Title: Going Home

Fandom: Avengers (Movie verse)

Rating: PG-13

Length: 482 words

Content notes: Mild swearing (once). Angst. Pining.

Summary: Tony wishes he had a place that he could call home. He almost had it with Pepper, and now, every time he closes his eyes, it’s Steve’s face that he sees.

There are days when Tony wants a house in the middle of the woods that he can disappear to when everything becomes too much.

Today is one of those days. He presses a hand to his chest, rubs, and remembers the pain he'd been on the verge of forgetting. He supposes that he'll never really forget the pain of losing his heart.

Tony laughs. It's a harsh bark of sound that barely breaks through the silence that surrounds him.

Everyone's gone home, or disappeared to wherever it is that they go to after the workday's done.

And that's a funny word. A funny thought. Home.

He's never really had a home. He'd almost had one with Pepper. Almost.

And now all of his thoughts center on the Captain. America's iconic hero. A symbol for all that's right in the world. The golden boy. America's lapdog turned rogue.

Tony misses him. Misses the others, too, but it's not their faces he sees on days like these. Days when he can feel the pain of his heart being ripped apart.

It's Steve's face that he sees when he closes his eyes, when he first opens them, when things don't seem to add up, when things do, and everything's right in the world.

It's Steve's face that keeps him going. Steve's face -- often full of sorrow for all of the world's pains, that it's a wonder the man doesn't lose heart, like Tony does.

Steve's not grown bitter, or calloused. He doesn't see the world in the same light that Tony does, and that's a good thing. Steve still has hope. Tony doesn't.

If he could make a home, a house, of Steve's face, live in the contours of the man's selfless smile, and the crevices of his dimples, Tony thinks that maybe then he'd finally find some peace to help him through days like these, when he feels like he'd been kicked by a Clydesdale, in the chest, and his heart's open and bleeding.

He catches his reflection in the glass of water that he's been sipping like bourbon. It's distorted. He looks old, and like he's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and is failing. He's not strong enough to do that on his own.

Hell, he's not strong enough to face going 'home' to the almost empty rooms, and corridors of Stark Towers.

He lifts the glass to his lips, takes a sip, and closes his eyes. He can almost taste the remnants of bourbon, smooth and fiery as it scorches a path down the back of his throat. He chokes on memory, and fights the urge has to pull his phone out of his pocket and hit speed dial. Even if it goes to voicemail, it'll be enough just to hear Steve's voice, and, for the first time in memory, know what it's like to truly go home.