ext_52859 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
empty-splendor.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
cap_ironman2009-05-04 01:06 am
empty-splendor.livejournal.com) wrote in cap_ironman2009-05-04 01:06 am
Entry tags:
Fic: When the World Came Down (5/5) Rated R
Author: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
empty_splendor
Title: When the World Came Down: Part five/five
Rating: R - For language and violence
Summary: Steve Rogers wakes up in a world changed from the one he left behind, a world obliterated by nuclear war and must learn to exist in the new world while he tries to fix his friendship with Tony Stark, or maybe explore it beyond friendship, as they with a rag tag team of avengers past and present fight one last time against one of their greatest foes.
Beta Used: yes, wonderfuljazzypom who put up with me, god knows why.
Verse: 616/with a MA spice
Archive: Whatever you'd like to do
Warning: There isn't a happy ending. I'll be more specific when it gets to that point, but... just so you know now, it doesn't end well. Character death in this chapter.
Part Five: Raise What's Left of the Flag For Me
“You and Jan seemed pretty cozy back in Fort Colony. Like one of those little 1950s nuclear fallout prep videos.” Tony teased a bit as he leaned against the door frame.
Hank scoffed. “Not a good time Stark. I’m working.”
“Oh come on… I know you don’t have to concentrate that hard, you’re almost as smart as me.”
Hank didn’t respond right away, his focus remaining on the console, punching some of the keys and buttons in front of him in a rather methodical fashion. Tony watched him for a few minutes, remembering a time before the so-called Civil War and long before World War III, when this was a very familiar scene. There had been many times when the two of them had worked on various problems tossed to the Avengers as the resident scientists.
“We’re… you know, trying to make the best of this world. We’re together and we’ve got a chance to… slowly… make it work. So we’ll see. Maybe if we manage to save the world this time maybe there might be family in the future.” Hank spoke absently.
Tony smiled. It was good to hear Hank look toward a bright future. It was rare to hear that from him.
“Careful Pym, I think you just might-”
One a chunk of the ceiling went out, the lights dimming before turning off completely. Hank looked at Tony who’d been stopped mid-sentence and moved his eyes upward toward the top of the tower when the lights dimmed.
Hank grinned, smile bright in the dim light. “I’d call that progress.”
Struggling against the tightening grip of the robotic hand on his throat Steve tried in vain to get free. Ultron’s cruel laughter was the soundtrack to the impending finale of the Avengers. They’d been hopeless before and a miracle had always saved them. As of now he was praying that miracle resided in Hank and Tony inside the tower. He didn’t know what they were up to in there but they needed to hurry up.
Almost as if they’d heard his prayer, the robot dropped him and stood stone still like a statue there on the ground before him. Carol’s attacker dropped her but she managed to just clear the ground, with a skilful manoeuvre of her body, while simultaneously aiming few well placed shots at it. The large mechanical man fell backwards without even so much as an attempt to block her. Interested in the new development, she did the same to Peter’s aggressor, yielding a similar result.
“They’re deactivated!” Carol yelled.
Steve gave his former captor a swift kick, knocking it to the ground with ease. Tony and Hank had to be making progress, and thankfully it had come at the right time before the four of them ended up dead. He ran over and pried the hands open to free Jan, who zoomed out with a sputtering cough, turning and nipping at her former captor with her stingers.
Ultron’s laughter had ceased but a beastly cackle replaced it. Steve turned readying himself for an attack but Ultron didn’t move.
“Don’t reveal too much in your minor victory. What is that phrase you humans use? You may have won the battle but you will not win the war.”
The smaller soldiers, of which there were still hundreds, returned to the fight at Ultron’s command. Peter was the first to notice as one of them came at him shooting red beams from its eyes. He decided this time he would use one of Tony’s guns, shooting it and taking it out almost instantly. Steve had lost his new shield to the larger robot when he’d crushed it, as it rushed toward him. He’d remember to apologize to Tony later for losing the gift in the battle as he pounced on one of the robots and slammed it to the ground.
Vaguely he wondered if the men in the tower were making any more progress.
“This code is… I can’t crack it. He’s too smart for us. He set this whole place up with an unbreakable code knowing that if we found it we’d try!” Hank yelled.
