Chapter Text
Steve was the only one at the Tower when it happened. He’d stopped by on Tony’s invitation to go over some plans for the new Avengers complex, which they were planning to build from one of Howard’s old weapons storage facilities. It was the first time they’d been in a room alone together since, well, New York, and Tony found himself far more anxious than he had any right to be.
The truth was, for all he’d resented Steve as a teenager for stealing his father’s attention and affection, he liked the man. It was impossible not to, really.
Even if it seemed clear that Steve had no interest in being friends, let alone anything else, with a man like Tony.
Sure, they’d gotten off on the wrong foot. Tony had never seen a reason to censor himself in meeting new people, and it hadn’t occurred to him until later on the Helicarrier that Steve had taken his jibing to heart. By the time he’d flown the nuke into the wormhole all that existed of their relationship were a few hostile exchanges and the discovery that, despite all that, they worked pretty well together as a team. Then they’d eaten shawarma and gone their separate ways. Steve hadn’t even called him in when SHIELD had fallen, a sure-fire signal that Steve barely thought him a teammate, let alone a friend. Then the Avengers had gotten together again, first to mop up what remained of Hydra in SHIELD, and then to search (unsuccessfully) for Loki’s staff, and every embarrassing feeling Tony had tried to quash came back with a vengeance. He wanted Steve to like him. He wanted Steve to look at him like… like he meant something to him, like he deserved all of the goodness that Steve had to offer.
Instead, Tony did what he always did when there was a chance he felt a lot stronger for someone else than they did for him. He resolved never to admit a damn thing to anyone, and made sure to annoy Steve just enough to make sure he never, ever guessed it himself.
They were seated at one of the middle-floor conference tables in the Tower now. Somehow, its empty length made Tony uncomfortably aware of how close they were—Steve a mere foot or two away from him, their knees almost brushing under the table as Tony spread out holograms of floor plans and a helipad and the new gym and a living quarters for all of the old and new Avengers.
“This is amazing,” Steve said sincerely, his clear blue eyes bright with enthusiasm as he examined the specs for the gym.
It was far too close to how Tony wished Steve would look at him. Time for a little deflection.
“Really? Not too civilian for you? Think you can handle barking out orders in a place that has a rock-climbing wall?”
Steve’s expression dampened, and he let out a slow breath through his nose. As if Tony was finally delivering on what he’d been expecting the whole time. “I think a rock-climbing wall sounds incredibly useful for training. Widow and Hawkeye scale buildings all the time.”
Tony shrugged, and Steve went back to examining the plans, his expression far more guarded.
“What’s this?” he asked a few minutes later, pointing at the corner in one of the common areas.
“Bar,” Tony said easily.
Now, Steve did let out a loud sigh. His eyes grazed over Tony with that look that always made Tony think he was seeing someone else—probably Howard, with a drink in his hand. “A bar? In the complex. Really.”
“Come on, who doesn’t love a martini after a mission gone well,” Tony said. “Gotta let loose sometimes.”
“This would be the official Avengers base,” Steve said, frowning at him in a way that made the pit of Tony’s stomach drop out. “We have to send a message, Stark. People look up to us. Kids. You can drink on your own time.”
Now, something like real irritation was building inside him. As if he was the only one who ever enjoyed a drink. As if Steve’s abstinence somehow made him better. “We’re not all soldiers, Cap. And you might be the leader of the team but it doesn’t mean you get to call all the shots.”
Steve glowered. “For once, can’t you just—“ he started, then broke off with a disgusted sigh. “I am the leader of the Avengers. You’re the one who still has to learn the importance of following orders. Of discipline and self-control. Like I said. You can drink on your own time.”
“Right, sure," Tony said derisively. He hated how Steve could make him feel, defensive and inferior all at the same time. Like he was trying to get under Tony's skin like Tony got under his. It made Tony want to retaliate, like he had back on the helicarrier, other feelings or no. "Orders make the world go round. I bet you miss having people tell you what to do, don’t you? That has to be what this is all about. SHIELD, oh wait, I mean Hydra, is gone and now no one tells you when to wake up in the morning or wipe your ass.”
