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cap_ironman2011-12-25 08:06 pm
cap_ironman_fe) wrote in cap_ironman2011-12-25 08:06 pm
Entry tags:
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Title: The Way We Talk
Author:jazzypom
Characters: Steve Rogers,Tony Stark, various characters in passing
Word count approximately 10,200
Rating: PG-13 (for the odd swear word)
Disclaimer: Characters and their respective trademarks belong to Marvel and Walt Disney; no copyright infringement intended.
Warning: None
Universe: 616
Summary: . Tony’s company and fortune have crashed yet again. Broke, he ends up moving in with Steve
Author's Note: Per recipient’s instructions this is a slight AU (Steve Rogers is alive) not so long after Civil War, tension still there, and Tony adjusting to being destitute. No easy fixes either. Oh, and I’m not American, so I don’t know the timeline of repeals- so go with comic book logic, okay? References: Iron Man:Civil War, The Road to Civil War, Extremis, Civil War What If, TV Tropes, Wikipedia. A big shoutout to the people who helped me on this. Thank you!
“I planned for all eventualities. Of all the scenarios that I calculated, and all the angles I worked- I never expected this. You don’t go into a battle preparing to lose, or else what’s the point of fighting, right? I’m a futurist, I can intuit the future. Or at least, trump the odds, I-”
Tony stared at his hands, flexed his fingers closed and open. He couldn’t move his wrists, as they were chained to the table, his ankles padlocked to the chair. Clearing his throat, he tried again, not so much a confession as a plea for trying to understand where the variables betrayed him, went horribly wrong.
Instead of a priest, there were the shadowy figures of the SHIELD agents, bodies in varying stages of high alertness. The interrogation room of the Helicarrier far too big and cluttered with bodies and weapons to be the intimate confines of the confession booth, but Tony pushed forward.
“The only reason why I put myself out there, was so that we wouldn’t be crushed. Registration- after Stamford, it was going to happen, I just tried to prevent it from getting out of hand.”
“But you lost, Stark.” Maria Hill pointed out the obvious; as she loaded the cartridge in the oddly squat barrelled gun, locked it in place with the heel of her hand.Tony closed his eyes, knowing what came next, and powerless to stop it. In the darkness behind his lids, he heard the click of steps as Commander Hill moved, her voice now behind him, her hand coming to rest gently on his shoulder. “You fought the good fight, Stark but dems the breaks.”
“Commander Hill-”
“Captain Rogers is on his way to speak to the President now.”
“And me?” Tony asked, in the hollow tones of someone in shock. He just --still couldn’t believe it. How had he lost the battle? They had antimatter prisons, the law on their side, plans for a Fifty State Initiative. How had it gone so wrong? Just the light tap of Maria’s boots on the floor answered his question, the mouth of the barrel an ‘O’ of a cold kiss against his nape.
Reed’s calculations were correct, the variables -0111001101101111011101010110111001100100001011100010000001010100011010000110010101110010011001010010011101110011001000000111001101110100011010010110110001101100001000000110000100100000011101110110000101111001001000000111010001101111001000000111001101100001011101100110010100100000011101010111001100101100001000000111010001101111
Pulses of pain, sharp hooks that ripped through his synapses. Tony’s eyes flew open, before they rolled back into his head, and--
Silence coiled in the room, the tension palpable as Tony’s shoulders twitched, the agents’ fingers drifting towards their assorted weapons.
After a minute, Maria pressed the shield logo on her breast, and spoke. “Tony Stark is down. How long before he comes to, Dr Richards?”
“Around twenty four hours,” Reed Richards voice came over the line, “it will take that long to neutralise the Extremis. He’ll feel a bit punch drunk when he comes to, but apart from that, none the worse for wear.“
“And his physical condition? The last thing we need is a lawsuit from Stark, here.”
“He will have the strength and conditioning for a man of his age. He’ll be healthy,” Reed Richards said, almost distracted. “Just - the layman’s term would be punch drunk.”
“That will be the least of his worries, the poor bastard. He might start drinking again before the year’s up.”
***
“I heard Stark’s broke,” Sam had said, and there was no relish in his voice, just that plain speaking that Steve always admired Sam for.
“Yes,” Steve confirmed, as he poked at his noodles with chopsticks. “Stark Tower is in foreclosure, and the word is on the street that Tony couldn’t even get arrested.”
They were seated on the roof of an apartment building downtown, the air alive with the babble of various languages, and a mix of food - savoury fried onions as they danced on a heated hob, in the kitchens below, with the sizzle of chicken as it seared to golden perfection in garlic scented oil. Sam said nothing for a moment as he sipped at his miso. It was nightfall, a couple days after what the papers dubbed as ‘Civil War’ had ended, with Tony giving up- and them keeping the peace.
“Good. The SHRA was bullshit. You know it, I know it. Although the government claiming Tony mislead them- that’s bullshit, too. You could fertilise the entire state of Iowa with what those guys are shovellin’”
“At least people are coming around. It will be noted in the books, we’ll move on, never making a mistake like this again.”
“There’ll be other prejudices, it is what it is.” Sam rolled his shoulders, before taking a deep sip of his beverage. “But that isn’t what’s bothering you, Steve.”
Steve knew he shouldn’t have been surprised at Sam’s intuition, because Sam knew him just as well as Tony did. But he thought he’d been doing an adequate job of hiding his worry. “If the news is to be believed, Tony had to file for bankruptcy the other day. They’ve taken his properties, and according to Pepper, he has nowhere to stay.”
“Can’t he stay with her-” Sam drew up short, and went, “oh.”
“No, and the other Avengers aren’t open to having Tony staying with them.”
“Golly,” Sam drawled, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I wonder why.”
“I’m thinking, that he could stay with me. Not for long, just until he’s back on his feet again..”
“And I’m thinking, you must be out of your goddamned mind, Steve. Do you remember all that shit Tony did? Do I have to make a list of why this is a bad, bad idea?”
“I know it’s a bad idea,” Steve admitted. “I know that when I look at him, when I think how Bill Foster was killed by his hand, when I think of how he cloned Thor- I wonder if I ever knew Tony Stark at all.”
The admission fell from his lips, sat between him and Sam like the heavy, awkward thing that it was, and Sam was enough of a friend to accept it, and ask the question that Steve had shied away from.
“So, if you know it’s a bad idea, just why?”
“I don’t know.”
***
Taking a deep breath, Tony raised his hand, curled his fingers into a loose fist and rapped at the door, half hoping that it wouldn’t budge, half knowing it would. He’d been buzzed in from downstairs, but fortunes and battles could be changed on a pin, never mind the five minutes it took to get from ground floor to here.
He didn’t get the time to do a second knock, before the door swung open, and Steve stood there, shoulders filling the door, fingers curled around the door knob, the line of his mouth almost as grim as Tony’s own.
For a moment, they didn’t say anything, but the news on the television set in Steve’s living room eagerly spun out Tony’s past misdeeds, filling up the silence between them. “Tonight on 20/20, an exclusive look on the goings on inside ‘Project 42’ as told to us by a Robbie Baldwin, a former inmate - “
“It’s okay, Steve,” Tony took a step back, trying to put on a smirk, hoping to save face before Steve withdrew the offer. “I’m fine, there’s somewhere else I can go-”
“Where else?” Steve challenged, and Tony opened his mouth, before Pepper’s face flashed across his mind, her eyes filled with tears as she pulled the edges of her robe together with a fist, the trembling silence already steeling Tony for the answer he was doomed to receive.
No, she’d wailed, her fingers trembling across her mouth, her features twisted with grief and eyes tear swollen. No, I can’t do that. I can’t take you in- not after Happy- not after everything. I can’t, Pepper shook her head. You can’t ask me to, I don’t hate you...no. But..if you stay here, I will. I will. Don’t make me hate you, please.
Where indeed? Rhodey’d gone wheels up, and was nowhere to be found. He had Rhodey’s mom’s address, but she still hadn’t forgiven him for the drunken stunt he pulled on her in Philly all those years ago, when she was doing Rhodey a favour of giving Tony a place to stay and dry out -only for him to run off.
Steve stepped aside,Tony hitched his bag on his shoulder, wiped his feet on the mat, and came in.
oOo
They sat across from each other, the table between them, bodies tense, expectant; like actors waiting on the lights of the stage moving from darkness to gas bright, for the audience murmurs and coughs to be quiet. A nervous energy surged through him, an odd expectation as if steeling himself for a fight. Steve, as a necessary truce had turned off the TV, cutting off the gleeful litany of Tony’s wrongs.
“I guess I’ll be your house guest for the next while.” Tony broke the silence with deft understatement. It had been three weeks since they last saw each other, Tony at his feet, Steve’s shield in hand. Tony had goaded him then, his lips cracked, his teeth red from the blood that pooled in his mouth. Back then, Tony had wanted him to finish things- “There’s nowhere else for you to go,” Steve explained simply, cutting that thought off. “Between the mob mentality and the press, you’d be torn apart.”
“And you decided to take me in, like some stray.”
“I did it because you did the same for me, a long time ago.”
“Of course, Steve Rogers always pays his debts, right?”
“Only you’d think-” Steve cut himself off, held up a hand as if to signal a truce. Tony always knew which buttons to push, where to needle with the least amount of effort, and Steve wondered if Sam was right; if by hosting Tony here, if he had forsaken all common sense. For the first time in what seemed like forever- past the Civil War (Steve hated the term, hated it, but that never stopped The Daily Bugle from coining hyperbole, and edging towards yellow journalism)- he wondered if he’d made the right choice, offering Tony lodging.
For brief moments Steve entertained a vicious bubble of pleasure at how tired Tony looked. Still old fashioned movie star handsome, sure, but instead of being highly restored like those movies on Turner Classics, Tony seemed faded at the edges, like a picture that had been left in the sun for too long. Glints of silver hinted in his hair, the style a bit shaggy, the ends long and hinting of curl he normally kept away with expensive salon cuts, the laugh lines around his eyes, deeper, and more pronounced. The smudges under his eyes that told of a bone deep exhaustion. His facial hair - the precise lines of the van dyke now fading into a two day scruff around his cheeks and chin. His clothing - the shirt looked like it had seen better days, the collar drooping at the edges, the armpits hinting of sweat and soil.
Tony, being Tony, stared right back, his brow furrowed, his mouth in grim lines that echoed Steve’s own. Good, Steve thought, it was better this way, Tony not being cowed, or showing some gratitude. It was better this way, it had to be.
“House rules,” Steve pushed ahead. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to, but no longer. There’s no Jarvis, so you’re going to have to clean up after yourself. I’m going to need you to stay out of our way as we try and get the SHRA overturned. I don’t know if your views have evolved-”
“Evolved? Just because I tried to garner a compromise when all you wanted to do was blindly fight-”
“Blindly fight? No, not at all.”
“Right, because -”
“We’re not going down that path again. That subject is off limits here.”
A sardonic curl of Tony’s mouth turned up at that comment. “I thought we lived in a democracy, Steve.”
“My house isn’t a democracy, Tony.” Steve snapped, sighed at himself, but continued, because he had things to say. “No drink, and if you want women-”
At this, Tony rolled his eyes, like a wayward frat boy objecting to house rules put forth by his pledge master, but before Steve could comment on that, Tony waved the comment away, with a flick of his wrist, with the particular attitude of one who still had the trappings of wealth. “It’s been a rough year with a lot of things, Steve. I don’t think you have to worry about wine- or women. But, if that particular bit of action picks up, it won’t be here.”
“As for food- you’re welcome to help yourself, you don’t have to ask me for that, just leave a note on the fridge to say if we’re out of anything, and I’ll pick it up when I can.”
“Wait, that’s it? What about, “No lights on after ten pm?” Or ‘keep the music down?’”
Steve ignored that, as he stood up, stuck his hand into the pockets of his cargos, withdrew an object and placed it on the table, in the space between Tony’s hands.
“Here. I’m going to be busy for the past few days, and it won’t be fair to have you waiting around for me. Also, if you accept this key, it means that you can’t go around being Iron Man anymore.”
Tony reacted like Steve thought he would have. His eyes opening to almost comical proportions, his mouth slack jawed as if Steve had socked him good and hard in the solar plexus.
“Steve.”
“I’m sorry,” Steve did not want to stay around for Tony to object, for them to be sucked into this argument again. “It’s a condition of your terms - you can work, you can tinker, but you can’t be Iron Man, not right now. I can understand if you can’t accept it, and no hard feelings if you decide to leave.”
“This is a Bulgari, with platinum casing and an alligator strap. C’mon, even with the whole ‘jewellery drops by a third when I walk out of the shop’ rule, there’s no way that it’s only worth one hundred and fifty.”