Tony looked over at him from the doorway to the large main room of the tower. He cursed, checking the hallway before heading over toward Hank, dropping his weapon and shoving Pym out of his way. He looked over the console’s screen, his fingers skimming graceful and sure over the keys despite five of them not being flesh and bone.
“That still weirds me out.” Pym indicated Tony’s left arm.
“Not the time for that. It’s so not the time…”
Stark kept his attention focused on codes appearing on the screen in front of them. Binary scrolls of information flowed through the screen rapidly and without any hitches or gaps. He hated to admit it, but Hank was right. There wasn’t a single break, a single loophole that would allow them access to the stream. Tony cursed running his right hand through his hair and giving Hank a glance.
“The only way to stop him is to shut this whole thing down?” Tony already knew the answer before he asked.
Hank nodded. “Why can’t it be easy, just a big plug or something that will turn it all off.”
Tony forced a laugh and kicked the side of the console out of frustration, causing the side to indent slightly from the force of his blow. They both looked down at it, noting how easily the metal bent in. Hank knew what was going on in Tony’s head before he saw the tell-tale face of the light bulb going off on his friend’s features.
They’d been in situations like this before as Avengers; the situation that seemed utterly hopeless unless some ridiculous stunt was pulled that would more than likely result in death. Tony looked over the console, the dent his foot had made before looking over at Hank again. There was another realization edging in on the corners of his brain as he heard the sounds of their compatriots fighting the battle outside. His friends were out there battling Ultron and he was supposed to saving their lives by cutting the power.
Steve was out there risking his life. Tony had another chance to save him. This was his second chance to protect Steve from death the way he hadn’t during the war but had done so many countless times before that. This was his chance to do the right thing and hope it helped wash his previous sins against his friends away. He looked over the console again for any other option before he destroyed the thing. Without finding one he prepared himself to improvise. Hank grabbed his arm.
“I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking… but don’t think it!” Hank barked.
“Stand back.”
Pym threw him a glare as Tony pulled away, moving the bionic arm into the air and balling the hand into a fist.
“Stop! Give me a minute to find something to beat it with at least, if we’re going to get all caveman about it.” Hank tried to reason.
“Where do you think you’re going to find that? It’ll be fast. One blow and it should take everything out. Break this console and this whole computer goes down… so does the robot army and so does Ultron.”
Hank frowned. “Let me help.”
Tony knew that this wasn’t going to be pretty. There was a very real possibility of shock involved in his plan. He couldn’t let Hank do it because he had Jan waiting for him outside. He wasn’t about to let his friend sacrifice himself before he got another chance with the love of his life. Sure, Tony had Steve waiting for him outside but Tony had already prepared him for the reality that he wasn’t going to come out of this alive. Pym had a better chance at a life he wanted with Jan, with a new beginning while the world put itself together.
“Move back…” Tony warned.
Hank Pym could only watch as Tony slammed his mechanical contraption of an arm directly through the main power computer sending sparks, wiring and pieces of metal into the air on impact. In a blink, the spark blast caught Tony’s arm, the force of it pushing Stark backwards and to the floor.
“Tony!”
A tingling sensation leading to a wave of excruciating pain was all he remembered.
Somewhere between the console and the floor he must have blacked out because he opened his eyes to blurred vision, on his back, struggling to catch his breath. His chest hurt, his whole body hurt really, but he felt the brunt of it in his chest. It was a pain Tony was familiar with, complete agony in the violent fibrillation of his heart. He gasped, trying to force air into his lungs with the scent of burned metal filling his nostrils, a tightness of a spasm in his right arm.
“Tony! Can you hear me?”
Tony grunted trying to force his mouth to form word as he saw the blurry form of Hank Pym running toward him. The next thing that came to him was the smell of smoke. Fire. He hadn’t remembered a fire. He reasoned that the console must have became engulfed in flames with the sparks from his stunt. The whole place was starting to short out, the lights flickering in and out as the power gave in various parts of the computer.
Pym was getting closer. Tony’s body started to twist and shake with convulsions, then stopped, rocked by intermittent shocks. Hank’s breath caught in his throat as he waited for Tony to move, do anything to indicate he was still alive.
