Note:

One of the hardest parts of writing a multi-chapter fic is knowing where to end it. For me, the ending was always going to come shortly after Steve and Tony escaped. And here we are, at last. Thank you for reading and sticking with this fic. :)

It turned out that even Tony went quiet when the sun started to rise. As the eastern sky turned from dark to light purple haze with a sprinkling of clouds on the horizon, Steve felt his throat start to thicken with emotion. It had been... well, he'd lost track of how long he had been trapped in Stane's labs. Awhile.

Longer for Tony, of course.

"It's beautiful," Steve said, gripping the strangely plush steering wheel.

Hours earlier, when they'd escaped the lab, Steve hadn't quite been sure what he was looking at wasn't actually an automobile in the parking lot. The auto was odd; thin and sleek on the outside as if made of tinfoil and plastic, the inside overly luxurious with seats that looked like leather, but weren't. It looked like it was ready to take off and fly above the road.

Luckily, engines hadn't changed that much. The principles he'd learned while stealing HYDRA tanks still worked in this day and age.

With so many of Tony's fingers broken, it had been up to Steve to drive - he'd had a moment of confusion when he 'd looked for and couldn't find the stick shift.

Tony had then told Steve it was an 'automatic', it shifts on its own, and, "Just press the gas, old man, and get us out of here. No! Ex-nay on the headlights - the less help we give the drones, the better."

Steve had wanted to ask what drones were, but wasn't sure he was going to like or understand the answer. "Where are we?" Steve had asked instead as he pulled out onto the road. He could see well enough in the dark, though there were no city lights, and what hills he could make out looked barren up until they met with a star-crusted sky.

Tony was twisted around in his seat, watching behind them for signs of pursuit. There were still alarms going off in the lab; doctors and techs scrambling around. No one seemed to notice one less car was missing from the parking lot.

"No idea," Tony said. "Desert? It looks like desert."

Nodding, Steve floored the gas petal. The responsive engine shifted smoothly, and the lab was soon a distant bright dot in the rearview mirror. Ahead of them stretched empty, black road.

"We should send a message to someone," Steve said. "People still have radios nowadays, right? Or we could get another iPhone?" Tony had made him leave the ones he'd grabbed from the guards behind: Apparently, they could be electronically tracked.

"OnStar."

"On what?"

Tony reached to press a button above the rearview mirror that Steve hadn't noticed.

"Call," Tony ordered clearly, and followed it by a string of numbers that seemed much too long for any sense. What happened with telling operators the last name of the party you wanted to reach? Or were there operators any longer?

The invisible telephone in the OnStar rang once before it clicked over to a polite English voice. "Welcome back, Mr. Stark. May I say what a pleasure it is to hear your voice again?"

"Thank you, JARVIS," Tony said with a grin that lit up his handsome face. "It's good to be back. Reports of my death are, as you can tell, premature."

"Jarvis?" Steve repeated, pleased. "That was a swell trick you pulled, cutting the electricity. Thank you."

"JARVIS, let me introduce you to Captain Steve Rogers. Update your files on the once and future Captain America," Tony said. "Steve, JARVIS is my AI - artificial intelligence."

"A robot?" Steve asked, startled.

"I have no need of a physical form," JARVIS said smoothly.

So, not a robot? But... artificial people? Steve tried not to boggle too openly. Somehow he felt like he was going to be doing a lot of that.

"J, I need you to monitor the local airspace - wait, where are we? Afghanistan? Lebanon?"

"Current Stark GPS satellite puts your location approximately forty-two miles outside of Reno, sir."

Tony did a slow blink. "Nevada. Okay that... I can work with that." He glanced at Steve. "Sorry, babe, we'll have to take a rain check on Las Vegas this time."

"I've already been," Steve said, and tried not to blush at the endearment. "USO tour. We stayed overnight - nice town, but a little in the middle of nowhere."

