Work Text:
Busy, busy, busy.
Right now Tony was cruising in the armor high above Kansas after a rotten mission against MODOK. He was multi-tasking his way through a dozen different problems from new Tower renovations, to checking on Avengers equipment upgrades to fixing errors in the latest Stark Industries R&D report.
No other word but workaholic described Tony to a tee. In other words, he packed in 36 hours of living and work into a 24-hour day.
Busy, busy, busy.
He hadn’t even had a date in months. He just hadn’t found the time or the person who made him want to find the time. Ugh.
And there was Steve. Who was on the quinjet with the rest of the team heading to New York and home to the Tower. Steve, who asked Tony if he had room in his schedule for dinner earlier.
Tony couldn’t really remember the last time he had spent any time with Steve that wasn’t Avengers business. Double ugh. No, triple ugh.
He buzzed Steve on the comms, seeing if his fellow workaholic had a night in mind. Saturday would be a good start. They could talk about rampant destruction of quinjets for starters and whatever Steve had on his mind.
Nothing from Steve.
Not surprising. Steve probably was hard at work on the mission debrief already or following up with their fellow Avengers about the fight with MODOK. Especially since they barely managed to stop MODOK from terrorizing a mall in Las Vegas for whatever reason; the team rounded up a handful of rogue AIM agents but MODOK escaped. Steve might even be working on training routines to fix whatever went pear-shaped.
Steve was as much a workaholic as Tony.
Everybody wanted Steve. Fury wanted him for SHIELD. The Army would love it if he returned to active service. The Avengers would be lost without him. And there was all the stuff Steve did when he wasn’t Avenging. So Steve was on the go 24/7/365.
Tony had no idea how Steve had time to date Sharon, that gorgeous SHIELD agent Steve had known nearly as long as Tony. In fact, Tony had asked Steve about Sharon as they headed out on what should have been an easy mission. “How’s it going with Sharon? I heard you guys were dating again.”
“I guess we are.” Steve frowned with that tightness in his face that he always got when he was troubled. Tony knew that look and that vibe all too well. Steve bit his lip and thought for a minute. “Hey, do you have time for dinner this week?”
“I can pencil you in,” Tony joked. “I should have an hour free assuming no supervillains or alien invasion. Let’s touch base after the mission.”
“Thanks, Tony.” Steve patted his shoulder.
Tony landed as perfectly as he always did and was out of the armor and heading for coffee when the quinjet arrived. “Hey, Carol, is Steve on his way down?”
Carol stopped in her tracks. “No. Steve wasn’t with us. I thought he was with you.”
“Too long a distance for a passenger. SHIELD?”
“Steve would have told us if he was working with them. Or anyone else.” Carol looked worried. “He’s got to be around here somewhere.”
Tony was not going to panic. But they had left Steve behind. With an uncaptured MODOK on the loose.
He should have guessed that the mission wasn’t going to end well from the beginning. Carol bitched about paperwork all the way to the quinjet. Clint and T’Challa of all people were angrily discussing current politics when they arrived. Janet waved hello to the team but snapped at the person on the other end of her cell phone. Wanda silently slipped into the quinjet and poured herself into a seat. Jan mouthed “went clubbing, came in at 4 am” at Tony. Steve sat like a granite pillar in the cockpit and was just as talkative.
Yeah, not promising at all. Tony had been relieved that he had the freedom to fly on his own and could flee the land of the super grumpy.
“You lost Captain America?” Tony asked.
Carol groaned. “I’m sure that someone knows where Steve is.”
Tony wanted to say -- yeah, someone does. MODOK.
The rest of the Avengers had no idea what happened to Steve. Clint admitted that he saw Steve chase down some AIM agents but that was the last time anyone saw him. The fact was that Steve did not hitch a ride with Tony, did not get on the team quinjet, and most definitely was not with SHIELD.
Fury laughed at Tony. “What’s going on over there? You misplaced Captain America somewhere?”
“No one at SHIELD has seen him today or yesterday. Sharon hasn’t heard from him either,” Tony reported to Carol. When he had time, he’d figure out how to get back at Fury for not taking him seriously. This was Steve they were talking about.
“He has to be back at that mall,” Carol suggested.
Tony was in the armor and heading back to the scene of the crime before Carol finished her sentence.
~~~~~
SHIELD and FBI agents had police taped the mall but allowed a small group of insurance agents and reporters to tour the site with escort. It didn't look promising at all as Tony scanned for any signs of Steve. He had nothing.
