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C19: Sunlight

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Tony watched Steve come back to himself slowly, a fish caught on a line and reeled slowly back to shore. The tides pulled mercilessly, threatening at every moment to tug him away again beyond their reach.

Sometimes in the mornings Steve's eyes were bright with awareness, and he always reached for Tony's hand when he woke up. Sometimes Steve laid there and shook until his teeth chattered, and Tony wished he could die before he ever saw the soldier in that much pain again. There was nothing he could do but hold onto him and mutter nonsense into his hair until it passed, never quickly enough.

Memory came back to him. The soldier didn't admit it, but Tony could tell. He saw it in the blond's eyes sometimes, fixed unseeingly on the wall beside the TV they both pretended to watch at night. Steve watched the wall. Tony watched Steve.

The conversation Tony needed so desperately to have with the soldier sat on his tongue, off-balance and wrong. It never seemed to be the right time.

Like clockwork, Steve turned things around. Even from a hospital bed, torn and immobilized, he pointed out how pale Bruce was, how coffee could only keep you going for so long. He softly scolded Clint for creeping in wearing the same wrinkled t-shirt he'd been wearing all week, smelling of vodka and a cologne that never quite covered it. The soldier offered them each half-smiles beneath pain-glazed eyes, meant to comfort, to reassure, to say I'm fine like the worst lie ever told.

"Why don't you go get some sleep, Tony?" He always asked slowly through half-lidded eyes as Jeopardy reruns came on at three A.M.

"I am getting some sleep," Tony quipped back from his chair, his neck cramping dangerously as his chin lolled towards the floor.

"Real sleep, in a real bed. You look tired."

Like clockwork.

Steve sat up for the first time a few days later, Bruce holding one of his arms and Tony the other. The brunette hated feeling the tremors that rippled through Steve like shockwaves, hated how pliant and weak the soldier felt under his hands. Hated the incessant nagging of his own hateful mind, reminding him that the source of the soldier's misery was right there, holding the blond up, whispering soothing nonsense into his ear.

Hypocrite, his mind screamed. You don't even deserve to touch him.

Steve shook himself apart, pasted on a smile, and squeezed Tony's hands with gratitude.

After that the soldier never slid back into the past again. Every time he awoke now it was to grey walls he recognized and familiar faces he could name. The ghosts were gone. It was as if each of them could release a deep breath they'd been holding for weeks, a tension draining from them in a way that was borderline painful in long-awaited relief.

Little by little, the team began to relax the tight knot they had formed around the soldier like a physical barrier, splitting off in their own separate directions for a day or two at a time.

Thor came and went, gone sometimes for days at a time on his travels to other realms. He always came back, always apologized profusely for his absence with a great sadness that made everyone feel a little bit terrible.

Nat and Clint vanished too, sometimes together, or one at a time. Neither was ever away for long. They would mumble something vague about cleaning up messes for Fury, even when nobody asked them for an explanation.

Everyone seemed to know that they belonged here, with Steve, lending their presence and will to his recovery like it would actually do any good. That they left at all, Tony suspected, had more to do with the maddening need for distraction than it did necessity.

Bruce remained, a solid dogged presence, and at some point he became the pillar around which they all rallied themselves. Besides being unanimously considered the expert when it came to matters of serum-related recovery, his persistent stoicism was just pessimistic enough to lack any hint of deception. They trusted him, both to take care of their wounded leader and to tell them the truth about that process. Banner honed in on his work like a dog on a bone, never wavering or deviating. Nat dragged him away once in a while when his focus bordered on the obsessive, and sometimes when Tony passed by the breakroom he spotted him there asleep, under her watchful eye or with his head on her lap.

Tony thought of the way Bruce's eyes had looked that first week after surgery, and walked by quietly.

The next micro-step came when Tony walked in one day, burnt coffee in hand, and found Steve had managed to sit up again. On his own this time, with no assistance at all. Steve looked a little sheepish to be caught, even behind short ragged breaths of exertion and the sheen of sweat. Tony left the coffee forgotten on the table and hugged him.

