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By the time Steve and the others get to the scene, Tony seems to have it all sorted out. He's standing in the middle of the plaza, which has only taken a moderate amount of damage from the battle: some traces of gunshots and repulsor blasts here and there. Several unconscious goons are lying around Iron Man's gleaming armored figure, and there's some blood splashed on the pavement as well.
Steve hops out of the Avenjet and hurries towards Tony. "Iron Man! Is it over?"
"Cap! Glad you're here," Tony greets him, not moving from his spot, but he does open his face plate and follow Steve with his eyes.
"Glad to see you in one piece!" Steve replies as he reaches Tony's side, placing both hands on his pauldrons. "What happened? Who were they?"
"Not important," Tony says, and leans closer to press his lips against Steve's.
Steve freezes; he doesn't push Tony away, but doesn't really reciprocate either, a jumble of thoughts rushing through his mind.
It's hardly the first time they've kissed—they've been seeing each other for months. The team figured it out pretty quickly, so this isn't news to them, but this isn't a movie night where they're sitting on the couch next to each other. They're in a public place, in broad daylight. They've not yet had any kind of a conversation about making their relationship public, and this is really not how Steve would've chosen to do it. He's surprised that Tony would, either, especially not without asking him first.
Tony pulls away, his eyes roll back, and he collapses into Steve's arms in a dead faint.
"Tony—what on Earth?" Steve blurts out.
Together with the completely unexpected kiss, this is so comical that for a moment, he thinks Tony's messing around with him, but Tony doesn't reply, and Steve can feel that he's currently holding the entire, not inconsiderable, weight of Iron Man in his full armor.
He cautiously lowers Tony to the ground, placing him on his side in something resembling the recovery position, and tries to rouse him in a loud voice. "Tony? Iron Man? Tony, what's wrong?"
He gets no answer. Tony's eyes stay closed, and when Steve takes a proper look at his face, it strikes him that Tony looks really pale, not healthy at all. He starts going over Tony's body, trying to see if there are any obvious injuries that he didn't notice on approach. His torso looks fine, the arc reactor as bright as ever, the armor unblemished.
As he reaches Tony's legs, he realizes that there's a fair amount of blood on the ground nearby, and also smeared around his right calf. Following that, Steve soon finds the source: the hilt of a knife sticks out from Tony's leg, behind and just below his knee. Through skill or luck, probably a combination of the two, one of the goons has stabbed Tony so that the blade slots exactly into a joint between plates, a rare weak point in his armor.
Steve's first instinct says to pull out the knife, but he's learned his first-aid lessons, and knows not to do that. Trying to undress the armor would probably be an equally bad idea. The suit and the blade could be partly plugging the wound, and removing them would make things worse. Things look dire as it is, considering the amount of blood that Steve can see, and Tony's unconscious state, which has to mean that he's already in an advanced stage of shock. It's obvious that the knife has hit a major blood vessel.
He concludes that it's best not to touch anything near the blade until there are medical supplies available, and preferably some medical professionals to apply them. Instead, he does the most basic thing he can to try and control the bleeding, which is to elevate the wounded limb.
Looking up, he spots Sam and Thor standing a dozen feet away, looking as if they're unsure what to make of the scene. No wonder, after the spectacle they've just witnessed. He guesses they haven't yet figured out that Iron Man is in serious trouble.
"Go get help!" Steve shouts at them. "Tony's been stabbed, he's bleeding out!"
"We will make haste!" Thor replies.
"Yeah, already on it," Sam adds over his shoulder, scanning the surroundings.
With any luck, there will be an ambulance or two nearby, called in by onlookers of the battle. That would be preferable to having to carry Tony to the Avenjet, which would mean they'd only have limited first-aid capabilities until they get to the Tower.
Steve wishes there was something else he could do, but he can't think of anything beyond staying right where he is, by Tony's side, holding up his leg and keeping a close eye on him. If it comes to that, Steve will be ready to start CPR at the first possible moment. He already feels like he can't get enough air himself as he listens to Tony's too-fast gasping breaths, eyes fixed on his ashen face.
It seems like such a ridiculous idea that a minute ago, he was worried about someone capturing a video of that kiss and sharing it with the world. Now, all he can think of is that they should've kissed so many more times, everywhere, night and day, no matter who saw it—because what if they can never do it again?
