Archive of Our Own ^beta

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. - Confucius

The repulsors hit the shield and for a second it was like Steve was engulfed in flame, even though these weren’t flames at all. He pushed and pushed and Tony gave and then knocked him back hard, before Iron Man could be backed into a corner. He hit the wall, back first, shield up, and pulled himself back into the fight without pause. Agility and quickness were his only advantages in this fight. Because this time it was real. Nothing told him more than than this battle that Tony had not really gone for it before. Not in training, not at the airport.

He meant it now.

His movements changed, his hits, his movements, the way he anticipated every single move Steve was making.

He meant it.

Steve was the enemy now.

He crashed, fell, his whole body aching with the pain of it.

“Stay down. Final warning,” Tony said, his voice sounding even harder through the armor, and turned towards Bucky.

Bucky, who was lying on the floor, his metal arm ripped off.

Bucky, who had killed Tony’s parents when he hadn’t known what he was doing. Executed.

God. He needed to stop this, couldn’t allow this…

“I can do this all day,” Steve said and dragged himself into a standing position. He could not allow Tony to kill Bucky. He knew there was no chance a this point to make Tony listen to him. That chance was gone. He had seen it in his eyes, had felt it in his attacks. Something in Tony had snapped. Perhaps irrevocably.

So he was going to take down the armor. Bucky had already tried it and failed, but Steve knew Tony better. Anger made him lethal, more lethal than Steve had ever seen him before, but anger was never a good guide in a fight. Bucky grabbed the armor by the ankle and pulled. It gave Steve the opening he needed. He toppled them both to the ground, heard the painful crash of the armor against concrete, saw Iron Man's arm rise in a protective, very human, gesture, his hand not pointed at him for an attack, but he had his shield out already and his mind told him to push, push, keep pushing, end this fight before it could end in the way Zemo had hoped for. The shield crashed down on the armored breastplate, aiming for the shining arc reactor.

The armor's hydraulics screeched, the arm fell away, the shield penetrated the arc reactor. Once, twice. The light flickered but stabilized and he pulled the shield up and pushed it down again with all his strength.

Tony had stopped fighting.

The arc reactor went dead.

Steve heaved, his limbs tired, aware suddenly how he was sitting on the armor hoisted over Iron Man like a killer out to land the final blow. He couldn’t see Tony’s face.

Movement behind him reminded him that Bucky was alive and needed his attention.

Iron Man was in no position to go after him anymore.

This was over.

Shaky in the knees, feeling bruises all over his body, he stumbled up. Bucky had curled on his side and he looked like he was fighting off a concussion. Steve looked over at Iron Man, waited for Tony to get the last word in, because that was what he did.

An empire that destroys itself from within... Zemo had said.

For a moment there he had been glad to see Tony, extremely glad. There had been hope that they could find a way to work together despite all their differences. They were friends after all. Tony had come to help, admitting he had been wrong about Bucky, had realized that Bucky had been framed... And what did it say that this small sign of reaching out had made things worse in the end? Had Zemo known? Had he studied them so completely that he had realized that this would be the final reaching out before the fall? He must have somehow expected it. All of this had been orchestrated to bring Tony here, to bring Steve and Tony here. None of this would have worked to set them against each other so completely in a final confrontation like this, if Tony had just stayed away.

After everything, Tony had reached out only to realize that Steve had kept the truth from him.

Steve’s gut clenched. He was waiting for the anger. The continued silence made it worse.

He pulled Bucky to his feet and helped him up, ready to go.

He had no idea where they would be going, but Zemo was still out there somewhere and needed to be apprehended and Bucky needed attention and help and a place to stay out of sight. The Quinjet out there had Tony's best stealth tech...

The stumbled forward together.

And Tony still hadn't said anything.

Hadn't moved.

The realization made him freeze mid motion and Bucky looked up at him, seeing the dread there.

He swallowed hard.

He hadn't. He hadn't. He couldn’t have.

Please god no, he thought frantically. This can’t be how Zemo wins.

He pulled away, made a step towards the armor. Nobody knew the ins and outs of the armor. Tony kept his secrets. But Steve knew at least some of it. This wasn’t good.