“Don’t… don’t… touch me…” Tony’s strained voice finally managed. “I’ll… shock you.”
Hanks mind was swimming with uncertainty as he felt the white-hot heat of the flames inching in on them. With his heart thudding in his ears, Pym surveyed the surroundings over the room for the quickest exit. He wasn’t going to leave Tony there to die in the blaze as the tower went down which meant he was going to have to take his chances with getting a jolt from the touch. Tony’s breathing was starting to hitch, making it apparent that there wasn’t much time for Pym to make a decision.
Outside the tower Steve watched as the robot soldier he’d been engaging with crumbled to the ground as if someone had just yanked its battery out, clattering to its knees and falling forward. One by one the other robots started to follow suit breaking down to as useless dead machines and empty metal husks. The ground shook, casting his gaze upward to see Ultron’s giant form wobbling as his power flickered in and out, swaying with a metallic groan before thundering to the ground with all the power of a bomb going off. He heard the flutter of wings as Jan grabbed him from underneath his arms and flew him out of the aftermath of the fall, rubble and ground rising up and cascading like a wave taking down and consuming everything in it’s path.
“Get inside the tower, Pym and Stark are still in there.” Carol yelled.
Steve turned his gaze to the tower watching the thick black smoke raise from it slamming into the cloud cover and filling the already dim world with a dark veil like that of a mourning widow. Janet flew them toward the entrance dropping him down so he could run in, followed by Peter, her and Carol. Smoke was the first sensation and it caused him to cough and cover his face eyes watering from the sting.
Once inside it wasn’t hard to find their comrades located in the main room of the tower on the first level. Pym stood inches away from Tony’s body on the ground with the fire closing in on them. Steve’s breathing hitched for a moment as the realization hit him that they could be too late for Stark. He closed his eyes against the voice in head echoing with painful certainty before they’d even seen Ultron or the battle.
I’m not going to survive this.
Skidding to a halt, after the sprint that seemed an eternity, he dropped heavily beside Tony, reaching out to him with a shaking hand to check for a pulse. His skin was dark from the soot in the air, the bionic arm nearly black and charred with the fingers melted over from whatever he’d done to himself. Glancing about the room he saw the fist hole and sparks from the largest console.
“Don’t touch me…” Tony coughed, his body seized as he did.
“The console jolted him, his body is still surging with electricity,” Pym explained, his voice laced with grief.
Steve closed his eyes before looking at Tony with determination. “No, I’m getting you out of here and you’re going to be okay.”
Tony didn’t have the time to protest, even if he’d had the strength, before he was scooped up into the thick safety of Steve’s arms. Carol took them this time, because she had more strength to carry the weight of the two men even with most of Tony’s weight was dead pressed against Steve’s chest. Steve held him close praying that he still felt the irregular rhythm of Tony’s struggling heartbeat against his own chest.
They landed a few miles off of the site of the battle before Steve dropped down to his knees again, cradling Tony’s body in his arms. He could feel the fading life as if it were a tangible entity, slipping from Stark like the blood that trailed out of his mouth. He bit his cheek against the delirious babbling that Tony was spewing at him because it had yet to make any sense.
“Steve--!” Tony choked, his body tensing as another cough sent a shaking wave through him and more blood oozed down from the corner of his mouth streaming through his goatee. “I’m sorry—for… all of it. I should have been there… I should have been there to make sure it was—”
“Tony… shh. You’re going to be all right. We’re going to get you some help. Just hold on!” Steve felt the lump in his throat forming.
“Don’t… this… this… important and I won’t have…” Another cough. “I won’t have another chance to… to say this. I… I’m sorry. You… you were my friend and I-I should have protected you Steve.”
Tony’s right hand shook as he reached up painfully slow, wincing against the strength the movement took. The choice to was sucking away the last bits of energy he had but he placed clumsy, heavy fingers along Steve’s jaw line his thumb tracing slowly across Steve’s cheek. He felt the tears form in his eyes as Tony’s life ebbed away.