Tony's smile would have done justice to any matinée idol. "It's grown a little since then. Speaking of," Tony glanced back to the OnStar button. "JARVIS, I have a little - a lot of catching up to do, and I don't know how much time I have. Make me proud. I need to know the state of all of my assets."

What passed was mostly incomprehensible to Steve, though it was interesting. It was a little uncomfortable, though, to hear a man's personal finances put out in the open. But Tony seemed to trust him.

However, Steve couldn't help boggling a little, though, at some of the numbers JARVIS threw out at them. Apparently, even with much of his assets "liquidated" after his death, Tony really was a multi-millionaire.

"Billionaire," Tony said with a sniff, when Steve mentioned it. "There's a difference."

He might have gone on to explain the difference between being filthy rich and super filthy rich, but by then Steve had spotted the lightening eastern sky.

And that's when Tony fell silent - they both did. Watching the sun rise.

By the time he managed to tear his gaze away from it, he noticed Tony's eyes were a little wet. Tony glanced at him, then quickly looked away, affecting a shrug.

"Did you ever think of what it was going to be like?" Steve asked, "Getting free?"

"I never thought I would get out of there alive." Tony again raised his eyes to the morning sky. "Most people don't get a second chance, I got two."

"What do you mean?"

Then, in a slightly detached, monotone voice Tony began to tell Steve about his time in a cave in Afghanistan. About a man named Yinsen, who gave his life for Tony. How Tony escaped, about all the plans he'd laid out for himself - promised - while he staggered out of his metal suit and over sand dunes

"I was going to stop all weapons manufacturing. I knew Stark Industries would take a hit, but it didn't matter. I was going to change the world."

Tony's left hand had purpled and swelled in the joints overnight. So Steve laid his free hand on his forearm, giving him a gentle squeeze. "What happened?"

"Got spotted by the American military. Picked up by a Blackhawk - a helicopter. I thought... I thought, here's my fairytale ending. My new life starts now." Tony's smile was as cynical as it was sad. "And you know even after everything I'd been through, I never questioned it when the Corporal in charge told me my pal Rhodey was leading a different search party - that they were taking me to an American military base, and 'Here Mr. Stark let's hook you up to a saline drip. You're dehydrated...'"

"Stane's men?" Steve guessed.

"Got it in one. The Ten Rings were supposed to kill me. I messed with those plans, but Stane's adaptable. Now, eighteen months later I'm legally a dead man, and the company is his." Tony took a breath as if to steady himself, then blurted, "You know how I said awhile back that Stane was making you another Yinsen? I meant it. Still do. I'm a sinking ship, Cap. I'm only going to drag you down."

"You know," Steve said casually, "back in my neighborhood, my best friend Bucky and I, we... we had a saying: Till the end of the line."

Tony turned his head away, abruptly interested in the view out the passenger window. He hadn't, though, moved his arm from under Steve's fingers.

They stopped at a gas station a couple hours later, and stole a white pickup truck.

This time Steve felt a twinge of guilt for the theft. A little less so when Tony, via a 'blue tooth', called JARVIS and asked him to find the truck's owner's bank account, and replace what they just took with three times the retail value. (The actual figure was so much money that Steve was briefly struck speechless. Tony had mentioned inflation had marched steadily on through the decades, but...)

"Where to next?" Steve asked, trying to get his equilibrium back.

"We need clothes, supplies, somewhere to regroup. I can't just go back to my home - or any of my homes," Tony said. "Stane will have people out looking for us. Probably some police officers in various districts, too."

Steve nodded. He'd been thinking about this, and calculating how fast news of their escape would travel. "Who do you trust?"

"I didn't trust many people even before Afghanistan," Tony admitted. "But, there are two-I'd trust them with my life - and I guess I will, and yours," he added with a wry smile. "My best friend since college, Rhodey, and Pepper. She's my PA."

"Your what?"

"Secretary, though don't let her catch you calling her that. She... well, she probably has another job by now, but she'll remember me."

"I doubt anyone would ever forget you, Tony," he said wryly.

