Tony lay on his back, staring up into the ceiling. He could hear the deep, steady breathing from the slumbering form beside him.
They hadn’t talked things out, not really. They had mostly sniped at each other over a woodpile, Tony poking and poking at Steve, because that was the only way he knew how to get Steve’s attention, while Steve poked back with increasing impatience. They had one bed to share, but neither had been up for the usual banter over sharing beds. Instead, they had just climbed into bed, tension high between them.
Going to sleep with unresolved issues was probably a bad idea, but Tony could hardly start having good ideas now, could he? That would make the world implode or something.
After staring sightlessly up at the ceiling for an interminable amount of time, Tony gave up and decided he needed some water, more for something to do rather than to quench any real thirst he had.
He slipped out from under the blanket quietly, making his way through the dark with only the weak moonlight to guide him until he rounded the bed and felt his way to the door. It opened with a quiet creak, but when Tony looked to the bed, the pale silvery moonlight against Steve’s face showed that his eyes were still closed and his soft rhythmic breathing hadn’t changed. Reassured that he hadn’t woken up his assigned bed partner, Tony stepped out into the dark hallway.
He hesitated, his feet feeling strangely heavy, his whole body filled with a reluctance to step forward. He was struck by a strong sense of wrongness as he stared out into the darkened hallway filled with deep shadows. Was it normal for it to be so dark? The inky blackness of the hallway seemed almost impenetrable. He could vaguely make out the faint outlines of where the walls were, a suggestion of a framed mirror on one side, an old lighting fixture on the other. The doorway of the bedroom against his back almost called to him in its comforting security, which didn’t make any sense. Tony was a man of science; he wasn’t spooked by the lack of lights in the middle of the night.
Why then was his heart speeding up? Why did his skin prickle and his stomach turn over when the wood creaked ahead of him, like something had crossed over it but he couldn’t see anything? Did Clint have a cat? Except it sounded too heavy to be a cat...
Tony shook his head, tried to relax his shoulders that he had realized were creeping up to his ears. It was nothing. He was used to his modern structures, all chrome and steel and concrete. He hadn’t spent time in an old house like this, consisting of wood and brick and mismatched furniture, out in the middle of nowhere. He just wasn’t used to all the typical sounds that came with it.
Not that he could hear any usual sounds you would expect from somewhere so far from the city. There were no owls hooting, no rustling grass, no crickets, no…wolves or whatever. Alright, maybe he didn’t know much about what it was like being far from the city; even his rare holiday getaways from the bustle of work tended to be at a sandy beach or a foreign city, rather than at a farm in the outback. Maybe that was why he felt spooked, maybe he just wasn’t used to all this country farmhouse atmosphere. Which apparently leaned towards dark and eerie.
Reminding himself that he wasn’t afraid of the dark, Tony took a deep breath and forced himself to step forward. Then, he took another step. There. He could do this. He walked down the hallway towards the living room, padding on quiet bare feet. The house sighed and creaked around him, and Tony suppressed the urge to speed up, to turn back.
The living room was filled with shadowy shapes of the furniture, very dimly lit by the weak moonlight drifting in through the open windows. Forcing himself to walk by the living room at a measured pace, he thought about turning on the lights but ultimately decided against it because he didn’t want to wake anyone else up. There was no need to inflict his insomnia on the rest of the Barton family and the Avengers.
Tony walked through the small dining area into the kitchen. As he rounded the spotless kitchen bench with its neat array of appliances on one end, his footsteps stumbled to a halt as his vision had a brief moment of…misalignment. Did he…did he really see…
For the briefest of seconds, between one blink and the next, he thought he saw a cracked dusty kitchen counter, a fridge stained yellow and cabinet doors that were missing or hanging off their hinges. A sudden dead silence from a place that was long disused and forgotten.
But then that flash of broken image was gone when he stared around wildly, wide-eyed as he took in the humming fridge with the childish crayon art stuck to the front of it, the tidy appliances plugged in to the walls, the microwave numbers blinking the time: 01:23.
Tony took a deep breath. He was just seeing things in the dark. Imagining things because he was unsettled from the day’s events.
He went to the tap and filled up a clean glass with water. After he had his drink, he would head straight back to bed. While things had been awkward with Steve when they had gone to bed together, his sleeping companionship would be a comfort to Tony right about now.
Tony brought the glass up for a drink and then jerked in surprise, almost threw the glass to the ground. What the fuck? In the weak moonlight, the clean water he had filled his glass with was suddenly murky and brackish, a musty smell of stagnant water suddenly drifting up to his nostrils. He saw…a ripple. Something moved inside the water, and Tony almost gagged as he saw a white worm wriggle on the surface, tried to cling to the side of the glass. Tony set the glass down hard on the counter.