Overall, this was an average large mall with big box stores and restaurants. The team had no idea why MODOK would attack here of all places. Unless it was trap.
He pulled up site plans and maps and overlaid his own scans. He groaned as Friday immediately identified a mismatch -- a sandwich shop with a larger footprint on his scans than it had on a site plan filed with the city.
He found what he expected -- a ruined sandwich shop with an larger than they needed walk-in refrigerator. No, correction, walk-in freezer. An industrial freezer used for refrigerating lab samples, meat, anything you need to have super cold. Like a six foot two-inch, 220 pound supersoldier.
Steve.
He couldn't repulsor the damn door open because he could hurt Steve. It was a long five minutes as he fiddled with the crappy combination lock on the damn door.
He found Steve crumpled up on a low, metal cot. They lured Steve to the freezer. That’s what MODOK’s minions did. Then they subdued and handcuffed him to a metal table. And left him there like garbage to be thrown out.
“Damn it.” Tony ran over to his friend. He picked open the handcuffs and gently removed them. But Steve didn’t move. Tony pulled him up. “Come on, Steve. You’re fine, I’m taking you home. Wake, please wake up. Come on.”
He thought he saw Steve briefly open his eyes and thought he felt a puff of Steve’s breath on his face. But Steve, with frost in his hair, remained unresponsive.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it.” He snapped over the comms -- “Carol, we have a medical emergency here. Stat.”
No time, they had no time. Right now, they should be out at the local pizza place catching up and laughing and staying up to all hours of the night. Not here. The night shouldn’t be ending with losing Steve forever.
Fighting back tears, Tony pulled Steve close trying to warm him up, worrying as each second slipped away that Steve was slipping away too. When the EMTs arrived, they had to pry Steve out of Tony’s arms.
~~~~~
Carol managed to get Tony to the hospital. “It’s not a SHIELD facility but Fury is shipping out his best who worked with Steve when they found him in the ice,” she explained. “They have some working theories.”
“Right.” Tony shifted impatiently in his waiting room chair -- small, orange, plastic and uncomfortable to boot. “When can we see him?”
“I don’t know,” Carol admitted. She rubbed Tony’s back. “He’ll pull through, Tony. Here’s some coffee.”
Tony was stuck in the undersuit while Carol was in jeans and sweatshirt. Someone had been dispatched to find him clothes and more coffee. He didn’t care.
They’d all failed Steve, of course. Steve needed them to have his back and they left him in an industrial freezer at MODOK’s mercy. That was the trap -- the whole damn fucking mission was a trap to get Steve and his precious blood and DNA. The only way that MODOK could get his grubby little hands on Steve was to put him on ice. And the team -- no, he -- he should have noticed that Steve disappeared. He failed Steve the most of all.
Tony dropped his head into his hands. Steve, ice. Not a good combination. What was Steve going to think when he work up? If he woke up, that was. It had been a miracle in the first place. Lighting doesn’t strike twice and there was no guarantee that Steve would wake up from hibernation again.
“It’s not your fault,” Carol said. “I know what you’re thinking. This is MODOK. He took advantage of our disorganization.”
“Steve asked me about going out to dinner. We haven’t done that in months,” Tony said, his voice squeaky from held back tears and anger. “We’re friends and I never spent time with him.”
Carol looked confused. “You’re always working together. I constantly see you guys talking before and after missions, and …”
He tuned out Carol. She was right about the Avengers. But there was a time when he and Steve spent a lot of time together going to dinner and out to games and watching movies. Then he had to get Stark Industries back on track and Steve returned to Sharon. And he suddenly didn’t have the time to hang out with Steve.
Well, that was a stupid waste of time. Not making an effort to spend time with Steve. Because he now might never have that opportunity again.
“Tony, we can come back in the morning,” Carol urged.
No. Not letting Steve down again.
“You know, I can pick you up and take you right to the hotel room. Do you want that?”
Tony staggered to his feet and reluctantly followed her. He couldn’t bear that humiliation.
~~~~~
He showed up at the crack of dawn and used every ounce of charm still in his command to weasel his way into sitting vigil at Steve’s bed.
It felt like all the pieces of his life snapped into place when he took that seat next to Steve’s bed. Like this was the only place where he should be right then. He could sit here for years if he could get Steve back.