Suddenly Steve was standing, both hands braced on the table as he towered over Tony. “What is your problem?” he ground out. “I would never willingly follow orders from Hydra. You know that.”
Tony shrugged, guilt tugging at his chest as he wondered if maybe this time he’d gone too far. Still, he was glad he’d managed to rile Steve up enough to avoid having to deal with any of his emotions or, god forbid, let Steve see any hint of them. He had learned a long time ago that it was better to be hated than to be vulnerable.
Steve sat down again with a huff, pulling the nearest hologram toward him. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Then the lights went out, the holograms fizzling out with them. It didn’t go completely dark—there were tall windows in the office’s west wall, and late afternoon sunlight was still filtering in—but it was shocking nonetheless. Steve looked at Tony like it was his fault, somehow.
“JARVIS?” Tony called.
No answer. Definitely not good. The lights of the nearby city, reactor-powered since the Chitauri incident, twinkled below them. No freak reactor failure, then, either, not that his reactor would ever fail.
A thrill of panic went through him. After Operation Clean Slate he only had two working suits finished and they were both on the upper level of the tower, about thirty floors above them. His breathing started to quicken. Shit, shit, why hadn’t he kept more suits? Suits he could call from a distance, suits on every floor? He was useless, useless…he couldn’t get enough air, he couldn’t think…
“Stark. Let’s move,” Steve said, beckoning toward the door. He’d already scooped up his shield from where it had been resting against the wall, and every vestige of annoyance was gone from his face. They were back to being teammates, which was easy. “Whatever this is, we don’t want to be trapped here.”
Tony nodded, forcing himself to breathe and think and move and hope Steve hadn’t noticed his near-meltdown. There were things no Avenger, and especially not Captain America, should ever know.
“Up,” Tony said tightly, pulling them toward the stairway. Climbing thirty floors on foot would be far from pleasant but JARVIS was compromised, the elevators were definitely a no-go.
He could feel Steve’s hand on his back, a steady presence guiding him forward. It made him feel a little better, then pathetic for feeling better. The hand disappeared after a moment anyway.
Tony forced himself to keep breathing and took them around the corner to the nearest full length stairwell and darted into it, Steve close behind him. They tore up the steps taking two at a time. It wasn’t long before Tony was gasping, while Steve bounded upward easily. Still, Tony didn’t slow down, focused totally on getting where he had to go. Floor 82. The nearest suit was on Floor 82. Twenty more to go… ten… five… three… two… one…
He burst out into the hallway, doubling over as his lungs—weakened as they were on a good day by scar tissue left over from the reactor—refused to keep bringing him oxygen. He felt Steve’s hand on his shoulder again, steadying him, but pushed him off as he regained his breath enough to straighten up. Steve didn’t care that much about him. Not really. “This way,” he gasped, and tugged Steve toward the upper lab and landing pad where he kept the Mark 45.
With the exception of a gauntlet, which was sitting on the lab bench for some minor detailing, the suit was resting behind a door in a small alcove on the other side of the room. Tony threw up his arms in the gesture that would call the armor. The gauntlet he’d been working on was the first to arrive, closing around his right hand with a series of comforting mechanical clicks.
His relief didn’t last long, as two things became obvious.
The rest of the armor wasn’t following, knocking ineffectually against something behind the door.
And he and Steve weren’t alone.
The figures swarmed out from around corner that led to the other wing of the upper lab. There were at least a dozen, dressed in drab grays and masks, and carrying an impressive array of weaponry. Reflexively, Tony glanced at the barrel of each one, checking for the distinctive STARK INDUSTRIES label. Small comfort. Wasn’t there.
Tony didn’t waste any more time in firing his repulsor, and the first intruder went down just as Steve’s shield zinged across the room and took two others. Their argument forgotten for the moment, they fought with their usual effectiveness, taking down several men in the course of seconds.
Then Tony saw something small and metallic lodge itself in Steve’s chest right over the heart. His first thought was that a sedative dart was useless given Steve’s resistance to drugs, but then Steve’s eyes flashed a chilly, glowing blue before fading back to their normal color and Tony realized it was so much worse than that. Steve’s shield bounced back to him but he didn’t throw it again, instead standing rigidly. Then he dropped it with a clang.