“You don’t have the original papers, buddy, for all I know, it’s a knock off. Nice work if it is, but still.”
“Seriously? It’s worth three grand, easy.” Tony started to explain, “Look at the detailing, the platinum buckle, the original typography, no misspellings, no contaminants under the dial. No glue-”
The pawn broker didn’t even look mildly impressed, but Tony dug his heels in, ignoring the other people milling around him, only focusing on the guy in front of him. The shop was small, cramped and stuffy. The shelves illuminated with various articles - ranging from the latest phones to mini computers. He eyed the jewellery here, picking up on the odd Tag Heuer and Rolex watches, not many, but what the guy had was quality. The pawnbroker could afford to give it up, if that heavy gold Cartier ring on the guy’s pinky was anything to go by. Tony needed money, stat, and there was no way he was walking out with only one hundred and fifty.
Three hours later, he was - well, not home but at Steve’s. It had been a week since Steve gave his little ultimatum. The bastard didn’t even look in his direction when he said the word, just placed his key, gave that passive aggressive bullshit excuse of how he’d understand if Tony couldn’t stay, as if he had anywhere else to go. He didn’t have anywhere else to go. Jan, had been a no go, as much as they knew each other, and once upon a time, travelled in the same social class.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me here.”
“You’re busy,” Tony shrugged. “You have a lot on your plate. I know what that’s like, or-” he broke off laughing, “I knew what that was like.”
Awkwardly, they’d picked around the SHRA, and what the other disassembled avengers were doing.
“I heard about your extremis, or lack thereof,” Jan said, waving away the attendant waitstaff so that she and Tony could be alone, in the conservatory. Of course, that was a modest name for this room- built so cunningly, it seemed that the gardens were a part of the room, instead of outside; the air lush and moist with varying flora of colour and texture.
“Yeah, tell Hank and Reed, no hard feelings, right? I’d tell them myself... if they took my calls.”
Jan sighed, before sipping delicately from her wine glass. Tony decided to stick to soda water and lime. “I’m sorry, it’s just-”
“It’s a war, we lost, Jan. I get that. It’s fine,” he smiled, and he hadn’t lost his touch, because Jan smiled back, a bit on the shy side, but Hank and herself avoided the stigma of being on the losing side, unlike himself.
Being a good host, Jan changed the subject.
“Carol seems to have dropped off the face of the earth, after Wanda-”
“And you?”
“I just got some investors to take my line forward,” Jan answered, reaching for a helping from the cheese tray. “I’m thinking of moving the van Dyne name more as a Lifestyle Brand, and it’s been so busy. I’m at odds and ends, and hoping that nothing jinxes this, you know what I mean?”
Swallowing, Tony knew what Jan meant. She and Hank were good and with a new line to launch, she didn’t need any smears around it, like it or not, Tony was a smear. There was no way he could ask her for money, or help. Not now.
“I know what you mean,” Tony smiled, because he could do that. Put on a brave face when the world was falling around him, like that time, when Steve had deserted him, when the Illuminati wanted no part of his plan re: support for the SHRA. Tony had lost the war, but he loved Jan - still owed Jan for the fuck up he’d been all those years ago, when he seduced her, knowing she was in a bad place.
So he did the only thing he could do. “Congratulations, if nothing else, after being an Avenger, a CEO might just be a walk in the park.”
“Well,” Jan smiled, the relief of Tony not asking for help chasing the shadows from her eyes. “If you did it...it’s not that hard, right?”
oOo
With a sigh, Tony slid the mac book from its case.
That purchase had been a sizable chunk of money gotten from the sale of his watch (more than one hundred and fifty, thank you very much), as well as a spiral note book, pencils, pens, and an assortment of things from Radio Shack and other stores. Screw drivers, soldering irons, bales of wire- just as how Steve had sketch books and pencils devoted to his craft, Tony had his tools too.
After the ease of the extremis, where ideas sparked, arcing applications and benfits and potential shortcomings in four dimensions, it baffled Tony, going back to this sort of tinkering, complete with pencil and graph paper. It was as if he were hobbling around in the dark, having yet to discover fire. Or, if one wanted to carry that metaphor forward, he’d discovered fire, but now sentenced to eternal torment because he tried to give it to mankind.
Poverty had a way of making his outlook melodramatic.
After that little shopping spree, he was almost back to square one, finances wise.
After that little run in with Steve, it seemed that he couldn’t be Iron Man anymore, but he could still tinker. A small consolation, but tinker Tony did, with stylus and tablet in addition to his computer, as he made plans. Perhaps, Tony, old boy, he thought to himself, this might be the time to explore the idea of geo-spatial visualisation location aware data- like what he had in his suit, but shrunk down to something more manageable, like a mobile phone, or... yeah
Tony did not look up from his sketches, not even when Steve opened the door and muttered, “Good evening.”
“Steve,” Tony nodded, as he scribbled an equation in the margins of the quadrilled pages along this book.
“Nice to see that you’ve abandoned the house rules,” Steve’s tones were even as he picked his way around various boxes and packages in the living room, before hoping over into the kitchen.
“I was just tinkering, I can’t be Iron Man, but I can still be Tony Stark, right? As Tony, when I’m not being the CEO of my own company - which I’m not, at the moment, by the way- I tinker.” Tony tapped the edge of his book with the end of his pencil.
“You have a room,” Steve said, and Christ, that hurt, the fact that Steve could be so cold. “You can keep your things there, out of the communal rooms. Like I said, we don’t have Jarvis, not any more.”
Tony put down his pen and clenching his hands into fists, he dropped them to his thighs. “You’re so full of it, Steve.”
“Because I like a clean house?”
“Yeah, that.” Tony pushed himself up, and surveyed the rooms. Steve’s apartment was open plan; no borders between the living room and the dining area, with the kitchen just a nook all tucked in. The loft was big, more to do with its sparseness, and lack of furniture. His clutter made the place look smaller, and cramped. The hardwood floor disappeared under the sea tissue paper, half assembled boxes and bags. With a scowl at their surroundings, Steve dragged his cowl from his head, and ran splayed fingers through his hair, as he stalked towards the bathroom to take a shower.
Tony dragged his hands over his face and tugged at his hair. Yeah, because all of these issues between them could be sorted out by having a clean house. As soon as the white noise of the shower hit the titles, Tony swore long and hard.
Part Two
“You know the bad thing about not having Tony Stark as a sponsor?”
Steve didn’t even look up from the document that he was typing, as Sam moved around. “The fact that we don’t have the Avengers mansion anymore. I heard from Peter the Stark Tower was nice.”
Steve kept on typing, and intrigued, Sam came up behind him, only to see a brief inkling of what was on the screen before Steve minimised it with a click of the button. Well, some things had rubbed off on him from Tony Stark, Sam thought.
“You have something to say, Sam?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, as he rested his hip against the edge of the table that made up their office in the bunker. SHIELD offered them the facility underground, and although it was okay, with lamps and electricity and air pumped from above, it wasn’t the Avenger’s mansion. “I think I do.”
“Oh, indeed.” Steve answered, and although his tones were calm, almost friendly, Sam felt the tension threaded through the words. Wings tucked into their protective sheath, he had room to get around, but he stayed where he was, hip on his desk, his arms folded across his chest. Thought for a while, as he studied the set of Steve’s shoulders. His cowl was down, his hair a dull gold in the lights they had down here.
Steve swivelled his chair, turning away from the computer to face Sam, his hands rested on the armrests of the chair.
Sam, shaking his head, continued, “I wish I didn’t have to say this but... you two should talk. When I’ve been called in to settle disputes, we’d get a ball, and the person who had it had to speak, the others would listen- as long as the person had the ball. You get what I’m saying, right?”
Steve turned to him and gave him a long, blank look. Almost similar to the one that Tony could do, but Tony had the quirked eyebrow for that extra asshole charm.
“Sam, as much as I appreciate your input, Tony and I-” Steve raised his hand, before giving a vague gesture which showed how all this tension was getting to Steve, because he didn’t do vague. “We don’t have anything to say to each other right now.”
“Oh, yeah?” Sam laughed, amusement absent from his tone. “Sure.”
Steve quirked the corner of his lip, as he lifted his gaze to Sam’s. “You don’t like Tony.”
“No,” and this Sam could admit to. Gladly and unreservedly. “And the feeling is mutual, I’m sure. But there’s this- you are anti, and he’s pro SHRA.”
“He lost.”
“And I’m glad for that, but whatever this is with Tony is affecting your focus on the field. We’re in the post Civil War era-”
“Don’t,” Steve rolled his eyes. “That’s sensationalist.”
“Of course it is. Verbal shorthand for middle America. Brutal, yet effective. Deal with it, Steve. You’re working on the repeal to get to the Senate soon enough. When that topic comes to light, they’re gonna want to hear from Tony Stark.”
“Of course,” Steve nodded, coming up with one and one and getting the correct answer. “That’s understandable.”
“I’m glad we agree. Speak to him, Steve, get him on side. I actually like Tony Stark better than the SHRA.”
oOo
Led Zepplin blasted over the speakers connected to Tony’s computer, as Tony was seated at the kitchen table, goggles over his eyes as he used a soldering iron, against a medley of copper wire. He was in short sleeves, his forearms dusted with dark hair, his pyjama bottoms not the inky silk he used to own, but brightly plaid ones, with teals and blue overlapping lines. Tony hummed to himself, and Steve caught snatches of the song as he let himself in. Tony had a decent voice - not Broadway material, but it wasn’t a hardship to hear him try to mimic the growl of the guitar, before the words faded back in.
As soon Tony raised his head and saw that Steve was home, he reached over and turned down the sound to almost nothingness.
“You’re home early,” Tony observed, not moving from his space at the table. “If I knew you were coming I’d have bake you a cake. Nah, I wouldn’t,” he waved that thought away, “but I’d have cleared the table.”
Steve took in the materials on the table - his eye brows raised a fraction when he saw the workings of an old fashioned model assembly of an airplane.
“It’s all right,” he said, moving over to the counter, realising that Tony’d had done freshly brewed coffee. Steve poured himself a cup of coffee, and saw the egg timer beside the hob. Not a ball or a piece of stick, but it would have to do. He turned it to five minutes, hoping that they’d be enough.
“What’s this, then, Steve?”
“We need to talk,” Steve sat in the chair, coffee mug warming his fingers and palms as he held it between his thighs. “We need to come to some common ground, Tony, we can’t keep -doing this. We have to come to a common ground, if nothing else.”
Tony didn’t say a word, just put aside the heating element on a pad, and leaned back in his chair, his eyes fastened on Steve.
It came to this, Steve noted, the strained silence, or if they had to speak, the words were laconic, or if they were fluent, vicious.
“Was it worth it?” Steve asked at last, not expecting an answer.
The seconds ticked away, and Tony only stared at him through half lidded lashes, his features edging into shadow as the sunlight slipped from the windows. “It has to be.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s not the answer you want to hear, Steve, but it is an answer.”
“After all that, Richards deserted you, took away your extremis - don’t you feel anything?”
“At the end of the day, Reed did what he had to do.” Tony briefly bit his lips together, his lashes lowered, and Steve couldn’t see the expression in his eyes.
The egg timer shrilled the end of the time, and Steve turned away.
***
“I could have killed you,” the words tore themselves from Steve’s throat one Friday evening, as soon as the door clicked open.
Tony didn’t say anything, just shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the hook, before stepping into the flat. Friday evening, when the sun dipped low in the sky, washing its surroundings in brass. Steve stood at the window, clad in sweat bottoms, and a faded, marled grey sweatshirt, his back towards Tony, his head in profile, shadows of the late summer sun throwing Steve’s face into sharp relief. His eyes were bright, almost blazing, and Tony knew, it wasn’t a trick of the sun.
“You didn’t,” Tony replied, at last, shoving his hands in the pockets of his last good suit. “There’s that.”
“You could have told me what was going on.”
“You’d have acted the way you did, so that’s why I didn’t. You won, Steve, against a jumped up punk like me,” the words tore themselves from Tony, hot and bitter. “Isn’t that enough?”
Part Three
Tony folded the New York Times and placed it to one side. After their terse exchange a couple of weeks ago, he was trying to keep the place tidier- his bits in the room, and nothing out of the room save an odd note book and pencil. At the table where he was seated now, he only had the paper on the desk, and a cup of coffee. The rest sat in the coffee pot, the percolator gurgling to itself. There was the sound of the toilet being flushed, the brief whistle of the tap as the water ran for an extended period of time, before the noise became deeper, as if a basin were being filled. Ah, that was Steve, doing his morning ablutions before facing the day.