A few days later, and with no small amount of what Tony suspected was carefully-aimed pleading involved, Steve moved to a wheelchair. It took Thor's considerable strength and several doctors to make the transition painless, but before they knew it the soldier was seated upright in an expensive-looking chair with a stack of blankets tucked carefully around him. He wouldn't admit it, to himself or anyone else, but the perpetual chill still hadn't left him.

The relief of seeing Steve sitting somewhere besides that damn bed was staggering. Tony swallowed the lump in his throat and gladly returned Steve's exhausted, triumphant grin. He focused in on the way the soldier's too-pale fingers clenched and relaxed in turns on the padded arms of his chair, like he was getting used to the feeling all over again.

Every small step in the right direction seemed to light a new fire in the soldier, a new determination to push on and make progress, even when the little he did make clearly took so much out of him. Tony had a guilty feeling that this energy came more from seeing Tony's relief, Bruce's satisfied smiles, Nat's curt nods of approval, than from his own considerable willpower. How the soldier could still be working so hard for all of them, to avoid disappointing them, was a mystery to Tony.

Tony caved quickly and escorted the soldier to the observation deck on the top floor, grateful that the wheelchair nearly hovered over slick tile floors, never catching on edges or jostling it's injured passenger.

Steve stared out the massive glass windows like he'd never seen the sky before. Deep purple bruises under his eyes brought out the pallor of his skin in stark contrast, reminding Tony that the road before them was long but they had finally started taking steps down it.

"It's so blue," the soldier breathed in wonder as he stared out across the rippling waves. If the billionaire had to guess, he doubted Steve even realized he'd spoken aloud.

Tony watched Steve's eyes, brighter than any color he'd ever seen, and agreed.

He sat with Steve for well over an hour, determined not to be the first to suggest they head back. If staring out at the sky and the ocean was bringing Steve any measure of comfort, after every terrible thing he'd been through, Tony would be damned if he took that away from him.

Eventually the soldier's chin began to nod, his eyelids growing heavier with every slow blink. Tony made him drink from the plastic bottle of water he'd brought with them, and reluctantly wheeled him back to his room. Returning to the sterile, colorless space made Steve's shoulders sag almost imperceptibly in resignation, and Tony hated himself for that.

Time passed.

Steve spent longer each day in his chair, even if he didn't feel up to leaving the room. The simple change in position seemed to give him hope, a renewed vigor and purpose. It was painfully clear that the soldier was clinging to every thread of strength as he rediscovered it, even things as simple as sitting up on his own or stilling his tremoring limbs long enough to hold his own glass.

Eventually Tony had to give up their daily trips to the observation deck for Clint or Nat or Bruce to spend some time with the soldier, and it felt selfish and petty of him that he hated it every time. Hated watching someone else wheel Steve away; hated that it was the soldier's happiest, most alert moment of the day and Tony didn't get to share it with him.

Clint was the first to take Steve topside for a spin around the landing deck in the fresh air, and despite Bruce's scoldings the soldier came back looking ten years younger. A windburnt color returned to his cheeks for the first time in weeks and he was smiling like a kid on Christmas morning.

Tony tried to be happy for him, he really did. He forced a brilliant smile and ruthlessly quashed down the bitterness he felt at the archer for being able to help Steve in a way Tony hadn't. It was a dark, ugly feeling in his chest that despite all of his best intentions, he still couldn't shake completely.

This isn't about you, Tony reminded himself harshly, refusing to be the darkness that dimmed the soldier's happy moment. He wasn't that man anymore, he wasn't that weak or selfish.

At least, that's what he told himself.

Steve managed to stay awake a little later every night, even if it was only by a few minutes each time, fighting sleep to keep Tony company or making idle conversation whenever the billionaire fell a little too deep into his own head. The soldier put up with the medical staff's endless poking and prodding with saint-like patience, never once complaining. Even when his eyes slipped shut and his limbs began to tremble, it was the only sign of pain he showed, and only because it was so far out of his own control.