“What the fuck,” Tony whispered, eyes fixated on the glass as he realized that...there was nothing wrong with it. The moment the glass touched the stone bench and left his hands, the water seemed to return to its normal clear consistency. But Tony knew what he had seen and smelled, his hands growing clammy and his back breaking out in cold sweat at the memory of that wriggling fat white worm in the dirty water he had been bringing up to his lips.
Feeling thoroughly disturbed now, he was just taking a wary step back from the glass on the counter when he heard a soft whisper from outside the kitchen. The hair on the back of Tony’s neck stood on end as the soft, high-pitched giggle reached his ears. It was coming from the living room.
There hadn’t been anyone in the living room when he had walked by it. It had been oppressively quiet and empty, he was sure of it. His skin crawled as the soft whispering voices and giggling continued to echo, the sound slithering closer.
He took a deep, slow breath, tried to steady his now racing heart while his body seemed to be seized with a ‘fight or flight’ response. There had to be an explanation for all this. Maybe…maybe Clint’s children had snuck out of bed?
Or maybe this was a hallucination, the start to a panic attack. Except it didn’t feel like a hallucination, nothing similar to what he experienced after the trip up the wormhole. He didn’t feel spaced out, like he wasn’t in control of his body as flashes of what happened in New York crept into his vision. Right at this moment, he felt solidly present in his skin, nothing in his head clamoring to take over. And yet, his eyes had seen that glass of clear water suddenly turn murky, and now he was hearing whispers from the living room, where there hadn’t been anyone earlier.
His gaze drifted to the stove and oven, wondering if it was a different type of hallucination, if there was a gas leak. But even in the dim light, he could make out that the knobs were in the right places. And there wasn’t any smell of gas in the air.
Only the smell of dust, dust and mustiness from a closed-up room, except that smell was gone again the moment Tony focused on it.
Tony told himself that he was Iron Man, and he wasn’t going to let strange tap water and creepy voices stop him from investigating what the hell was going on. Not to mention that he couldn’t just stand in this kitchen for the rest of the night. That would be very stupid. He tried to imagine Clint laughing at him in the morning, rolling his eyes at Tony Stark being afraid of an old farmhouse. But for some reason, he couldn’t picture the place flooded with light right now. All that filled his senses was a lifeless kitchen steeped in shadows, dank smells he couldn’t place, and those unexpected papery thin voices drifting in from the living room.
Walking slowly, feeling like a coward for his thundering heart and the goosebumps prickling across his skin, but also very stupid for heading towards the lilting giggles and young voices, Tony reached the doorway of the living room and forced himself to step through. The mismatched couches cast long shadows in the dark, and he couldn’t see anyone immediately, but he could still hear the chilling giggles. Despite his own mental reassurances, his breath was coming in short and shallow now, in a spike of adrenaline, as he walked further into the living room, straining to see what he was hearing. He stepped right up to the back of the couches.
Then, he saw them. Where the room had been empty of people before, there were two small figures on the floor in front of a bulky couch. Tony froze in place, only to recognize the dark heads of Clint’s children. The boy and the girl were playing with something on the floor, giggling and whispering together, mostly obscured by the shadow of the couch. Maybe they really had snuck out of their bedrooms. Tony let out a deep breath and stepped into the living room.
“What are you little rebels doing up so late?” he asked, keeping his voice low and quiet.
The little girl had her back to him and her head of dark pigtails turned slowly to look up at him. Tony stumbled back, choking on air in horror.
She had the face of a corpse, dead for days in the ground, skin bloated, gray and waxy, blue eyes filmed over and bulging out of the sockets as wispy, stringy dark hair fell out of their braids to lie limp around her face. Tony’s mind clamored with horror, tried to make sense of what he was seeing, tried to explain away how she wasn’t clearly dead. His heart tripped as he watched her cracked blue lips spread wide in a ghastly smile.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, showing a glimpse of distended black tongue, her voice high and raspy, rattling out of little bones. A small maggot crawled out the corner of her cracked-lipped smile as she tilted her head. “You won’t tell daddy, right?”
Tony felt something tight grip around his arm and he let out a strangled cry as he swung around, ready to punch, kick, scream, just get the fuck out of there. But his other flailing hand was caught in a tight hold, and he was brought to his senses by a familiar voice.
“Calm down, it’s me,” Steve said, reassuringly large and familiar at Tony’s side. His eyes were silvery blue in the pale moonlight, his expression unreadable as he tugged Tony nearer. “Come here.”
He pulled Tony back from the mismatched couches until they stood with their backs against the living room wall. Tony stared wildly around, looking for the dead children…but they were nowhere to be seen. They were gone, the living room empty except for the shapes of the dark furniture. It was shadowed in here, filled with an air of strange stillness, but there were no corpses grinning at him.
Tony looked up at Steve, realized that he must have come into the living room from their shared bedroom, walked right up to his back while Tony had been gawping at...well, nothing. Tony had missed Steve’s approach completely, because he had been too busy being terrified out of his mind at dead children who weren’t really there.