Tony choked. “I… should have protected you at the courthouse… I should have been there to help you…”
He gritted his teeth, wincing. He was going to get this out not matter what, he had to tell Steve these things before he gave in and let death claim him because they were too important to go unsaid. This was his last chance to make it right and he was going to take it even if that effort was the one that did him in.
“I’m should have been there with you… to… protect you and I wasn’t… I always called you friend. You always had been—!” Another coughing seizure halted Tony. “I just hope you… you can forgive me for… not being there…”
“I forgive you, Tony. I forgive you.” Steve’s eyes burned from unshed tears. “You’re going to be okay. Just hold on! You can tell me all about it when you’re healed.”
Tony gave Steve a sad smile. “Steve I…”
A low exhale emerged instead of the words Tony had waiting on the back of his throat. His hand slipped loosely down Steve’s face landing limply to a rest on Steve’s shoulder before dropping completely like one of the deactivated robots. His head rolled a bit to the side, eyes still open from Tony’s will to keep them so. Steve knew the exact moment he was gone, he’d watched the last spark of life fade out of Tony’s eyes like an extinguished flame.
Steve choked slightly reaching up his hands he cupped them around Tony’s face and stared down at the still, motionless features. He was empty and vacant now, once so full of a life that Steve could never completely understand. He ran his thumbs along the cheekbones just under Tony’s eyes.
“Tony…”
He bowed his head, closing his eyes as the tears gave way, dams of reserve breaking under the sheer pressure of his grief. Steve’s body shook for a moment with sobs he tried to quench as he held Tony’s lifeless form there like a broken doll in his hands.
When he regained his composure, Steve reached up one hand and sliding them silently over Tony’s eyelids, closing them over the lifeless blue orbs.
“Good-bye, Tony.” He whispered before planting a soft, kiss on forehead.
Fin
empty_splendorTitle: When the World Came Down: Part five/five
Rating: R - For language and violence
Summary: Steve Rogers wakes up in a world changed from the one he left behind, a world obliterated by nuclear war and must learn to exist in the new world while he tries to fix his friendship with Tony Stark, or maybe explore it beyond friendship, as they with a rag tag team of avengers past and present fight one last time against one of their greatest foes.
Beta Used: yes, wonderful
jazzypom who put up with me, god knows why.Verse: 616/with a MA spice
Archive: Whatever you'd like to do
Warning: There isn't a happy ending. I'll be more specific when it gets to that point, but... just so you know now, it doesn't end well. Character death in this chapter.
Part Five: Raise What's Left of the Flag For Me
“You and Jan seemed pretty cozy back in Fort Colony. Like one of those little 1950s nuclear fallout prep videos.” Tony teased a bit as he leaned against the door frame.
Hank scoffed. “Not a good time Stark. I’m working.”
“Oh come on… I know you don’t have to concentrate that hard, you’re almost as smart as me.”
Hank didn’t respond right away, his focus remaining on the console, punching some of the keys and buttons in front of him in a rather methodical fashion. Tony watched him for a few minutes, remembering a time before the so-called Civil War and long before World War III, when this was a very familiar scene. There had been many times when the two of them had worked on various problems tossed to the Avengers as the resident scientists.
“We’re… you know, trying to make the best of this world. We’re together and we’ve got a chance to… slowly… make it work. So we’ll see. Maybe if we manage to save the world this time maybe there might be family in the future.” Hank spoke absently.
Tony smiled. It was good to hear Hank look toward a bright future. It was rare to hear that from him.
“Careful Pym, I think you just might-”
One a chunk of the ceiling went out, the lights dimming before turning off completely. Hank looked at Tony who’d been stopped mid-sentence and moved his eyes upward toward the top of the tower when the lights dimmed.
Hank grinned, smile bright in the dim light. “I’d call that progress.”
Struggling against the tightening grip of the robotic hand on his throat Steve tried in vain to get free. Ultron’s cruel laughter was the soundtrack to the impending finale of the Avengers. They’d been hopeless before and a miracle had always saved them. As of now he was praying that miracle resided in Hank and Tony inside the tower. He didn’t know what they were up to in there but they needed to hurry up.
