God, I hated you...
That Morning…
Tony was sitting in the tower on the sofa feeling pretty shit. He didn’t know what to do, how to feel, what to think. Steve said he’d meet him, alone and talk, no government, no SHIELD, no Bucky, no Avengers. Just Steve and Tony. Tony really really could not believe they would just ‘hash it out’ and be done but he also knew he needed to do this, for his own piece of mind, for the worlds even. (Mainly for himself but hey let’s not feel too selfish here yeah?)
When Steve had picked up the phone after what felt like the one thousandth ring Tony had stayed silent, silent long enough that Steve had tentatively said ‘Tony…?’. Tony had taken in a breath but couldn’t speak so Steve asked again. ‘Tony is that you?’ and Tony had managed to crack out ‘No this is Bob I found your number on the wall of a toilet in downtown Manhattan.’ The sigh and chuckle of relieving tension from the other end made Tony squeeze his eyes shut and dig his fingers into his face.
‘Tony… I didn’t think you’d call.” He sounded tired, or half asleep, but just the way he said his name was making Tony struggle to breath through his anger.
“I didn’t think I’d call either.” Tony gritted his teeth at the way he sounded, bitter, resentful, hurt even. Not a great start.
“I’m glad you did.” Steve let the words hang through the phone.
Tony swallowed hard. “We need to talk Steve, we need to sort some shit out, don’t make me regret this call.”
”Tony I –“
“We need to talk, properly, face to face, keep your little winter soldier away from me.”
“Okay, anywhere you like Tony.”
“Come to Stark tower alone, there’ll be no one here Steve I promise.” He could almost see Steve hesitating. “Just trust me Steve, you owe me that much.”
He was sure Steve nodded over the phone when he replied “Okay. I’ll be there in three days; I’ll call you as soon as I get there.”
And now Tony was waiting for that call, no one knew he was here but Pepper and she had cleared the building out. He expected Steve to arrive incognito, in jeans and a god awful baseball cap and aviator shades like he normally did when hiding. In some butt ugly little car that belonged in the 40s just like Steve did.
The phone rang and Tony jumped, startled out of his reverie. He stared at it for a moment before shaking his head and grabbing it. Here goes nothing. He flipped up the phone case and put it to his ear once more.
“I’m here.”
“Sending the elevator down, doors will open as soon as I hang up.” Tony closed the phone without another word and stood up and went over to the wide window that served as a wall. He stared out of it, at the landing deck, memories flooding through him of what used to be. Remembering Loki’s fall here, and how they did it as a team, as a family.
“Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…” He muttered to himself as he heard the penthouse elevator getting closer.
He was not expecting it. Nope. Not a bit.
“What the fuck are you wearing?” Was all Tony could come out with when Steve walked into the suite, but this Steve was different. His walk was slow, tentative. It made Tony mad, how dare he be the hesitant one!
“Really Stark?” Steve tried to sound confident but it didn’t work. He looked down at himself and crossed his arms, he was in his suit with a jacket over the top, he shrugged the jacket off and hung it on a peg on the wall and moved closer.
He stood on one side of the steps to the sitting area and Tony stood on the other by the window. They were so close but it felt like there was thousands of miles between them, and a barrier so strong neither could break it alone.
“Yeah really, seriously you expect me not to comment? Do you actually own clothes?”
Steve sighed and dropped his arms to his sides. “I wanted to be ready for anything.”
“By anything you mean me fucking you over?”
Steve sucked in a breath; Tony could almost hear Steve’s heart hammering in his chest, mirroring his own.
“No, I trust you Tony, but I don’t trust the rest of America.” Steve kept his gaze steady.
“You say that like you’re not part of it.” Tony returned the gaze with a glare.
“I’m not anymore am I? I’m not welcome here, I’ve never really been welcome here, I was kidding myself thinking I could ever be. They pulled me from the ice with a purpose in mind and that purpose is long gone.”
“So where have you been? You and-“ He couldn’t bring himself to say the name, so just let the implication hang in the air between them.
“Bucky is gone.” Steve swallowed hard and Tony looked at him, really looked at him, he saw Steve almost turn away from the look in his eyes. “He put himself back under; he’s gone until they can help him, get the control off of his mind. He can’t deal with what he’s done, you can hate him all you like but he is doing the right thing.”
“Jesus Christ you’ve been here five minutes and you’re already defending him. Why is it so hard for you to just accept what he did?! He’s the WINTER FREAKING SOLDIER FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!” Tony threw his arms in the air, feeling himself go red.
“He’s my friend! You think I haven’t defended you to others for some of the shit you’ve done in your past.” Swearing, Tony was certainly getting to him, good. "You think I haven't heard the same tone used about you?"
This stopped Tony cold. “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare use me in comparison, you know what I never did? Murdered someone in cold blood with my bare hands!”
“It wasn’t him!” Steve moved closer and Tony stood stock still, he wasn’t sure he could move and not punch Steve. “He was brainwashed, why won’t you get that? You’re willing to look past all of us and what we did and we’re willing to look past what you did because we can all see the person behind it but Bucky? Bucky was forced to murder people like a puppet with no free will of his own and you can’t look past that. You had a choice, Widow had a choice, Bucky doesn’t.” Steve was breathing hard now, his chest rising and falling and his fists clenched. “We’ve all had a wake up call in our lives, Bucky had his and put himself under, that was his choice, like your choice to stop building weapons. Bucky is a weapon, that’s what you like to call us now right? Bucky has neutralised the threat that he poses.”
