Tony's knuckles were still a vibrant shade of blue – marred with splits and cuts – even now, days later. Steve spared a thought for Ross's face, and what was left of his nose, but found he didn't really care. He didn't really care about a lot of things at the moment. Not the never-ending back-and-forth of the Accords. Not the lawsuit Ross was hurtling down on them. Not even the increased guard at the compound's edges, which had appeared mere hours after Ross had been carted away and had yet to disperse.

No. Steve found he could barely spare a thought for any of it.

The sight of Tony – silent, still and hunched so low in his chair that it was difficult to tell where one limb ended and another started – would haunt him until his final hour.

Rhodey had brought him an ice pack for his hand, but it sat abandoned on the bench behind Tony, where the other man had left it soon after Rhodey had left for the wreckage of the Raft.

Left to bring back the body.

Steve inched towards the dishevelled mass in the chair at the centre of the lab – pushed back far enough that he was no longer within reaching distance of the desk, but close enough to see every tiny detail that flicked across the many screens littering the desk. There somehow seemed to be even more then there had been only a few hours ago, when Steve had last trekked to this very position – just a foot or so behind what was left of his friend.

"Tony?"

Tony didn't so much as twitch. Steve moved a little closer, coming to rest by his left side. Tony's eyes were all that moved. Sliding back and forth across the collection of screens at a speed that left Steve feeling a little nauseous.

"Tony?"

Tony's eyes slid to meet his.

"Steve?"

Steve pulled a nearby chair over and sunk into it, close to Tony's side.

"What are you doing?" Steve murmured, watching the charts on the screens as they bent and changed every few moments. Numbers floating and changing about the edges.

Sea charts.

"Doing...?" Tony repeated – his eyes flicking back to the screens. The shining blue light left his once bight, brown eyes an almost sickening grey. "What time is it?" He murmured, pulling his eyes away and glancing around the room.

"Four."

Tony's eyes darted back to Steve. "...in the afternoon?"

Something clenched deep in Steve's stomach. "Morning." Steve answered softly. "It's Tuesday, Tony."

Tony's eyes drifted back to the screens.

"I'm searching." He answered slowly, as if only just remembering Steve's initial question.

The knot in Steve's cut loosened – just a little.

"They – Rhodey hasn't – found-" a body, "-anything?"

"No."

Steve let out a shaky breath and they fell into silence.

It was Steve who broke it. "You should get some sleep." Tony said nothing. "Are you hungry? I can bring you something." Again Tony said nothing. If it weren't for the semi steady rise and fall of his chest Steve would have worried he was talking to a corpse. The screen's blue lights did nothing to help his already pale skin, and the bruise like bags under his eyes were so engrained now that Steve wondered if they'd ever fade. "You need to eat Tony."

Again nothing. Steve would have pushed. Any other day he would have pushed – berated the man to think of himself for one goddamn minute, but not today. He just couldn't make himself.

The two of them fell into silence again. It stretched for several minutes. Deepening with every minute until the weight of it was almost unbearable.

"Please."

Steve's head snapped up from where it had fallen in his lap. Tony hadn't moved. His eyes were still fixed on those whirling blue screens – but Steve had heard him. Heard the whisper.

"What?" Steve rushed, moving a little closer to Tony's side. "What do you need?" Anything. He was almost certain he'd do just about anything right now if it meant fixing the situation just a little. Anything to ease the anguish that had settled deep in Tony's eyes days ago, and refused to leave since.

The thought that Rhodey might call at any minute – to give them the news none of them were ready to hear – left Steve feeling like he was on a clock. He was willing to do anything right now that might give the man a tendril of hope, of happiness, before it was all stripped away. And it would be.

If Peter was really dead, Tony – and everything Tony was – was about to die with him.

Tony's eyes remained fixed on the sea-charts.

