This is not the Endgame

He tapped on 315 first, it was the one he came to first, but nobody answered, so he went on to 314. Here the door opened. Sam eyed him carefully, then clapped a hand on his shoulder. "You don't look as bad as I thought." Bucky was waiting, got up and gave him the hug Steve was longing for.

"Where were you, punk?" he asked, humor not quite masking his concern. "The hearing ended just past five. It's been hours."

"Three hours," Sam clarified, folding his arms and looking at him like his mom had when she'd expected an explanation, and Steve controlled his flinch.

"I went out to dinner," he said, then dropped in a chair. "Ava came down to make sure I was ok," he said to Bucky, who rocked back a little.

"Not saying she's not a good woman, but that seems like... a lot," Sam said carefully.

"Well, I haven't mentioned it, but that Snap survivor group I joined?" The other two nodded. "She's a member. Took her a couple of months to warm up to me."

"That old Steve Rogers charm," Bucky muttered, his mouth just quirking up at the corner. Steve flipped him off.

"But after group, we get dinner together and talk. It's nice. She's still a little wary, but I figure in another couple of years I'll have her eating out of my hand," he bragged, which cracked everybody up.

"Lady killer," Sam managed, which set them off again.

"So what happened?" Bucky asked.

"She caught up with me as I left the hearing, wanted to know that I was ok. Said it looked rough on TV." Bucky nodded.

"It's why we're here too." Steve pinked a little with pleasure.

"I took her out to eat, seemed like the least I could do, made sure she got to the train station ok. She gave me a book for distraction. Looks interesting."

"What's it called?" Sam asked.

"Fullmetal Alchemist. It's some kind of comic. The art is wonderful." Sam stared at him.

"How is it that you haven't read any manga? That's right up your alley," he asked. Steve looked a little nettled.

"Oh, I don't know, I was busy saving the Earth--sometimes--from alien invaders, fighting evil assholes like Pierce and Rumlow and murderbots, running around after my best friend. Didn't leave much time for light reading." Bucky made a placating gesture.

"When are you going back?"

"Not tomorrow," he said grumpily. "Spiderman is testifying tomorrow. He saw me on the broadcast, my lawyer said he got in touch with her. I gotta support him. He was only fifteen when Stark dragged him into our business. Maybe he can get the authorities off his back with this testimony."

"That'd be good," Sam said. "We'll help if we can."

"So where'd you go to dinner?"

"Ambar, it's Balkan cuisine, really good."

"We got pizza from a place down the street. It's giving me heartburn," Sam grumbled.

"I don't get heartburn anymore," Bucky said sunnily. "Benefit of the serum." Sam scowled. With the ease of practice, Steve headed off the bickering, and it was decided that the three of them would attend the hearing; Sam and Bucky would sit with whoever the kid brought along for moral support, and would also observe the audience and the activity in the hearing chamber. Steve still wanted a workout, so after a little more unwinding, he gratefully said goodnight and went down to the fitness center. As he'd suspected, he wouldn't have access to enough resistance on the weights, but there was a Stairclimber there, and those things always kicked his ass.

He was unsurprised when Bucky ghosted in behind him. A snorty chuckle when he saw the level Steve was working at. "Seven?" Buck said incredulously, checking the time as well, just over ten minutes. Steve was slogging along, puffing and sweating. He hated the Stairmaster.

"Shut up," Steve wheezed, and a lifetime of reacting to Steve's wheezes brought Bucky up short. Steve shut off the torture device and toweled off his face. "I'd like to see you do any better." Bucky smirked and hopped on. Level nine, legs working like a machine; Bucky kept his chin up and his thoughts light. He made it to sixteen minutes before shutting it down. He was sweating, but not awash as Steve had been. He smiled angelically at his buddy, who was moving around slowly, stretching. And scowling.

"Elevators, Buck." Bucky rolled his eyes and started to stretch. It hadn't been much of a workout, and after a little rest, they headed for the treadmills. Steve had the advantage there, or Bucky indulged him by letting him get a speed one level faster with one higher setting on the incline. Whatever, his pride was bruised.

"So how's Ava?" Bucky said after several minutes of pounding away.

"Good. She's got a new job, looks happy. She might be thinking about ending her attendance at the group, she seems to be pretty much through her trauma." A few more minutes of silence.

"I really screwed up there," Bucky muttered. Steve nodded. He felt badly for his friend, but it was up to Bucky to fix it. Or not. And that was all they said. Half an hour later, they started their cool-down, then went back to their rooms. They both felt better for the exertion; Steve had a leisurely hot shower, letting the water lull him until he was ready for sleep.