Almost as if they’d heard his prayer, the robot dropped him and stood stone still like a statue there on the ground before him. Carol’s attacker dropped her but she managed to just clear the ground, with a skilful manoeuvre of her body, while simultaneously aiming few well placed shots at it. The large mechanical man fell backwards without even so much as an attempt to block her. Interested in the new development, she did the same to Peter’s aggressor, yielding a similar result.
“They’re deactivated!” Carol yelled.
Steve gave his former captor a swift kick, knocking it to the ground with ease. Tony and Hank had to be making progress, and thankfully it had come at the right time before the four of them ended up dead. He ran over and pried the hands open to free Jan, who zoomed out with a sputtering cough, turning and nipping at her former captor with her stingers.
Ultron’s laughter had ceased but a beastly cackle replaced it. Steve turned readying himself for an attack but Ultron didn’t move.
“Don’t reveal too much in your minor victory. What is that phrase you humans use? You may have won the battle but you will not win the war.”
The smaller soldiers, of which there were still hundreds, returned to the fight at Ultron’s command. Peter was the first to notice as one of them came at him shooting red beams from its eyes. He decided this time he would use one of Tony’s guns, shooting it and taking it out almost instantly. Steve had lost his new shield to the larger robot when he’d crushed it, as it rushed toward him. He’d remember to apologize to Tony later for losing the gift in the battle as he pounced on one of the robots and slammed it to the ground.
Vaguely he wondered if the men in the tower were making any more progress.
“This code is… I can’t crack it. He’s too smart for us. He set this whole place up with an unbreakable code knowing that if we found it we’d try!” Hank yelled.
Tony looked over at him from the doorway to the large main room of the tower. He cursed, checking the hallway before heading over toward Hank, dropping his weapon and shoving Pym out of his way. He looked over the console’s screen, his fingers skimming graceful and sure over the keys despite five of them not being flesh and bone.
“That still weirds me out.” Pym indicated Tony’s left arm.
“Not the time for that. It’s so not the time…”
Stark kept his attention focused on codes appearing on the screen in front of them. Binary scrolls of information flowed through the screen rapidly and without any hitches or gaps. He hated to admit it, but Hank was right. There wasn’t a single break, a single loophole that would allow them access to the stream. Tony cursed running his right hand through his hair and giving Hank a glance.
“The only way to stop him is to shut this whole thing down?” Tony already knew the answer before he asked.
Hank nodded. “Why can’t it be easy, just a big plug or something that will turn it all off.”
Tony forced a laugh and kicked the side of the console out of frustration, causing the side to indent slightly from the force of his blow. They both looked down at it, noting how easily the metal bent in. Hank knew what was going on in Tony’s head before he saw the tell-tale face of the light bulb going off on his friend’s features.
They’d been in situations like this before as Avengers; the situation that seemed utterly hopeless unless some ridiculous stunt was pulled that would more than likely result in death. Tony looked over the console, the dent his foot had made before looking over at Hank again. There was another realization edging in on the corners of his brain as he heard the sounds of their compatriots fighting the battle outside. His friends were out there battling Ultron and he was supposed to saving their lives by cutting the power.
Steve was out there risking his life. Tony had another chance to save him. This was his second chance to protect Steve from death the way he hadn’t during the war but had done so many countless times before that. This was his chance to do the right thing and hope it helped wash his previous sins against his friends away. He looked over the console again for any other option before he destroyed the thing. Without finding one he prepared himself to improvise. Hank grabbed his arm.
“I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking… but don’t think it!” Hank barked.
“Stand back.”
Pym threw him a glare as Tony pulled away, moving the bionic arm into the air and balling the hand into a fist.
“Stop! Give me a minute to find something to beat it with at least, if we’re going to get all caveman about it.” Hank tried to reason.
“Where do you think you’re going to find that? It’ll be fast. One blow and it should take everything out. Break this console and this whole computer goes down… so does the robot army and so does Ultron.”
Hank frowned. “Let me help.”
Tony knew that this wasn’t going to be pretty. There was a very real possibility of shock involved in his plan. He couldn’t let Hank do it because he had Jan waiting for him outside. He wasn’t about to let his friend sacrifice himself before he got another chance with the love of his life. Sure, Tony had Steve waiting for him outside but Tony had already prepared him for the reality that he wasn’t going to come out of this alive. Pym had a better chance at a life he wanted with Jan, with a new beginning while the world put itself together.
