Author's Notes: This story starts with Steve in the hospital after the climatic events of 'Captain America: Winter Soldier.'

"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean." -Ryunosuke Satoro

Together We're an Ocean
PenPatronus
Chapter 1
Feel the Bullet

Tony Stark resembled a caged animal as he paced the elevator floor. He hit the number '7' on the panel for the fourth time, and dragged his fingers down his face. The sterile, chemical scent of the hospital triggered raw memories of Happy covered in burns, of Pepper grimacing during the Extremis treatment, of his own surgery not even a month before when the shrapnel was finally removed from his heart, and of visiting a morgue to confirm that the dead bodies on the cold tables were his parents…

Sudden anxiety closed around Tony's heart like a fist. Claustrophobia kicked him in the stomach. Sweat gathered on his forehead. He lifted his black t-shirt to his face, but hesitated when he remembered that it was splattered with drops of oil from his workshop. He hadn't even bothered to put on clean clothes after Natasha called with the bad news: HYDRA was resurrected. SHIELD had all but fallen. Sitwell, Rumlow, and the Strike team had betrayed them all. Steve Rogers and Nick Fury were severely wounded…Or worse.

The elevator doors parted following an annoyingly chipper 'DING.' Tony wiped his hands on his dirty jeans and jogged out, his sneakers squeaking on the immaculate tile floor. Security guards stood outside every door. Three SHIELD agents in black uniforms aimed guns at his face. "This ward is closed!" one barked. "Authorized personnel only!"

"Show us some ID!" ordered another.

Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. "Are you KIDDING ME?" he demanded, gesturing at his own face.

Each agent did a double take. "Sorry, um, Mr. Stark," the third said as he lowered his weapon. "With HYDRA and all… Captain Rogers is in the eighth room on the left."

Tony felt dizzy. "He's alive? Last I heard he was going into surgery. Did they get all the bullets out?"

The three agents performed a darn good impression of The Three Stooges when each one looked at the other for an answer. None of them had one. Tony growled and purposefully bumped his shoulders against them as he sprinted forward. "One, two, three," he counted out loud as he passed each door, "four, five—"

"Tony!"

He took his eyes off the doors only because the voice sounded familiar. A woman threw herself into his arms. He barely managed to get his elbows between his bandaged ribs and her weight before she rammed into his fresh stitches. It looked like Natasha Romanoff, but Tony didn't think it could be, because the Black Widow had never hugged him like this before, and she was trembling. "S-Sorry," she whispered after nearly half a minute of clinging to him. "It's just, um…" Nat gave Tony one last solid squeeze and took half a step backwards, but only after she wiped away the water in her eyes. Frazzled red hair clung to fresh perspiration on her cheeks and forehead. The emerald scrubs top she wore over her dirty black pants was two sizes too big.

Tony stumbled backwards when Nat suddenly used her thumb and middle finger to flick him right between the eyes. "What the hell was that for?"

Nat shrugged. "Just making sure you're not wearing a camo mask. Call me paranoid, but it's been a rough few days… For all of us." She looked down at the floor and sniffed.

"Rogers?" Tony croaked. "Steve is… Is Steve…?"

"He's all right," Nat hiccupped. "I mean, he will be. Docs stopped the internal bleeding and, and… yes, he's alive."

Tony cupped her face with both hands. The pad of his thumb graced a bruise on her cheek. "And what happened to you?"

"Kicked ass." Natasha shrugged. "And electrocuted myself," she said. "Mildly."

"I saw the news. I was about to hightail it to D.C. but the Helicarriers were already in the water." Tony licked his lips. His face reddened. "Why didn't you call me when this shit went sideways?" he whispered. "I thought you and I were copacetic. Or is it Fury who doesn't trust me?"

"Calm down," Natasha cautioned. "Stark, your chest was cracked open three weeks ago," she said quietly, pointing at his heart but not actually touching him. "You're in no shape to fight even if you had Iron Man. And by the way, why do you smell like a mechanic who spent the day under a city bus?"

"I'm fine. I'm healthy. 90% fine… 80%." Tony stuffed his fists into his pockets and looked past her shoulder. "I was tinkering. Building. Finishing a new suit, actually."

Nat squinted. "Thought you were done with Iron Man. You blew them up."

"Yeah, well, I was, and then… Then an alien ship appeared in London, and Thor was hammering his way through Dark Elves, and I thought to myself, hmm, maybe destroying the best technology to defend this planet isn't such a good idea."

Natasha stared at him until he finally met her eyes. "Steve will be glad you're here," she said.

Tony swallowed. "Anything I should know?"

"He's in bad shape, but…" Natasha nibbled on a chipped nail while she considered the question. "But he's Steve Rogers, so it's not as bad as it looks."

Tony snorted. "I'm sorry, how many times was he shot again?"

Natasha bit her bottom lip.

Tony's russet eyes glanced at the SHIELD agents around them. "How long until he can be moved?"

"Moved? Why?"