“Steve, I think I’m sick, I think I ate something and it’s— I’m hallucinating,” Tony said, voice barely a croak as he gripped Steve’s wrist in turn and looked around the room in a panic.
Except Steve didn’t say anything reassuring at this point. And Tony felt a chill go down his back as he realized he could feel Steve’s racing pulse under his own grip.
“I saw them too,” Steve said in a grim voice.
Tony swung around to stare up at Steve. “What? Who?”
He was desperate for it to be a misunderstanding, because being sick from bad chicken would be infinitely preferable at this point. But Steve’s sharp jaw was clearly clenched, expression set in tight lines as he scanned the living room for danger or maybe exit points. “I was looking for you when I heard children laughing and saw…them.”
Tony swallowed hard and said almost automatically, without thought, “You don’t even trust me to get water on my own?”
“Tony, is now really the time?” Steve asked, exasperated as he turned to give Tony an incredulous look.
That exasperation helped Tony feel a little more grounded and he shook his head, a little embarrassed. “You’re right. Sorry.”
“Thank you,” Steve replied after a short hesitation. “And I was worried when you didn’t come back to bed. I didn’t want you to be stewing over what happened on your own. I just don’t know what you’re thinking.”
Tony was surprised at the candor and also felt a stirring of gladness that Steve had been worried about him, that Steve didn’t want him to wallow on his own. And there was also a spark of interest at the words ‘come back to bed’ from Steve’s very own lips, directed at Tony. Now wasn’t the time for it at all, but he couldn’t help the internal shiver of delight at hearing that, even if he never expected to hear those words in a situation like this. Tony shook his head, trying to concentrate. He knew his mind was probably scrambling for something else to focus on rather than giggling dead children in the living room and dirty worm-infested waters.
“We… we should talk. After, maybe after we wake the others,” Tony whispered.
“Yeah, something isn’t right,” Steve agreed, sounding disturbed, which only served to disturb Tony more, because Steve just didn’t sound like that. Not usually.
They backed down slowly to the hallway, away from the living room that seemed devoid of people but didn’t feel empty anymore. He swore he could feel something watching them, could feel eyes following their retreat. When they stepped into the hallway, Tony thought he saw again that flash of disused furniture, crumbling curtains, a house falling to pieces and uninhabited. There was a glimpse of two small figures as well, two children sitting on the floor, stiff, dead, milky eyes fixed on them as they smiled with broken, yellow teeth and bloodless lips. The sound of their eerie, unnatural laughter spilled out in strange starts and stops, like a broken recording.
From the way Steve’s fingers dug into his arm, Steve probably saw and heard it all too.
Tony swore under his breath as they stumbled towards their open bedroom door. But there was the mirror hanging on the wall in the hallway, and even though Tony tried not to look, his eyes were drawn to it as they hurried past, and he almost tripped over his feet at what he could see in it.
Laura, long dead Laura stood behind their reflections, staring at Tony with bulging rheumy eyes. Matted hair clumped down on one side of her waxy skin, and dark black blood leaked down her ears, down from her cracked open mouth. Then just as suddenly, she was gone, disappeared like she hadn’t been there. Before Tony could gasp, could speak, she was there again but closer, right behind them this time, pale dead face with unseeing eyes looming over Tony’s shoulder so that he could see every crack on her bleeding lips, see her matted lashes and bloody strands of her hair. Her reflection in the mirror was so close, it was like she was pressed up against his back. Her head turned to Tony, her bleeding black mouth opening beside Tony’s ear and he felt her cold breath against his skin…
Tony swung around, instinctively bringing up his arm straight out like he could fire a repulsor blast, except he was in Clint’s pajamas, not the suit. And there was nothing there, there was nothing behind him in the hallway... except the mirror had shown him! Someone right at his back, a dead something pressed against his back, oh god—
Steve yanked him hard inside their shared bedroom and slammed the door shut. Thoughts racing, Tony reached out blindly and found the switches by the door, feeling relief flooding through him as the ceiling lights snapped on and filled the room with yellow brightness. Bed, dressing table, writing table, window, and not a walking dead body in sight. Everything seemed so mundane under electrical lights, none of the impenetrable blackness from outside their temporary bedroom.
They were both panting like they had been running an all-day marathon instead of just running down a few feet of hallway. Hell, Steve was probably more composed after an all-day marathon. Now, he was doubled over, hands on his knees as he tried to steady himself. When he looked up, he was grimacing and a little pale, checked over his shoulder once at the closed door as if he couldn’t help it.
“You saw her too?” Tony asked in a shaking voice. “Standing right...behind…” His shaky voice gave out at the end, as he remembered the looming, rotting face right at his ear.
“Yeah,” Steve replied hoarsely as he slowly straightened.
He took Tony by the elbows to look him over as if examining him for injuries. Tony did the same to Steve, drawing his eyes over his solid, present frame, reaching out to brush over Steve’s shoulders as if to check that he was really there. He seemed reassuringly real compared to whatever crazy freak show was happening outside.