Tony froze when Steve did, his repulsor still aimed at mass of intruders, his mind churning. He couldn’t fight them all off without Steve’s help, not without the rest of the suit. And Steve was clearly down for the count. Even if Tony didn’t know what glowing blue eyes meant (and God, did he), Steve’s unnatural stillness, and the voluntary loss of his shield, spoke volumes. That meant Tony had two options. Fight—not likely to work—or run—leaving Steve at the intruders’ mercy.
Easy choice.
He fired at another intruder, and another. They both went down before a voice—one of the masked goons near the back—called out in an accented voice, “Rogers! Stop him.”
Tony fired again but suddenly Steve was between him and the goons, blocking his shot. His eyes looked totally normal, apologetic even.
“Steve,” Tony said, not sure what to do as Steve positioned himself right in front of his repulsor. Mind controlled or not, a point blank shot to the chest was more than even Steve could bounce back from, and he couldn’t—
“Incapacitate him,” the goon in the back ordered.
Steve grabbed Tony’s gauntleted hand in one of his own and his bare forearm in the other. His face was grim, emotion warring behind his eyes, but he didn’t stop. He brought his hands together in an abrupt motion.
Tony heard the bone snap before he felt it. And then, shit, he felt it, pain pulsing from the new joint in his arm just above the wrist. The gauntlet was still on his hand, and it felt hard and cold through his shirt as he clutched his arm instinctively to his chest.
Steve wrestled his arm back into his grasp and pulled the gauntlet off roughly, making Tony cry out, then tossed it to the floor beside his shield.
“Stark is incapacitated,” Steve said.
The goons seemed satisfied. Tony could only stare in horror as they surrounded him, wondering how the hell things had gone so bad so fast. Together, he and Steve should have been able to deal with a bunch of whoever-these-guys-were handily… except that was all predicated on Tony having his armor and Steve being on his side, because clearly, clearly, this had not gone so well.
One of the goons came up from behind him and tugged his arms behind him (good for another strangled yell), then cuffed his wrists behind his back. His broken arm seared with pain, pain rolling out from the break and spreading fire through his arm. Tony bit his lip to keep from crying out again, tasted blood, and stared at Steve in disbelief.
Steve had been compromised. Steve, the best man he knew in every sense of the word, had been taken over just like that. He thought about how he'd accused Steve of loving to follow orders and wondered if there was a such thing as Karma after all. Except this was far more a nightmare for Steve than it was for him, being forced to do the bidding of evil men. Tony had known that, too, when he’d been running his mouth about Hydra.
He felt a pinch in his neck, and everything went black.
The pain was the first thing that broke through the comfortable blankness of unconsciousness. His head hurt. His arm really hurt. Tony’s first thought was hangover, but that didn’t quite fit. He’d barely been drinking at all since Iron Man (well, relative to before), and he remembered being with Steve, who didn’t drink, though there had been something about a bar. Also, hangover really didn’t explain the arm.
He blinked hazily, an unfamiliar room coming into view. More sensory input was both a good thing and a bad thing, as it told him he was somewhere he had never been before, but also brought with it a wave of nausea, an increased stabbing just behind his right eye, the awareness that his mouth felt like it had been lined with nasty-tasting cotton.
He had to focus. He was somewhere he’d never been before, and his memory was all wonky because… drugs, right. A fight. Someone had shot Steve with a dart that made his eyes glow blue, then Steve had broken his arm.
God. What a day.
Now Tony was crumpled on the floor of a white-walled cell a little smaller than most of the closets at the Tower, his face pressed into the white linoleum floor and his knees curled up toward him. His arms were still cuffed behind his back. Small blessings—he could only imagine what the pain would be like if he’d landed on top of them. He couldn’t see his right arm very well, but he’d broken enough bones to know exactly what it would look like. A useless limb twice its normal size mottled with deep blue and black bruising. Assuming he’d been out a while, which, if the pounding in his head was any indication, he had.
He forced himself to focus again. Nothing he could do about the arm now. He had to get up and figure out where he was, and how the hell he was going to get out and save Steve. That was the most important thing.