"Just-" His lips quivered as he spoke, as if he'd forgotten how in the last few days. "Just talk." He murmured. "Don't just – don't-"

"I went to see a few apartments in Brooklyn last weekend." Steve said, leaning back into his chair but not moving away. "You would have laughed at my face when I saw what they were asking." Steve chuckled humourlessly. "Practically robbery." He waited for a response, because Tony always had a response. Especially when it came to Steve's real-estate dealings. That being said though Steve was entirely sure that if he hadn't put his foot down Tony would have brought him half of Brooklyn by now – despite the man's protests that he would never step a toe across that bridge.

For the first time since Steve had first broached the topic almost five years ago Tony didn't have a response.

"Tony-"

"Don't." Tony's voice was ragged, as if he'd been gurgling glass and the small cuts were so deep that the word caught and died in the slices in his throat.

"Just don't." He murmured and the two of them fell into silence for another moment. Again it was Tony who broke it.

"I got him a birthday present." His voice was so small that even Steve had to lean a little closer to catch the words. "Actually I got him ten presents – he's sixteen in August so I, you know, probably went a little over board." Something deep in Steve's chest clenched painfully at the words, and the emptiness on Tony's face as he muttered them. He'd seen the man talk about lawn mowers with more vigour. "5,000 piece Star Wars Lego set. This new filter he keeps talking about – for his camera. An Audi." Steve's eyebrows shot up, just a little. Tony must have caught the movement. "I thought I could, you know, maybe teach him how to drive." He said with a small shrug, as if the massive milestone that he was reaching for with the kid meant nothing – and Steve was tempted to correct him. To make him see just how much it would have meant. But he didn't. Maybe Tony wanted it to mean nothing. Maybe it would make what was happening now easier. "May doesn't have a car – who does in this city anymore – and the kid really needs the help. You should have seen the carnage he left behind last year when the whole Vulture thing went down. Hundreds of thousands in damage and the kid only made it like seven blocks." Tony's chuckle was short lived. It died in his throat after only a couple of seconds, and the two of them folded back into silence.

"Tony-"

He barely got the word out before Tony cut him off.

"You know my dad never stopped looking for you." Tony said, and Steve started. That was not what he'd been expecting. At all. It was almost an unwritten rule between them now. Tony didn't mention his parents, and Steve never breathed a word about Bucky. "Over thirty years – millions of dollars –hours a day poring over maps and sea charts and satellites." Tony went on, still staring up at the sea charts, nothing but his eyes and mouth moving. Steve wondered if he was really aware of what he was saying. "He was one of the first to get a real camera up there," Tony nodded up at the ceiling, and the sky above, "and you know what he did with it while Russia and America were busy measuring dicks in space?" He asked, brown eyes glazed and blank as he watched the currents move. "He left it pointing at the ocean." The words were barely more than a whisper. "All I wanted, all I wanted, was for him to care about me even half as much-"

Steve's chest clenched again. "You were his son-" Steve started, a deep weight settling over him. Jesus. How long had he been hurting Tony? Even the memory of him enough to rip something from Tony that he'd loved. He'd needed.

Steve sometimes wondered how the man could even bare to look at him.

"-but you were his creation." Tony cut in. "Every inch of you a testament to his genius." The words curled out of his mouth with practiced ease. Practiced resentment. "A living, breathing, monument to his ego." Each word cut Steve a little more – but he couldn't deny them. He'd always felt like more of an object than a friend to Howard, a valued object – certainly – but never one that had any worth beyond what he could do for the military. Do for Howard. "You know, if Barnes hadn't gotten to him first, I think he would have wasted away waiting for you." Tony was still muttering. "Told him as much once. He didn't take it well."

A shaking hand ghosted across Tony's left forearm. Steve's eye caught sight of a small scare there – long healed – and his guilt ebbed away to fury.

"I guess irony really is a stone cold bitch that comes for us all in the end – because here I am, rotting away in this chair with satellites and sea charts," Tony went on as if he weren't admitting his deepest secrets. Things Steve suspected he might have taken to his grave, "and I finally get it. Why all the wasted time and money meant nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Not if – not if I might – if he might-" Not for the first time Tony's voice broke, but it did so so violently that Steve worried Tony was about to break with it.

