafe. Jan doesn't even know how much. It feels like a punishment. "No," he says. It's a goddamn lie. He hangs his head. "Maybe. I don't know."

"It would be all right if you did," Jan says, quietly, evenly. "I'm not benching you." The yet is implied. "You can think about it."

He should. He's not a good man. He should just take it.

He doesn't do the things he should do, should he?

"I'll think about it."

It can go with all the other things he's not thinking about.

Jan sighs. She looks him full in the face. "It's not as if Tony's going to be gone forever," she says, and Steve's heart seizes up, and he wonders how he's ever going to survive hearing anyone saying Tony's name. He wonders if he's really that obvious.

His breath catches in his throat.

A man has to want to be helped. Steve told Tony that once, and it might have been unkind, but it had also been true. No matter how many of Tony's friends -- and whatever Steve is -- want to save him, that means nothing unless Tony wants to stop drinking.

Oh, they could probably force him into rehab if they tried, if they could find him. They could pressure him, extort a promise Tony would never want to give. Steve's already demonstrated that he does a goddamn wonderful job making Tony do things he doesn't want to do. Steve could make him go.

But the promise would be a lie. If Tony didn't believe it, in his heart, he'd just walk out into the cold once more, bottle in his hand. Steve can't actually force Tony to stay sober, the same way he can't actually force Tony to love him.

He can force him to do a lot of other things, though.

"We're not replacing him for good," Jan says, firmly, and Steve's eyes burn hot, because that's exactly what they're doing. "We're not. He's going to get sober, the same way he did last time, and he's going to come back. I know you know this. He always comes back."

Jan doesn't know the truth.

He imagines the note he left Tony still sitting on the desk, unread. Crumpled in the trash can next to his identicard, crumpled next to Steve's picture of them. Burned to ashes. Gone. The room is empty. Tony's out in the cold again. He'll never come back.

You don't kiss whores, Tony says, in Steve's perfect memory. It's the last thing he'll ever say to Steve. There were tears on his cheeks. He was probably crying the whole time. But Steve kissed him.

Steve kissed him anyway. Steve did everything he didn't want. There's a word for what Steve did, and Steve knows it. He deserves it.

Steve shakes his head. "He won't," Steve says. "It's over."