Once Steve seemed to have reassured himself that Tony was all in one piece, he took a deep breath and visibly pulled himself together.
“Any theories?” Steve asked, a hopeful tone in his voice.
Tony gave him a sideways silent look, and Steve looked sheepish as he explained, “I was hoping there was a logical explanation for this.”
“Ghosts and dead people are outside my wheelhouse,” Tony said waspishly, trying to stop the tremor in his hands.
Steve frowned, brushed a hand down Tony’s arm before resting it loosely around his wrist, as if feeling his pulse. Tony let him, felt comforted by that hold, even as his skin still crawled at the memory of that image in the mirror, of that dead body plastered against his back, the sensation of rotting flesh leaning against him.
Tony shuddered.
“Maybe they aren’t ghosts?” Steve asked, clearly looking for an explanation or a distraction.
Tony’s mind raced, because as frightening and real as it all seemed, maybe there was an actual logical explanation for all this. He nodded, started speaking his thoughts aloud, “We can both see it, so it’s not something affecting us individually. Maybe we’re seeing some kind of vision? Is it a leftover side-effect from what that Maximoff girl did to us?”
“Us? When did she get to you?” Steve looked up with a frown.
Not wanting to get into other visions where he would have to bare his greatest fears, Tony waved his hand. “Never mind that. Maybe it’s something in the air if we’re both affected. I was thinking about gas leaks earlier. Carbon monoxide poisoning that leads to hallucinations is a leading cause for all the supposed ghost stories out there. It’s colorless, tasteless and odorless, so it’s our best bet.” Tony grimaced. “But that wouldn’t explain why we both seem to be seeing the same thing. And with your superserum, your body should be dealing with the poisoning at a much quicker rate, so you shouldn’t be as susceptible.”
Steve looked uneasy. “You were saying something about food poisoning earlier, but if it was that, we wouldn’t be seeing the same thing as well.”
“There has to be a rational and scientific explanation for this,” Tony said, trying to stay calm.
Suddenly, the door creaked and the doorknob slowly twisted open.
“Holy fuck,” Tony swore, pulse leaping in a jolt of fear.
His mind raced, thinking about his armor only to discard it as an option because it was in the fucking quinjet outside. Maybe he could grab the chair in front of the dressing table and use that as a weapon, but could that even stop potential ghosts or the undead?
Steve stepped in front of him, body braced for an attack because he was a self-sacrificial idiot. There was no way Tony was going to stand for that so he tried to shoulder Steve aside to get in front instead rather than just watch Steve be killed by ghosts.
The door creaked open.
“Guys?” Natasha looked unimpressed at the sight they made, both trying to push forward while probably looking pale and terrified.
Tony stared at her in the loose pale blue shirt, probably a loan from Clint, and said, “How do we know it’s really you?”
At the same time, Steve muttered, “Damnit, Nat, I almost had a heart attack.”
“I thought you didn’t like that kind of language on this team, Cap,” Natasha said with a smirk.
Tony slumped back. “Yeah, that’s her.”
Natasha came into the room and closed the door behind her.
"I heard you in the living room," Natasha said, walking to the dressing table in the corner and leaning against it. "I thought I should come explain."
"Explain. Not ask about the noise," Tony said, realization dawning.
Steve was just as quick on the uptake because he was saying, "You know. You know about...what we saw." He finished awkwardly, obviously unable to say the word hanging in the cool, tense air between them.
"Yes, about Laura and the children," Natasha said, completely calm, like she was talking about the weather.
Tony felt even more shaken for some reason. He had been ready to fight whatever it was that came through the door, then he had been ready to have to explain to Natasha what the hell they saw, to have to argue and justify and convince her. Her casual acceptance made what happened too real, something they had to accept. He looked around the room with a flash of paranoia, but saw nothing beyond the slightly dated furnishings.
He felt Steve brush against his side in silent reassurance. The comforting weight of Steve's presence was enough to thaw some of the chill inside of Tony.
"Is it some kind of a nightmare? Do they have powers of projecting their nightmares?" Tony asked desperately, even as he knew it wasn't likely to be true. But Nat had said Laura and the children, these were Barton's family. She couldn't mean...
He could tell that she did mean it from the way her green eyes softened, not in pity but in unexpected sadness that clearly hit her hard as well.
"Oh, Tony," she sighed, and then took in a deep breath. "I wish that was the truth. But you know it's not."
Tony felt like he had taken a blow to the gut, felt the breath freeze in his lungs.
From the way Steve spoke through gritted teeth, he must have felt the same as well. "What happened?"
Natasha held their gazes steadily as she started, "First of all, you should know that you're safe. This is a safehouse, we wouldn't have brought you here if it wasn't safe."
Tony gestured to the door of their bedroom, feeling a little overwhelmed. “That…that was safe?”
