“I have a feeling that we mean two completely different people.” Tony gazed at Steve with a slight frown in his brow.
“It’s not going to be you. That’s not happening. It’s going to be me.” Steve gazed right back with a determined look in his eye.
“I think the fuck not.” Tony argued. He wasn’t about to let Steve throw himself off of a cliff for a stone. Nope. Not happening.
“Tony, please don’t make this harder than it has to be.” Steve sighed in frustration and ran a hand through his hair like he usually did when he was stressed.
“I’m not the one doing that. You are with your heroic bullshit.”
“It’s not heroic bullshit-” He tried to say, but Tony was not having it.
“Now that right there is bullshit, Capsicle. You’re going to jump off the cliff because you feel like it’s the right thing to do and that is the only reason. We both know that.”
Steve was a self-sacrificing dumbass and that needed to stop. Tony wanted him to think for himself for once. Just once.
But of course he had to pull the goddamn family card.
“You have a family. They need you. Morgan needs you.”
Tony pulled that card right back.
“You have a family too. Natasha needs you. Thor needs you. Bruce needs you. They all do.” Steve sighed again. More frustration was coursing through him. Tony always knew when that happened. He had paid attention to Steve too much when they had been a team.
“I’ve done so much wrong in my life.” Ah, so he was trying a different approach now. What a stubborn bastard.
“Like what?” Tony was glaring at Steve now with arms crossed over his chest. “You literally are the reason we won World War 2. You’ve saved the world plenty of times as an Avenger. What have you done wrong?”
He knew exactly what Steve was thinking that qualified as “wrong”.
“The Accords. Siberia.” And there it was. The Steve Rogers Guilt coming back to make the situation even harder than it already was.
“Steven Grant Rogers, you need to stop with that. I forgave you. You have no reason to still feel guilty about it.” Tony knew it would go straight over Steve’s head. He never listened. Tony had learned that over the years. It was probably the easiest thing to learn about Steve.
Everything else was hell to learn because Steve was Steve. He liked to hide his feelings, bottle them up. He liked to be a stubborn asshole. He liked to not get close with people because of the fear of losing them like he had all his buddies from the 40’s. He liked to be cold and off putting. More fears of getting close with people.
It had taken a while to break through all of that, but Tony finally did and he learned a lot about the supersoldier. He noticed things that the others noticed, and he also noticed things that the others didn’t. There were little things that Tony had noticed because he used to watch Steve a lot. Not creepily mind you. He just liked to observe like the scientists that he was.
Also, there was the part about Steve being extremely attractive. That made it hard not to observe him. It was hard to just ignore all that muscle and pretty blond hair and mesmerizing blue eyes. It was really hard. He never admitted that though, too much Stark pride. He would always brush it off as being lost in thought if he ever got caught which happened a lot more than he would have liked.
Steve shook his head. “But I hurt you. A lot.”
“Steve, I forgave you. It’s all okay. We moved past it. And just because you hurt me once like a million years ago doesn’t mean that you should be the one to do this.” Tony insisted helplessly.
“Tony, please just let me do this. Please. I know it’s not what you want, but come on, it can’t be you. We both know that. You have too much left for you. You need to live your life. I’ve done that already.” Steve pressed his forehead against Tony’s. “Please.” Tony squeezed his eyes shut and sunk his teeth into his bottom lip.
“Fine. Do it.” He opened his eyes and looked at that wonderful face one last time.
Steve seemed to relax. Good. That’s what Tony wanted.
He had a plan; one that involved a living Steve. It went something like this: make Steve thing that he can be the one who is going to die. Then shove Steve to the ground and fucking haul your ass to the edge of the cliff. Then say sorry before jumping and trading your soul for the damned soul stone.
It was going to work. It had to.
“Thank you.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“And you’ll hate me in about two seconds.”
“Wha-” Before Steve could finish that sentence Tony was pulling away and shoving Steve to the ground.
“Tell my family I love them.” He turned to run to the edge of the cliff, but Steve grabbed his ankle and yanked him to the ground.
“Tell them yourself.” He got up just as Tony hit the ground and took off. Tony cursed under his breath before pulling out one of his gauntlets. He fired at the ground near Steve’s feet which caused the blond to jump out of the way, but he lost his footing and tumbled to the ground with a yelp.
“Sorry, Cap.” Tony called and sprinted to the edge.
He didn’t look back before jumping and god he hated himself for it because as soon as he jumped, something wrapped around his waist and suddenly he was attached to the wall and Steve was right next to him.
Tony latched onto Steve’s wrist that had been wrapping whatever the hell around his waist.
“You fucking asshole.” Tony bit out while trying to tighten his grip on Steve.
“I told you it was going to be me.” Steve snapped back.
“And I told you I wasn’t letting that happen. It’s your fault for believing me when I said that I’d let you do it.”
“Yeah well with the position we are in right now it looks like it's going to be me anyway.”
“Steve, don’t you fucking dare.” His grip was slipping. Fuckfuckfuck. “Nononono. Shit, no.” Tears filled his eyes as he realized that his plan didn’t work and Steve was going to die.
“Let me go, Tony. It’s okay.” He sounded so calm. How the fuck did he sound so calm?
“No, it’s not okay.” His hand was slipping more and more with each second and panic was rising more and more with each second. “No, Steve, no, please.”
Steve gave Tony the best smile he could before pushing himself out of Tony’s grasp with the help of the cliff.
“NO!” Tony screamed as he tried to grab at empty air as if that would do anything. A sob cut through his body and tears streamed down his face as he watched Steve hit the ground followed with a sickening thud.
A chorus of “no’s” left Tony’s mouth. It’s all he could manage to say at that point.
Then a rush of air came with a flash of light and suddenly Tony was sitting in a lake with the soul stone in hand.
More sobs plowed through his body as he clutched the dumb, orange stone in his hand.
Now he’d have to fight Thanos without his other half...again.
But this time he’d make sure that they win. He’d do it for Steve.