First step. Get up. Easier said than done, sprawled on his stomach with his legs half folded beneath him and his arms pinned behind his back. He managed to turn more fully onto his side, then rotate his legs under him so he was kneeling. From there he braced his shoulder against the white-tiled wall and shimmied up to a standing position. He slipped a little at the end and banged his back and arms against the wall. The pain nearly whited him out but he managed to stay standing, breathing past the pulsing agony and the nausea and the damn indignity of it all.
The cell was so featureless as to make an examination of it almost unnecessary. White tiled floor, white tiled walls, white ceiling. The door was made of a brushed metal and took up most of one of the narrower walls. Tony walked unsteadily around the perimeter, but there didn’t seem to be any hidden doors or slots for food or anything else. Knocking his shoulder against the door confirmed that it was firmly in place, no give in the hinges or the bolt, not that Tony had been expecting any. A small dome in the corner of the ceiling was probably a camera, and Tony spent a few minutes leering at it just because he could.
Finally, he eased back to the floor, settling into an awkward kneel with his shoulder resting against the wall. He thought about easing his wrists around his ankles to get his hands in front of him, but quickly discovered that that was a terrible idea.
The minutes ticked by slowly, with nothing to measure them except the throbbing ache in his arm and head, and the fact that he seemed to get thirstier with each passing second. He worried, about himself and about Steve and about how the hell he was going to get them out of this. The cherry on top was the ever-present gnawing of guilt as his mind insisted on replaying every moment of their last conversation.
An eternity later (maybe an hour, maybe three), the bolt moved on the other side of the door with a heavy clank.
Tony scrambled up, heart racing, adrenaline sharpening his senses and dulling the throbbing in his arm.
The door swung open. It was Steve. Just Steve.
Tony could have melted in relief. Just Steve, without an escort to give him orders like he had last night. That probably meant Steve had shaken the mind control and was here to save him. Tony could have laughed. Of course he had. Steve Rogers had basically invented strength of will, and for all he talked about following orders Tony knew he’d disregarded more than one in his day.
Steve strode forward and punched Tony with Mack truck force in the jaw.
Tony dropped like a stone, landing on his ass and falling to his side with a cry as the impact jarred his arm. His ears were ringing, the world spinning dizzily around him. His jaw ached fiercely where Steve’s first had caught him.
“Steve,” he said, because he couldn’t think to say anything else, couldn’t quite fathom what was happening.
That was when the goon from the Tower rounded the corner. Tony recognized the man’s short blonde hair and thick build, though his features had been obscured by a mask the night before. The man smiled and said, “Good, Rogers.”
Steve’s face contorted, a moment. “Please don’t make me do this."
Tony stared up at him, wide-eyed. He’d assumed that, like Barton during the Chitauri incident, Steve had essentially left the building. If, somehow, his Steve, the real Steve, was conscious and aware that he was being forced to do this…
“Hit him again,” the man said. “Make it hurt.”
Steve’s face went blank as Tony instinctively tried to scramble back, hampered as he was by his pinioned arms. There was no point, of course, and Steve covered the distance in an easy stride and lifted Tony by the collar with one hand and shoved him against the wall. Tears sprung to Tony’s eyes as his arm hit the hard tile and he had just enough time to gasp at the pain before another fist swung in to catch him squarely in the gut.
All the air left his lungs and he crumpled back to the floor, gasping and choking and trying not to gag. This was a nightmare.
“I’m sorry,” Steve said, standing there with his arms at his sides and a gross expression of sympathy on his face.
Somehow, that made it worse. It was going to be hard enough getting through this without having Steve’s puppy dog eyes sending shards of sympathy through him. He couldn’t afford to feel bad that Steve was beating the shit out of him, no matter how much he knew it had to be torture for Steve to have to hurt a teammate. (The thought that it was probably easier to hurt him than anyone else wasn’t worth dwelling on.) After all was said and done, sure, but guilt and more confusing feelings would only get in his way now if he were going to find a way to get them out.
Tony spat out the blood that had pooled in his mouth from the first blow, smirking because at least he knew how to get Steve to stop looking at him with anything like affection.
“Fuck off,” he said. Simple, sure, but he’d had enough practice pissing Steve off to know his audience.
