Chapter Text
The black suit made its way from the treeline, almost unnoticeable except for the red lights attached. It looked like a monster. A human. What’s the difference? Tony stepped into view, and saw all the Avengers in one spot. At the sight of Tony, they froze. Although the plan hadn’t gone accordingly, all of them were still out here, nonetheless.
“Hm. Hello, again, I suppose. How are you all? Oh wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. It’s not like you ever asked me that anyway.” Tony took a deep breath, and began his speech type thing. “Goodbye, Avengers. Hello, Revolution. I am the revolution. I am the savior. I am the one true hero of our time, of our earth. And you, well, you are nothing. You are just a bug on the bottom of my shoe I get to squish. Just an insignificant speck. Hmm.. I’m gonna have a lot of fun, tearing you apart. Piece by piece. And I know just how to do it.”
“Tony. Stop this madness, this.. this shit! You are acting like a child! You are saying that you can destroy us? Well, we’re the fucking Avengers, and we beat Thanos. You can’t destroy us. You can try, but you cannot.” Steve looked smug with his statement, while the others looked nervous. They knew how powerful Tony was, even without a suit. But Steve, well Steve didn’t seem to get that. And that’s his problem.
“Mhm. So, Stevie, you punk, I guess I took all the stupid with me to Hydra, then, huh? Maybe I got torn apart, lost an arm in a train accident, fell a couple hundred feet, ringing a bell?” Tony smirked, because he knew that talking about Bucky like this would really get Steve hurt. Especially when Bucky was dead. Steve’s eyes went wide, and tears glistened at the edges, ready to spill over.
“You- you take that back. Now.”
“Hmmm… no.” Tony replied obviously content with the minimal damage he’s doing. There is so much more he can do to Steve. But it’s best to save worst for last. He turned to Natasha.
“Ah, Natasha. You once fought at my side, but then turned your back on me for them. I wonder how the children are doing! Oh wait, never mind. The Red Room ruined that for you, huh. What a shame. All the ballet dancing and the guns. The blood, the tears. The countless times you killed people to please. The innocents. The blood on your hands, on the walls, in your hair. The screams of anguish, kids killing their friends, kids killing themselves. Boo hoo. The children you saw, molded into spies and weapons for the Soviets. The total destruction of orphan girls lives, their innocence taken from them. Remember Snow White? The brainwashing? The poor ballerinas who broke their feet performing for you. The ceremony seemed to go well, all things considering. It really sucks that Clint isn’t here to see you cry. I bet he would’ve told you that you never fail.” He sneered at Natasha, whose face showed no emotion… but her eyes were screaming for help, pleading, crying to get out of the place Tony sent her back into. Oh, how fun. She won’t be able to get out of that anytime soon. Tony smiled at his work, successfully breaking down the spy. “Oh, and one more thing. Rogers knows who got you in there.”
Natasha screamed, her mind not being able to take the flashbacks. The horrors. The blood. The broken bones, broken skin, broken bonds. The trust she placed in Steve Rogers is gone. She doesn’t know what to believe anymore, and Tony seemed like the best option. She turned to Tony and begged him to do something. Anything.
“Please please please please please.” She continued until her voice ran dry with sobs and screams. The other Avengers watched in horror, half terrified of Tony and half furious at Steve. Tony grinned at his handiwork, and turned to Stephen and Peter, who were rather impressed by him being able to break down Natasha like that. Stephen flashed him a small smile, and he returned it without hesitation. Stephen stepped forward and used his magic to lock Natasha in her nightmares, for a long, long time.
Tony turned to Wanda and Sam. “Not being able to save someone. I know how that feels. I wasn’t able to save Yinsen. Broke my heart, really. But without him, I couldn’t be here today. To show you all. I am here because I am the revolution, the savior of humanity.” He knocked his head back and laughed. “You worthless animals, god, it’s almost funny how sad you are. Oh, wait, it is. I laughed about it yesterday. I laughed. And you wanna know why?” Neither Avenger answered, and Tony continued. “Because I thought of Pietro, and Riley. Aw, Sam, your poor airman buddy. I had to go digging for his name because no one remembered it. Sucks, really.” Sam was in tears. It was an unspoken rule not to talk about Riley in front of Sam. He broke down, and silently sobbed. “You couldn’t save him. It’s your fault. You couldn’t save him. All. Your. Fault.” Tony repeated. He smiled at the shivering form in the dark, and proceeded to attack Wanda. She was the only one who tried to fight back, but Stephen countered her magic and quickly incapacitated her with his own and forced her on her knees. She stared up at the other Sorcerer and huffed.
“You can’t break me, asshole. I’ve been broken too many times to care anymore. Do what you want, it won’t work.” She snarled at Tony.
“Mmm, I know I can’t. But he can.” Tony gestured to Stephen, who entered Wanda’s mind so quick, she didn’t sense him go through her memories and pull out the most painful. Stephen hummed contently, happy to be tearing Wanda apart. He played them in her mind, and used the same spell he did on Natasha, who was still sobbing even though there were no more tears left to cry. As Wanda realized what was about to happen, she made one last attempt to get out of the binds Stephen chained her in. The ropes only tightened around her, pulling her to the floor and cutting into her skin, leaving red, angry marks that dripped blood. She screamed over Tony’s laugh.
