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‘Took you like a shot Thought that I could chase you with a cold evening Let a couple years water down how I'm feeling about you’ Tony knew that he never should have gotten involved with Steve in the first place. He should have known that he wasn’t the only person in Steve’s heart. Barnes In his mind, he can still picture the video were he saw Barnes murder his parents. He can still hear his mother calling out for his father. When he closes his eyes, he can still see Steve and Bucky limping away from him in Siberia. Leaving him injured and alone, in the cold. Tony’s throat burned as the fiery liquid from the glass bottle in hands darted down his throat. He knew he shouldn’t be drinking. He’d been sober for almost a year now. But today was different. Today was Steve’s birthday. Last year the two celebrated all day together in bed, wrapped up in each other's warmth. Steve said it was his favorite birthday yet. He also said that he couldn’t wait to see how they would spend it next year… Rhodey checked on him earlier, but he decided to keep his distance since Tony wasn’t in a very approachable mood. Pepper had called around noon to discuss SI business, but Tony knew that she was really just trying to distract him. It was a nice distraction though, Tony spent the better part of two hours on the phone, not thinking of Steve. But soon after he had hung up the phone, all his memories came rushing back to him. Steve and him stealing secret glances towards each other across the conference room. Steve and him laughing at something the other said. Steve and him swapping stories about there day. Steve and him saying ‘I love you’ for the first time… and the last… Tony needed a new bottle. ‘I wanna hold you when I'm not supposed to When I'm lying close to someone else You're stuck in my head and I can't get you out of it’ Tony tried to move on. He did. Truly. It was just a lot harder than he thought it would be. He would compare every aspect of a person to Steve. This person eats their pasta like this, Steve eats his pasta like that. This person has a light and airy laugh, Steve has a powerful, gruff laugh. They weren’t bad people, well… not all of them at least. Carrie was loving and kind, Barbara was an advocate for children’s education. Mike spent his weekends volunteering to save the environment. But they weren’t Steve. Not even close. Some mornings he would wake up early and find a warm body up against his. His first thought would always be Steve, before he remembered that Steve wasn’t here anymore. That Steve had left him, and he wasn’t coming back. It was never the same for him when he slept with other people. Barbara was too loud. Christine was too freaky. Charles was too shy. Allison was too dominating. Harry was too self-indulgent. But with Steve… Steve knew how to satisfy Tony. He knew how to accept pleasure and dish it out. Sometimes when Tony is with someone else, he’ll try to imagine Steve’s golden hair instead of the brown locks in front of him, he’ll picture Steve’s protruding muscles instead of someone’s else’s noodle arms. He tries to imagine that Steve is the one moaning his name and marking his skin, and not someone else. He imagined that it was Steve holding his hand as he walked through the park, that it was Steve who held onto his arm when he went ice skating, that Steve was the one who he spent all day texting back and forth with him. But most importantly, Tony imagined a day where he wouldn’t imagine he was with Steve instead of the person he actually was with. He hoped that day would come soon, but didn’t expect it to happen. Tony felt that he won the jackpot with Steve. Everyone else feels like a mediocre prize from the arcade. ‘Playing and replaying old conversations Overthinking every word and I hate it 'Cause it's not me’ Tony’s nightmares were plagued by Steve. His sweet dreams turned sour as his brain replayed his last moments with him, over and over again.
“Did you know?”
“I didn’t know it was him…”
“Don’t bullshit me, Rogers! Did you know?”
“...yes.”
Tony doesn’t blame himself for his actions. He just found out that Steve’s best friend murdered his parents. He was angry… he had the right to be angry. But sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he had stopped. If he had actually listened to and processed Steve’s words. If Tony went back in time, he doesn’t know if he would have acted any differently. He doesn’t think that he would have ever been able to subdue his anger long enough to listen to Steve, to listen to his pleading boyfriend.
“It wasn’t him, Tony! Hydra had control of his mind!”
“MOVE!”
“It wasn’t him!”
The worst part about this is that Steve lied to him. He knows that Steve tried to protect him, but that doesn’t change the fact that he lied. Tony wonders how long Steve knew. He wants to know how long Steve hid this secret from him. But the other thing that bothered Tony was how Steve would have died protecting Barnes from him. Tony knew that Steve grew up alongside Bucky. The two were best friends, they helped pick each other up when the other was down, they were always there for one another. The pair spent all there free time together. Just the two of them. Tony knows that Steve first started developing some not-so platonic thoughts about Bucky when he was growing up. He also knows that Steve was freaking out and didn’t know what to do when he started questioning his sexuality in the 30s. But Tony supposes that he thought that Steve got over his feelings for Barnes. He assumed that he was the only man Steve’s heart had beat for.
“Stand down. Last warning.”
“I could do this all day.