Steve’s eyes widened a moment before his face slackened again into an expressionless mask. This time, though, Tony was sure it wasn’t the mechanical blankness of whatever they had controlling him. No, that was pure Steve, clamping down on emotions he didn’t dare show. But what, exactly, he was clamping down on now, Tony wasn’t sure.
Steve just said, “Hydra requires your cooperation.”
Hydra, then. Well, that explained… a little bit, anyway. They had been the ones who had gotten their mitts on the staff after New York. Perhaps they’d been able to simulate the staff’s energy enough to reproduce the mind control effects—though apparently, without the total devotion that the staff had engendered. Steve was following orders, but he’d clearly retained some of himself.
Still, if that were the case…
“Why would a guy with a mind control gun need my cooperation?” Tony asked.
The main Hydra goon chuckled, a good, old-fashioned bad guy chuckle. The two men who had entered on either side of him were taking notes, glancing up at Steve.
“The mind serum is useful for obtaining mechanical cooperation,” Main Hydra Goon said. “I can make Rogers do whatever I want—and I’m pleased to see that even his fondness for you hasn’t created a problem.” (Tony almost snorted at the thought.) “I could make him kill you. I could make him kill himself. However, the serum’s powers are limited. We need not only your obedience, but your creativity. And that is a far more difficult thing to force without resorting to… more conventional means.”
“I’m not building anything for you,” Tony said tiredly, grimacing as another couple of pieces fell into place. He forced a new smirk onto his face, though his lip was swelling where Steve had hit him and it distorted the effect a bit. “You do remember what happened to the last guys who tried, don’t you?”
“The… ‘last guys’ did not have Captain America on their side,” Hydra Goon said. “Nor did they have this.” He produced a small vial of clear liquid out of a jacket pocket, holding it up to let it sparkle in the light. In his other hand he held a needle.
“Yeah, and?” Tony said, watching it nervously. “What’s that?”
“Another little something our labs have concocted,” Hydra Goon said. “This is a truth serum.”
Tony closed his eyes for a moment, reigning in his disappointment. Let loose in a well-stocked lab, he was fairly confident he could find a way to break them out—he’d done more with less in Afghanistan. But deception was necessary for a plan like that.
“Let’s give it a try, shall we?” Hydra Goon said. He stuck the needle in through the bottle seal and filled it with liquid, squirting out a small amount to rid the shot of air bubbles. Then he handed it to Steve. “Rogers. Administer the serum.”
This time, Steve swallowed but his face didn’t change. He took the needle steadily and advanced on Tony again.
“Please don’t try to move,” he said, fixing Tony with that azure gaze that would have made him squirm for entirely different reasons under any other circumstances. “If you move, this will only be harder on you.”
“Screw that,” Tony muttered, and slid backward against the wall. Hell if he was going down without a fight, or at least a flight, no matter how pointless it was.
Steve caught up to him easily and spun him around by the shoulders, pressing his front against the wall. Tony’s cheek smashed into the cold white tile, leaving a thin smear of blood behind. He tried to pull away but a strong hand closed around his pounding wrist and squeezed oh god fuck shit fuck shit he wasn’t going anywhere.
He barely registered the sting of the needle as it slid into his other arm, though the serum felt almost pleasantly cool as it slid through his veins.
As Steve let go of his arm and the pain receded, leaving only endorphins behind, he had to fight the absurd urge to laugh. Steve, champion of self-control, who believed Tony hopelessly undisciplined—a puppet. And Tony, who’d made sure that no one could see the simplest truth—that he liked Steve, that if nothing else he wanted him to be his damned friend—forced to tell nothing but the truth. It wasn’t funny. But that didn’t stop him from giving in to delirious laughter as Steve grabbed him by the arm and dragged him bodily out of the cell and into a small dim room with a small chair and a swinging lightbulb and rows of drawers he didn’t want to think about.
Steve just watched him sadly. In the end, it was the guilt and worry in his eyes that made Tony’s insane laughter die out.
It didn’t matter what Steve thought of him, or what unreciprocated feelings Tony might have had for Steve. Steve was compromised, and that meant it was on Tony to get them both out. And he’d be damned if he didn’t find a way.