He felt peppy the next day, getting up for an early breakfast, returning to his room just as an employee was returning his uniform. Inside, he examined it critically and plugged in the iron to make creases crisper, to make his tie immaculate. He had some brass polish wipes, and brightened his brass before pinning everything back on. He dressed carefully, then went down to collect Bucky and Sam. Both were sharp in dark suits, and they walked down to the Capitol, Steve buying the Washington Post on the way because he liked a physical newspaper and it would be something to read while waiting for things to get going. And he could do the crossword. The lawyer was waiting for them outside the hearing room, with two young men and an older woman.

"Captain," the lawyer said. "This is Peter Parker." Steve put out his hand.

"Sorry for the shipping container," he said, and Parker managed a smile.

"This was the Steve who gave you the black eye?" the older woman said, outraged.

"I apologize, ma'am," he said quietly. "I never thought that Tony would bring a kid to a fight like that." He waited until the woman's ire subsided and she nodded grudgingly.

"This is my aunt, May Parker," Peter said. "This is my best friend, Ned." His voice was instantly familiar. Steve shook hands.

"Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson," Steve said, and hands were shook all around. "They came down as moral support for me, so we thought they could sit with your support, Peter. Am I still sitting behind him?" he asked the lawyer, who nodded.

"You don't have to, Cap," Peter said.

"I've got your back, unless you'd prefer that I don't. I'm not well-liked in there." Peter smiled a little.

"I appreciate it." And before they could say more, the doors opened and they were allowed in. Sam, Bucky, Ms Parker, and Ned took seats on the aisle near the back, and Steve and the lawyer sat down right behind Peter, who was at the witness table, his name on a sign like a place card. Steve read the paper, passing the comics up to Peter after he read them and starting in on the crossword. The lawyer poked away at her cell phone after running through things with her new client. They didn't have long to wait. The senators came in, the media lit up the room with their hot lights, the aids and hangers-on followed the lawmakers in, and Steve sat up straight, folding the paper and placing in on the ground between chairs. He tried to look friendly and supportive. Peter snuck a look around before he stood to be sworn in. The senators got down to business fairly quickly.

Peter told about the accident that gave him new abilities, why he'd become Spiderman--"I just wanted to help the little guys"--and the lead up to the main event.

"I came home from school one day and found Tony Stark in my apartment, talking to my aunt."

"How old were you?"

"Fifteen. And I didn't know what he wanted, until he spoke to me in private in my bedroom. He said he needed my help, that there was going to be a fight because Captain America was making trouble, that the Accords were necessary. That Cap was dangerous, because he believed he was right. He needed to be brought in line before something bad happened. So we went to Germany, and we fought Cap and his side, we got our butts kicked, we lost, I came home. Lied to my aunt about where I'd been."

"Did you get the consent of your aunt? She's your guardian?"

"She is my guardian, and no, Mr Stark said it had to be quick and quiet." He sighed. "He threatened to tell Aunt May that I was Spiderman unless I did it. And I didn't want her to know. Didn't want her to worry."

"When you say you got your butt kicked, what did that entail?"

"Well, we kind of defeated some of the others, but Cap and his friend got away. The others were arrested, I heard that they were going to be taken to some place called the Raft. Then Mr Stark disappeared and I was taken back home by his driver."

"And what happened after that?"

"Well, Mr Stark had made me a really cool new suit, I had to learn how to use it. It had an 'Instant Kill' setting that had to go immediately. That's not what I'm about. And I thought that he'd be my mentor, but he dumped me on his driver, Happy, who kept blowing me off. I tried to report that the shipment of tech from Stark Tower was going to be hijacked, but he didn't listen. Mr Stark just yelled at me from time to time. Then when those aliens showed up for the Infinity stones, I followed Mr Stark into space. We rescued a wizard, we got to another planet and fought Thanos. And lost. Again. And then I felt weird, and I saw myself blowing away to dust. Then I was back. Mr Stark left me the EDITH glasses, what a mess, I almost killed a classmate by mistake, then that whole thing with Quentin Beck, he outed me, and yeah, I have some hard feelings about that, but it all comes down to how Mr Stark stole their inventions without giving them credit, that augmented framing device, can't really blame them for being mad."

"So why are you here, Mr Parker?"

"Because it took me awhile, but I know of two occasions where Mr Stark just took things over, not caring about what it did to anybody else--during the cleanup of New York after the Chitauri invasion, Damage Control took over the contracts, putting a lot of people out of business, one of which was the father of one of my classmates. And stealing the technology made by Quentin and the others. They may have worked for Mr Stark, but he didn't have the right to take their intellectual property and slap his name on it, not even giving them credit. Taking their patents. It took awhile, but I realize that he treated me the same, a tool that he paid attention to as long as he needed me, then ignored. So you might want to rethink this hero thing you've got going for him. He had a lot of gifts, but it was all about him and his ego. And he never tried to come up with non-lethal weapons. I mean, me, I made my webbing, but that's not going to kill anybody. There was even a tracker and a program in my suit to keep me in line, Mr Stark could override my commands at will. I just think that people should know what he did."