Steve moved on instinct. Reaching out with a shaking hand of his own to grasp Tony's shoulder. A wasted attempt keep Tony tethered to him, to all of them, and not slipping away as Steve had feared he might from the moment they heard what had happened. Tony seemed to not notice the contact. "He's not gone." He choked, eyes still weaving over the screens. They were blank. Empty. "He can't be." He murmured, resolve settling in his voice. Steve wasn't sure if he preferred it to the god awful begging, or if it would only make things worse later, if...if the worst had happened. "He just can't – because then what would be the point of all of this. Of us." Tony's voice was soft, but the words hit with the force of a semi-truck. "Of all the sweat, and the blood and the pain." And Tony's voice dripped with it. Steve felt as if he might slip and fall into the spiral of despair that the man was finally showing. Finally letting others see. "Of everything that we've sacrificed. What would be the point of it all if we can't save a kid like that?" Those brown eyes finally pulled away from the screens across from him and locked onto Steve's. The sheer desperation and need in them was all consuming. "He's not gone." Tony went on and Steve – despite how much he knew he should say something, prepare the man just a little – couldn't bring himself to say a word. "He's not gone." Tony murmured, nodding to himself and turning back to the sea charts. "I just have to find him."

Steve knew he should say something. Should do something. Anything. Tony was his friend and he was wasting away. All of this hope would crush him if they found a body. Steve knew he had to do something to ease that.

But he just couldn't.

Instead he fled.

"I'm going to go get you some food."

Steve was up and out of the lab before Tony could respond. Not that he did. Steve glanced back just as the door slid closed behind him and the sight of the man still curled up in the chair – just as he'd found him – dug into the wound, deep in his chest, that the last few days had left, and festering there.

Steve took a step towards the stairs that would lead him up to the elevator but stopped short at the sight of a figure making their way down.

"Bruce?" Steve said, and the man's head snapped up. Brown eyes met Steve's with no small amount of sympathy. His utter despair at the situation must have been as clear on his own face as it was on Tony's. He tried to push it down, but he doubted he was succeeding at that either. There was a small plate of food in Bruce's hands and Steve latched onto it as a chance to change the subject. He nodded at the food, "I was just going up to get something."

Bruce glanced down the plate of toast and fruit. "Yeah – it's got to be hitting the twenty-four hour mark since he last ate, but I don't like our chances."

Steve nodded and they fell into silence.

Maybe it was Tony rubbing off on him – his words that the universe owed them hadn't stopped ringing in Steve's head – but Steve couldn't help but break the silence. He had to know if – but he didn't dare ask Tony.

"Do you think he's really dead?"

Bruce's eyes darted to his. Bruce had always had the wisest eyes in the team. Tony's were genius – they sparked and erupted with knowledge just like the man himself – but his general lack of common sense had always excluded him from the wise category. Clint's were most often crinkled with laughter or mischief, but every so often they settled and you could see the scars the man kept to himself. The weariness. Sam was much the same – but opposite. He wore his scares quite openly. His weariness. He channelled it into his work with others, and they trusted him for it. Trusted that if he could bare his demons, so could they. Rhodes was much the same as well. Channelling his demons to give him strength.

Natasha was not. Her eyes were like mirrors. One tended to see more of themself then of her when they looked. Their own fears and desires. That was her gift – to read a person and mirror what they needed back to them. Once or twice though – between one moment and the next – the mirror broke and Steve could see through. And what he'd found there was terrifying. Natasha had no demons, he had quickly come to realize. There was no room for petty demons. The devil himself hid behind her eyes – in her past.

Steve had often wondered what the others saw in his eyes. What Natasha saw – as she would certainly see the most.

Where the ghosts in his heart written just as clearly in his eyes?