Restless, Tony opened The New York Times again, and reread the article. When Steve came into the kitchen, he waved the paper at him.
“Congratulations, your bill is going to the New York Senate, next stop- the vote. You have the Governor onside, too?”
Steve did not flush, not as much as sat down in the chair opposite Tony. “He’s been supportive, all I want is a debate on the floor.”
Tony couldn’t help himself, as he quoted, “This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world - "No, you move."
“You heard about that.”
“It was your St. Crispin speech,” Tony shrugged his shoulders, suddenly wishing for long sleeves, because the air was chilly. But his budget stopped at three undershirts and a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms from the Gap.
“I still believe it. But I also believe that good men come around, and that common sense will prevail.”
“The SHRA wasn’t stupid,” Tony took a sip from his coffee, house rules be damned. “It might have been heavy handed-”
“Might have been?” Steve interrupted, each word the clang of sword against shield, the song of battle. “Tony, you cloned Thor! You killed Ben Foster. You created the super hero prisons because-”
“You think I wanted to?”
“You imprisoned me, Tony! You made our friends fugitives from the law. You started a war with Atlantis. No one held a gun to your head. If they did, that would have been one thing, but you were the one front and centre rounding our kind up like...animals. You tell yourself you did this for us- for superheroes who protect the peace, but you didn’t, Tony. You and Reed, you calculated everything and it worked for you, except the body count. But that was an equation that that never mattered to you anyway.”
“You think,” Tony had to swallow past the bile churning in his stomach from nerves, caffeine, and the disgust that pumped off from Steve in waves. “You think that I took joy in going to war against you? The lives that were lost? Happy, Bill...God, Steve,” it took all the strength that Tony had to prevent his voice from breaking. “ I’m sorry, the war over the SHRA wasn’t about you. It was about advocating accountability among our own kind. Not every superhero gets read the riot act that with great power comes great responsibility. Not everyone is you, Steve, nor can be you.-”
“No,” Steve cut in. “I was only the person in your way, and you didn’t care. One of us - or both of us could have been killed, Tony but you didn’t care, as long as you had your prisons and money. Sometimes, I think it’s a good thing you lost both.”
“Son of a-” Tony stopped, stunned by the ferocity of Steve’s sentiment and viewpoint. “Remember, Steve? Rem- I had the extremis and I. “ Tony splayed his fingers against his chest, emotion making his voice choke, scrambled his faculties he was sure, because instead of a well formed argument, he was reduced to choked, glottal bits of information. “I was- killing people. I was a -a weapon Steve. Nothing more... more than a gun. Those deaths in Connecticut? Goddamn it, Steve, that could have been me!”
“Tony-”
“No!” Tony made a slashing motion with his hand. “You think, I wanted to be a party to the SHRA?”
“Soon you’ll be telling me that you only joined forces with the government, so you could stop it.”
“We had to be in front before we got crushed underfoot. How many Miriam Sharpes do you want to see out there?”
“Of course, it’s always a woman with you. You used Miriam Sharpe for your own ends, Tony-”
“My ends?” Tony took a step back. “You think I just.. cruised around looking for a casualty and thought. Hey, SHRA.” Absently, Tony rubbed the heel of his palm against his heart, cursing at the irony - he now had a heart and it was in danger of being shattered. After a few shaky breaths, Tony continued, saying his words carefully so that his voice didn’t have a tell tale tremor at its edge. “Sharpe was a parent, a casualty of our actions, Steve. She mightn’t have been the best representative, but she had a point.”
“Was it worth it?” Steve asked, the bastard driving it home, each phrase of accusation a keen blade to Tony’s heart. “Was this all worth it in the end, Tony? You compromised.”
“My stance,” Tony pushed on, voice raw, “is no less valid than yours, Steve. Just because I lost, doesn’t mean that I’m wrong. We didn’t have to be on opposite sides.”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” Steve shook his head, “just because you chose the lesser of the two evils doesn’t make it any less evil. There was no moral grey in this matter.”
Tony scrubbed his hands over his face. Even though he hadn’t put on his armour in weeks he felt battle weary, body shaky and bones bruised. “I remember someone telling me that I wasn’t nearly as sure as I was going to need to see this through. You think I wanted to do half the things I did?”
“You did them,” Steve shook his head, “and that’s enough.”
“I hope you remember that, when you put those children in the line of fire. Liberty over responsibility.”
“You mean, security, Tony.“
“You can give nods to Benjamin Franklyn all you want, Steve. But a man wrapped up in himself is a small bundle, and you’ve been doing a lot of that.”
“It’s not easy, winning,” Steve said after a while, eyes somber. “It demands responsibility, not just for the side the winner takes, but not to demean the user as well. It’s ‘malice toward none’, a way of taking the shattered remains of a house fighting against itself, building it up again, making it stand, and hoping that this time, it’s on solid rock. I do want to get the law repealed, and it will, but that’s not enough, I want to understand why you took the stance you did. I try, God, Tony- I try but it comes around to me wondering if I knew you at all.”
“We should have stuck to the house rule - no SHRA,” Tony’s voice sounded as brittle as he felt. “If you obviously feel this way, why am I here?”
“You didn’t turn me away all those years ago. Also, the last time you were homeless, you didn’t do so well.”
Crawled in the bottom of a bottle and didn’t come out for a long time. Twice.
Tony stopped, cleared his throat and tried again. He got up on shaky legs- Christ, his whole body was shaking - either due to anger or other emotions that Tony dared not name- and made a decision.
Steve must have seen the intent there, because he raised a hand as if to stop Tony, and said his name.
“Tony.”
“No. Let’s just call it even, Steve. We’re square.” Tony waved Steve’s comments away. “Disgust, I can deal with, even anger. But I draw the line at pity.”
“Pity?” at this Steve stood up so quickly, his chair fell to its side with a clang. “You think I want you here because of pity?”
Whatever answer Tony might have given would have been moot, because the phone rang; that shrill, full bodied, old fashioned ring tone. The only one Steve claimed would rouse him out of deep REM.
“You might want to get that,” Tony motioned with his chin. “If your SHRA is going to the Senate next week, you’re going to be getting a lot of calls and emails. It’s like public stock shares, in a way.”
“Tony-”
The phone stopped, the answering machine clicked in, only for, “Captain America, this is Kat Farrell from The Daily Bugle-”
“I need to get this.”
“I know.”
“Just wait until I’ve finished this call.”
“Don’t worry, Dad,” Tony’s smile felt as if it were smeared on, but he managed. “I’ll make sure I’ve cleaned up.”
If nothing else Tony took away from his time being homeless and drunk, he knew how to disappear. By the time Steve had finished his interview, and said his good byes, Tony had cleared his room of everything, and true to his word, he left the room as tidy as he found it.
Steve sat on the edge of the bed, idly smoothing the wrinkle from the sheets - Tony had never learnt the art of smoothing sheets until they were flat. As he brushed his hands across the sheets, his fingers touched on something small, metallic and cold. His house key.
oOo
“You did good, Steve,” Sam said, holding up a pilsner glass in salute. They were in The Blarney, one of those small bars in mid-town that inexplicably escaped gentrification. The bar an impression of dim light and cheers from the little knot of meta humans in their ‘soft’ clothes, turning out for celebration. Luke raising his glass of beer, Jessica a glass of orange juice. Other faces bloomed in and out of his vision as he saw them, Matt Murdock, Peter Parker- even Misty Knight, if he guessed correctly. It was good to be out and about again, without disguises and legends, just him and his friends raising a glass to hard fought progress.
“Captain America-” a voice interrupted him from his reverie, it belonged to an attractive college co-ed, with her friend and today’s newspaper in tow. Across her chest, the shirt had the caption: Captain America was right. “Can we have an autograph for my little brother?”
“Of course, and this is for...”
“Sally,” she said, “his name is Sally.”
As Steve did that, returning the pen and paper to the women, his eyes snagged on a shadow. The height, that profile, it could only be - he hastily made his excuses (not that he needed to, the spirits in the bar were high), and moved over to the shadow seated at the table near the window, its surface bare.
“Captain.”
“Dr Strange, “ Steve greeted, minding his manners, although it wasn’t the person he’d hoped to see. “It’s been a minute.”
“Congratulations are in order, I’ve been made to understand.” Stephen Strange gave a courtly tilt of his head. Instead of his usual get up, he was wearing soft clothing. Three piece suit, charcoal grey, the only shot of colour a jaunty scarlet triangle winking at him from its perch in his jacket.
“A lot of things have changed, since-”
“I took my leave, yes. Went away to fast, to pray for sanity, to push the sequence of fates to fall on the side of a particular order. I sense your disdain for my motives, Steve.”
“Not motives, more along the lines of your inaction. You could have stopped it before it became what it was.”
“A war,” Stephen let out a sigh that might have been called delicate in certain circles, “sparked from the empty atoms of two opposing opinions that got out of hand. As much as I’m loath to break a confidence, Tony asked me to take his side.”
“And?”
“I said no. If you came and asked me to take your side, I would have refused you as well. It had to play out,” Stephen said, his fingers lightly tapping a rhythm on the work smoothed surface of the wooden table between them. “Insofar as there only had to be one victor, this was the best way.”
Steve frowned at this. Dr Strange always coached his answers in riddle, hedged bets and shades of equivocation.
“The best way?” It was all Steve could do to keep the faint bite from his voice. “With Tony on the edge of bankruptcy-”
“He’ll recoup his losses and come back, he always does.”
“The Avengers not trusting each other because of what’s gone before, even with the repeal, and us. Our friendship-”
“That can be worked upon.”
“No,” Steve sighed, his good mood distant as the cheers and murmurs of people at the bar. “Tony and I- we’ve had knock down, dragged out fights, and we’ve always been able to come back- but not this time. It’s been -” Steve stopped himself from sighing, but he couldn’t keep the strain from his voice when he said, “six weeks.”
“You will just have to trust me on this one, Captain Rogers,” Stephen smiled, but his eyes were a frigid, forbidden grey, at odds with his pleasant countenance. “There are other offshoots of time lines, certain actions and results are ineffable. Unthinkable, unforgivable. At least in this one, there’s the chance that you two will reconnect, if not through the former bonds of friendship, it will be through the shared code of responsibility.”
“What brings you here, Stephen?”
“You speak about inactivity, Captain, about your disdain for an path not taken, a good not followed through. I’m here to urge you to act. To take the first step, if you can.”
“You came this far, to say that?”
“Let’s just say... in my duties, my inaction may have cost me dear,” Stephen rubbed at his left temple with the fore and middle fingers of his left hand. “And perhaps, whatever Tony’s failings- he didn’t shirk. I am not asking you to forgive, I cannot. But I am asking you to consider your history, your bond.”
“And if I can’t?” The question tumbled from his lips, unbidden. “If I think this infraction was just a step too far? That all I have is anger, because if I try to think of any other way towards Tony I- I feel empty. How can I get past that? But I … want to.”
“For what it’s worth,” a wry smile twisted Stephen’s lips, as a fedora appeared in his hand from nowhere as he got to his feet. “I’m glad your side won.”
He doffed his hat on his head, and bade his leave. Steve sat at the table for a long time.
oOo
Tony only buried his face deeper in his collar, and looked away from the headline screaming from the papers on the subway. He didn’t really need to know, just focused on the clackity clack of the train’s wheels against the rails. As soon as he got above ground, Tony bundled himself into a taxi, his eyes burning he passed the building formerly known as Stark Tower, refusing to look the places he used to patronise- back in the heady days of unlimited credit, and easy money. Now, he was rebuilding from the ground up, with Pepper’s voice in his ear, sharp and crisp over his mobile phone.
“Tony, remember, if you want to apply for this patent- you know what? I’ll do it for you.”
“Pepper,” Tony’s voice caught, “I can’t even afford to pay you what you’re worth right now.”
“You could never afford to pay me what I was worth, even when you did.”
“True,” Tony laughed, and the tightness in his throat eased somewhat. “I do think this one will be it, though. Geo-spatial visualisation location-aware data. If I’m correct about the applications-”
“I’ll never be lost in city again,” Pepper’s voice was tart, and he heard the sizzle of egg cracked into hot oil.
“Have you,” Tony wet his lips and cleared his throat. “Did you see the headlines this morning?”
“Of course,” Pepper said, paused, and sighed. “Oh, Tony. Are you okay?”
“Why do you still talk to me? I miss Happy Pepper, and you must miss him more than I do, and yet...” he stopped, feeling his throat close with the ache of loss. “Is Rhodey by you right now?”