“Move back…” Tony warned.
Hank Pym could only watch as Tony slammed his mechanical contraption of an arm directly through the main power computer sending sparks, wiring and pieces of metal into the air on impact. In a blink, the spark blast caught Tony’s arm, the force of it pushing Stark backwards and to the floor.
“Tony!”
A tingling sensation leading to a wave of excruciating pain was all he remembered.
Somewhere between the console and the floor he must have blacked out because he opened his eyes to blurred vision, on his back, struggling to catch his breath. His chest hurt, his whole body hurt really, but he felt the brunt of it in his chest. It was a pain Tony was familiar with, complete agony in the violent fibrillation of his heart. He gasped, trying to force air into his lungs with the scent of burned metal filling his nostrils, a tightness of a spasm in his right arm.
“Tony! Can you hear me?”
Tony grunted trying to force his mouth to form word as he saw the blurry form of Hank Pym running toward him. The next thing that came to him was the smell of smoke. Fire. He hadn’t remembered a fire. He reasoned that the console must have became engulfed in flames with the sparks from his stunt. The whole place was starting to short out, the lights flickering in and out as the power gave in various parts of the computer.
Pym was getting closer. Tony’s body started to twist and shake with convulsions, then stopped, rocked by intermittent shocks. Hank’s breath caught in his throat as he waited for Tony to move, do anything to indicate he was still alive.
“Don’t… don’t… touch me…” Tony’s strained voice finally managed. “I’ll… shock you.”
Hanks mind was swimming with uncertainty as he felt the white-hot heat of the flames inching in on them. With his heart thudding in his ears, Pym surveyed the surroundings over the room for the quickest exit. He wasn’t going to leave Tony there to die in the blaze as the tower went down which meant he was going to have to take his chances with getting a jolt from the touch. Tony’s breathing was starting to hitch, making it apparent that there wasn’t much time for Pym to make a decision.
Outside the tower Steve watched as the robot soldier he’d been engaging with crumbled to the ground as if someone had just yanked its battery out, clattering to its knees and falling forward. One by one the other robots started to follow suit breaking down to as useless dead machines and empty metal husks. The ground shook, casting his gaze upward to see Ultron’s giant form wobbling as his power flickered in and out, swaying with a metallic groan before thundering to the ground with all the power of a bomb going off. He heard the flutter of wings as Jan grabbed him from underneath his arms and flew him out of the aftermath of the fall, rubble and ground rising up and cascading like a wave taking down and consuming everything in it’s path.
“Get inside the tower, Pym and Stark are still in there.” Carol yelled.
Steve turned his gaze to the tower watching the thick black smoke raise from it slamming into the cloud cover and filling the already dim world with a dark veil like that of a mourning widow. Janet flew them toward the entrance dropping him down so he could run in, followed by Peter, her and Carol. Smoke was the first sensation and it caused him to cough and cover his face eyes watering from the sting.
Once inside it wasn’t hard to find their comrades located in the main room of the tower on the first level. Pym stood inches away from Tony’s body on the ground with the fire closing in on them. Steve’s breathing hitched for a moment as the realization hit him that they could be too late for Stark. He closed his eyes against the voice in head echoing with painful certainty before they’d even seen Ultron or the battle.
I’m not going to survive this.
Skidding to a halt, after the sprint that seemed an eternity, he dropped heavily beside Tony, reaching out to him with a shaking hand to check for a pulse. His skin was dark from the soot in the air, the bionic arm nearly black and charred with the fingers melted over from whatever he’d done to himself. Glancing about the room he saw the fist hole and sparks from the largest console.
“Don’t touch me…” Tony coughed, his body seized as he did.
“The console jolted him, his body is still surging with electricity,” Pym explained, his voice laced with grief.
Steve closed his eyes before looking at Tony with determination. “No, I’m getting you out of here and you’re going to be okay.”