Maybe it was the masochist in him, but Tony didn't look away while they cleaned Steve's wounds with clinical detachment. He didn't avert his eyes when they brought in super-heated needles to carefully draw vial after vial of blood from his veins, even if a part of him wanted to. Instead he held the soldier's hand, listened to the hiccups of pain in his controlled breathing, and told himself he deserved this.

Recovery was slow. Bruce was concerned. Tony saw it even if he wasn't sure that Steve did. When the doctor stood at the soldier's bedside and made senseless small talk with himself under his breath while he stared at his clipboard, at the monitor, at endless graphs and printouts. He never gave it away, not directly, but the work he put into keeping his face blank and expressions carefully under control wasn't lost on Tony. Not for a moment.

The scientist usually left after a few minutes of this, but sometimes he didn't make it far. Tony had stepped into the hallway more than once to find Bruce standing mid-step, frozen, hunched over Steve's charts in his hands like it was the most fascinating puzzle he had ever seen. If Tony asked, Bruce would generally mumble something that was probably meant to be vague and comforting, and wander away again. Tony watched him go with a knot in his stomach he couldn't explain.

Tony caught the soldier staring at him sometimes now, and without fail he answered those beautiful eyes with a bright smile, reassuring Steve wordlessly. He didn't know what was going through the blond's head, and he didn't ask. He wouldn't be the first to push, to break the wall of emotion and memory he saw hiding in the soldier's gaze. Not until that line disappeared from between Bruce's eyebrows, not until the shakes stopped tearing through Steve's limbs every night in his sleep. However long that took, Tony could wait.

He couldn't stop replaying the conversation he'd had with the doctor over a week ago now, couldn't push the words from his mind. A calm voice, telling him it was time to make the selfless decisions. Time to do whatever needed to be done to be Steve's rock. To heal and help, and not to destroy all of Steve's fragile progress under the weight of Tony's own insecurities and weaknesses.

Steve was healing. Slowly, painfully. Tony needed to remind himself of that sometimes, needed to fall back and trace the slow upward line of progress in his mind to make sure he wasn't imagining it.

The next step was standing.

Tony was crushed when Steve tried it the first time. Thor waited patiently at his back to catch him if he fell, and fall he did. With strong arms, Thor lowered the soldier gently back into his chair like he didn't weigh anything when Steve's knees buckled, and had the grace not to mention the way the soldier gasped and trembled like he'd just run a marathon.

Tony held onto Steve's hand as tight as he could and filled the air with mindless platitudes, telling him over and over he was doing great and they'd try again soon and he'd be running circles around them all in no time. Maybe the words comforted him more than they did the soldier, who hunched, exhausted in his wheelchair, and stared at the ground like he wanted to sink right through it and disappear.

Seeing Steve sit there, too ashamed to look him in the eye, too weak to even stay on his own two feet, nearly broke Tony. The brunette excused himself to the hallway a few moments later. He tipped his head back against the wall and willed his eyes to stop burning. When he came back to Steve, all smiles and smalltalk, the aura of defeat hanging over the soldier like a cloud was nearly enough to undo him all over again.

Your fault, your fault, your fault, his mind screamed at him relentlessly, you did this to him.

The second time they tried, Steve was anxious and self-conscious, the memory of his last defeat still too fresh in his mind for his usual display of confidence. Thor took his post behind the wheelchair, arms waiting and outstretched. Tony and Bruce held the soldier's arms on either side, murmuring encouragement as the blond slowly hefted himself up. Despite the violent trembling in every limb, Steve made it this time.

The soldier stood on his own two feet, and it was only for a few short seconds but it felt like winning a war.

Tony and Thor both whooped in victory as the soldier lowered himself gracelessly back down, and the relieved grin on Bruce's face might as well have been just as loud. Steve allowed himself a bashful smile as he watched them celebrate, beads of sweat dripping down his forehead from the exertion.