“Neutralised? Until some other whack job scientist decides he wants to make him his play toy again and then boom we have the Winter Soldier on our hands again, how many times must this happen before we actually manage to kill him, and probably you in the process. Do you know just how close we were to killing each other over this whole thing? Can you look me in the eye and say you weren’t prepared to kill me for him?”
“Why do you always have to make this so personal Tony! You did the same thing for the accords! You had to make it about you, about the kid that died because of you, not about us or about anything else but you. Newsflash not everything is about you!”
“You obviously do not read magazines.” Tony grumbled spitefully, “this isn’t just about me, but everything. What would have happened to you had you killed me? Do you think you’d have been left in peace like you have been? You know why that is? Me! I’ve been keeping them off you, doing my best to convince them to not have the search for you as top priority. They’re out for blood Steve, but not only that, if you killed me your life would be over! You would never be able to be America’s golden boy, you’d become a villain in your own right and you would be hunted down and killed.”
“And yet you asked me to meet you here?”
“Really? Wow. This place is probably the most secure building in Manhattan, shoot maybe America I’m sure I could hack the Pentagon if I wanted to. I asked you to meet me here because if something happened you could get out alive.”
“You weren’t so willing to keep me alive the last time we saw each other.”
“You? If I wanted you dead you would be, so would your rockabilly bionic friend.”
“I don’t believe that, you lost Tony.”
“I lost because I held back, you didn’t, I held back because of you, not because of him. Through out everything that has happened I have always been classed as the wild card. But where Bucky is involved there is no sense to you, you would have killed me that day if you had needed to and I couldn’t bring myself to do the same. You’ve become dangerous, something none of us expected of you. I certainly never thought I’d reach a point where I actually thought you were going to kill me. God the only reason you didn’t was because of your little hat trick with my arc reactor. Tell me you wouldn’t have. Please dear god.” Tony looked away and dragged his fingers through his hair. “Tell me I’m wrong.” Tony looked back to Steve, who wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“I want to say you’re wrong, but I don’t know.”
Tony stepped back to the window and Steve stepped forwards, reaching out slightly as if he could reassure Tony somehow but Tony didn’t want to hear any of it.
“Do you understand what you did? All for him? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU PUT US THROUGH?!”
Steve took another step. “What about you? Do you have any idea what you did?”
This time Tony stepped forwards, they were closer now, both standing by the seating area with nothing in between them anymore.
“Yes! YES I FUCKING DO, I RUINED EVERYTHING, I TORE THIS FAMILY APART BECAUSE I WAS TRYING TO PROTECT THEM AND NONE OF THEM COULD SEE IT. EVEN THE PEOPLE WHO TOOK MY SIDE COULDN’T BEAR TO HURT ANY OF YOU AND SO THEY LET YOU GO TOO. DO YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT? DO YOU THINK IT DOESN’T KEEP ME AWAKE AT NIGHT? DO YOU THINK I DON’T RECOUNT EVERY MOMENT FROM LAST YEAR IN MY HEAD, WONDERING WHAT I COULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?” Tony could barely breathe, he felt his chest constricting like a vice around his heart and he took gulping breaths of air, sniffing and shaking his head, trying to not let his emotions take over completely.
“I’ve spent the best part of a year alone, wandering about, staying with different people or on my own. I’ve been unable to stay in one place too long or stay with anyone too long because I can’t, because what happened haunts me. What you think you were the only one? The only one kept awake at night? The only one staring at that phone for hours on end? I tried and tried and tried to hate you, hate all of them but I couldn’t.” Steve’s whole body was tensed and heated.
“No, you can’t hate anyone can you? You know I wanted to hate you for so long, then I met you, and I tried to give myself reasons to hate you but I couldn’t. And then this. We were a family all of us. We used to have parties and tell jokes and train together. And there was me and you, keeping this family together, your ridiculously overwhelming sense of justice and my genius keeping the world turning as it should.” Tony’s shoulders dropped, though the anger was still radiating through him.
“I thought families were meant to squabble.”
“There’s squabbling, then there’s trying to murder each other over terrorism, not very family like.” Tony retorted with a disgusted look.
“I’m sorry, have you met Thor?”
“Touché.” Tony felt the rage fading, reverting back to sarcasm because he didn’t know what to feel or what to say.
Somehow, during the shouting and the arguing they’d ended up standing in front of each other, maybe a couple of feet away, Steve had backed away during Tony’s rant and they were near to the elevator.
Tony clenched and unclenched his fists a couple of times, he had so much more he wanted to say, but he had no idea how to say it without screaming.
“I get the feeling that you want to hit me.” Steve was watching Tony’s hands carefully, but not nervously. There was always that calm acceptance about Steve that drove Tony mad.
“You’re damned right I want to hit you”, Tony stalked past Steve and turned around. “I want to punch you in your perfect teeth as usual but once it seemed like a good, fun idea and now it feels like retribution.”
“It would be.” Steve kept his gaze down.
“Excuse me?” Tony stopped his pacing and gave Steve and incredulous look. Here we go. He marched up to Steve and narrowed his eyes, his jaw set.
“Retribution, you deserve justice.” Steve looked up at him and Tony had to remember how to breathe as he nearly bit through his lip at the look Steve gave him, how dare he.
“Well you know what? You can shove your justice right up your perky little –“
And then it all went to hell.