"I want him in the Tower," Tony growled. He collected his thoughts for a moment, and rephrased. "I mean, he'd be safer in the Tower. You told me SHIELD is dead. We can't trust anybody."

Natasha squeezed his arm. "Tony, Steve's ok. The best people we have are with him right now."

Tony lowered his voice when a flock of nurses passed by. "You mean the best people SHIELD has, or the best HYDRA has? As I understand it, it's pretty damn hard to tell the difference right now, Romanoff!"

The Black Widow offered him a small, patient smile. "It's ok." She took his hand. "Come on."

The setting sun added a violet tint to the dim lighting in Steve Rogers' hospital room. A man Tony didn't recognize sat in a chair at Steve's right with his boots up on the mattress. Romanoff didn't attack the guy, so Stark assumed that he was on their side. Tony walked past the bathroom, past a doctor in a white lab coat, and ignored a nurse examining a blinking screen. He approached the bed almost on tiptoes, desperate to see his friend's face and also dreading it. Natasha shut and locked the door behind them.

Tony braced his hands against the bed railing, and sighed.

Captain America lay on his left side with blankets up to his chest. One arm was splayed across his hip while the other cushioned his cheek. Nearly every square inch of skin that wasn't bandaged was either bruised navy and purple or hooked up to a tube or wire. Steve's face was turned, giving Tony a full view of the contusions on the right half of his chin, lips, cheekbones, and forehead. Tony started to sit on the mattress but jumped up before his ass landed. He started to sit on a nearby chair, but jumped up again before he got settled. Finally, he knelt on the floor—first one knee down, then the other—and rested his chin on the bed 18 inches away from Steve's bruised nose. The room was so quiet that Tony's sniff echoed in it.

A soft beep. Tony looked up at a computer terminal at the foot of the bed. Steve's heartrate was gradually speeding up.

Cap's eyelids clenched tighter. He frowned, licked dry lips, and opened brilliant blue eyes. It took him a moment to focus on the face in front of him and when he did, Steve reached out with a pale hand. "Tony."

Stark took Steve's hand in both of his. He cradled it like it was a newborn bird. "You look like crap, old man."

Steve chuckled. "Missed you, too."

"On my way here I remembered that you never paid me back for that shawarma buffet after New York. You owe me twenty bucks, Rogers."

"Oh, THAT'S why you're here?"

"What better time to pick your pocket?" Steve smiled at him with genuine affection. Tony blinked and looked away. "So, new rule," he said. "A proposal, if you will. I'm just putting it out there. You don't have to play along, it's just a suggestion…"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Tony, there's a pharmacy in my system. Two pharmacies. I can't seem to stay awake for more than 10 minutes, so spit it out."

Tony stared at their entwined hands. "We split up after New York. The Avengers scattered. I, uh, saved some flight attendants and the President of the United States. Thor saved the world and the entire… universe. And you, uh…" Tony looked at Natasha for help. "Did you guys do anything constructive or just blow up the Triskelion that my dad designed and the Helicarriers that I personally upgraded?"

Nat yawned against her hand to prove that he couldn't get a rise out of her. "Those Helicarriers were about to assassinate millions of people," she said, "including you."

Tony nodded. "Yeah, ok, yeah." He gave Nat a thumb's up. "Good job. Well done."

"Tony," Steve sighed.

"Getting to the point. Getting to the point right now," Tony assured him. "We make a good team, right? So, we should BE a team, right?"

Steve stared. "Too many drugs," he whispered.

"Sorry." Tony took a deep breath. "With SHIELD gone there's just us, right? Avengers. And if one of us is doing Avenging stuff then we all should, right? I'm just saying that the next time Thor takes on extraterrestrial assholes, the next time you're in a fistfight with your old BFF, contact me, alright? I'll even leave in the middle of a date with Pepper if you ask nicely and promise a burger."

Steve coughed. "So, you're saying we should work together from now on. If someone's in trouble, we all pull together. If we need help, we ask for it." Tony nodded vehemently. His face fell when Steve's cheeks reddened with fury. "'Let's work together' says the guy who took on an army of fire breathing, Enhanced terrorists on his own? Says the guy who was declared DEAD after his house fell into the Pacific?"

The steady beeps announcing Cap's heartbeats sped up. "Steve," Nat warned, "calm down."

Tony recoiled. "Right—you're right! You're right. That was, well, not selfish, but, inconsiderate, I guess. Look, it was my fight, I wanted to keep you guys out of it but, maybe, yeah, maybe I should've, uh, mentioned that they didn't kill me…"

"Damn right!" Steve said. "Tony, I woke up one morning, looked at the newspaper, and thought you were DEAD. We all did!"

Tony glanced at Natasha. She stared at her boots.

Sweat glistened on Steve's face. "We all did, for days! DAYS! God, I stared into my closet for an hour trying to figure out what to wear to—to your—your funeral—" A coughing fit suddenly hit Steve. He bolted up into a sitting position, which tugged at the stitches in his abdomen, causing him to fall back down as quickly as he got up. He barely concealed a scream as a groan.