"You did it, you beautiful bastard," Tony laughed out his relief as he dropped to his knees to pull Steve into a bone-crushing hug. "I told you."

"I should listen to you more often," Steve's voice was all relief and ragged exhaustion. He hugged Tony back and wiped his brow with an unsteady hand.

"Let's not go that far," Bruce was quick to retort from his place by Steve's chirping monitor, but he said it with a smile.

Steve insisted on standing again every day after that, usually in the morning when he felt strongest. His body seemed to be cooperating in ebbs and flows, reminding Tony all too often of Bruce's analogy of the swinging pendulum. Some days Steve couldn't make his limbs obey him and ended up back in the chair quickly, and on others he could keep himself upright for nearly a minute.

"Don't you dare," Tony commanded him on one of the bad days, dragging Steve's drooping chin back upright with a firm hand, "Don't let this beat you. I'm so damn proud of you, do you hear me?"

Steve nodded at him wordlessly, fighting back the shame and humiliation raging in his eyes, and followed Tony out of the darkness like he was his only lifeline.

Tony remembered with painful clarity the long days spent separated from Steve by too-thick glass, mentally planning a funeral. Determined to be so prepared for the worst that when it finally hit him, he could take it on the chin and keep his feet. Bracing himself to never hold the soldier again, never hear his voice or catch a heart-flipping glimpse of eyes too blue for this world.

Just one more weakness Tony could add to the growing list of reasons he was ashamed of himself. Not just of his own actions, but of who he was. Of how deeply he'd fallen into despair, of just how far he'd let hope slip away from.

He'd given up. Steve hadn't.

There were too many bad days. Too many defeats. Too many moments where steely determination crumbled into despair, and every time he saw that subtle, nameless shift in the soldier, Tony died a little bit inside.

It had been another bad day. Another morning where Steve had woken ready to take on the world, ready to jump out of bed and take off running, and had found his body once again unwilling to keep up with his mind.

Remembering how much happier Steve had seemed after his trip outside, Tony wheeled Steve to the lift and out onto the helicarrier deck. He sat beside him on a stack of pylons and made the soldier eat half of the sandwich he'd snagged from the commissary earlier in the day. He watched the relentless salty air whip at the blond's face, watched color and life return to his eyes like it had never left.

Steve caught him staring.

"Sorry," Tony grinned around a mouthful of turkey sandwich, shrugging one shoulder. "You're pretty nice to look at kid."

Steve huffed out a surprised laugh, and his cheeks turned a brighter shade of pink under the scrutiny. The sight did funny things to Tony's chest. He held onto that feeling for as long as he possibly could.

"You don't sound sorry," the soldier mumbled back, trying not to sound flustered. The soft smile on his lips betrayed him. The sting of humiliation bled out of his eyes, too slowly.

Tony's smile widened. "Yeah you're right. I'm not."

The silence stretched between them, comfortable, broken by the distant roar of the waves and gulls crying far overhead. The wind was unyielding and tasted like salt.

Tony tried his damndest not to think of a bloody field in the Himalayas where the wind was also strong.

"When can we go home, Tony?"

The soft question surprised him, and his eyes darted quickly over to the blond beside him. Steve was still staring at the ocean, his eyes not as distant as they usually were.

Tony swallowed, and looked away. "Soon," he promised vaguely, wishing he had had a better answer.

"Will-" Steve's words stuttered, loaded with uncertainty. "I mean… Where am I staying, after this?"

It felt like something in Tony's chest cracked. His breath caught. He knew exactly what Steve was asking, and maybe he'd taken it all for granted because the soldier had been so careful up until now, so strong. Steve's relentless optimism and carefully constructed mask of strength, even while he was laid up in a hospital bed, was bound to dissolve at some point.

"You're coming home with me," Tony tried to sound calmer than he felt. "Don't think for a second I'm letting you out of my sight."