"Can you go?" he asked Bucky.

"Steve?"

"Can you move without me?" His friend needed to be safe and out of the way.

"Steve, it's..."

So was I. Tony's voice sounded like an even worse accusation in his mind now. And even when he'd said it the first time, even when the accusation had hung between them unspoken before that, Steve had known that things were so much more complicated than that. He had tried not to think about it then... Peggy had been steadily getting worse. Tony had actually moved out and pulled away from them to settle down with Pepper… Or that had been what Steve had believed at the time. He was such a fool; such a damn fool, to be thinking about this now.

Right now.

When Iron Man wasn’t moving.

You'll miss me. Fear rushed through him, his whole body going weak with the sudden spike of fear.

"Tony?" he asked and Bucky let him stagger towards the armor that still just lay there still and dead like a shell. He remembered their first fight, their first battle together. New York. Iron Man crashing to the earth like a heavy, heavy rag doll. "Tony! Say something, damn you."

He played the fight through in his mind again, remembered the raised arm the fight going out of the armor, was on his knees before he had made the conscious decision. It was that same situation from their very first fight together, just… just this time, Tony hadn’t made the sacrifice play. Steve had been the enemy.

"Tony!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "FRIDAY! Open the damn armor."

If he's dead, I killed him. Zemo wins. Zemo wins either way. I can’t… I won’t… Tony...

He couldn’t stop the frantic barrage of thoughts. Then a voice not his own ghosted through his mind: I lost everyone. And so will you.

"Not like this, damn you," he muttered. He wanted Bucky to leave, wanted him out of here, wanted him somewhere where he at least was safe. This was on him. On Steve. Whatever happened now. Steve had done it. Made his choice and seen it through to the end. "Tony! Open the damn tin can and then you can tell me off for swearing, you bastard."

Bucky had stumbled to the closest wall but kept silent, watching Steve with uneasy but more than dawning understanding.

The sinking feeling that Tony wasn't that kind of spiteful to let him believe he was dead when he could instead be throwing insults at his head had turned into certainty. The armor's left arm was lying at a strangely bent angle and Steve could barely remember the way he'd brought down his shield.

He swallowed.

"FRIDAY! Status?" he ordered.

There was no reply; the armor remained still. He had destroyed the arc reactor. Power was down.

He tried to remember all the safety releases that Tony had shown him once at least three armor designs before. He pulled off his gauntlet and reached for the mask. There was no ridge, no way he could get his fingers in. Not once in all of this had he felt as panicked as he was feeling now. Not even when Tony had gone after Bucky and the only thing that Steve had thought was: "I can't let them do this. I can't."

A flicker of pink light sprung up and he had no idea from where. There was a small hologram hovering in front of him, showing the blurry words "WARNING" and "BACKUP POWER". The hissing noise of releases followed and the distorted voice of FRIDAY said: "Emergency Procedure Rogers Alpha commencing."

The armor retracted, opened like a weirdly moving exoskeleton and then he could see Tony, eyes closed, blood trickling from the side of his lips, arm... God, that must have hurt. He winced looking at the strange way the metal around the arm had folded away just wrong.

He knew immediately that Tony wasn't pretending. His eyes remained closed. A knot formed in his stomach and he was afraid to reach out and touch.

"Rogers Alpha?" he asked faintly, looking at the flickering little holographic sphere only briefly.

"In case of medical emergency Captain Rogers' voice authorization is to be observed," FRIDAY recited serenely.

Taking the Hulk's fist to the gut couldn't have hurt more than that little bit of information.

He bent forward, held his ear to Tony’s mouth and was relieved when soft puffs of breath hit the shell of it, before he had to take another measure to make sure Tony was breathing. He let himself fall back on his haunches, breathing hard. His hands were shaking and he hadn't even noticed until now. He let his head fall forward and just breathed, letting the relief wash over him.

Tony was alive.

He hadn't killed him.

He hadn’t lost one friend over another. Friend. God... Where they even still friends?

His heart was racing anyway. They were here in the middle of nowhere and Tony was unconscious, his arm broken, and Bucky was in need of medical attention and they were on the run and Tony... Tony had just learned that Bucky had killed his parents...