“He’s bringing dinner later. I’ll tell him to pick up an extra pizza, and you just come on over too, okay? If you can’t swing the extra fare, we’ll come over to yours, just say the word.”
“Okay. Hey, pal, stop here,” Tony said, just as the building came into view. “I gotta go, Pep.”
Tony clicked off, paid his money and bundled out of the taxi before he lost his nerve, and stood before the gates of where it all began, and ended, in a way.
Avengers mansion.
Where he and Steve fought that fateful night, over two year ago, and Tony raised his hand towards Steve, only just making out the outline of Steve’s form through his tears. Tell me how to stop this, he’d said, but Steve couldn’t, the die had already been cast.
Fingers trembling, Tony pressed the code, stepping through the gates with a sort of benumbed wonder, the ruin of the mansion from Jack’s explosion confronting him anew. The facade of the house blown off, the door of English oak splintered into toothpicks. Tony picked his way through the rubble, emotions hitting him at odd and uncomfortable angles as he saw the destruction, of pictures tumbled from their places on their walls, and crashed into the ground. He dropped to his knees, the hem of his coat brushing the floor, as his fingers briefly splayed against the glass frame of a smiling Wanda, scowling Pietro, Clint, Cap, Carol. They were so young. The rugs- old, expensive, turn of the century - now rags across scorched hardwood floor.
SHRA repealed, the headline now flashed before his eyes, and Tony stepped out, towards the formal gardens, where the statues and headrest of the former Avengers were. Those who died in battle - and others who were gone, but their memories still cherished.
Only to stop short when he saw a familiar figure there, the shock of blond hair, glinting in the sun like newly spun thatch.
“When I came here for the first time,” Steve’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “I didn’t plan to stay, I knew I couldn’t go back ‘home’, and I was right- and wrong.” Steve turned around, faced him. “This was home. I didn’t realise it until everything happened, with Wanda, and Jack and- when we fought.”
“Steve,” Tony stuck his hands in his coat. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be pressing the flesh for the repeal of the law? I hear the President will be signing it next week, congratulations.”
Steve shook his head, and Tony drank him in. It had been almost three months since the last time they spoke, and Steve hadn’t changed. Still tall, all American build. Still the golden boy who won the argument, and bent the media narrative to his will.
“A part of winning any war is to reflect on who we’ve lost. It’s the decent thing, the only thing.”
“And when we’ve lost?” Tony said, feeling his cheeks and nose burn, and he told himself because it was cold. That sort of bracing chill where it was too cold to snow, but the bright fall colours of reds and colds against the crisp blue of sky gave the day a robust cheer.
“You’re not the only one who lost, Tony.”
“No,” Tony agreed, his eyes dropping to the stylised A that made up Scott Lang’s headstone.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Steve changed the subject, as he stalked over the rubble and rough grass that made up the garden, moving close to Tony. “How have you been?”
“Not at the bottom of a bottle. Sorry, that wasn’t funny,” Tony cut himself off, because Steve was trying to make nice and edging closer. “I’ve been living in Brooklyn, drumming up investments by day and designing new technologies by night. Oh, and discovering the greatness that is Goodwill.”
“Hmm, hmm,” Steve nodded, “that coat isn’t your usual style. You tend to go for expensive.”
“Expensive is expensive,” Tony laughed, but there was no amusement in it. The pea coat he had on was two seasons ago, and smelled faintly of mothballs. “ Pepper tells me that my style is innate, and it’s all in the attitude. I think,” Tony flashed a smile, “she might be lying, but I don’t care.”
“How is Pepper? I read the interview with herself and Rhodes, they’ve been speaking on your behalf.”
“Rhodey came back, for her. He makes her laugh. He’s gentle with her, and they both loved Happy.”
So strange, that after three months of not seeing each other, of everything that flowed between them in those months - how unchanged Tony looked. The lines around his eyes and mouth were not so deep, so much more relaxed. The scuff that marred his van dyke, gone. Tony had found his vanity again, that was nice to see. His eyes though- Tony might have had the smile of a Cheshire cat, but his eyes were still sad.
“That’s good, right?”
“It works for them,” Tony said, his smile warmer, the shadows dimming a little. “I think they’ve always understood each other, and roll their eyes in unison when it came to judging me. It’s the little things, you know? Rhodey and Pep are both solid, it might not last, but, they’re friends first, right?”
“Right.”
“Right,” Tony nodded. “Well, since you got here before me, first dibs, right? I’ll take my leave, happy SHRA repeal day. Or something. I’m sure Hallmark has a card for this day. Somewhere.”
Tony just turned on his heel and made to go. Steve raised his a hand, “Wait.”
“Steve?”
“I’m sorry about the things I said back at the apartment. I was out of line.”
“Seriously, Steve? You’re not the first person to wish me ill.”
“Let me be the first person to take it back. Fighting you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, Tony. I’m sorry that it came to that.”
“But you’re not sorry you won.”
“No,” that Steve could admit. “I won’t back down from what I think is right, and might not like what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it.”
“How magnanimous of you. All of that, and your pity too. You can take all of that and-”
“I miss you,” Steve said simply, as he closed the distance between himself and Tony. It wasn’t fair, he knew, cutting off Tony’s tirade like that, as he was close enough to see the dark curve of lash, and the patterns of blue in his iris. Close enough for the world to fall away, to nothing but him and Tony in a green patch in the Avengers garden. Close enough to see the doubt, before Tony even moved his lips and if Tony said no- well, he’d soldier on. “It’s hard - because after everything that’s gone on between us, I still do. I want us to talk, I don’t know if I’d ever understand what went on between us, but I want to try. We were friends before all of this, Tony. We can still be again.”
“I’m sorry,” Tony dipped his head, breaking Steve’s gaze for an instant. Steve didn’t step back, even though for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Not that he could blame Tony, because they had a lot of death and distance between them, and their last exchange had been horrible. He didn’t move, because the least he could do was steel himself and listen for Tony to list the reasons why.
“It would be a long, hard road back to where we were,” Tony lifted his gaze to Steve. “All the things I’ve done, all the things I’ve said. I’m not sorry about the position I took, because the discussion had to be had- but I’m sorry about the way I went about it.”
“We should have gone about it better, I could have - listened more. They say all is fair in love and war-but Goddamn it, Tony, it doesn’t feel that way.”
Tony laughed, the edges of it just this side of mournful. “I’m sorry. All I can do is try and show you how sorry I am, and even then- I can’t change the past, or the fact that at times, that’s all you’d be able to look at me and see. When I’m with you, I’m better, I’m more. It will always be a no brainer for me, even after everything. If it’s not too late to try again, Steve, here I am.”
Too overcome to say anything more, Steve placed his hand on Tony’s shoulder, the world fading away into the distance. In the gardens, even with everything up turned and scattered, the city seemed distant from here. Tony opened his arms, and Steve walked into them, and drew Tony to him, the mixture of camphor and warm notes of cedar making his eyes and nose tingle.
They would be okay.
Fin
Author:
jazzypomCharacters: Steve Rogers,Tony Stark, various characters in passing
Word count approximately 10,200
Rating: PG-13 (for the odd swear word)
Disclaimer: Characters and their respective trademarks belong to Marvel and Walt Disney; no copyright infringement intended.
Warning: None
Universe: 616
Summary: . Tony’s company and fortune have crashed yet again. Broke, he ends up moving in with Steve
Author's Note: Per recipient’s instructions this is a slight AU (Steve Rogers is alive) not so long after Civil War, tension still there, and Tony adjusting to being destitute. No easy fixes either. Oh, and I’m not American, so I don’t know the timeline of repeals- so go with comic book logic, okay? References: Iron Man:Civil War, The Road to Civil War, Extremis, Civil War What If, TV Tropes, Wikipedia. A big shoutout to the people who helped me on this. Thank you!
“I planned for all eventualities. Of all the scenarios that I calculated, and all the angles I worked- I never expected this. You don’t go into a battle preparing to lose, or else what’s the point of fighting, right? I’m a futurist, I can intuit the future. Or at least, trump the odds, I-”
Tony stared at his hands, flexed his fingers closed and open. He couldn’t move his wrists, as they were chained to the table, his ankles padlocked to the chair. Clearing his throat, he tried again, not so much a confession as a plea for trying to understand where the variables betrayed him, went horribly wrong.
Instead of a priest, there were the shadowy figures of the SHIELD agents, bodies in varying stages of high alertness. The interrogation room of the Helicarrier far too big and cluttered with bodies and weapons to be the intimate confines of the confession booth, but Tony pushed forward.
“The only reason why I put myself out there, was so that we wouldn’t be crushed. Registration- after Stamford, it was going to happen, I just tried to prevent it from getting out of hand.”
“But you lost, Stark.” Maria Hill pointed out the obvious; as she loaded the cartridge in the oddly squat barrelled gun, locked it in place with the heel of her hand.Tony closed his eyes, knowing what came next, and powerless to stop it. In the darkness behind his lids, he heard the click of steps as Commander Hill moved, her voice now behind him, her hand coming to rest gently on his shoulder. “You fought the good fight, Stark but dems the breaks.”
“Commander Hill-”
“Captain Rogers is on his way to speak to the President now.”
“And me?” Tony asked, in the hollow tones of someone in shock. He just --still couldn’t believe it. How had he lost the battle? They had antimatter prisons, the law on their side, plans for a Fifty State Initiative. How had it gone so wrong? Just the light tap of Maria’s boots on the floor answered his question, the mouth of the barrel an ‘O’ of a cold kiss against his nape.
Reed’s calculations were correct, the variables -0111001101101111011101010110111001100100001011100010000001010100011010000110010101110010011001010010011101110011001000000111001101110100011010010110110001101100001000000110000100100000011101110110000101111001001000000111010001101111001000000111001101100001011101100110010100100000011101010111001100101100001000000111010001101111
Pulses of pain, sharp hooks that ripped through his synapses. Tony’s eyes flew open, before they rolled back into his head, and--
Silence coiled in the room, the tension palpable as Tony’s shoulders twitched, the agents’ fingers drifting towards their assorted weapons.
After a minute, Maria pressed the shield logo on her breast, and spoke. “Tony Stark is down. How long before he comes to, Dr Richards?”
“Around twenty four hours,” Reed Richards voice came over the line, “it will take that long to neutralise the Extremis. He’ll feel a bit punch drunk when he comes to, but apart from that, none the worse for wear.“
“And his physical condition? The last thing we need is a lawsuit from Stark, here.”
“He will have the strength and conditioning for a man of his age. He’ll be healthy,” Reed Richards said, almost distracted. “Just - the layman’s term would be punch drunk.”
“That will be the least of his worries, the poor bastard. He might start drinking again before the year’s up.”
“I heard Stark’s broke,” Sam had said, and there was no relish in his voice, just that plain speaking that Steve always admired Sam for.
“Yes,” Steve confirmed, as he poked at his noodles with chopsticks. “Stark Tower is in foreclosure, and the word is on the street that Tony couldn’t even get arrested.”
They were seated on the roof of an apartment building downtown, the air alive with the babble of various languages, and a mix of food - savoury fried onions as they danced on a heated hob, in the kitchens below, with the sizzle of chicken as it seared to golden perfection in garlic scented oil. Sam said nothing for a moment as he sipped at his miso. It was nightfall, a couple days after what the papers dubbed as ‘Civil War’ had ended, with Tony giving up- and them keeping the peace.
“Good. The SHRA was bullshit. You know it, I know it. Although the government claiming Tony mislead them- that’s bullshit, too. You could fertilise the entire state of Iowa with what those guys are shovellin’”
“At least people are coming around. It will be noted in the books, we’ll move on, never making a mistake like this again.”
“There’ll be other prejudices, it is what it is.” Sam rolled his shoulders, before taking a deep sip of his beverage. “But that isn’t what’s bothering you, Steve.”
Steve knew he shouldn’t have been surprised at Sam’s intuition, because Sam knew him just as well as Tony did. But he thought he’d been doing an adequate job of hiding his worry. “If the news is to be believed, Tony had to file for bankruptcy the other day. They’ve taken his properties, and according to Pepper, he has nowhere to stay.”
“Can’t he stay with her-” Sam drew up short, and went, “oh.”
“No, and the other Avengers aren’t open to having Tony staying with them.”
“Golly,” Sam drawled, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I wonder why.”
“I’m thinking, that he could stay with me. Not for long, just until he’s back on his feet again..”
“And I’m thinking, you must be out of your goddamned mind, Steve. Do you remember all that shit Tony did? Do I have to make a list of why this is a bad, bad idea?”
“I know it’s a bad idea,” Steve admitted. “I know that when I look at him, when I think how Bill Foster was killed by his hand, when I think of how he cloned Thor- I wonder if I ever knew Tony Stark at all.”