"Did you know why Iron Man and Captain America were fighting, what the stakes were?"

"Not at the time."

"So why did you go with him? It couldn't just be the threat of outing you."

"I was flattered," Peter said softly. "Here's Tony Stark, saying he needs my help, admiring my webbing, what I'm doing. He was a hero to me, using science the way he did, the engineering of his suits. And me? I'm nobody."

"You know that the fight was about the Sokovia Accords now, is that correct? And you didn't at the time?"

"Now I know, I read it later, long after the fight. I didn't know that it would apply to me at the time. If I'd known that I was going to lose my secret identity anyway, that I had to register myself... I would have told May myself and not gone."

"Backing up a bit, what's this EDITH technology you were talking about?"

"It's this pair of sunglasses that had the ability to surveil all the cell phones in my vicinity, I could call drone strikes." His lips twisted. "It stands for 'Even Dead, I'm The Hero.' I believed Quentin, that he was a good guy, I gave him the glasses. And he used them to stage a terrorist attack in London. And in the end, I got the blame."

"Where are these sunglasses now?" The senator sounded a little panicked.

"I destroyed them," he said simply. "Anybody who had them could use them. And I don't think anybody is capable of using them responsibly. I wasn't even trying, and I almost killed my classmates. So I told the drones to destroy themselves, and I destroyed the glasses." And there was an uproar about that, because such a weapon made some of the senators salivate. Peter refused to second-guess his decision.

And there were more questions. Peter was wilting, and during a brief moment where the senators were conferring, Steve leaned forward and put his hand on Peter's shoulder, asking if he was ok. He looked around, looking tired but grateful. The lawyer leaned forward then and they conferred quietly. More question about Parker and Stark's interactions, the events in Europe.

"I see that you've got Captain Rogers behind you," one senator said jadedly. "Is he telling you what to say, push his anti-Tony Stark agenda?"

"No. I only met Cap briefly at the airport fight. I had my new suit on, mask included. He didn't know anything about me. I just saw him again this morning. He said he'd have my back if I wanted him to. I appreciate the moral support." And then he was invited to make a closing statement.

"I didn't know what was happening when Mr Stark showed up in my apartment, charming my aunt. I didn't know that he was going to lie to me, manipulate me, treat me like just another weapon in his arsenal. That's not me. I wanted to protect the little guy, not turn against people who also just want to do the right thing. I finally got to read the Accords and realized that he set me up. Under the Accords, I was going to go to prison for just trying to make my corner of New York safer, be tracked and watched for the rest of my existence. I'm not a weapon, I never wanted to be a hero, the spiderbite was an accident. But when I had the ability to make a difference, I felt that I had to. But Mr Stark could take off his suit and walk away. Come back, do his thing, walk away, leaving everybody else holding the bag. I cried when I realized that. How intent he was in getting everybody else rounded up to push his idea of security, but him and his friends wouldn't have been affected, because his suits were just prostheses, his and Colonel Rhodes. Not innate abilities. Like mine. And the Accords were going to allow a man who was being set up to be killed, no trial, no real evidence. So I thought that it was important that people know about him. He was dangerous, didn't have much in the way of emotional intelligence or good judgment. He insisted on things being his way, and that wasn't always the best way."

And that, basically, was that. It hadn't lasted nearly as long as Steve's testimony, partly because the senators were aware of the optics of beating up (verbally) a wide-eyed, sorrowing minor.

On the way out, Steve escorted the lawyer and Peter. They stood a little to the side as the press cornered the lawyer. "The Sokovia Accords are at the root of the problem. The Accords were signed by 177 countries--including the United States--to have an appointed, un-elected panel at the United Nations approve what missions the Avengers, who are mostly US citizens or legal residents, could go on. Superheroes who didn't sign could be imprisoned on the Raft, with no trial or hearing, complete violations of their civil rights. Congress cannot purposefully enact legislation that violates the Constitution, which the Accords do on their face. They are illegal, and the ACLU went to court and won against their enforcement on two key issues: mandatory conscription and denial of due process.

"The President has the authority to enact a military draft, the Selective Service, if he so chooses. But of the Avengers, women do not register for the Selective Service, and Captain Rogers would be ineligible, both on the fact that he has already served the US Army honorably, and due to his age. The other male Avengers are also too old for the draft, and Sam Wilson, the current Captain America, is also an honorably discharged veteran. Mr Parker, however is not. And since the Selective Service would not apply to most enhanced individuals, conscription of these individuals to serve under an unelected panel composed of representatives who are mostly not US citizens, would be contrary to the 13th Amendment, which prohibits involuntary servitude. The Accords did not appear to allow an individual the right to decline to participate if the Avengers were to be deployed.