A SHIELD doctor checked in on Steve. She explained to Tony, “He’s alive, Mr. Stark. We believe that he is in a state of hibernation. We are attempting to bring up his internal temperature. Once that happens he should wake up.”
Tony bit back asking why they weren’t using everything that they could to warm Steve up. Hair dryers, electric blankets, anything to get Steve warmer. He wasn’t a stupid man -- just stupid enough to leave a friend behind to get tortured -- and he knew that the longer Steve stayed unconscious, the higher the odds that he wouldn’t wake up. “Thank you,” he said.
Carol showed up with coffee. “Any news?”
He knew immediately that she could never bring enough coffee. Not unless she was willing to haul in an entire coffee shop for his convenience. Carol could do that. “Steve’s alive. But there’s no change since we brought him in.”
Why did he ever think that he had all the time in the world to catch up with Steve?
“The rest of the team is hunting down MODOK. Clint didn’t like hanging around doing nothing. I figure everyone else felt the same way.”
“You’re not joining in?”
“Someone has to look after you. Or else you’ll be curled up on the floor.”
The day wore on. And all Tony could think about that vacation that he nearly talked Steve into taking last year. Or that time they almost ditched training to go grab a burger and Thor interrupted their plans. All the cancelled dinners and lunches and breakfasts. All the lost chances Tony had to spend time with Steve played in his mind like an IMAX movie.
Carol again forced him to go to the hotel. Where he flopped down on the bed praying for the oblivion of sleep which eluded him. “If Steve wakes up, I’m not wasting time any more,” Tony muttered nearly incoherently into the pillow.
“You mean that, Stark?” Carol said. “You finally come to your senses about Cap?”
He didn’t answer since he fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed of lying in the grass with his head in Steve’s lap under a flowering tree and playing with Steve’s fingers as they laughed at something, his heart full of Steve and love.
He sat bolt upright in bed. And rubbed his face. He couldn’t and shouldn’t be in love with Steve. Not now. Not when he’d lost a chance to say anything to Steve about it.
Finally in the morning, Steve gave a sign of coming back. He stirred in bed and the equipment noted his heartbeat strengthening. Tony -- angry that he missed all this news because people named Carol made him eat breakfast -- reclaimed his seat by Steve.
It was the afternoon of the third day that Steve sleepily opened his eyes. “Tony?” he asked.
“Hey, Steve,” Tony said, leaping to his feet.
Steve yawned and stretched. “You came for me.” He smiled as best he could at Tony.
Steve’s obvious gratitude nearly killed Tony. “We were late.”
“I’m here. So you weren’t.” Steve reached out for Tony.
Tony, not willing to be let off the hook that easily, still took Steve’s large hand. He loved the weight of the hand in his -- Steve was still on the cold side but Tony rubbed the hand between his as if that small action could warm his friend up. “You know differently.”
“Come here,” Steve said again. His blue eyes were bright, though his face was still pale and ashen. Tony came closer.
“Closer,” Steve said again. Tony leaned in again closer to Steve. Then Steve tried to kiss Tony -- he was clearly aiming for the lips but hit Tony’s cheek instead. Steve fell back weakly on his hospital bed.
“What the hell, Steve?” Tony said in a small, shocked voice, as he put his hand on his cheek which still tingled from Steve’s peck.
“Guess that wasn’t as romantic as I planned.” Steve drew a deep breath, gripping Tony’s hand tightly, like he’d disappear if Steve let go. “I promised myself that if I made it out -- and I knew that you come for me -- that I wouldn’t give up a chance to let you know how I feel.”
“You’re dating Sharon.” He really should be calling for the doctors and nurses. But he didn’t want to share Steve yet either.
“We broke up. A month ago. I did some thinking about why we never worked out and I figured it was because I had someone else on my mind. The freezer just got in the way before we could go dinner.”
“Oh.” With soaring and hopeful heart, Tony now realized what was happening. “Oh! Well, I was going to tell you that we needed to go to dinner the minute you could walk out of here. And um, probably try to kiss you too.”
“I don’t know anything about the food in this hospital so I don’t know if this place would be recommended for dinner.”
“Any port in a storm, Steve.” Tony fished out a dinner checklist from Steve’s bedside. “Hmm, we have a choice of fish or chicken. And jello for dessert.”
Head on pillow, Steve smiled at him from the bed. “It’s a start.”
“Not going to waste any more time,” Tony agreed and squeezed his hand.
badge by woad