The admission fell from his lips, sat between him and Sam like the heavy, awkward thing that it was, and Sam was enough of a friend to accept it, and ask the question that Steve had shied away from.
“So, if you know it’s a bad idea, just why?”
“I don’t know.”
Taking a deep breath, Tony raised his hand, curled his fingers into a loose fist and rapped at the door, half hoping that it wouldn’t budge, half knowing it would. He’d been buzzed in from downstairs, but fortunes and battles could be changed on a pin, never mind the five minutes it took to get from ground floor to here.
He didn’t get the time to do a second knock, before the door swung open, and Steve stood there, shoulders filling the door, fingers curled around the door knob, the line of his mouth almost as grim as Tony’s own.
For a moment, they didn’t say anything, but the news on the television set in Steve’s living room eagerly spun out Tony’s past misdeeds, filling up the silence between them. “Tonight on 20/20, an exclusive look on the goings on inside ‘Project 42’ as told to us by a Robbie Baldwin, a former inmate - “
“It’s okay, Steve,” Tony took a step back, trying to put on a smirk, hoping to save face before Steve withdrew the offer. “I’m fine, there’s somewhere else I can go-”
“Where else?” Steve challenged, and Tony opened his mouth, before Pepper’s face flashed across his mind, her eyes filled with tears as she pulled the edges of her robe together with a fist, the trembling silence already steeling Tony for the answer he was doomed to receive.
No, she’d wailed, her fingers trembling across her mouth, her features twisted with grief and eyes tear swollen. No, I can’t do that. I can’t take you in- not after Happy- not after everything. I can’t, Pepper shook her head. You can’t ask me to, I don’t hate you...no. But..if you stay here, I will. I will. Don’t make me hate you, please.
Where indeed? Rhodey’d gone wheels up, and was nowhere to be found. He had Rhodey’s mom’s address, but she still hadn’t forgiven him for the drunken stunt he pulled on her in Philly all those years ago, when she was doing Rhodey a favour of giving Tony a place to stay and dry out -only for him to run off.
Steve stepped aside,Tony hitched his bag on his shoulder, wiped his feet on the mat, and came in.
They sat across from each other, the table between them, bodies tense, expectant; like actors waiting on the lights of the stage moving from darkness to gas bright, for the audience murmurs and coughs to be quiet. A nervous energy surged through him, an odd expectation as if steeling himself for a fight. Steve, as a necessary truce had turned off the TV, cutting off the gleeful litany of Tony’s wrongs.
“I guess I’ll be your house guest for the next while.” Tony broke the silence with deft understatement. It had been three weeks since they last saw each other, Tony at his feet, Steve’s shield in hand. Tony had goaded him then, his lips cracked, his teeth red from the blood that pooled in his mouth. Back then, Tony had wanted him to finish things- “There’s nowhere else for you to go,” Steve explained simply, cutting that thought off. “Between the mob mentality and the press, you’d be torn apart.”
“And you decided to take me in, like some stray.”
“I did it because you did the same for me, a long time ago.”
“Of course, Steve Rogers always pays his debts, right?”
“Only you’d think-” Steve cut himself off, held up a hand as if to signal a truce. Tony always knew which buttons to push, where to needle with the least amount of effort, and Steve wondered if Sam was right; if by hosting Tony here, if he had forsaken all common sense. For the first time in what seemed like forever- past the Civil War (Steve hated the term, hated it, but that never stopped The Daily Bugle from coining hyperbole, and edging towards yellow journalism)- he wondered if he’d made the right choice, offering Tony lodging.
For brief moments Steve entertained a vicious bubble of pleasure at how tired Tony looked. Still old fashioned movie star handsome, sure, but instead of being highly restored like those movies on Turner Classics, Tony seemed faded at the edges, like a picture that had been left in the sun for too long. Glints of silver hinted in his hair, the style a bit shaggy, the ends long and hinting of curl he normally kept away with expensive salon cuts, the laugh lines around his eyes, deeper, and more pronounced. The smudges under his eyes that told of a bone deep exhaustion. His facial hair - the precise lines of the van dyke now fading into a two day scruff around his cheeks and chin. His clothing - the shirt looked like it had seen better days, the collar drooping at the edges, the armpits hinting of sweat and soil.
Tony, being Tony, stared right back, his brow furrowed, his mouth in grim lines that echoed Steve’s own. Good, Steve thought, it was better this way, Tony not being cowed, or showing some gratitude. It was better this way, it had to be.
“House rules,” Steve pushed ahead. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to, but no longer. There’s no Jarvis, so you’re going to have to clean up after yourself. I’m going to need you to stay out of our way as we try and get the SHRA overturned. I don’t know if your views have evolved-”
“Evolved? Just because I tried to garner a compromise when all you wanted to do was blindly fight-”
“Blindly fight? No, not at all.”
“Right, because -”
“We’re not going down that path again. That subject is off limits here.”
A sardonic curl of Tony’s mouth turned up at that comment. “I thought we lived in a democracy, Steve.”
“My house isn’t a democracy, Tony.” Steve snapped, sighed at himself, but continued, because he had things to say. “No drink, and if you want women-”
At this, Tony rolled his eyes, like a wayward frat boy objecting to house rules put forth by his pledge master, but before Steve could comment on that, Tony waved the comment away, with a flick of his wrist, with the particular attitude of one who still had the trappings of wealth. “It’s been a rough year with a lot of things, Steve. I don’t think you have to worry about wine- or women. But, if that particular bit of action picks up, it won’t be here.”
“As for food- you’re welcome to help yourself, you don’t have to ask me for that, just leave a note on the fridge to say if we’re out of anything, and I’ll pick it up when I can.”
“Wait, that’s it? What about, “No lights on after ten pm?” Or ‘keep the music down?’”
Steve ignored that, as he stood up, stuck his hand into the pockets of his cargos, withdrew an object and placed it on the table, in the space between Tony’s hands.
“Here. I’m going to be busy for the past few days, and it won’t be fair to have you waiting around for me. Also, if you accept this key, it means that you can’t go around being Iron Man anymore.”
Tony reacted like Steve thought he would have. His eyes opening to almost comical proportions, his mouth slack jawed as if Steve had socked him good and hard in the solar plexus.
“Steve.”
“I’m sorry,” Steve did not want to stay around for Tony to object, for them to be sucked into this argument again. “It’s a condition of your terms - you can work, you can tinker, but you can’t be Iron Man, not right now. I can understand if you can’t accept it, and no hard feelings if you decide to leave.”
“This is a Bulgari, with platinum casing and an alligator strap. C’mon, even with the whole ‘jewellery drops by a third when I walk out of the shop’ rule, there’s no way that it’s only worth one hundred and fifty.”
“You don’t have the original papers, buddy, for all I know, it’s a knock off. Nice work if it is, but still.”
“Seriously? It’s worth three grand, easy.” Tony started to explain, “Look at the detailing, the platinum buckle, the original typography, no misspellings, no contaminants under the dial. No glue-”
The pawn broker didn’t even look mildly impressed, but Tony dug his heels in, ignoring the other people milling around him, only focusing on the guy in front of him. The shop was small, cramped and stuffy. The shelves illuminated with various articles - ranging from the latest phones to mini computers. He eyed the jewellery here, picking up on the odd Tag Heuer and Rolex watches, not many, but what the guy had was quality. The pawnbroker could afford to give it up, if that heavy gold Cartier ring on the guy’s pinky was anything to go by. Tony needed money, stat, and there was no way he was walking out with only one hundred and fifty.
Three hours later, he was - well, not home but at Steve’s. It had been a week since Steve gave his little ultimatum. The bastard didn’t even look in his direction when he said the word, just placed his key, gave that passive aggressive bullshit excuse of how he’d understand if Tony couldn’t stay, as if he had anywhere else to go. He didn’t have anywhere else to go. Jan, had been a no go, as much as they knew each other, and once upon a time, travelled in the same social class.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me here.”
“You’re busy,” Tony shrugged. “You have a lot on your plate. I know what that’s like, or-” he broke off laughing, “I knew what that was like.”
Awkwardly, they’d picked around the SHRA, and what the other disassembled avengers were doing.
“I heard about your extremis, or lack thereof,” Jan said, waving away the attendant waitstaff so that she and Tony could be alone, in the conservatory. Of course, that was a modest name for this room- built so cunningly, it seemed that the gardens were a part of the room, instead of outside; the air lush and moist with varying flora of colour and texture.
“Yeah, tell Hank and Reed, no hard feelings, right? I’d tell them myself... if they took my calls.”
Jan sighed, before sipping delicately from her wine glass. Tony decided to stick to soda water and lime. “I’m sorry, it’s just-”
“It’s a war, we lost, Jan. I get that. It’s fine,” he smiled, and he hadn’t lost his touch, because Jan smiled back, a bit on the shy side, but Hank and herself avoided the stigma of being on the losing side, unlike himself.
Being a good host, Jan changed the subject.
“Carol seems to have dropped off the face of the earth, after Wanda-”
“And you?”
“I just got some investors to take my line forward,” Jan answered, reaching for a helping from the cheese tray. “I’m thinking of moving the van Dyne name more as a Lifestyle Brand, and it’s been so busy. I’m at odds and ends, and hoping that nothing jinxes this, you know what I mean?”
Swallowing, Tony knew what Jan meant. She and Hank were good and with a new line to launch, she didn’t need any smears around it, like it or not, Tony was a smear. There was no way he could ask her for money, or help. Not now.
“I know what you mean,” Tony smiled, because he could do that. Put on a brave face when the world was falling around him, like that time, when Steve had deserted him, when the Illuminati wanted no part of his plan re: support for the SHRA. Tony had lost the war, but he loved Jan - still owed Jan for the fuck up he’d been all those years ago, when he seduced her, knowing she was in a bad place.
So he did the only thing he could do. “Congratulations, if nothing else, after being an Avenger, a CEO might just be a walk in the park.”
“Well,” Jan smiled, the relief of Tony not asking for help chasing the shadows from her eyes. “If you did it...it’s not that hard, right?”
With a sigh, Tony slid the mac book from its case.
That purchase had been a sizable chunk of money gotten from the sale of his watch (more than one hundred and fifty, thank you very much), as well as a spiral note book, pencils, pens, and an assortment of things from Radio Shack and other stores. Screw drivers, soldering irons, bales of wire- just as how Steve had sketch books and pencils devoted to his craft, Tony had his tools too.
After the ease of the extremis, where ideas sparked, arcing applications and benfits and potential shortcomings in four dimensions, it baffled Tony, going back to this sort of tinkering, complete with pencil and graph paper. It was as if he were hobbling around in the dark, having yet to discover fire. Or, if one wanted to carry that metaphor forward, he’d discovered fire, but now sentenced to eternal torment because he tried to give it to mankind.
Poverty had a way of making his outlook melodramatic.
After that little shopping spree, he was almost back to square one, finances wise.
After that little run in with Steve, it seemed that he couldn’t be Iron Man anymore, but he could still tinker. A small consolation, but tinker Tony did, with stylus and tablet in addition to his computer, as he made plans. Perhaps, Tony, old boy, he thought to himself, this might be the time to explore the idea of geo-spatial visualisation location aware data- like what he had in his suit, but shrunk down to something more manageable, like a mobile phone, or... yeah
Tony did not look up from his sketches, not even when Steve opened the door and muttered, “Good evening.”
“Steve,” Tony nodded, as he scribbled an equation in the margins of the quadrilled pages along this book.
“Nice to see that you’ve abandoned the house rules,” Steve’s tones were even as he picked his way around various boxes and packages in the living room, before hoping over into the kitchen.
“I was just tinkering, I can’t be Iron Man, but I can still be Tony Stark, right? As Tony, when I’m not being the CEO of my own company - which I’m not, at the moment, by the way- I tinker.” Tony tapped the edge of his book with the end of his pencil.
“You have a room,” Steve said, and Christ, that hurt, the fact that Steve could be so cold. “You can keep your things there, out of the communal rooms. Like I said, we don’t have Jarvis, not any more.”
Tony put down his pen and clenching his hands into fists, he dropped them to his thighs. “You’re so full of it, Steve.”
“Because I like a clean house?”
“Yeah, that.” Tony pushed himself up, and surveyed the rooms. Steve’s apartment was open plan; no borders between the living room and the dining area, with the kitchen just a nook all tucked in. The loft was big, more to do with its sparseness, and lack of furniture. His clutter made the place look smaller, and cramped. The hardwood floor disappeared under the sea tissue paper, half assembled boxes and bags. With a scowl at their surroundings, Steve dragged his cowl from his head, and ran splayed fingers through his hair, as he stalked towards the bathroom to take a shower.