“You’re unharmed, aren’t you?” Natasha pointed out, unmoved by his incredulous look. “It’s scary, because you haven’t experienced this before. But the moment Clint brought you in and introduced you, no harm would come to you under this roof.”
“I think you should start from the beginning,” Steve said firmly.
Tony subsided when Natasha looked away for a moment, like she was struggling to think of how to start. Then she shrugged and looked very tired as she spoke, “There isn’t much to tell. Clint had a family. Once. All that he said earlier, about keeping them safe and off the grid, it was true. And they lived here. He came back here between missions. But one day, about five years ago, he came home and they were…dead.”
Tony didn’t know who reached out first but he found his hand clenched in Steve, both seeking comfort at this cold but painful retelling.
“They had been dead for days,” Natasha said quietly. “It wasn’t SHIELD related. It was just a robbery gone bad. Some guy who got caught mid-theft and didn’t want to leave witnesses. The farm was— isolated, and had no connection to SHIELD at all so it wasn’t under surveillance, which meant no one knew until Clint came back and found…the bodies.”
“What happened to the guy who did it?” Steve asked, a tremor of buried anger under his voice.
“Clint went after him. Dealt with him,” Natasha replied simply.
Steve nodded slowly, accepting what had happened so long ago.
“And what we saw outside?” Tony asked, quiet.
Natasha shrugged. “No one can really explain it. Clint took an indefinite break from SHIELD and I finally came looking for him three months later. And they were all…here. Clint was living here, with his family, like nothing changed. I tried to get him to leave, but he wouldn’t. It took me awhile to accept and understand that this is just something he has to do.” She hesitated, as if struggling for words. “You saw them this afternoon, they aren’t always obviously dead. It’s only at night when what they really are becomes visible.”
“Does Clint think they’re still alive?” Tony asked, tamping down on a shudder as he struggled to decide which would be worse; Clint having a mental breakdown and thinking the ghosts of his family were still alive, or Clint making a conscious decision to continue life with the ghosts of his family.
“I don’t think so,” Natasha said, face drawn and grim. “But no one is really sure. I think…he pretends. That’s all.”
It was only because they were pressed close together and practically holding hands that Tony felt the slight shiver run through Steve’s body.
“I don’t know which is worse,” Steve murmured, which was Tony’s exact same thoughts.
Natasha continued with a sad shrug, “He doesn’t visit as often as he used to, when they really were alive. It’s why the farm is falling apart, the ghosts obviously aren’t actually doing anything, and he just isn’t around to maintain it enough. And no one can come in here without Clint’s invite, not without being terrified out of their minds. Even with Clint’s invitation, none of us can stay for more than a day.”
Tony was wide-eyed as he asked, “What happens after a day?”
“Did you see the condition of the kitchen?” Natasha asked. At Tony’s answering grimace, she nodded. “Nothing in here is really functioning. During the day, things are better and they seem real enough. But if you stay more than a day, keep eating and drinking here, you grow sick. Clint brings his own rations from outside, that’s what we’re eating. But nothing lasts in here, not even the food.”
“What a way to keep living,” Tony said, scrubbing his other hand over his face.
“He seems…happy,” Steve pointed out hesitantly.
“It isn’t easy, but it’s the only way he can still have his family. He’s trying to move on but he still comes home, a little more rarely now, maybe a few times a year,” Natasha explained.
Tony asked quietly, “Why won’t they come inside this room? The weirdness seems to stop at the bedroom door.”
“These guest bedrooms are extensions of the house that Clint built after they died. The ghosts never come into the new rooms.”
“So they won’t harm us if we stay in the guest bedrooms?” Tony checked.
“They won’t harm you at all, even if you’re outside,” Natasha corrected, matter-of-fact.
Tony frowned. “Laura... she was pressed up against my back. And saying something. What was she doing then if she wasn’t trying to at least scare us shitless?”
He grimaced, trying not to get into how terrifying that had been, trying not to let his disbelief at Natasha’s words seep out.
“They’re not...all there at night,” Natasha said, sighing. “You can’t see or hear them consistently and it’s not easy for them to communicate. I’m not sure if they really know that they’re not really alive anymore, and they can behave oddly when they think you’re ignoring them. She was probably trying to get your attention and ask if you were alright while you were fleeing in terror.” She added the last part with a wry smile to indicate that she wasn’t serious.
Tony rolled his eyes at her, trying for a semblance of normalcy. “There was no fleeing in terror. Just some rapid walking in the expediency of time.”
“A jog at the most,” Steve agreed drily, and then he asked Natasha, his tone serious, “Why didn’t you tell us about this earlier? We could have done with a heads up after the day we had.”
Natasha raised an eyebrow. “How do you think that would have come across? Would you believe me or think it was more of whatever the twins did to us? Without experiencing it, I’m not sure anyone is going to buy a story about how some things you see in this house aren’t real and the people are all ghosts of Clint’s long dead family.”