Even after months and months have passed, Tony hasn’t gone more than three nights in a row without reliving those events in his sleep. No matter how hard he tries, Steve Rogers won’t leave him alone. ‘ And what's the point in hiding? Everybody knows we got unfinished business And I'll regret it if I didn't say This isn't what it could be (isn't what it could be)’ ‘The Breakup of the Century’ the headlines had called it. Once Tony came back from Siberia, he wasn’t seen leaving the Compound for almost a month. The press and the public didn’t know many details, but they did know that Steve Rogers was a fugitive of the law. So from the very moment that Tony Stark returned to the public eye, he was bombarded with questions surrounding Steve. The press wanted to know every single juicy detail concerning the A-list couple’s breakup. The world wanted to know as much as they could surrounding the destruction of the world mightiest heroes. Finally, Tony couldn’t take it anymore. The world knew that Tony Stark and Steve Rogers had broken up. So Tony didn’t know why he was hiding from the public eye. He didn’t have anything to be ashamed of… well… regarding the break-up, of course. So finally when one of the hundreds of reporters asked him what happened, he finally gave an answer. “Steve Rogers broke my heart,” Tony said facing the iPhone held in front of his face, before grabbing it and throwing it against the nearest wall. “Are you happy now?” He called to the crowd of reporters surrounding him before walking away and into getting into Happy’s black Audi. Within the next hour, dozens of papers and online journals had published articles about Tony having a nervous breakdown and destroying someone's personal property. This wasn’t the first time that the press had written about Tony Stark freaking out in public, or destroying someone’s property. But it didn’t matter. Tony couldn’t keep his feelings to himself anymore. What he said, had to be said. ‘You can break my heart in two But when it heals, it beats for you I know it's forward, but it's true Won't lie, I'd go back to you’ Some people might find it pathetic that Tony still wants Steve. Hell, if it wasn’t Steve he was in love with, then Tony would find himself pathetic. But after all the blood and tears that this relationship cost him, he wouldn’t undo any of it for a second. Because one night, as Tony was going to bed, he found himself wandering around the Compound. He walked around until he stopped in front of Steve’s room. The brown wooden door seemed to stare back at Tony, daring him to open it. After a few moments, Tony gave in, and slowly began to twist the doorknob. When Tony got back from Siberia, after he checked on Vision and Rhodey, he went into Steve’s room and finally accepted everything that had happened. He spent the next week holed up in Steve’s things. Tony slept in Steve’s bed, wore Steve’s clothes, read Steve’s books, and looked through Steve’s drawings. After a week he decided that he didn’t want to shed any more sad tears for Steve Rogers. After that, he got angry, really angry. He started yelling and screaming as waves of anger washed through his body. He began to grab everything he saw and threw them across the room. Steves bedding, his books, his television, his lamp, his journals, his clock. Tony threw random little nick nacks he found and chucked them as hard as he could. Tony’s hands were bleeding by the end of it. The last thing he picked up was a picture frame from Steve’s nightstand. The photo was of Steve and him, they took it during their first vacation together. Tony had surprised Steve with a weekend getaway to Iceland. When they checked into there hotel and opened the door to there room, they found two life-size cardboard cutouts of themselves. One was of the Iron man suit with its palm up, pointed towards you and the other was of Captain America. The Captain was covered head-to-toe in his 1940s uniform, and Cap looked as though he was about to throw his shield at the enemy. Steve and Tony thought it was hilarious so they asked the bellhop to take a picture for them. The two decided to pose in the same position as their own avenger and give the camera a stern look, although that didn’t stop Tony on throwing up a peace sign right as the camera went off. When Tony picked up that photograph, the anger in him subsided and he felt drained. He felt empty. Tony knew that he needed some space, he needed breathing room. So he turned around and placed the picture frame on Steve’s flipped mattress and walked out of the room. He hasn’t been back since. The room was just how he left it. There were shards of broken glass everywhere. Piles and piles of clothes and bedding were strewn across the floor. Tony couldn’t help but wince at the sound of glass under his foot. When he reached the bed, he picked up the picture frame, wiped off the thick layer of dust which had settled over it, and walked out of the room. “Friday,” Tony’s voice was thick with emotion, “send someone to clean Steve’s room. It’s time.” “Yes, sir.” His A.I. said as he walked towards his own room. When Tony sat down on his bed, he looked at the photo closely and knew that if he had the opportunity to go back in time and tell his past self all that has happened, to tell himself about all the pain that Steve caused him, he would still do everything the same exact way. Tony realized, that even though he lost Steve, he hasn’t lost his memories of him. And Tony has much more good, loving memories about Steve than bad ones. Tony may have had his heart broken by Steve, but if he had the choice, he would go back to him every. single. damn. time. ‘If I could do it all again I know I'd go back to you I'd go back to you I'll go back to you I know I'd go back to you’ Little did Tony know, Steve was hiding out in a small hostel, five states away, staring at the same exact picture. Even though the photo was bent and scraped up, and the crisp edges turned round from being constantly removed from its place in Steve’s wallet, he always carried it with him. This photo was too valuable. Too important. Steve knew that it was dangerous to carry personal items with him, but it didn’t matter. He stared at that picture every night, thinking about how he broke the heart of the man he loves most in the world, and how he would do anything to fix it.