Tony dragged his hands over his face and tugged at his hair. Yeah, because all of these issues between them could be sorted out by having a clean house. As soon as the white noise of the shower hit the titles, Tony swore long and hard.
Part Two
“You know the bad thing about not having Tony Stark as a sponsor?”
Steve didn’t even look up from the document that he was typing, as Sam moved around. “The fact that we don’t have the Avengers mansion anymore. I heard from Peter the Stark Tower was nice.”
Steve kept on typing, and intrigued, Sam came up behind him, only to see a brief inkling of what was on the screen before Steve minimised it with a click of the button. Well, some things had rubbed off on him from Tony Stark, Sam thought.
“You have something to say, Sam?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, as he rested his hip against the edge of the table that made up their office in the bunker. SHIELD offered them the facility underground, and although it was okay, with lamps and electricity and air pumped from above, it wasn’t the Avenger’s mansion. “I think I do.”
“Oh, indeed.” Steve answered, and although his tones were calm, almost friendly, Sam felt the tension threaded through the words. Wings tucked into their protective sheath, he had room to get around, but he stayed where he was, hip on his desk, his arms folded across his chest. Thought for a while, as he studied the set of Steve’s shoulders. His cowl was down, his hair a dull gold in the lights they had down here.
Steve swivelled his chair, turning away from the computer to face Sam, his hands rested on the armrests of the chair.
Sam, shaking his head, continued, “I wish I didn’t have to say this but... you two should talk. When I’ve been called in to settle disputes, we’d get a ball, and the person who had it had to speak, the others would listen- as long as the person had the ball. You get what I’m saying, right?”
Steve turned to him and gave him a long, blank look. Almost similar to the one that Tony could do, but Tony had the quirked eyebrow for that extra asshole charm.
“Sam, as much as I appreciate your input, Tony and I-” Steve raised his hand, before giving a vague gesture which showed how all this tension was getting to Steve, because he didn’t do vague. “We don’t have anything to say to each other right now.”
“Oh, yeah?” Sam laughed, amusement absent from his tone. “Sure.”
Steve quirked the corner of his lip, as he lifted his gaze to Sam’s. “You don’t like Tony.”
“No,” and this Sam could admit to. Gladly and unreservedly. “And the feeling is mutual, I’m sure. But there’s this- you are anti, and he’s pro SHRA.”
“He lost.”
“And I’m glad for that, but whatever this is with Tony is affecting your focus on the field. We’re in the post Civil War era-”
“Don’t,” Steve rolled his eyes. “That’s sensationalist.”
“Of course it is. Verbal shorthand for middle America. Brutal, yet effective. Deal with it, Steve. You’re working on the repeal to get to the Senate soon enough. When that topic comes to light, they’re gonna want to hear from Tony Stark.”
“Of course,” Steve nodded, coming up with one and one and getting the correct answer. “That’s understandable.”
“I’m glad we agree. Speak to him, Steve, get him on side. I actually like Tony Stark better than the SHRA.”
Led Zepplin blasted over the speakers connected to Tony’s computer, as Tony was seated at the kitchen table, goggles over his eyes as he used a soldering iron, against a medley of copper wire. He was in short sleeves, his forearms dusted with dark hair, his pyjama bottoms not the inky silk he used to own, but brightly plaid ones, with teals and blue overlapping lines. Tony hummed to himself, and Steve caught snatches of the song as he let himself in. Tony had a decent voice - not Broadway material, but it wasn’t a hardship to hear him try to mimic the growl of the guitar, before the words faded back in.
As soon Tony raised his head and saw that Steve was home, he reached over and turned down the sound to almost nothingness.
“You’re home early,” Tony observed, not moving from his space at the table. “If I knew you were coming I’d have bake you a cake. Nah, I wouldn’t,” he waved that thought away, “but I’d have cleared the table.”
Steve took in the materials on the table - his eye brows raised a fraction when he saw the workings of an old fashioned model assembly of an airplane.
“It’s all right,” he said, moving over to the counter, realising that Tony’d had done freshly brewed coffee. Steve poured himself a cup of coffee, and saw the egg timer beside the hob. Not a ball or a piece of stick, but it would have to do. He turned it to five minutes, hoping that they’d be enough.
“What’s this, then, Steve?”
“We need to talk,” Steve sat in the chair, coffee mug warming his fingers and palms as he held it between his thighs. “We need to come to some common ground, Tony, we can’t keep -doing this. We have to come to a common ground, if nothing else.”
Tony didn’t say a word, just put aside the heating element on a pad, and leaned back in his chair, his eyes fastened on Steve.
It came to this, Steve noted, the strained silence, or if they had to speak, the words were laconic, or if they were fluent, vicious.
“Was it worth it?” Steve asked at last, not expecting an answer.
The seconds ticked away, and Tony only stared at him through half lidded lashes, his features edging into shadow as the sunlight slipped from the windows. “It has to be.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s not the answer you want to hear, Steve, but it is an answer.”
“After all that, Richards deserted you, took away your extremis - don’t you feel anything?”
“At the end of the day, Reed did what he had to do.” Tony briefly bit his lips together, his lashes lowered, and Steve couldn’t see the expression in his eyes.
The egg timer shrilled the end of the time, and Steve turned away.
“I could have killed you,” the words tore themselves from Steve’s throat one Friday evening, as soon as the door clicked open.
Tony didn’t say anything, just shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the hook, before stepping into the flat. Friday evening, when the sun dipped low in the sky, washing its surroundings in brass. Steve stood at the window, clad in sweat bottoms, and a faded, marled grey sweatshirt, his back towards Tony, his head in profile, shadows of the late summer sun throwing Steve’s face into sharp relief. His eyes were bright, almost blazing, and Tony knew, it wasn’t a trick of the sun.
“You didn’t,” Tony replied, at last, shoving his hands in the pockets of his last good suit. “There’s that.”
“You could have told me what was going on.”
“You’d have acted the way you did, so that’s why I didn’t. You won, Steve, against a jumped up punk like me,” the words tore themselves from Tony, hot and bitter. “Isn’t that enough?”
Part Three
Tony folded the New York Times and placed it to one side. After their terse exchange a couple of weeks ago, he was trying to keep the place tidier- his bits in the room, and nothing out of the room save an odd note book and pencil. At the table where he was seated now, he only had the paper on the desk, and a cup of coffee. The rest sat in the coffee pot, the percolator gurgling to itself. There was the sound of the toilet being flushed, the brief whistle of the tap as the water ran for an extended period of time, before the noise became deeper, as if a basin were being filled. Ah, that was Steve, doing his morning ablutions before facing the day.
Restless, Tony opened The New York Times again, and reread the article. When Steve came into the kitchen, he waved the paper at him.
“Congratulations, your bill is going to the New York Senate, next stop- the vote. You have the Governor onside, too?”
Steve did not flush, not as much as sat down in the chair opposite Tony. “He’s been supportive, all I want is a debate on the floor.”
Tony couldn’t help himself, as he quoted, “This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world - "No, you move."
“You heard about that.”
“It was your St. Crispin speech,” Tony shrugged his shoulders, suddenly wishing for long sleeves, because the air was chilly. But his budget stopped at three undershirts and a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms from the Gap.
“I still believe it. But I also believe that good men come around, and that common sense will prevail.”
“The SHRA wasn’t stupid,” Tony took a sip from his coffee, house rules be damned. “It might have been heavy handed-”
“Might have been?” Steve interrupted, each word the clang of sword against shield, the song of battle. “Tony, you cloned Thor! You killed Ben Foster. You created the super hero prisons because-”
“You think I wanted to?”
“You imprisoned me, Tony! You made our friends fugitives from the law. You started a war with Atlantis. No one held a gun to your head. If they did, that would have been one thing, but you were the one front and centre rounding our kind up like...animals. You tell yourself you did this for us- for superheroes who protect the peace, but you didn’t, Tony. You and Reed, you calculated everything and it worked for you, except the body count. But that was an equation that that never mattered to you anyway.”
“You think,” Tony had to swallow past the bile churning in his stomach from nerves, caffeine, and the disgust that pumped off from Steve in waves. “You think that I took joy in going to war against you? The lives that were lost? Happy, Bill...God, Steve,” it took all the strength that Tony had to prevent his voice from breaking. “ I’m sorry, the war over the SHRA wasn’t about you. It was about advocating accountability among our own kind. Not every superhero gets read the riot act that with great power comes great responsibility. Not everyone is you, Steve, nor can be you.-”
“No,” Steve cut in. “I was only the person in your way, and you didn’t care. One of us - or both of us could have been killed, Tony but you didn’t care, as long as you had your prisons and money. Sometimes, I think it’s a good thing you lost both.”
“Son of a-” Tony stopped, stunned by the ferocity of Steve’s sentiment and viewpoint. “Remember, Steve? Rem- I had the extremis and I. “ Tony splayed his fingers against his chest, emotion making his voice choke, scrambled his faculties he was sure, because instead of a well formed argument, he was reduced to choked, glottal bits of information. “I was- killing people. I was a -a weapon Steve. Nothing more... more than a gun. Those deaths in Connecticut? Goddamn it, Steve, that could have been me!”
“Tony-”
“No!” Tony made a slashing motion with his hand. “You think, I wanted to be a party to the SHRA?”
“Soon you’ll be telling me that you only joined forces with the government, so you could stop it.”
“We had to be in front before we got crushed underfoot. How many Miriam Sharpes do you want to see out there?”
“Of course, it’s always a woman with you. You used Miriam Sharpe for your own ends, Tony-”
“My ends?” Tony took a step back. “You think I just.. cruised around looking for a casualty and thought. Hey, SHRA.” Absently, Tony rubbed the heel of his palm against his heart, cursing at the irony - he now had a heart and it was in danger of being shattered. After a few shaky breaths, Tony continued, saying his words carefully so that his voice didn’t have a tell tale tremor at its edge. “Sharpe was a parent, a casualty of our actions, Steve. She mightn’t have been the best representative, but she had a point.”
“Was it worth it?” Steve asked, the bastard driving it home, each phrase of accusation a keen blade to Tony’s heart. “Was this all worth it in the end, Tony? You compromised.”
“My stance,” Tony pushed on, voice raw, “is no less valid than yours, Steve. Just because I lost, doesn’t mean that I’m wrong. We didn’t have to be on opposite sides.”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” Steve shook his head, “just because you chose the lesser of the two evils doesn’t make it any less evil. There was no moral grey in this matter.”
Tony scrubbed his hands over his face. Even though he hadn’t put on his armour in weeks he felt battle weary, body shaky and bones bruised. “I remember someone telling me that I wasn’t nearly as sure as I was going to need to see this through. You think I wanted to do half the things I did?”
“You did them,” Steve shook his head, “and that’s enough.”
“I hope you remember that, when you put those children in the line of fire. Liberty over responsibility.”
“You mean, security, Tony.“
“You can give nods to Benjamin Franklyn all you want, Steve. But a man wrapped up in himself is a small bundle, and you’ve been doing a lot of that.”
“It’s not easy, winning,” Steve said after a while, eyes somber. “It demands responsibility, not just for the side the winner takes, but not to demean the user as well. It’s ‘malice toward none’, a way of taking the shattered remains of a house fighting against itself, building it up again, making it stand, and hoping that this time, it’s on solid rock. I do want to get the law repealed, and it will, but that’s not enough, I want to understand why you took the stance you did. I try, God, Tony- I try but it comes around to me wondering if I knew you at all.”
“We should have stuck to the house rule - no SHRA,” Tony’s voice sounded as brittle as he felt. “If you obviously feel this way, why am I here?”
“You didn’t turn me away all those years ago. Also, the last time you were homeless, you didn’t do so well.”
Crawled in the bottom of a bottle and didn’t come out for a long time. Twice.
Tony stopped, cleared his throat and tried again. He got up on shaky legs- Christ, his whole body was shaking - either due to anger or other emotions that Tony dared not name- and made a decision.
Steve must have seen the intent there, because he raised a hand as if to stop Tony, and said his name.
“Tony.”
“No. Let’s just call it even, Steve. We’re square.” Tony waved Steve’s comments away. “Disgust, I can deal with, even anger. But I draw the line at pity.”
“Pity?” at this Steve stood up so quickly, his chair fell to its side with a clang. “You think I want you here because of pity?”
Whatever answer Tony might have given would have been moot, because the phone rang; that shrill, full bodied, old fashioned ring tone. The only one Steve claimed would rouse him out of deep REM.