"I paid her well," was Tony's reply, "mostly in shoes. My god, that woman loved shoes." His voice was of affectionate exasperation.

"Okay," Steve said. "So we get ahold of them. Then what?"

"We can't contact them directly. Stane's sure to be monitoring them, especially now." Tony drummed his good fingers on the dash. "We need a plan."

"For an attack?"

"I like the way you think, Captain." Then Tony frowned, his gaze dropping to his broken left hand. "What we need is to come out in a big way. Lights, drama, something that can't be swept under the rug again by Stane's money."

"I did a fair stage show back in my time," Steve mused. He could almost laugh about it, now.

Tony did bark out a laugh. "I saw an old reel on that. But no, I'm trying to be responsible. I'm thinking more along the lines of a news conference, with you as my shadowy bodyguard. Whitney Houston soundtrack optional."

"What?"

"It's a movie. You'll love it." Tony tapped again on the dash. Tony moved around a lot, Steve was starting to notice. He wasn't the type of man who liked to be confined in one place - being in that cell, in both his cells, must have been terrible. "What we need are powerful people Stane can't touch."

"Excuse me, sir," JARVIS said from the truck's speakers, causing Steve to jerk the wheel sharply in surprise. He had forgotten the AI was listening.

Tony was nonplussed. "Shoot, J."

"There has been quite a bit of interest surrounding your disappearance. A Mr. Phil Coulson from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division has made several direct inquiries to Miss Potts within the last eighteen months. He has been... quite persistent."

"Strategic Homeland..." Tony started to parrot, then frowned.

Steve had gotten pretty handy at acronyms since joining the army. "SHIELD."

"Never heard of 'em. New agency?" Tony asked.

There was a long pause from JARVIS. "Records indicate SHIELD is a moderately powerful intelligence agency under the umbrella of the executive house. It began as a successor agency to the Strategic Scientific Reserve, or SSR."

Tony and Steve exchanged a look.

"Any known weapons contracts between SHIELD and StaneTech?" Tony asked sharply.

"Working," JARVIS said. Then, after another moment. "None found."

"If they're under the executive branch, they sound like they could be useful," Steve said.

"They sound like they're the men in black," Tony grumbled.

Steve flipped the turn indicator and pulled to the side of the road. Once they were safely stopped, he turned to Tony. "I don't see the harm in finding out what this Phil Coulson has to say."

"I will see what they have to say. You're my big beefy bodyguard who broke me out of Stane's version of a sweatshop." Tony frowned, looked pensive. "But okay, yes. Point. I just..." he took another breath and met Steve's gaze. His dark eyes were serious. "Last chance to bail, Cap. I won't blame you. I'll have JARVIS set you up with a bank account under a fake name - wherever you want to go, you-"

Steve kissed him.

He hadn't planned it - had actually meant to tell Tony to stuff it. He wasn't the type to leave a friend in a lurch. But then he and Tony were so close in the truck's cab, and he was leaned forward as Tony was speaking, and it just... happened.

And Tony wasn't pulling away. He made a surprised noise that sounded a little like, "Nugh" and then he was touching Steve's jaw with his good hand, lips parting, kissing back.

It ended, a minute, an age later. Steve's heart thudding in his ears. He was cupping the back of Tony's neck and he didn't remember even doing it. "I'm not leaving," he said quietly. Roughly.

"Yeah..." Tony sounded slightly dazed. "I think I'm getting that."

Then he pulled Steve in and they were kissing again, deeper. More urgent.

Tony tugged Steve closer, urging him out of his seat and into his own. It was awkward, both the small space and avoiding Tony's broken hand. Then Steve figured out which lever to push to lean Tony's seat back.

They made it work, after that.

Later, after the sun went down on their first day of freedom, Tony adjusted his rumpled shirt, ran his uninjured hand back through his hair, and gave Steve a long, look.

Steve nodded. It was now or never.

Tony said, "JARVIS?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Place a call to Phil Coulson."

The end.