Imagining how that conversation would play out, Tony let out a snort of amusement. He looked at Steve. “She’s right, you know.”
Steve sighed, rubbing his free hand against his brow in an unexpected show of tiredness. After a short moment of silence, Steve observed, “I guess we had better stay in here for the night.”
“That would be a good idea,” Natasha agreed. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow anyway. I would appreciate it if you didn’t say anything. Not to the others, or to Clint. Bruce is still sleeping, so he has no idea, and it would just be pressing on old wounds for Clint.”
Steve nodded. “I don’t think anyone else needs this on their plates.”
Tony shook his head. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Thanks,” Natasha said, pushing off from the dressing table. “I’ll get some sleep now. Try to rest if you can.”
She gave them each a measured look and opened the bedroom door. The darkness seemed complete and almost solid outside their lit bedroom. As she closed the bedroom door behind her, they heard her say quietly, “Hi, Laura. Yeah, they’re okay, you should get some rest too.”
Tony’s felt the back of his neck prickle with sudden cold sweat at the thought of the rotting dead woman standing outside their bedroom door, waiting for them. His hand tightened automatically on Steve’s, and Steve squeezed back reassuringly.
Their hands had been clasped for so long that it felt almost natural, but the movement still made Tony look down at their joined hands in secret wonderment. As much as he wished otherwise, he knew he couldn’t get his hopes up that Steve felt the same rush of warmth and longing at this little bit of contact. Tony tried to tell himself that it didn’t mean anything, they both just needed comfort from the knowledge that Clint’s dead family with their maggots and matted hair were lurking outside their door. How the hell were they meant to rest knowing that?
“I’m not sure how we’re going to be able to sleep,” Steve said, which was a relief for Tony to hear his own thoughts echoed back at him.
“Can we…can we leave the lights on?” Tony asked hesitantly.
Steve gave him a sideways look, eyebrows raised. “I would think you’re crazy if you suggested switching the lights off, after what we just saw and the story we just heard. Just because we know they won’t harm us doesn’t make everything we saw any less disturbing.”
“Never thought I would hear the day Captain America admitting he was afraid of something,” Tony said, almost unthinkingly.
“Captain America on the battlefield might not, but the only person you have here right now is Steve Rogers,” Steve said, looking at Tony with a steady, unhappy gaze.
And Tony got what he meant, understood the unsubtle attempt to remind Tony that Steve was more than just his uniform. Which Tony did know that. On most days.
Tony sighed and nodded. “Point.”
“And I could say the same. Never thought I would hear the day that Tony Stark believes in ghosts and is afraid of them,” Steve said, trying to inject some lightness in his tone.
“That would never happen if I hadn’t seen them with my own eyes,” Tony murmured.
He suppressed a shudder at the memory of the dead children in the living room, their gray pallor and bloated faces. He didn’t know when he would ever sleep again, but he also knew he couldn’t stand upright like this for the rest of the night, not when they had to consider taking the fight to Ultron in the morning. Forcing nonchalance, Tony released his grip on Steve’s hand, wondering if he imagined the way Steve seemed to hold on, seemed reluctant to let go.
“I want to get my feet under the blankets. It’s a little cold,” Tony said, and moved onto the bed to do just that. He leaned against the headboard, legs tucked under the comforter. On the other side of the bed, Steve did the same. There was no awkward distance between them now, their shoulders instead pressed together, seeking warmth against the frightening reality outside their bedroom.
“I can’t imagine living like this,” Steve said, the quiet horror thick in his voice. “What I saw…the vision that that Wanda girl gave me… I thought I was still living in the past, that I was trying to hold on to it. But it’s nothing compared to what Clint is doing.”
Tony looked up sharply. “You saw your past?”
Steve grimaced and explained, his shoulders tense and drawn in as he seemed to force the words out as steadily as possible, “It was confusing. We were in a dance hall, and... I understand Peggy being there, because we never did get that dance. But it wasn’t just Peggy there. There were injured soldiers and gunfire in the middle of all the dancing and laughing. Peggy told me I could go home and I turned around to talk to her, but everything disappeared and the place was empty. I was just...alone.”
Tony blinked. “That, uh, seems like a trip.”
“And not the good kind,” Steve agreed wryly, earning an uncertain smile from Tony.
After a brief silence as Steve gathered his thoughts, he went on in a low, halting voice, “I miss my friends, and I miss Peggy, even when I’m visiting her. I still miss how things were. And I think maybe...some part of me also misses being back in the middle of the war. Maybe that’s why I saw a battlefield in a dance hall, because I don’t know how to live a life beyond war, not anymore. Because maybe that’s all I’m good for.”
There was a short moment of silence when Tony felt almost seized with shock that Steve was confiding in him, opening up about his fears. Then processing what Steve was saying, Tony took in what he had gone through. He realized how much that mindfuck must have affected Steve for him to be saying all of that, and suddenly felt completely fed up with everything that had happened, everything that had been done to them. They fought so hard and tried to do their best, but they were put through the wringer over and over again, with no end in sight.