“You might want to get that,” Tony motioned with his chin. “If your SHRA is going to the Senate next week, you’re going to be getting a lot of calls and emails. It’s like public stock shares, in a way.”
“Tony-”
The phone stopped, the answering machine clicked in, only for, “Captain America, this is Kat Farrell from The Daily Bugle-”
“I need to get this.”
“I know.”
“Just wait until I’ve finished this call.”
“Don’t worry, Dad,” Tony’s smile felt as if it were smeared on, but he managed. “I’ll make sure I’ve cleaned up.”
If nothing else Tony took away from his time being homeless and drunk, he knew how to disappear. By the time Steve had finished his interview, and said his good byes, Tony had cleared his room of everything, and true to his word, he left the room as tidy as he found it.
Steve sat on the edge of the bed, idly smoothing the wrinkle from the sheets - Tony had never learnt the art of smoothing sheets until they were flat. As he brushed his hands across the sheets, his fingers touched on something small, metallic and cold. His house key.
“You did good, Steve,” Sam said, holding up a pilsner glass in salute. They were in The Blarney, one of those small bars in mid-town that inexplicably escaped gentrification. The bar an impression of dim light and cheers from the little knot of meta humans in their ‘soft’ clothes, turning out for celebration. Luke raising his glass of beer, Jessica a glass of orange juice. Other faces bloomed in and out of his vision as he saw them, Matt Murdock, Peter Parker- even Misty Knight, if he guessed correctly. It was good to be out and about again, without disguises and legends, just him and his friends raising a glass to hard fought progress.
“Captain America-” a voice interrupted him from his reverie, it belonged to an attractive college co-ed, with her friend and today’s newspaper in tow. Across her chest, the shirt had the caption: Captain America was right. “Can we have an autograph for my little brother?”
“Of course, and this is for...”
“Sally,” she said, “his name is Sally.”
As Steve did that, returning the pen and paper to the women, his eyes snagged on a shadow. The height, that profile, it could only be - he hastily made his excuses (not that he needed to, the spirits in the bar were high), and moved over to the shadow seated at the table near the window, its surface bare.
“Captain.”
“Dr Strange, “ Steve greeted, minding his manners, although it wasn’t the person he’d hoped to see. “It’s been a minute.”
“Congratulations are in order, I’ve been made to understand.” Stephen Strange gave a courtly tilt of his head. Instead of his usual get up, he was wearing soft clothing. Three piece suit, charcoal grey, the only shot of colour a jaunty scarlet triangle winking at him from its perch in his jacket.
“A lot of things have changed, since-”
“I took my leave, yes. Went away to fast, to pray for sanity, to push the sequence of fates to fall on the side of a particular order. I sense your disdain for my motives, Steve.”
“Not motives, more along the lines of your inaction. You could have stopped it before it became what it was.”
“A war,” Stephen let out a sigh that might have been called delicate in certain circles, “sparked from the empty atoms of two opposing opinions that got out of hand. As much as I’m loath to break a confidence, Tony asked me to take his side.”
“And?”
“I said no. If you came and asked me to take your side, I would have refused you as well. It had to play out,” Stephen said, his fingers lightly tapping a rhythm on the work smoothed surface of the wooden table between them. “Insofar as there only had to be one victor, this was the best way.”
Steve frowned at this. Dr Strange always coached his answers in riddle, hedged bets and shades of equivocation.
“The best way?” It was all Steve could do to keep the faint bite from his voice. “With Tony on the edge of bankruptcy-”
“He’ll recoup his losses and come back, he always does.”
“The Avengers not trusting each other because of what’s gone before, even with the repeal, and us. Our friendship-”
“That can be worked upon.”
“No,” Steve sighed, his good mood distant as the cheers and murmurs of people at the bar. “Tony and I- we’ve had knock down, dragged out fights, and we’ve always been able to come back- but not this time. It’s been -” Steve stopped himself from sighing, but he couldn’t keep the strain from his voice when he said, “six weeks.”
“You will just have to trust me on this one, Captain Rogers,” Stephen smiled, but his eyes were a frigid, forbidden grey, at odds with his pleasant countenance. “There are other offshoots of time lines, certain actions and results are ineffable. Unthinkable, unforgivable. At least in this one, there’s the chance that you two will reconnect, if not through the former bonds of friendship, it will be through the shared code of responsibility.”
“What brings you here, Stephen?”
“You speak about inactivity, Captain, about your disdain for an path not taken, a good not followed through. I’m here to urge you to act. To take the first step, if you can.”
“You came this far, to say that?”
“Let’s just say... in my duties, my inaction may have cost me dear,” Stephen rubbed at his left temple with the fore and middle fingers of his left hand. “And perhaps, whatever Tony’s failings- he didn’t shirk. I am not asking you to forgive, I cannot. But I am asking you to consider your history, your bond.”
“And if I can’t?” The question tumbled from his lips, unbidden. “If I think this infraction was just a step too far? That all I have is anger, because if I try to think of any other way towards Tony I- I feel empty. How can I get past that? But I … want to.”
“For what it’s worth,” a wry smile twisted Stephen’s lips, as a fedora appeared in his hand from nowhere as he got to his feet. “I’m glad your side won.”
He doffed his hat on his head, and bade his leave. Steve sat at the table for a long time.
Tony only buried his face deeper in his collar, and looked away from the headline screaming from the papers on the subway. He didn’t really need to know, just focused on the clackity clack of the train’s wheels against the rails. As soon as he got above ground, Tony bundled himself into a taxi, his eyes burning he passed the building formerly known as Stark Tower, refusing to look the places he used to patronise- back in the heady days of unlimited credit, and easy money. Now, he was rebuilding from the ground up, with Pepper’s voice in his ear, sharp and crisp over his mobile phone.
“Tony, remember, if you want to apply for this patent- you know what? I’ll do it for you.”
“Pepper,” Tony’s voice caught, “I can’t even afford to pay you what you’re worth right now.”
“You could never afford to pay me what I was worth, even when you did.”
“True,” Tony laughed, and the tightness in his throat eased somewhat. “I do think this one will be it, though. Geo-spatial visualisation location-aware data. If I’m correct about the applications-”
“I’ll never be lost in city again,” Pepper’s voice was tart, and he heard the sizzle of egg cracked into hot oil.
“Have you,” Tony wet his lips and cleared his throat. “Did you see the headlines this morning?”
“Of course,” Pepper said, paused, and sighed. “Oh, Tony. Are you okay?”
“Why do you still talk to me? I miss Happy Pepper, and you must miss him more than I do, and yet...” he stopped, feeling his throat close with the ache of loss. “Is Rhodey by you right now?”
“He’s bringing dinner later. I’ll tell him to pick up an extra pizza, and you just come on over too, okay? If you can’t swing the extra fare, we’ll come over to yours, just say the word.”
“Okay. Hey, pal, stop here,” Tony said, just as the building came into view. “I gotta go, Pep.”
Tony clicked off, paid his money and bundled out of the taxi before he lost his nerve, and stood before the gates of where it all began, and ended, in a way.
Avengers mansion.
Where he and Steve fought that fateful night, over two year ago, and Tony raised his hand towards Steve, only just making out the outline of Steve’s form through his tears. Tell me how to stop this, he’d said, but Steve couldn’t, the die had already been cast.
Fingers trembling, Tony pressed the code, stepping through the gates with a sort of benumbed wonder, the ruin of the mansion from Jack’s explosion confronting him anew. The facade of the house blown off, the door of English oak splintered into toothpicks. Tony picked his way through the rubble, emotions hitting him at odd and uncomfortable angles as he saw the destruction, of pictures tumbled from their places on their walls, and crashed into the ground. He dropped to his knees, the hem of his coat brushing the floor, as his fingers briefly splayed against the glass frame of a smiling Wanda, scowling Pietro, Clint, Cap, Carol. They were so young. The rugs- old, expensive, turn of the century - now rags across scorched hardwood floor.
SHRA repealed, the headline now flashed before his eyes, and Tony stepped out, towards the formal gardens, where the statues and headrest of the former Avengers were. Those who died in battle - and others who were gone, but their memories still cherished.
Only to stop short when he saw a familiar figure there, the shock of blond hair, glinting in the sun like newly spun thatch.
“When I came here for the first time,” Steve’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “I didn’t plan to stay, I knew I couldn’t go back ‘home’, and I was right- and wrong.” Steve turned around, faced him. “This was home. I didn’t realise it until everything happened, with Wanda, and Jack and- when we fought.”
“Steve,” Tony stuck his hands in his coat. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be pressing the flesh for the repeal of the law? I hear the President will be signing it next week, congratulations.”
Steve shook his head, and Tony drank him in. It had been almost three months since the last time they spoke, and Steve hadn’t changed. Still tall, all American build. Still the golden boy who won the argument, and bent the media narrative to his will.
“A part of winning any war is to reflect on who we’ve lost. It’s the decent thing, the only thing.”
“And when we’ve lost?” Tony said, feeling his cheeks and nose burn, and he told himself because it was cold. That sort of bracing chill where it was too cold to snow, but the bright fall colours of reds and colds against the crisp blue of sky gave the day a robust cheer.
“You’re not the only one who lost, Tony.”
“No,” Tony agreed, his eyes dropping to the stylised A that made up Scott Lang’s headstone.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Steve changed the subject, as he stalked over the rubble and rough grass that made up the garden, moving close to Tony. “How have you been?”
“Not at the bottom of a bottle. Sorry, that wasn’t funny,” Tony cut himself off, because Steve was trying to make nice and edging closer. “I’ve been living in Brooklyn, drumming up investments by day and designing new technologies by night. Oh, and discovering the greatness that is Goodwill.”
“Hmm, hmm,” Steve nodded, “that coat isn’t your usual style. You tend to go for expensive.”
“Expensive is expensive,” Tony laughed, but there was no amusement in it. The pea coat he had on was two seasons ago, and smelled faintly of mothballs. “ Pepper tells me that my style is innate, and it’s all in the attitude. I think,” Tony flashed a smile, “she might be lying, but I don’t care.”
“How is Pepper? I read the interview with herself and Rhodes, they’ve been speaking on your behalf.”
“Rhodey came back, for her. He makes her laugh. He’s gentle with her, and they both loved Happy.”
So strange, that after three months of not seeing each other, of everything that flowed between them in those months - how unchanged Tony looked. The lines around his eyes and mouth were not so deep, so much more relaxed. The scuff that marred his van dyke, gone. Tony had found his vanity again, that was nice to see. His eyes though- Tony might have had the smile of a Cheshire cat, but his eyes were still sad.
“That’s good, right?”
“It works for them,” Tony said, his smile warmer, the shadows dimming a little. “I think they’ve always understood each other, and roll their eyes in unison when it came to judging me. It’s the little things, you know? Rhodey and Pep are both solid, it might not last, but, they’re friends first, right?”
“Right.”
“Right,” Tony nodded. “Well, since you got here before me, first dibs, right? I’ll take my leave, happy SHRA repeal day. Or something. I’m sure Hallmark has a card for this day. Somewhere.”
Tony just turned on his heel and made to go. Steve raised his a hand, “Wait.”
“Steve?”
“I’m sorry about the things I said back at the apartment. I was out of line.”
“Seriously, Steve? You’re not the first person to wish me ill.”
“Let me be the first person to take it back. Fighting you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, Tony. I’m sorry that it came to that.”
“But you’re not sorry you won.”
“No,” that Steve could admit. “I won’t back down from what I think is right, and might not like what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it.”
“How magnanimous of you. All of that, and your pity too. You can take all of that and-”
“I miss you,” Steve said simply, as he closed the distance between himself and Tony. It wasn’t fair, he knew, cutting off Tony’s tirade like that, as he was close enough to see the dark curve of lash, and the patterns of blue in his iris. Close enough for the world to fall away, to nothing but him and Tony in a green patch in the Avengers garden. Close enough to see the doubt, before Tony even moved his lips and if Tony said no- well, he’d soldier on. “It’s hard - because after everything that’s gone on between us, I still do. I want us to talk, I don’t know if I’d ever understand what went on between us, but I want to try. We were friends before all of this, Tony. We can still be again.”
“I’m sorry,” Tony dipped his head, breaking Steve’s gaze for an instant. Steve didn’t step back, even though for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Not that he could blame Tony, because they had a lot of death and distance between them, and their last exchange had been horrible. He didn’t move, because the least he could do was steel himself and listen for Tony to list the reasons why.
“It would be a long, hard road back to where we were,” Tony lifted his gaze to Steve. “All the things I’ve done, all the things I’ve said. I’m not sorry about the position I took, because the discussion had to be had- but I’m sorry about the way I went about it.”