Bruce's eyes were certainly the wisest though. The man had seen the devil in himself and others more clearly than most ever would, and it had left him with a unique insight into people. An empathy for both men and monsters.

"They're still digging corpses out of the wreck but they haven't been able to surface the whole thing yet." Bruce said. Steve imagined if he hadn't had the plate in his hand he would have removed his glasses and started to clean them. He did it often when he needed an excuse to lower his eyes. Just like Tony with the tools that he twisted around his hands fast enough to make even Steve appreciative of his dexterity. A coping mechanism. "It's too dense. So they won't be able to make a real estimate of casualties for at least another couple of days-"

Steve cut him off.

"That's not what I asked."

Bruce sighed, dipping his head for just a moment before he looked back up and met Steve's searching eyes. "God I hope not." He murmured. "Because it wont be just Peter." Bruce nodded towards the sliding glass doors – and the genius beyond them. "It'll kill him too."

Steve said nothing. The words were true – they both knew it.

"Where are the others?" He asked instead.

"Natasha and Clint went with Rhodes to Raft." Bruce said, leaning against the wall. Exhaustion was setting in hard throughout the entire Compound. "Sam went to check on May – she's still in the dark. He thought it best not to say anything until we knew...something. For sure."

"Do we know anymore about what happened?"

"No." Bruce said. "And we might not." He added with a huff. "The water damage is extensive."

Steve reached out and took the plate from Bruce's hands as the man slumped more heavily against the wall.

"I'll take it to him." Steve said. "You look exhausted. You should get some sleep."

"So should you."

Steve's eyes drifted back to the opaque lab doors.

"I'll sleep when he does."

Bruce nodded. "Then I have a feeling you're in for a long few days." He glanced at the lab doors as well. "We all are." He pulled himself off the wall with no small amount of effort. "Wake me if you hear anything – I told Clint to call us if-." He didn't seem to be able to get the words out, and Steve couldn't help but be slightly glad. He didn't want to hear them. "He shouldn't have to hear it on his own." Bruce's eyes drifted back to the doors. "He can't. I don't want to think about what he might do."

Steve nodded, giving the man a small push up the stairs to get him moving. Bruce moved with no resistance, heading back up to the lift.

"Thanks, Bruce." Steve murmured after him.

Steve stood in the hall for longer than he would ever admit. Trying to find the courage to head back into the lab. To deliver the news he might have to if the others called.

But they hadn't called yet. Hadn't found anything yet.

It was that – the infinitesimal amount of hope still left for them – that finally let him step back into the lab.

Tony was just as he'd left him. Curled in a ball within his large desk chair, eyes wide and dancing as they swept across the screens continually.
Steve reclaimed his seat beside him.

"Hey." Steve reached a hand out to rest against Tony's shoulder. "Tony." When he didn't respond Steve gave the shoulder under his hand a soft squeeze. "Tony."

Tony's eyes drifted over to him, clearly surprised to see him there, but barely reacting. Steve doubted the man had the energy to react to an alien invasion at the moment.

Tony's eyes drifted down to the plate of food Steve placed on the desk in front of them.

"I'm not hungry."

"Yes, you are."

Steve sank back into his own seat, pulling his hand away from Tony's shoulder so he could prop his head up on his palm while his elbow rested on the hand rest. His eyes settled on the swirling screens as Tony's settled on him.

The man's wide, brown eyes were bloodshot and slightly dazed as he spoke. "What are you doing?"

Steve's gaze darted over to the genius.

"Searching."

Steve let his eyes drift back to the screens and a moment later he felt Tony's do the same. The other man shifted, just slightly, in his seat and Steve moved just a little closer so that Tony could rest against his shoulder. And he did.

Steve had never thought of Tony as small – not when the man seemed to command a room no matter who was in it – but here, in the lab, stripped of everything he seemed small and fragile.

Steve moved just a little closer, letting Tony lean more fully against him.