Reaching out impulsively, Tony caught Steve’s hand again, and gripped it tightly. It was a little awkward without the spectre of ghosts hanging over them, but Steve only looked up in surprise, before reciprocating the hold, gripping back.
“Steve,” Tony started, sounding a little hoarse, so he cleared his throat before continuing, “You do so much more than just fight. You’re inspiring— even on a daily basis, but more than that, you’re a good man. You fight because you think that’s where you’re needed most, not because you’re only good for fighting. Maybe...maybe you saw the war in that vision because you lost your family and loved ones in the middle of one. It’s not surprising that you think back on those days, on the girl you left behind, and wish you could go back to that.”
“But I—” Steve started
“No, listen,” Tony insisted. “Stop beating yourself up for being human. After all the crap you’ve gone through, is it any surprise that some wacky telepath could stir up some crazy stuff in your head? You say you’re just a dude from Brooklyn—”
“Pretty sure I’ve never used the word ‘dude’—”
“—just a dude from Brooklyn, but you hold yourself up to impossible standards. Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Tony finished, and then added because he couldn’t help himself, “And maybe don’t be so hard on us, too. We can’t all be Steven Grant Rogers.”
Steve let out a short laugh. “As long as you take your own advice, on both counts.”
“Do as I say, not as I do,” Tony said with a flippant wave of his hand, looking away at the same time because he suddenly found himself unable to hold that strangely bright yet soft gaze.
After a moment’s pause, Steve said quietly, “What I was actually going to say was that maybe you’re right about some of that, but you’re wrong about one thing. I don’t want to go back anymore. I did, in the beginning. And I still miss everyone badly, but I have friends and loved ones here too, now.”
Tony startled, turning to look at Steve. But Steve didn’t meet his surprised stare, not at first. He just looked down at their joined hands for a good long minute. But Steve was eternally brave and he finally lifted his head up, blue eyes wary as he met Tony’s stare.
“I meant it,” Steve said, brave and defiant, even as his shoulders seemed hunched in, braced for a fight.
But there was nothing about that statement that Tony wanted to fight.
Tony opened his mouth and unexpectedly, with no preamble whatsoever, said, “I saw you dying.”
Steve blinked, taken aback at the sudden shift in topic. “What— When?”
“Before all of this,” Tony said, gesturing with his right hand that wasn’t clenched in Steve’s hold. “Before everything. Before I even started the crazy attempt to use the sceptre. Now, I’m thinking it might be that Wanda Maximoff girl and her mental mojo. But at that time…I thought maybe it was some premonition from standing so close to the sceptre. I thought…” Tony trailed off, his voice cracking, and he drew in a trembling breath. “Everyone was dead. Everyone was dead and I was the only one left. I saw you die, because we weren’t ready for an attack beyond Earth’s ability to defend. Everyone died because I didn’t do everything to save you all and I was going to have to watch you die and—”
Suddenly, Tony found himself drawn into Steve’s arms, his heart rabbiting away and his breath short as he remembered the life fading from accusatory blue eyes, the pulse stilling under his fingers, the sight and feel more frightening than any dead corpses in broken farmhouses. Tony bit down a choked sob, feeling like his chest would collapse at the memory and idea that Steve Rogers would no longer exist in this world, would just be a cold dead body, nothing of that fire and strength left behind.
His arms came up to clutch desperately at that broad back, squeeze Steve in return even as he was enveloped in Steve’s warm embrace. The hug was a surprise since Steve didn’t go around hugging people, but it was pure relief to be able to press his cheek against Steve’s shoulder, to know Steve cared and to feel that reassuring weight surrounding him. He buried his face in the crook of Steve’s neck, breathing in that familiar warm scent and allowing every part of his body to soak up the knowledge that Steve was alive, alive, alive.
He felt Steve stroke his back in comfort, curve a protective palm over the back of his neck. Tony closed his eyes and breathed in, felt himself really relax for the first time since he had seen the vision of a world dead around him.
“I’m here,” Steve murmured into his hair. “We’re all still here.”
Steve pulled back a little and Tony found himself involuntarily making a noise of protest. But Steve was only pulling back enough to look Tony in the eye from much too close a distance, his blue eyes looking a little wide, before they were too blurry and close to look at because Steve was leaning in and…
It was the softest brush of lips against Tony’s mouth, the lightest of kisses that caused the greatest wash of sensations and emotions. Tony gasped, feeling like he couldn’t breathe, his face awash with heat, his stomach tightening and heart pounding in immediate reaction.
Then Steve was pulling back, the faintest of flushes against his fair cheeks. “We need to talk when we’re…calmer. It’s been a crazy day and night. Can we talk again? Later?”