"The Accords required any enhanced individuals who agreed to sign to register with the UN and provide biometric data such as fingerprints and DNA samples, to reveal their legal names and true identities to the United Nations, submit to a power analysis, which would categorize their threat level and determine potential health risks, and wear tracking bracelets at all times. Anybody who signed would be prohibited from acting in any country other than their own unless they are first given clearance by either that country's government or by the UN. Those who did not sign would be unable to participate in police, military, or espionage activities, in or outside of their own countries, through private or governmental programs or agencies. If any of them break the law, they can be detained indefinitely without trial. The use of technology to provide artificial superhuman capabilities is strictly regulated, as is the use and distribution of highly advanced technology such as Asgardian or Chitauri technology or weaponry. The creation of true AIs--including Ultron and, apparently, the EDITH program-- was to be completely prohibited. The Avengers were no longer a private organization. All of the Avengers, including the ones like Clint Barton who are not enhanced, were to be considered bound by the Accords and several were in fact imprisoned on the Raft.

"For the purposes of the Accords, an "enhanced individual" was defined as any person with superhuman abilities. However, individuals with advanced prostheses were not considered "enhanced", even if their prostheses give them capabilities beyond those of ordinary humans. This is where the Tony Stark loophole is located."

"What's this Raft thing?" another reporter shouted.

"I'm glad you asked, because this is another enormous problem," she said nicely. "It is a fully submersible prison in the North Atlantic, under the authority of the US Navy, also staffed by US Marshals. It was fully operational at the time of the Accords, and this means that it has been in the planning stage, construction, and operation for over a decade. Its purpose from the beginning was to serve as a dark site, where prisoners could be brought and made to disappear, including people like Captain America. This deprives US citizens of several critical rights, including habeas corpus, and the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th Amendments to the United States Constitution, which which requires a person in custody to be brought before a court, protects people from arbitrary arrests, from being deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process and the right to counsel; and the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The lack of judicial proceedings would violate the 5th, 6th, and 7th Amendments. In the case of the Avengers imprisoned there following the fight in Germany, Miranda warnings were not issued. And in a special chase, when Wanda Maximoff was imprisoned on the Raft, she was held in a straitjacket, with a shock collar around her neck, and administered drugs to keep her compliant and incapable of movement, basically. We have been unable to locate a female on the rosters of the Navy crew or in the contingent of Marshals based on the Raft, which meant that any and all interactions, including medical treatment, would have been done by males. This is an abusive environment.

"Arguably, the fight at the German airport was self-defense, because of the unconstitutional denial of process of the Accords, and the UN's kill order on James Buchanan Barnes instead of an arrest warrant. Tony Stark and his team were attempting to enforce illegal orders. If this was a time of war, he and they would have been guilty of war crimes. Captain America and his team were within their rights to resist the attempted arrest. This split the Avengers, which prevented them from being optimally effective during the events leading up to the Snap. While reasonable regulation of superheroes is something that should be addressed, the Accords are not a viable solution, and indeed, have been disregarded throughout the world. It should be additionally considered that those with prostheses that give power, like the Iron Man suits, and those mutants or mutates who intend to be criminals from the start are not and would never be signatories to the Accords. How are they to be kept in check without the superheroes?

"I would like to draw your attention to several pertinent activities. Under Obediah Stane's guidance, Stark Industries sold weapons to terrorists. Where was government oversight? It is illegal for American companies or individuals to sell weapons to terrorists or terrorist organizations. And I submit that Tony Stark never stopped making weapons. He merely reserved them for himself and his friends. You may recall that he firmly refused to turn over his technology to the US government, bragging that he had managed to privatize defense, and attempts to confiscate the technology were never made by the government beyond Colonel Rhodes' liberation of a single suit. He continued to be a merchant of death, a private arms dealer, with no restraint and of questionable psychological stability. An Army experiment created the Abomination, which destroyed part of New York City. SHIELD violated Bruce Banner's civil rights by searching all electronic communications without a search warrant, led to the invasion of Earth by the Chitauri with its experimentation using alien technology, and allowed Hydra to grow within its ranks, culminating in the creation of technology--again with the assistance of Tony Stark--that would have probably facilitated a coup by killing 11 million Americans in minutes. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner were responsible for the creation of both Ultron and the synthetic life form known as Vision. While the latter was not a threat during its lifetime, Ultron is directly responsible for the destruction that led to the Sokovia Accords, and Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are directly responsible for that. The other Avengers seemed to spend quite a lot of time cleaning up after Stark."

This all excited quite an uproar in the press, and the lawyer guided Steve and Peter around them as they angled to get interviews and reactions from the senators on the panel. They joined May, Ned, Bucky, and Sam at the curb.