Steve's shoulders drooped almost imperceptibly, a breath of relief shaking past his lips. He looked like he was gearing up for another question, like he was trying to piece together words that were difficult for him.

Tony took mercy on him, because he'd known this was coming. He'd known that past the smiles and thumbs-up's and I'm doing just fine don't worry, Steve was still drifting. He had to have so many questions, so many doubts. And he'd never let a single one slip until this exact moment.

"Hey." Tony waited patiently for the soldier to look at him, hating how young he looked, how unsure. "I'm with you. Now, after this, next year… As long as you want me, I'm here."

Forever, if you'll have me, he wanted to say. But there was still too much standing between him and Steve and forever, too many unspoken apologies.

"And before you ask any more dumb questions, I want you," Tony smiled, and was rewarded by the same expression flitting quickly across Steve's lips. "I'm not gonna lie to you. We've got some shit to work out but… if you'll be patient with me. I will. I'll work it out."

It wasn't the apology he needed to voice, it wasn't even the tip of the iceberg. But now still wasn't the time. Some nagging voice in his skull warned him, reminded him that priority number one was Steve getting strong, getting well. The soldier's physical ailments needed to be put behind him before Tony could heal the wound in his own chest. He knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"Not just you," Steve said quietly, daring to meet Tony's eyes again. They were as clear and bright as they'd ever been, and the sight was beautiful.

It was a sign, as bright as glowing neon, that the soldier was truly healing.

"Well. Mostly me," Tony tried again for levity, tried for anything to dispel that crippling fear still haunting Steve's gaze. "You... I mean yeah, we definitely gotta get you a haircut, for starters."

The real smile Tony had been waiting for finally cracked through Steve's troubled expression. The sun came out from behind the clouds.

Tony leaned over and kissed him. It was chaste and pure and unsullied, and Steve closed his eyes and leaned into Tony's lips just like he used to. When the brunette pulled away, it was only far enough to card his fingers through the soldier's hair, sun-warmed and golden.

Steve's smile was back, teasing at dimples on his cheek as he tried to fight it back.

"You wanna get back inside," Tony breathed to him, offering even though he didn't want to. He wanted to stay here, in the salt air and sunlight with Steve, until they were both old and gray. He wanted to hold onto a smile he'd never quite appreciated, and bright blue eyes and shared heartbeats and bland turkey sandwiches.

Steve shook his head, reaching for Tony's hand and gripping it tight. "No," he sounded sure, "I'm happy right here."

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Later that night, Steve woke Tony up and asked him to help him out of bed. The dim safety lights buzzed outside in the hallway, life and motion and electricity all shuttered down in the early morning stillness.

Against his better judgement Tony agreed, supporting the soldier's weight as he stood on his own. It was a victory for them both, away from the prying eyes of Bruce and the nurses who always seemed to be hovering, plying them with intense scrutiny during every waking moment.

There in the moment, with just Steve and Tony, it felt intimate. Personal, loaded with meaning. That despite everything they'd been through, everything Tony had done to break Steve's faith, the soldier still wanted him here, still trusted him… it was humbling.

Steve clutched Tony's hand in his own, and the strength the billionaire could feel in his grip ignited a spark of hope in his chest. He felt the grim determination in the soldier's coiled muscles, and it was somehow different than it had been from the agonizing weeks before. Stronger.

Breathing in measured beats through a clenched jaw, Steve stood. And took a step.

Something jumped in Tony's chest at the sight, leaving him almost dizzy. He wanted to scream, to leap into the air and let his exhilaration burst out of his chest. Only the soldier leaning heavily on him, concentrating on the shaky movement like it was a puzzle waiting to be solved, that held him grounded.

Instead he muttered some quiet encouragement, the actual words of which he'd never be able to remember, and watched in stunned wonder as Steve took first one halting step and then another.

Eight steps. Eight short, uneven, staggering steps. Steve might as well have run a mile in Tony's book.