Tony didn’t have the time to protest, even if he’d had the strength, before he was scooped up into the thick safety of Steve’s arms. Carol took them this time, because she had more strength to carry the weight of the two men even with most of Tony’s weight was dead pressed against Steve’s chest. Steve held him close praying that he still felt the irregular rhythm of Tony’s struggling heartbeat against his own chest.
They landed a few miles off of the site of the battle before Steve dropped down to his knees again, cradling Tony’s body in his arms. He could feel the fading life as if it were a tangible entity, slipping from Stark like the blood that trailed out of his mouth. He bit his cheek against the delirious babbling that Tony was spewing at him because it had yet to make any sense.
“Steve--!” Tony choked, his body tensing as another cough sent a shaking wave through him and more blood oozed down from the corner of his mouth streaming through his goatee. “I’m sorry—for… all of it. I should have been there… I should have been there to make sure it was—”
“Tony… shh. You’re going to be all right. We’re going to get you some help. Just hold on!” Steve felt the lump in his throat forming.
“Don’t… this… this… important and I won’t have…” Another cough. “I won’t have another chance to… to say this. I… I’m sorry. You… you were my friend and I-I should have protected you Steve.”
Tony’s right hand shook as he reached up painfully slow, wincing against the strength the movement took. The choice to was sucking away the last bits of energy he had but he placed clumsy, heavy fingers along Steve’s jaw line his thumb tracing slowly across Steve’s cheek. He felt the tears form in his eyes as Tony’s life ebbed away.
Tony choked. “I… should have protected you at the courthouse… I should have been there to help you…”
He gritted his teeth, wincing. He was going to get this out not matter what, he had to tell Steve these things before he gave in and let death claim him because they were too important to go unsaid. This was his last chance to make it right and he was going to take it even if that effort was the one that did him in.
“I’m should have been there with you… to… protect you and I wasn’t… I always called you friend. You always had been—!” Another coughing seizure halted Tony. “I just hope you… you can forgive me for… not being there…”
“I forgive you, Tony. I forgive you.” Steve’s eyes burned from unshed tears. “You’re going to be okay. Just hold on! You can tell me all about it when you’re healed.”
Tony gave Steve a sad smile. “Steve I…”
A low exhale emerged instead of the words Tony had waiting on the back of his throat. His hand slipped loosely down Steve’s face landing limply to a rest on Steve’s shoulder before dropping completely like one of the deactivated robots. His head rolled a bit to the side, eyes still open from Tony’s will to keep them so. Steve knew the exact moment he was gone, he’d watched the last spark of life fade out of Tony’s eyes like an extinguished flame.
Steve choked slightly reaching up his hands he cupped them around Tony’s face and stared down at the still, motionless features. He was empty and vacant now, once so full of a life that Steve could never completely understand. He ran his thumbs along the cheekbones just under Tony’s eyes.
“Tony…”
He bowed his head, closing his eyes as the tears gave way, dams of reserve breaking under the sheer pressure of his grief. Steve’s body shook for a moment with sobs he tried to quench as he held Tony’s lifeless form there like a broken doll in his hands.
When he regained his composure, Steve reached up one hand and sliding them silently over Tony’s eyelids, closing them over the lifeless blue orbs.
“Good-bye, Tony.” He whispered before planting a soft, kiss on forehead.
Fin
no subject
no subject
no subject
But I loved it anyway.
You know? The thing is that they had an oportunity to work things out, they did it, and then Tony died, it makes everything worse :(
no subject
I'm glad you loved it anyway, that pleases me.
It was important that in the end things were at peace, it was important to Tony also.
Thank you for reading.
no subject
Thanks, it's been a fun ride. :)
no subject
no subject
Great fic, though! I liked the world you built and all the care you put into the settings and atmosphere. Very dark but very vivid. And Tony, of course, was a heartbreaker. I'm glad Steve was there for him at the end!
no subject
I'm glad you stuck through it and enjoyed it. I really did work hard on making the world around them believable and visual and something that could be imagined.
I'm sorry I broke your heart :(
no subject
no subject
no subject
Bravo for having the courage to stick to your guns and write a story with teeth! I enjoyed it very much, sad ending and all.
no subject
(I'm working on a fluff piece now, perhaps I'll pass it your way when it's finished)
Thank you for reading.
no subject
no subject