It's not the first time Tony wakes up in a hospital bed, but even before he's conscious enough to remember the details of what happened to put him here, he knows that this time is special, somehow.
The special vibe isn't related to how badly he got hurt: he's felt a lot worse off than this before. He remembers getting stabbed in the leg, which shouldn't have happened—he clearly needs another armor upgrade—and shrugging it off as nothing at all, only to realize some minutes later that it was a potentially fatal injury. That would've been an anticlimactic way to go. Clearly, luckily, he didn't die, and right now, his leg doesn't even feel all that painful. Painkillers are a wonderful invention.
The details of the end of the battle and how he got from there to here are a blur. He's fairly sure he dealt with all the bad guys before he passed out, and that Steve was there afterwards. That seems like it's particularly important.
Steve is here, now, too: the nurse who shows up to take Tony's vitals asks him if he feels up to seeing Captain America, and Tony says "yes, of course."
He starts to question his choice the instant he sees Steve walk in, because the look on his handsome face is so foreboding that Tony kind of wants to pull the covers over his head and hide.
"Tony. What were you thinking?" Steve asks, without preamble, his voice sullen and disappointed. A classic grumpy Cap.
This is when Tony remembers why today is so special: that spur-of-the-possibly-last-moment kiss in broad daylight, right in the middle of a midtown plaza. Oh boy. No wonder Steve is grumpy. That must've been the most spectacular unplanned coming out in all of history.
Tony doesn't mind their secret being out in the open, but this isn't how he would've chosen to do it, either.
He grimaces, and says, "I wasn't, really."
"Obviously not. That was the stupidest possible thing you could've done," Steve goes on, eyes flashing.
"I thought I was dying," Tony adds defensively, wishing he could just sink through the mattress and disappear from sight.
He remembers the moment in such clarity, now that he focuses on it: feeling his consciousness slipping away, realizing that he must've lost a very serious amount of blood, and deciding that if he has to die, he wants to kiss his Captain one last time.
"That's because you were!" Steve growls, his voice picking up in volume. It's rare to hear him lose his temper like this. Usually, his righteous anger is more contained. "I came this close," he holds his thumb and forefinger a fraction of an inch apart, "to losing you!"
"Which obviously was a situation I also didn't want to be in," Tony says.
Steve isn't swayed by that. "But you were, and you got to choose what to do in that situation, and you chose that? You could've told us that you'd been stabbed! But no, instead you made us waste precious minutes trying to figure out what's going on with you!"
"Well, I—wait, hold on." At this point, it strikes Tony that so far, Steve hasn't really, directly mentioned anything related to the fact that Tony outed them. He holds up a hand for a time-out. "What are we actually fighting about?"
"Your complete lack of self-preservation, as usual!" Steve snaps at him.
"So… you're not angry that I kissed you when the whole world could see it?" Tony asks, just to be sure.
"What? No!" Steve replies, still in the same livid tone, then seems to realize that he's being shouty, and takes a deep breath. "Sorry. No," he says again, more calmly this time. "Obviously, that's not how I wanted it to happen, but I did want it to happen, eventually. We can make a proper press statement later. That's not important, not right now. What's important is you not being dead."
"Yeah, that's pretty important to me, too," Tony says, with a cautious smile.
Steve crosses his arms and gives Tony another sullen glare. "Your actions often speak otherwise."
Tony glares right back at him. "Look who's talking—it's not like you never throw yourself headfirst into danger! Besides, back there, today, I was barely conscious. It's not fair to blame me for not being completely rational."
"Okay, maybe not," Steve admits, and sits down next to Tony on the bed, taking hold of his hand. "I was just really worried for you," he adds, his tone suddenly so sheepish that people probably wouldn't believe Captain America can sound that way.
Tony pats at his hand. "So I gathered. I promise I'm okay now. So, how about another kiss? A nice, long and private one, this time?" He gives Steve his most winning grin and his best flirty look through his eyelashes.
Finally, Steve actually smiles back at him, as gorgeous and perfect as ever, and leans a little closer. "Okay, but only if you promise to stay conscious."
"Aw. Not sure that I can," Tony replies. "You really are quite swoonworthy!"