They made it to the doorway, and Steve let out a grunt of exertion as he gripped the heavy metal doorframe with his free hand. Tony stood with him there for a long moment with one arm wrapped around Steve's back, holding him steady, and one hand laid flat against the soldier's chest. He felt a strong hammering heartbeat under his palm. He listened to it beat like a battlecry.

After a long moment Steve nodded shakily at him, indicating without words that he could keep himself upright. The soldier held himself up against the doorway while Tony rushed to get the wheelchair, pushing it against the back of Steve's knees just in time to catch him when his knees gave out.

Steve's eyes were bright and shining with emotion, his chest heaving. This time Tony suspected, it wasn't entirely exhaustion stealing his breath. Tony knelt beside him, mindlessly brushing his hair back, squeezing his hand, needing to feel for himself that the short journey, a milestone in itself, hadn't taken too much out of the blond.

"Thank you," the soldier's voice broke as he exhaled the words.

"Don't. Don't thank me for doing exactly what I should have been doing all along," the words came out with more intensity than Tony intended.

Steve looked at him in surprise and didn't answer, letting Tony have the space to speak, to stay silent, to choose the path that stretched infinitely in two directions. Tony watched his chest move, whole and alive despite the damage that lurked beneath, under layers of clothes and bandages and stitches.

The brunette swallowed down the wave of emotion that crashed into him. He wondered if Steve had always been this easy to read, or if he had only just started paying attention.

It still wasn't the time, his mind told him. It still wasn't his moment.

"I'm so proud of you, kid," the brunette confessed instead, and the words fell from his lips without permission. "You know I-" his voice stuttered and failed, and he shook his head at himself for his own cowardice. "I would have given up a thousand times by now. But you never do."

Steve, still looking immeasurably exhausted and yet somehow so alert, alive, awake… shook his head at him tiredly.

"I mean it," Tony rambled on, mystified by the man in front of him, lips dangerously loosened by half-shaken sleep and the giddy high of another victory. "Just, 200% all the time. Always pushing. I don't know how you do it."

Steve stared at Tony, a soft smile pulling at his lips. "I do," he said plainly. He was still looking at Tony.

Something warm and powerful in Tony's gut tugged at the sight, at the loaded meaning in blue eyes. At someone he loved so deeply and thoroughly looking at him like that. Like he was worth all of this.

Letting out a long breath, Tony's eyes slipped shut. He pulled Steve's hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles, his thumbs running over warm skin that smelled like sunlight, past the antibiotics and sterile bitterness of medicine. Under all the pain and heartache and deep wounds, this was still Steve. By some miracle he was still here. Still fighting.

"Let's go home, Tony," the soldier whispered in the silence.

Tony smiled at Steve, and thought he was already there.

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A bit of shameless fluff and filler, I know. Not as fun as some earlier chapters, but I think necessary.

The next chapter should, if I plan things out correctly, finish out the story. It's kind of wild to me that we're at the end, all these years later.

Plans for the future: I'd like to go back and overhaul all of the earlier chapters, polish up the inconsistencies and typos I never fail to find on my nine thousandth self-critique. Once the final chapter is finished and all ret-conning complete, I'll also be posting the rest of the fic on AO3.

If you're interested in a bit more angsty Stony action, keep an eye out for another (shorter) story I'll be posting tonight or tomorrow titled The Taste of Smoke. I'll be uploading that one to AO3 as well once it's all wrapped up. It's another one-shot that really got away from me, and evolved into a total of three long parts, but as with everything I write, it was a bit of necessary therapy disguised as fiction. Writing it, despite a massive genre change from TH, helped me kickstart the inspiration I needed to finish this story as well. I doubt anyone cares but I'll post more there in the author's notes.

To fallfromreality, nightowlv, Beccissss, Eboni, Look-for-the-miracles, and the handful of Guests that came back to support me, I truly cannot thank you enough. I know I've said it before, but knowing that anything I write or craft or create is able to strike a chord with another human being somewhere on this planet… it's truly the best possible reward. Love you all. I'll see you on the final chapter.