Infectious

Chapter 17

Things were depressing at the tower.

Nobody said a word, unless they were asking of something of some sort for some reason.

But tony, still spent all of his time in the lab, doing the same thing he has been doing for the past month and a half. Looking for a cure.

Believe it or not, he did. 67 long and horrible days after steves death. He didn't react as he expected he would while steve was still with them. Instead, he stood there and store at the paper while the final equation.

He collapsed on the floor and leaned back on the leg of the table. He sat there for hours and hours until Bruce finally walked in.

He saw tony on the floor, and was afraid at first since he wasn't moving, "tony?" He flinched which relieved him greatly. "You ok?"

He sat down next to him. He shook his head and fought tears that started to form in his eyes. "No..." he sighed and wiped a tear away. "I found it... I found the cure."

Bruce breathed in sharply and exhaled slowly, "I-I could've saved him...."

"No, tony. Stop blaming yourself. You know how bad it was and that he might not make it, and he didn't." He diathermy and tony wiped away more tears. "Steves gone, he's dead. He's been gone for 2 months."

"I could've spent more time-"

"No, you were killing your self and it was killing him. You have to let go."

He wiped away a few tears that poured out of his eyes. "I miss him..."

"We all do." He rubbed his back and patted it once. "But it's time to let him go..."

Tony took a second before he nodded and stood up with Bruce. They started putting away all of the papers in boxes, marking files off and leaving te page with the final equation on top of the last box. Then they carried them down to storage and it was finally over.

Not the pain left behind after steve died, just, tony was actually quite relieved he could go to bed, sleep, knowing he did his part, even if he was too late.