“We should have gone about it better, I could have - listened more. They say all is fair in love and war-but Goddamn it, Tony, it doesn’t feel that way.”
Tony laughed, the edges of it just this side of mournful. “I’m sorry. All I can do is try and show you how sorry I am, and even then- I can’t change the past, or the fact that at times, that’s all you’d be able to look at me and see. When I’m with you, I’m better, I’m more. It will always be a no brainer for me, even after everything. If it’s not too late to try again, Steve, here I am.”
Too overcome to say anything more, Steve placed his hand on Tony’s shoulder, the world fading away into the distance. In the gardens, even with everything up turned and scattered, the city seemed distant from here. Tony opened his arms, and Steve walked into them, and drew Tony to him, the mixture of camphor and warm notes of cedar making his eyes and nose tingle.
They would be okay.
Fin
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Damn this was painful. Like, I was almost having stomach cramps in the beginning it was so sad. And I always have a tough time with Tony's lows because he's so proud, but it's also hard to say they are entirely undeserved. But it made the clawing back to a chance of accord/friendship between Steve and Tony seem even more precious. And you also had him leave Steve's apt, which was somehow unexpected for me, but also totally the right choice for his character--proud, hating pity, and wanting to do things himself.
ETA: There was also an... emotional restraint in this fic that made it feel even more realistic and tough (and then the reconciliation possibility more earned). Steve and Tony were still very angry. They still don't quite see the other's pov. They didn't just fall into bed with angry sex (not that I have anything against that).
(And I like how you kept Reed and Jan much less damaged than Tony by public opinion for being pro-SHRA. As well as presenting both sides of the "Civil War" argument. And Miriam! I have a soft spot and have a lot of sympathy for her.)
And Sam and Pepper and Rhodey (Pepper/Rhodey?!)! I love that Pepper did eventually have his back as soon as she could. And the news article images! And the new technology he's going to invent! And the mansion! T____T
Ah this was so sad, but also so hopeful! *blubbers all over you*
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(Man, I could jabber on about this fic for way too long. Major kudos to the writer for giving me a big reaction.)
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There was also an... emotional restraint in this fic that made it feel even more realistic and tough (and then the reconciliation possibility more earned). Steve and Tony were still very angry. They still don't quite see the other's pov. They didn't just fall into bed with angry sex (not that I have anything against that).
I have nothing against Tony and Steve falling into bed with angry sex, but I wanted to take the angle - as if it were a What If Steve Rogers had lived, and won the Civil War? Would he and Tony Stark have still been friends and kept it along that line. I wanted it to be something that you could have possibly read in canon. So yeah, that forced my hand and a lot of decisions.
Heh, yeah, in my other Civil War AU (the one on my gdocs, waiting to be born), Rhodey and Pepper do get closer (there's a third character, Henry Hellrung, but he and Pepper just... didn't work out) and they are gentle with each other. But I could only hint at it in this story.
Thanks for reading.
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This did have feel very "could happen in canon," definitely. One thing I think you also got here, which also gives me ~feelings in canon, is how Tony often ends up alone in dealing with his peoblems. Often this is his own choice/fault, but it also strikes me as really sad (especially since, for all his fuckups, he has also touched a lot of people's lives in good ways). But you didn't make it maudlin. I'm glad Pepper and Rhodes exist--in canon and the place you gave them in your story.
There was a lot of awesome here, basically. Just a lot of care: the binary, the articles. Oh, I didn't mention Sam and his awesome advice (though I also enjoyed how Steve and Tony still couldn't make it work).
lol I also got angry/wanted to argue with people etc in almost all the same ways as in the comics, but it was a little more tightly written, and so a little less frustrating. Def a "could be canon" (but better)
This line was a really elegant thought: “You can give nods to Benjamin Franklyn all you want, Steve. But a man wrapped up in himself is a small bundle, and you’ve been doing a lot of that.”
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Hah! I... know what you mean. I do think of myself as an odd fit in the fandom at times, truth be told. Don't get me wrong, I like happy, and do enjoy reading the odd bit of erotic as long as it adds to story and atmosphere, but I can't really write that way (I have tried, but all the work comes out coolly restrained). It's all the knitting I do, probably.
I hate ripping back (but will do it if I have to), I tend to sit down and mull for days until the story is whole in my head, including subplots, and if they can't fit, it gets ripped out and the story moves on. It doesn't help that I started writing Ultimates fic (1610) a long time before venturing into 616 (main Marvel verse) fic, so my outlook towards all Steve/Tony is skewed in various ways.
Which I thought was very cool/gutsy... though perhaps it also means I should shed some assumptions.
Hah. Thanks for the compliment. I'll hold that thought against my chest when I do have worries if I've gone too far, or if a situation is too pointed. It's not that I intentionally wish to provoke, but I do try to write to a prompt to the best of my ability; and it has to keep me interested or else I won't tarry.
One thing I think you also got here, which also gives me ~feelings in canon, is how Tony often ends up alone in dealing with his peoblems..
Tony, to be fair to him, isn't a guy to sit down and wallow for long. Yeah, he's had set directed set backs (his drinking for one) but he's very self driven. He makes things happen instead of making things happen to him. He's supported most of the Avengers in one way or the other (Daddy Warbucks-Stark), but it's true, when the tables are turned, Tony is mostly left alone, but on the odd occasion when he's asked for help, someone is there (Pepper, Rhodey, Steve, among other assorted casts).
lol I also got angry/wanted to argue with people etc in almost all the same ways as in the comics
LOL, same. But a part of growth is aggro and finding what makes others tick, and deciding if their good points outweigh the bad, and deal with it as a result. So yeah, glad that the fic got you to engage.
This line was a really elegant thought: “You can give nods to Benjamin Franklyn all you want, Steve. But a man wrapped up in himself is a small bundle, and you’ve been doing a lot of that.”
That's a real quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin, and since Steve seems to quote America's great thinkers (I know Benjamin Franklin wasn't a founding father, but he's considered to be a Great American of Letters), it just seemed plausible to throw it in there. Tony and Steve can argue all day, so I left them to it.
Thanks for the detailed feedback. I know what I'm doing right.
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Oh, I didn't mention Sam and his awesome advice (though I also enjoyed how Steve and Tony still couldn't make it work).
Man, Sam Wilson is a hard character for me to get right. I think I get Luke Cage, and Eli Bradley (although I am willing to admit that I might not do), but Sam Wilson is a conundrum. I do respect the fact that the writers approach his situation with Tony Stark not as a love in, but with the attitude that although he might not like Tony Stark, he likes and respects Steve Rogers enough to understand that he needs Tony in his life at whatever level the reader chooses to address it; the point is Steve and Tony are bonafide bros. They might not live in each other's pockets, but the affection is strong and enduring. I like how Sam is big enough to accept that, and I wanted to approach it that way.
At the end of the fic- yeah. It's supposed to be the end of that stage of their existence, but a hint at them moving towards each other somehow. They want to try with a little more passion and a little less pride, to paraphrase an old eighties love song. LOL.
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I see him as having that same inner strength to superhero against the odds that I loved about Spidey--fighting on even though it's a little thankless and he's misunderstood and underappreciated and usually in Cap's shadow--but more mature/grown up than Peter by life experience and personality. Granted I haven't read much post 90s.
His costume is... unfortunate though.
And Steve and Tony totally need to have less pride in dealing with... well almost everything. The fic ended with hugs, though! I am resolutely optimistic that passion will now help them where their brains could not. :D
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But yeah, Sam Wilson is a good man. A good man.
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Ha! That seems very natural to me, in a way. The Ult characters are much easier for me to get a handle on (maybe if only because they don't have decades of canon). Also a dirty secret: Ult!Steve is way more comprehensible and sympathetic to me than 616!Steve (but that's also a lot of my own meta-baggage and issues).
Thanks for the heads up on the Franklin quote--definitely a sad gap in my own knowledge!
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I agree. I wrote this response to a question in a meme:
4 – Do you have a "muse" character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the fic isn't about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?
Strangely, Ultimates Steve, I think? Like, I do like the tension between what he thinks his country is, versus what its become in his absence. Patriotism can be seen as the last refuge of the scoundrel, and as much as Ults Steve Rogers may hew shockingly close there, he hasn't reached scoundrel days yet - despite Mark Millar's wish for him to do so. I find Steve's pov to be - not simple to write, but it's pretty straight forward in a way that say, writing Eli Bradley, Kate Bishop and Tony Stark aren't.
I also had some insights about 616 Steve here (http://jazzypom.livejournal.com/53203.html#cutid1) (scroll down). All this to say, I agree!
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Ironically, one of my bigger meta stumbling blocks for him is that "America" in him... and I'm an American. I'm too invested or something? I'm much more distrustful of his place and treatment in the narrative in a way I'm not with other pure-of-heart heroes like Superman/Fraser/Carrot. Not his fault, really! Symbols are powerful emotional fire though.
Civil War was, sadly, not a Cap-selling point for me. *insert long essay w personal baggage on CW* I do like him more and more as I read through his own title though, and there's still about 20 years of him I have yet to read!
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Seconding the notion of the effort put into this, with the news articles and all; I also like the attention to detail in creating scenes, because they help create a vivid image without falling into DanBrownish redundancy.
My favourite parts, though, were the following:
Reed’s calculations were correct, the variables -0111001101101111011101010110111001100100001011100010000001010100011010000110010101110010011001010010011101110011001000000111001101110100011010010110110001101100001000000110000100100000011101110110000101111001001000000111010001101111001000000111001101100001011101100110010100100000011101010111001100101100001000000111010001101111
(yes I did look up the binary, haha)
and
“I’m sorry, the war over the SHRA wasn’t about you. It was about advocating accountability among our own kind. Not every superhero gets read the riot act that with great power comes great responsibility. Not everyone is you, Steve, nor can be you.-”
I have a lot of FEELS over the SHRA, but this is basically one of the things it boils down to when it comes to Cap; his inability to separate the personal from the general due to his own unrelenting pride (the goodness of man) rendering him incapable of viewing the matter in less idealistic terms, which clashes with Tony's realistic outlook on the world. It's only really Tony who ever steps up to challenge these views (and, as in Casualties of War, the fact that it's so easy for Cap to rally others on his side simply for being Captain Effing America). I think it's because they have two sets of very similar kind of blind pride, but those prides stem from two very different places, and I feel those are well demonstrated in this story, whether consciously or not. The dynamic was nicely captured: Tony as the person who will keep challenging Steve, because Steve Rogers and the all-knowing, never-wrong Captain America are not mutually exclusive with one another, and Tony as the person who will ultimately bear the brunt of the consequences of daring to see that challenge through till the end (Reed, one day you and I are going to have a real long talk about things).
But yeah, I think most of us have a lot of ~emotional baggage~ regarding this topic so I won't rant any more than this. Kudos for creating a believable piece that is very plausible in a rather difficult and multi-faceted context, as well as captures the bittersweet essence of the source material in question (while not making me hate the world and/or Marvel like the originals do, haha).
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Cheers for the detailed comment, really. I am so glad that the fic worked for you. I know Civil War stuff is something fandom doesn't really get into, so I'm dead chuffed that the fic worked for you.
Thanks again.
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You also had some gorgeous descriptions. I loved the whole argument about keeping Steve's apartment clean, and all the painful undercurrents of the things they weren't discussing yet.
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Sam's always been a mature enough mate of Steve's to realise that whatever Steve and Tony get up to, it's their look out, not his. I wanted to put that across, and I'm glad that people got it. Yay.
Cheers for reading.
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I'm so glad that this fic answered almost all of your requests. Civil War fic shouldn't be easy, and I'm all for that.
How much do I love that you brought Carol into this, just like Sam. They’re two characters who believed in their point of view, but without Tony and Steve’s personal static, and you’ve shown just how much of a difference that does make.
IA. With Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, it's personal becoming the political, and how. Thanks for catching that with Carol and Sam, yay.
Pepper’s arc of forgivingness might be my second favourite thing about this fic, but oh ouch
At this point, Tony and herself are family. The bonds that you made, instead of the ones you're born into, and stronger as a result. She'd have come around, but she needed some distance first.
And right there, you know that Sam gets it in a way that Steve and Tony never will. One is a futurist and one is an idealist, and people like Sam live in the real world they fight over. Sam, never stop. Never change. What I am trying to say is that your Sam is wonderful.
Oh wow, cheers for that. I've written Uts Sam but this the first time I've come close to writing 616 Sam so I'm glad that he comes off well.
I'm so glad that this story worked for you. Thanks for giving me the prompt.
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What a tangled, awful mess--but at least you left them with hoping for reconciliation.
Heh, they'll get there. Thanks for that.