This he could do. He could hold the smaller man up. Could keep him above the tide threatening to drown him. He would.

He wasn't loosing anyone else.

"I knew they would have both fit."

Wanda's eyes opened just enough for her to glare at Peter as he stared over at her.

"What?" Her voice croaked. Her lips were cracked and blood still plastered across her mouth and down her throat.

"Rose and Jack – in 'Titanic' – I knew they would have both fit on the door thing."

They weren't on a door – per-say – it was a piece of curved, metal debris that had remained on the surface after the thing – giant submarine or boat or whatever the hell it was – had slipped beneath. Peter had heaved both himself and an unconscious Wanda onto the long piece of debris as soon as they had surfaced, and they had remained there for almost four days if the rising and setting of the sun across the horizon from them was any indicator.

They had been enveloped by water within minutes in their tiny closet in the submarine thing, but as it had sank the shifting of pressure had given the two of them just enough time to make a break for the surface. Wanda had unscrewed the hinges in the door and blown the whole thing out – despite that she'd welded the door clean shut – and from there Peter had been able to drag them out. By the time they had been making a break for it the whole thing was sinking fast, pulling them further and further down, causing the water to swell and push against them with every movement.

Peter had accepted they were dead. There was no way they'd reach to surface. There was too much weight pulling against them – even for him.

And then the whole submarine monstrosity had started to rise.

Peter wasn't ashamed to admit that for a second he really thought god was reaching out for them. To save them. Or maybe Tony. The Iron Men had held up the whole ferry while it had been falling apart, it wasn't such a stretch that they'd be able to hold up the giant submarine thingy. Was it?

The red sparks where what gave away the truth.

Wanda – from beneath the water – had risen their metal tomb just high enough for Peter to pull them both from the submarine and to the surface. By the time their heads broke through the water Peter's lungs had been screaming, his head pounding and his limbs protesting even the smallest of movements – but none of that had mattered, because Wanda hadn't been moving.

Peter had launched himself towards a floating piece of debris, dragging Wanda with him, and then hauled them both on top. She had been breathing – barely – but not woken when he'd called. When he'd begged.

And then the bleeding started.

At first it had just been her nose, but the blood had poured down her face, pooling at her throat, and Peter had moved beyond panic and straight into hysteria. And then her ears had followed. The blood leaking from those was slower, it didn't pour down the side of her head like the blood from her nose, but it had frightened him more. He was in no way a medical student, but blood from the ears was bad – he knew that much. He'd done what he could, keeping them both above the water and pulling Wanda into his side in an attempt to keep her warm. But after a few hours Peter was starting to feel the bite of the cool air on his soaked skin and clothes, and he knew that it wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. He was no supersoldier. He didn't radiate heat like Steve – quite the opposite. Spiders lacked the ability to thermo-regulate, and Peter had found out the hard way – stuck inside an abandoned subway tunnel in the dead of January – that he now lacked the ability as well, meaning that when he was cold he stayed cold. After a few hours Wanda was warmer than he was, and he was clinging to her for heat.

The first day and night had passed in a blur of fear, bone-deep chill and silence. Once the submarine had sunk, and the water around them had stilled, Peter had been left along, clinging to Wanda for hours until the sun had sunk beneath the horizon and darkness claimed them. No matter how many times Peter called, Wanda didn't wake once throughout the night. Her nose and ears did eventually stop bleeding, leaving her blood stained, pale and looking entirely too much like a corpse. Peter clung to her to make sure that she never slid from the small piece of metal they were perched on, but even when the waves had stopped and the chances of either of them being thrown off were slim he didn't release his hold. Cradled in his arms he could feel her breathing. Could even feel the soft beating of her heart through both of their clothes. It was the soft beating that got him through that first night where the seconds dragged, and he started to worry that the sun might never rise.

You're not alone.

You're not alone.

You're not alone.

