Steve walks down the hallway, in the direction of the living room. He's in the Avengers Facility, in Upstate New York, just back from a long motorcycle tour of the United States. He's dusty and tired from the road, all his muscles aching.
Music is playing, faintly. He tracks the sound, curious as to what's going on. There isn't much music played around here. It's coming from one of the living areas. He peeks his head around the door. It's Tony. For some reason, he's here. He's avoided this place since The Snap. Steve's barely seen him at all.
He's not the Tony Steve has gotten used to seeing. He's a Tony from a long time ago. He's smiling. Actually smiling, and he looks happy and free. He hasn’t looked like that for a long time, not even close.
Steve steps into the doorway. “Tony?” he asks, almost afraid to make a sound. This is so surreal. It doesn't feel real. It feels like some sort of trap. Tony makes no sign he’s heard him at all -- maybe he hasn't. he just keeps dancing to the music. It's some new, upbeat pop song that Steve hasn't heard before, but that's not entirely unusual. He's still catching upto this new age, even ten years later.
Movement attracts his eye. It's a young boy, a teenager. He's no older than sixteen. He's dancing too, mumble-singing the words and tripping over his unlaced sneakers.
Tony laughs, joining the kid in the middle of the carpet.
What the fuck is going on. “Tony, what are you doing?” Steve steps forward, “who is this kid?”
Neither reply, just keep dancing. The kid knows all the words, getting into it with all of his heart and soul. He beams when Tony joins in, even though he's a bit faulty on some of the lyrics. This is so strange. It's not like Tony at all. Is Wanda doing this?
Steve steps forward, reaching to touch Tony, to shake him out of it, but he spins through his outstretched arms, colliding against him like a ghost. Steve looks down to where Tony was a moment ago, horrified. The living room splinters, dissolving in a multi-faceted sprinkle of what looks like glass but fades before it reaches the carpet. Steve looks around. The boy is gone. Tony is still there, slumped into an armchair facing him. This is the real Tony Stark, drunk to oblivion with a few - empty - bottles around him.
"Tony?" Steve asks, noticing a little black device streaming light like a projector.
He looks up, eyes refocussing. “Oh," he says. "Hey, Cap." Tony's slurring, all his syllables tumbling around like his mouth is a dryer. "What -- what happened?"
"What are you doing here?"
Tony shrugs loosely. "It's hooked up to the system here. Takes a lot of power, y'know? I had to work it into the specs of this building... Doesn't work at home, there's not en--enough supply." He stumbles only slightly, and his eyes are clear. Count on engineering to sober Tony up.
Steve takes another look at the little machine. BARF. Of course. "What were you looking at?"
"Peter."
Peter? He doesn't know any Peter. “Who is that?” Steve asks, stepping forward.
Tony looks at his feet, where a few empty bottles and a whiskey glass lie. He noses one with his food, clearly empty. He scoffs. “Peter? You’ve met Peter.”
He shakes his head, saying simply, "No."
“In Germany. The airport. You fought him. Threw a boarding tunnel thing at him."
He threw a boarding tunnel at Spider-Man.
Oh. Tony brought a teenager to a war-zone.
Steve sways, feeling as drunk as Tony, with how slowly his mind is moving as he connects these dots. “Wait...what?” he stammers out the question. A white-hot rage fills him at the thought. That boy was sixteen, and Tony brought him to fight half of the Avengers.
"You know. Underoos. Spidey."
"He -- he was just a kid."
Tony shrugs. "We weren't meant to be fighting. I made him a suit," he says it like a weak explaination.
"That doesn't --" Steve cuts himself off.
"He was running around the city with a hoodie before."
“So you made him a suit and sent him in to fight a battle?” Steve says, trying to keep his voice steady.
Tony’s forehead draws together, “it wasn’t meant to be a battle, Cap. It was meant to be a negotiation." The billionaire gathers up his shoulders and slumps them in an exaggerated shrug, “I guess it didn’t turn out like that.”
"You're crazy."
He actually laughs. "You're not the first person to say that, Cap."
Steve shakes his head. "Where -- Where is he now, Tony. Is he okay?"
He looks at him blankly. Then, an expression of pure pain bleeds through. Steve connects the dots, quickly. “He...he died in my arms, you know,” Tony says quietly. “The closest thing I’ve ever had to a kid, and he dies in my arms. Just my luck, I guess.”
All the air is punched out of him. Steve takes too long to reply, “It's not your fault,” he says, stiltedly. His voice is as sincere as he can make it. To Tony it probably just sounds fake. Steve's had to say that a million times this past year. To Nat and Thor and himself and practically every second person he meets. Just not to Tony ever before.
"Pepper says that too. She tells me not to blame myself, you know? But -- this....it was my fault. I brought him into all of this. I shouldn't have. I never even...I didn't wanna meddle with the kid too much, y'know? We never danced, like this. Never got close. I didn't even know him, just enough to realise what I was missing out on." Tony swallows, his throat working, adams apple bobbing. "The truth is: no. No. I -- he was with me. He followed me to space." He leans over, hiding his head in his hands. When he next speaks, his voice comes out muffled, but it's like he can't stop it. "He tried. So hard. We were winning. We were. Then... Missouri just -- It all went wrong."
"Yeah," Steve says bitterly.
"Sometimes I think that if he stayed on Earth, his chances would have changed. Someone else would have gone, not him."
Steves shrugs. "We all think that. A meter to the left, it would have been me. I don't think it really matters."
Tony doesn't respond.
Steve sits in the silence; the silence of the empty compound weighing on them, and the atmosphere and the world above it too.
Tony clears his throat, suddenly. "Pepper's pregnant," he announces, with little ado.
Steve blinks, "oh. Wow. Congratulations."
He shrugs. "Pepper's excited, of course. I can't -- can't believe it."
"It's a good thing," Steve says, not convinced himself.
"Everything in my life has ended badly," he snorts, and gestures between them, "look at us. What about this?"
“I’m sorry, Tony," Steve whispers. He's not sure what he's apologizing for, but he thinks of an airport in Germany and the way Tony looked at him when he found out about his parents. That pure look of betrayal, he'll never forget. He rocks his head back, clenching his eyes closed. His headache is banging painfully against his skull. Everything has turned to so much shit since they lost.
He chuckles the ghost of a laugh and looks over at him (even a little fondly. Steve has forgotten they used to be friends). He murmurs, “me too.”