Tony looked at Steve’s face, really looked. He could see the brightness in those clear blue eyes, how he wasn’t as unmoved by the day’s events as he was trying to be. There was an uncertain cast to his expression, completely out of place in Steve’s usually stoic and confident demeanor, who never hesitated because he always knew the right thing to do.
Tony was constantly in awe at how brave Steve truly was, and he was feeling it all over again now, in the face of Steve’s uncertainty but determination to reach out for what he wanted.
He couldn’t leave Steve hanging.
Leaning forward quickly, he pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Steve’s lips in answer, with enough pressure so that he knew Steve would feel the brush of his facial hair against his lips. Tony pulled back with a smile, letting Steve see the happiness that crinkled the corner of his eyes, the warmth that he felt at this turn of events. It was Steve’s turn to draw in a sharp breath, to look at him in wonderment. Steve’s hand came up, touching his own mouth where Tony had kissed him with a kind of breathless reverence.
Tony smiled at Steve. “For you, I’ll make an exception about this talking business.”
Steve’s lips pressed together like he was trying not to smile but his eyes were dancing. “Tony, you love talking.”
“But not about my feelings,” Tony said with an exaggerated shudder. “Neither do you, let’s be honest.”
“True, we’re not prone to discussing that,” Steve conceded. “But maybe we can try.”
“Yeah, we can,” Tony said, with the feeling like they were already talking about more than just their future conversation, about trying something else altogether. He felt almost giddy with excitement, and nerves, and damn near happiness at the idea that Steve wanted to try this, that maybe they had a chance together. The thrill when they kissed, even that mere brush of their lips, was just a hint of the magnetic draw that lay in the undercurrent of all their interactions.
They looked at each other for a silent minute, eyes locked in silent acknowledgement and postponed excitement. Then they leaned back against the headboard together, not moving further apart, arms still curled around each other.
“Do you think Bruce knows?” Steve asked quietly.
“Knowing Bruce, if he knew, he would either be out of the farmhouse immediately or he would be interviewing them, for the sake of science. Don’t let his curly-haired bespectacled look fool you. Out of all of us, he’s the real mad scientist,” Tony pointed out.
“Oh, I know. I remember how he ended up with the Hulk,” Steve said wryly. “What about Thor? He’s more shrewd than he pretends to be sometimes.”
“I always wondered about Thor…”
It felt like it would be impossible to fall asleep after what they had seen tonight and after the revelations between them. Instead, they talked into the wee hours of the morning, skirting direct mentions of the presences outside their room. And to Tony’s surprise, he did fall asleep. He found himself waking up to the rising sun pouring in through their window directly onto his face. He would complain except he also found his cheek resting against the world’s most comfortable pillow. He tilted his head up a little to see that somehow, in the night, they had both laid down on the bed and Tony had pillowed his head on Steve’s chest. There was Steve’s comforting arm around his shoulder, holding him close, and Tony had snaked an arm of his own around Steve’s waist.
Tony looked further up to see Steve slowly blinking awake at his movements. He got to watch as bleariness was replaced by simple joy in Steve’s beautiful blue eyes as he met Tony’s gaze.
Tony smiled. No matter what happened today, no matter the revelations of the night, he knew they would be alright.
-
Everything seemed surreally normal. The children were laughing and chasing each other, Laura smiled at them and greeted them cheerfully while Clint looped an arm around his wife’s waist and kissed her cheek.
It made Tony’s skin creep and from the sight of Steve’s pale face, he didn’t feel any better. He couldn’t help but imagine the gray bloated corpse in Clint’s arms, the giggling dead children with maggots crawling out of their bodies running around in the bright sunlight. Tony felt almost physically ill. They both made their excuses about checking out the quinjet and spent the rest of the morning there instead.
It was almost a relief when Fury called for a round table to discuss their next steps and they made their decisions; Tony was heading out to the Nexus to figure out who was stopping Ultron from getting the nuclear launch codes, while Steve would lead half the team to find Helen Cho and potentially, Ultron. They made their preparations, took what supplies they needed.
Tony stood at the front of the quinjet. He would part ways with Steve up in the air, after the quinjet was further away from the farmhouse and Tony went in a different direction from the others in the Iron Man suit. He noticed how Laura didn’t come out any further beyond the woodstacks. The children stood motionless by her side, not setting a foot beyond the pile of chopped firewood, which was unusual for a couple of previously rambunctious children.
Laura and the children lifted their hands and waved in eerie unison, and for a brief flash, Tony swore he could see pale rotting flesh, crawling maggots and bulging eyes, the grisly yellow bone of hands with flesh half-rotted away.
Tony shuddered and waved back, before hurrying into the quinjet. Angry robots that quoted Pinocchio in sing-song didn’t seem such a terrible thing to face anymore.
Steve looked up from where he was examining the straps on his shield and smiled at him. Tony haplessly smiled back.
To be fair, even dead families didn’t seem so bad, not when he could face them with Steve by his side.