Eventually the sun did rise – and not long after it Wanda woke. She was groggy, her eyes squinted shut against the sun and sporting a migraine that had her vomiting the majority of the morning. Apparently lifting over a hundred tonnes of metal wasn't as easy as she'd made it look. By the time the second night came around the vomited had passed, and the two of them had long folded into silence. It was hard to talk. Peter had been feeling dehydration setting in for hours – he could only imagine how Wanda felt after almost a full day of dry heaving on and off – and his limbs had been growing steadily number from the cold. They were both finally starting to drift into restless sleep when it occurred to Peter that succumbing to unconsciousness perhaps wasn't the best idea – but exhaustion had set into his bones, and Wanda was already asleep again. Or unconscious. He hadn't called to her. He'd just held on and let unconsciousness take him as well.

They did both wake, and the third day passed much faster than the first two. Neither of them had the energy to stay awake for very long, so the day slipped away from them. As it did Wanda grew paler, and Peter colder.

It was only now, as the sun was beginning to set again, and Wanda was quickly slipping back into unconsciousness in his arms, that it truly set in that they were dying.

He'd known that they were – logically. Stranded without water, in need of some serious medical attention in Wanda's case, and in sub-freezing temperatures all combined to form a pretty fatal conclusion. Peter had known that from the beginning.

There was a difference between knowing and feeling though. As they drifted through the water and Peter watched the sun set slowly across the horizon for the third time he could feel himself dying. Could feel the weight in his limbs. Each breath that caught in his lungs. The cold air, and his continually plummeting body temperature, seemed to steel each breath before he could take it.

Most of all he could feel himself fading.

Each blink was harder. Each time he drifted into unconsciousness the sun had moved further.

He remembered, what felt like so long ago now, when Tony had told him that he'd died at the Compound. He'd skirted around the issue for almost a week, dodging Peter's every question and demand to know what had happened, focusing instead on Peter's recovery. Almost frantically. When he'd finally admitted what had happened to Peter – in the vaguest terms possible – Peter hadn't known how to really process what he was being told.

He'd died. He'd fixated on it. In the months that followed even thought of it had been enough to send Peter into a spiral, so he'd boxed the whole thing up and refused to deal with it. How could he? How could he deal with something so consuming? He'd been stuck on idea that he had been dead and now he wasn't? Been so determined to cling to the divide of life and death that had always seemed like such a distinct line to him.

But here, feeling the swell of the water beneath him and the absolute awareness that he was fading with every minute, the divide began to blur. The parts of him that were too cold to feel, where they dead already? Perhaps there was really no line between life and death. Peter certainly didn't feel like it in that moment. He felt as if he were existing somewhere between the two – that perhaps he always had and had never noticed. He'd been inches away from death before – on more occasions that he would ever admit to May or Tony – but it hadn't felt like this. Now there was no adrenaline. No fight. Just the warmth of the sun slipping from him, and the knowledge that he wouldn't feel it again.

Peter was too cold, and Wanda too weak.

No. Tonight would take them both.

The all-consuming fear that Peter had been fighting since Tony told him he'd died that day at the Compound finally faded away, and for the life of him Peter couldn't imagine why he'd been fighting it. Why he'd been afraid.

If this was death – the soft swaying of an ocean and the dying red light of the sun eclipsing over a vibrant, blue, ocean – then it wasn't so bad. Wasn't so terrifying.

He knew that if his brain weren't so fuzzy and his limbs quite so heavy that he might not think so. That he'd been thinking of May and Ned, who had no idea what had happened to him, of Tony who knew too much, of everything he was leaving behind and everything that he'd wanted to do. But just like the sun those thoughts were slipping away from him – dipping under the horizon as the water beneath him swelled and rippled, and the silence all around lulled his eyes to slip closed.

He forced them open for just one more minute. He wanted to see the sun slip away – just one more time. Wanted to dwell in the little warmth it offered for as long as he could, before he slipped away with it.

Between one blink and the next the sun dipped lower.

And between another a black mass appeared in the dying, red, light.

A ship.