Chapter 1
“Huh, I didn’t know Stark could read Italian.”
They’re standing inside the Starks’ large airy living room, the day’s waning light streaming through the French windows, casting a soft glow on the lovingly carved wooden bookshelves lining far wall. The funeral was over some time ago and most guests have already left, the flowers and the leftover canapés drying mournfully on the buffet table. The Avengers, though, what’s left of them, remain, still milling around the otherwise empty living room, unable or unwilling somehow to walk away.
He looks up, still so lost in thought that Scott’s question doesn’t register with him right away. Frowns in dawning realization as he watches the other man leaf through a thick folio of what looks like poems.
“Oh…uh… his… Tony’s mother was Italian, I think,” he responds, finding his voice strangely hoarse.
“This isn’t going to change what happened.”
“I don’t care. He killed my mom.”
He swallows, forcing down the bitterness of the memory. Waves inarticulately in the direction of the book. “He told me once she taught it to him…”
“Put the book down, please, Mr. Lang,” Pepper’s cold, bitingly formal voice comes from the doorway, and a tangible wave of apprehension settles over all of them as they watch, silent, as she strides purposefully into the room, her shoulders straight, her head held high.
Scott slides the book back onto the shelf so fast, Steve is surprised he doesn’t drop the folio in his haste. And, honestly, Steve can’t really blame the guy: if there’s one thing he’s learned in all the years he’s known Tony it’s that you don’t mess with Pepper Potts; especially not when she speaks in that voice.
“Good,” Pepper nods approvingly, surveys all of them with a sharp frosty look. “And now get out, all of you.”
That shocks Steve enough that he actually rocks forward, mouth already opening to object.
Pepper raises her hand to forestall him. “I let you, lot, stay for the funeral because I didn’t want to cause a scene. Not here, not…” She trails off momentarily, her lips trembling slightly as she visibly struggles for control. “Not today. Not in front of Morgan.” She pauses, casts a quick glance over her shoulder to the hallway beyond. “But Morgan cried herself to sleep a few minutes ago, so...” She turns back to them and there’s the kind of powerfully raw anguish in her gaze that sears right through Steve, makes him want to back down and back out. Repeats in the same cold, implacable voice, “Get out. I don’t wanna see any of you here. Ever again.”
Scott is the first one to move, shuffling awkwardly past Pepper to get to the door. Clint and Wanda follow suit, throwing Steve a sheepish, subdued look.
Steve shakes his head. “Pepper, come on,” he tries, taking a cautious step toward her. “Don’t… don’t be like that. Tony wouldn’t want this.” Behind her he sees the others pause in the doorway, watching the two of them with worried but hopeful looks.
Pepper’s lips twist into something ugly, something bitter. “Now you are concerned about what Tony would want?” she challenges, and even though she doesn’t raise her voice, doesn’t make a single move in his direction, Steve suddenly feels the urge to take a step back. “That’s … exceptionally rich coming from you, Mr. Rogers. Where was that concern when you forced him to work with a Witch who hated his guts and filled his head with nightmares that almost drove him insane? Where was that concern when he fought to keep this team, your team together, and you fought him for it? When you left him to die in Siberia in a suit you drove your shield through?”
She does take a step toward him then, her eyes bright with cold, dangerous fury. “Did you care about what he wanted then, Captain?” She spits out his title like a physical slap. “Did you wonder at all, while you and your team of criminals sat around twiddling your thumbs in Wakanda, whether he wanted to be the one stuck cleaning up your mess? The one left to be held responsible for things he didn’t even do? Did you wonder if he wanted to go up in space? Alone? To face his worst nightmare – the nightmare she planted in his head?” She stabs a finger blindly in the direction of Wanda, who flinches away from it as from a physical blow.
“Did you wonder,” Pepper steps closer still – a billowing pillar of condemnation, “did you wonder, when you all showed up here, demanding that he give up his family for the sake of everyone else’s here… did you wonder if that was what he…” Pepper’s voice cracks momentarily, the fury in her eyes ebbing, the intense blue clouding over with grief, “what he wanted?”
“I’m sorry,” he tries again, wincing at how inadequate the words sound in his own ears. The way Pepper’s whole face darkens in response tells him he should have kept his mouth shut.
“I don’t want your sorries, Captain. What I want is my husband back. Can you do that? Can you bring him back to me and tell him how sorry you are for everything you and your team have put him through? No?” She scoffs at his cowed silence. “Didn’t think so.”
She falls silent then, her eyes closing briefly as her face crumples with anguish barely held at bay. When she opens them again, they are alight with tears, and she raises a trembling hand to swipe it harshly across her right cheek.
“Get out of my house, all of you,” she repeats, voice strong despite her wavering composure. “Go back to your families. I have a daughter to raise, and I am fairly sure that Tony wouldn’t want any one of you anywhere near her. I sure as hell don’t.”
Steve nods, feeling numb all over. Walks over to where the others are filing slowly out of the room, looking for all the world like a bunch of beaten-down dogs. There are no words left to say, no excuses left to give.
He feels Pepper’s gaze on him, heavy and pressing like the barrel of a gun. Somehow the weight of it remains with him even when he leaves the house far behind.