"Dammit—" Tony leapt up and grasped Steve's wrist with one hand and patted his shoulder with the other. "God, Cap, take it easy. You can yell at me all you want when you're feeling better. We'll have a party and you can just eat cake and shout." Steve rolled his eyes and started to respond, but ended up coughing even harder. "I'm sorry," Tony repeated. "You're right. I was an arrogant son of a bitch. I'm not—Cap, I'm not used to this—not used to the responsibility of keeping anybody but Pepper and Rhodey up to date on my… On myself. It was selfish, ok? I admit it. It was selfish of me not to let you know that I was alive ASAP. I'm sorry."

Steve forced himself to breathe slowly. When he finally calmed down, he whispered, his tongue heavy from the drugs, "New York, too. You weren't breathing, your glowing circle thing wasn't… glowing. Thought you were dead. Still kind of hated your guts up until about a half an hour before that moment but, still…" Steve briefly chuckled, sighed, and looked at his friend through half-lidded eyes. Tony saw a desperate sincerity beyond the fog of drugs. "Don't do that again, Tony. You… You don't know what it felt like, what your death did to us. What it did to me. It was like…" Steve used his thumb and forefinger to mime a gun shooting his own heart. He pursed his lips together tight and shook his head back and forth. "You died, and it was like watching Bucky fall from that train all over again. No more of this lone wolf bullshit. The best teammates watch each other's backs, but they also don't go do something STUPID that could get themselves killed. I need you to understand that. If we're going to be a team then I need to be able to trust that you won't do something suicidal. I need you to take care of yourself. And I need you to understand what you mean to me."

Water flooded Tony's eyes. "You mean that I mean something... A lot… To you?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Dumbest genius I've ever met," he sighed.

Stark's nostrils flared. "Why?" he whispered. "I honestly don't get it. I'm a hot mess and a half. I'm an arrogant, narcissistic, pain-in-the-ass-know-it-all. I break more things than I fix!" The heat behind Tony's words increased his volume. "In my head, the only thing that redeems me is that I kept you and the others out of that Mandarin-Extremis circus, and here you are telling me that was the opposite of caring about you, so tell me!" Tony shouted. "Why the hell does Captain America give a damn about me at all?"

Steve reached up and touched the oil-stained shirt that covered Tony's heart. He didn't speak.

Natasha put her hand over her eyes and collapsed into a chair.

Silence. Tony knelt beside the bed once more. He swallowed the lump in his throat and spoke calmly: slow and soft. "When Nat called me today you… You were Swiss cheese, Cap. Comatose." Tony took two slow breaths: in and out, in and out. "I can't imagine anyone feeling for me what I felt for YOU in that moment. I was so desperate to get to you that, hell, I don't even remember driving here. Never thought I'd care about anyone like that other than Pep. But I did, you hear me? I mean, I do. I do care." Tony flinched at his own vulnerability, then rested his chin on the bed again and shut his eyes. "I felt a bullet, too."

A minute passed. Five more followed. No one said a word.

And then, finally, Steve relaxed, adjusted his pillow, reached over and slid the palm of his hand into Tony's unruly dark hair. "What I mean to say," he whispered, "what I should've said when I heard you were still alive was that I… I'm glad you're ok. That's what matters. You're ok."

Tony looked up. "Glad you're ok, too." He nodded. "So glad."

Steve nodded back. Outside, the sun finished setting. The mood in the room shifted as if an ocean breeze had blown through. Steve yawned and settled deeper into his blankets.

Tony lowered his voice—lullaby soft. "Listen, I was just telling Nat that it might be smart to get you out of here. Stark Tower went through a little remodeling. I, uh, have a room just for you. For all of you. I'll call Banner and have him doctor you. I'll make JARVIS bring you orange juice. And I hear Barton is good at pancakes."

Steve yawned again. "The private security here is pretty good, Stark."

Tony wrinkled his nose. "You sure? Really sure? 100% because, if not, some of the best bodyguards in the world are on the Stark Industries payroll. Big dudes. Big, grumpy dudes ready to kick some HYDRA ass." Tony mimed throwing a swing in boxing match, which earned a weary smile from Cap. "Seriously, man, I'll get you out if you don't feel safe here."

Someone nearby cleared their throat—pointedly. Tony looked past Natasha and at the nurse for the first time. Agent Maria Hill cocked narrow eyebrows at him.

Someone else cleared their throat—pointedly. Tony looked at the doctor, and was only slightly surprised to see Bruce Banner hugging a clipboard against his white lab coat.

A third person cleared their throat—pointedly, but from above him. Tony slowly raised his eyes towards the ceiling and squinted at an air conditioning vent. "Barton?"

A finger snaked through the vent and waved.

Everyone turned at the sound of a toilet flushing. The bathroom door flew open and Thor emerged with Mjolnir, wearing his silver armor and red cape. He waved the hammer at Tony in a greeting.

"Like I said, this place is pretty secure," Steve chuckled. "There might just be a team here…" he muttered as he fell asleep.

To Be Continued

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