Stephen locked her in her mind, and played the memories. The horrible, terror inducing memory’s. Her parents, being killed in front of her, by Tony Stark’s weapons. The blood on her face, the blood and the entrails spattered on the wall. The glass in her arms, the debris trapping her in her home, where she and her brother cried under the bed, when the second shell hit. The terror, the horrors, the war raging around her. Then the memory shifted, and she was in Sokovia again, watching her brother get shot. Even though she wasn’t there when he actually did, she knew the sorcerer was messing with her memories, adding in details to make it more worse than it already was. Her brother, yelling at her to save him. She was running in slow motion to him, and he was falling fast. She didn’t make it on time, and saw his lifeless eyes staring up at the sun. The sun he’ll never see again. The sky, the birds. Her. He’ll never see her again.
Stephen left her head, happy with how he modified it. She looked lifeless, but her eyes conveyed a single emotion. Terror. Her body fell to the ground, paralyzed in fear. Trapped in her nightmares. How fun.
Tony turned back to Steve, who was staring at his broken teammates. His black suit glinted in the moonlight, the red lights casting a hue of evil around him.
“Get up! We can’t let him win!” Steve yelled at his so called friends. He thought they were stronger than this.
“Fuck off, Rogers. You don’t even know what we’re going through, so how bout you shut that pretty little mouth of yours and maybe go jump off a cliff or something. Without a parachute.” Sam sneered, eyes still wet and cheeks stained with tear tracks. He basically told Steve to go kill himself. Honestly, Tony would be better off if he did. Give him 5 minutes, and then he can.
“Hm. Okay, Stevie, lets go to the Stark Expo with these two girls I got for us as dates. You go run off to the army enlistment center while I go and dance with these poor girls you left behind. How bout I go and get myself captured after you got your special serum? Maybe get tortured, yknow, the usual, the way I screamed bloody murder. The way I cried for you. The way I”- Steve cut tony off with a punch to the face.
“SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! YOU DON'T KNOW ME! YOU DIDN'T KNOW US! YOU DIDN'T KNOW HIM! JUST SHUT UP!” Steve continued to punch Tony, who was caught off guard during his re-enactment of Bucky Barnes tragic death. Brought by courtesy of Thanos, bless his soul. Barnes deserved to die, all the things he’s done to Tony.
Stark snapped out of his thoughts of Barnes’ death, and cranked up his suit power. He should’ve told Steve that this thing could murder him in 30 seconds. What an idiot. Running into battles he knows nothing about.
“You don’t know me either, Rogers. You have no idea on what I’m capable of. Notice how they aren’t stepping in? It’s because they know I can destroy you in seconds, I can rip out your throat, your eyes, your heart, quite literally. And hell, I might just do that.”
Tony lunged at Steve, who was still blind with anger. He willed his nanites to create claws, and proceeded to slice down Steve’s arms. Blood poured out of the open wounds, staining the grass below. Steve screamed in agony, but continued to swing.
“Hm, much more resilient than I remembered. Shame, you’d be a great asset to the team with the right tweaking of your brain. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to kill you then. You’re getting in the way of my plans. Oh and Stephen? Be a dear and finish them off, please.” Tony said, ducking under Steve’s punch and landing one in his enemy’s stomach. Tony heard the snap of their necks, the beautiful crunch of bones, bones breaking, nerves and tendons and veins twisting and being severed. What a beautiful song. He would listen to it on repeat if he could.
Steve yelled something along the lines of, “I’ll fucking kill you” or something of the sorts. Tony vaguely heard a clanging noise, and assumed Steve had dropped his shield. And about Steve killing him? How bout Tony kills Steve instead, yeah? That would be so much better. And so he does. In the most painful way possible.
His nanites create a jagged blade, one that tears the muscle and you have to really put pressure on it to break the skin. He applied so much pressure it went through Steve’s arm. The blood dripping from the end of the blade, the strips of skin and muscle and fragments of bone stuck to the knife that got lodged into Steve. He may have well screamed bloody murder, because hell, that’s what it is. Oh, how Tony enjoys it. He enjoys the metallic smell of blood, the taste of his sweat on his tongue, the cries of Steve, echoing across the lawn. What a sissy. Tony only stabbed his arm, not his stomach. That would have been lovely. He should’ve done that. Ah, he’s on a roll though. 3 Avengers and a stabbing victim. Make it 4 soon.
He rips the knife from where it was embedded in the super soldier’s arm, relishing in the squelching sound it makes. Beautiful. Tony then wills his mask to be taken off, so Steve can see the pure glee that he has in killing him. It’s quite an amazing sight, to be honest. Steve, at his mercy, blood gushing down both arms, ragged breaths coming from him. Tony shoved him to the ground, and put his covered hand over his throat. He squeezed, choking the soldier, taking his life, watching it leave his eyes. Almost when there was nothing left, he released, and conjured up a blade so big it was almost the size of Tony’s calf. He stabbed it straight through Steve’s chest, as Steve had almost done to him with his shield.
Steve opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The fight he had was slowly leaving him, taking his life force with him. The last thing he heard was,
“And that’s why you don’t fuck with the Merchant of Death, sweetheart.”