Just for a second he allowed himself to crumble, to rest his face in the palm of his hand and breathe and think.

"Emergency power... fai..l...ng." The distorted voice of Tony's latest AI fell silent.

Steve knew he had to get up again. Iron Man wasn’t going to get himself home anytime soon.

He got to his feet. There was a medkit in the Quinjet... The Quinjet he had taken that technically belonged to Tony. He looked at Bucky.

"Steve?"

"We need to get him back to the jet."

"Are you...?"

"This is no joke, Bucky," he said slowly. "He needs... I probably broke his arm and..."

He tried not to look at the broken limb, but finally decided to crouch down again to touch Tony's face, to feel for his pulse. Somehow he never actually made the decision, but when skin touched skin, and he realized that Tony's was sweaty and hot, he ended up pulling him half into a sitting position and against his chest, cradling him like that made anything better.

"We don't even know how he got here," he muttered. "God damn it, he probably flew all the way here in the armor." If he had, then how was he supposed to get home - get anywhere - now?

"He did."

Steve had his shield in hand, ready to lash out or protect himself and Tony, before he saw who had spoken. "Your Highness," he said very slowly, still ready to jump up and fight if necessary. T'Challa, new king of Wakanda, was crouching in one of the ridges, wearing the suit of the Black Panther proudly, but showing his face. The cat like mask had been discarded.

"I followed him here," the man said with equal slowness, like he was forcing calm, and looked at Steve, only throwing one short look in Bucky's general direction, as if he was trying to make certain he wasn't going to move. It was hard to get a read on him and Steve knew that he himself couldn't get to Bucky without just dropping Tony. "Stark sent his chopper home and came here in the Iron Man armor. Nobody will even know he came. He was fooling Ross in an attempt to keep your location secret."

That piece of information should have brought him some relief. He and Bucky were safe for now. They had time to make their escape. There were no super soldiers here, no more enemies to take out... But instead of relief, he felt bile rise up his throat. Tony had taken precautions. He hadn't come here for a fight. But here they were. Tony had snapped. Cleanly. Snapped like a branch, dead and dry. Steve’s hand was forming a fist and he gnashed his teeth together until the muscles in his jaw hurt. "Zemo, he..."

"He is outside. Waiting to meet his judgment." When Bucky shifted carefully, T’Challa shook his head. "I know what he has done and he will get what he deserves for what he did. My father would have wanted it." Then T'Challa looked down at where Tony was lying. "I can bring both Zemo and Stark with me in the Quinjet. My plane will barely carry two."

Steve stared. "He needs..." he motioned at Tony. "I took out the armor. Even if he weren't hurt... He can't stay here. He can't return in the Quinjet. Ross would know he was with me."

T'Challa's face changed. "Ross is waiting for an excuse," he said carefully, agreeing. "He already suspected Stark before."

That somehow made it worse. Steve hadn't. Not for a minute. He hadn't expected anything from Tony from the moment he'd thrown the accords back at him. He hadn't really bothered to explain his own choices and had neatly made up his mind what about what it was Tony was thinking.

Plant yourself like a tree, he thought and remembered Peggy as he had known her, remembered all the reasons why he had deliberately not asked Tony to help in the search for Bucky.

He hadn't really asked Tony about why he was pushing so hard.

It had all seemed so clear.

And it hadn’t mattered.

Not when Steve knew what had to be done.

"He needs help," Steve said and he felt like all that was keeping him going right now was the anger, the conviction that he had been right about the accords giving power to the wrong hands. But Tony was in no position to argue right now. Even thinking about this made him feel like he was gloating.

You'll miss me, a smug Tony said in his memory.

Tony's head rolled to Steve's shoulder and Steve thought he was stirring, but he had just not held him fast enough and he'd sagged slightly to the side. Steve pulled him closer now, aware of two pairs of eyes on him.

"Wakanda," T'Challa offered. "You can go to Wakanda. I will see that Stark..."

"No," Steve said immediately. "You take Zemo. Tony was never here. You said so yourself."

Smart man that he was T'Challa didn't need to have it spelled out. He nodded. "I'll tell the doctors to expect you. All of you."

Bucky, who had watched the proceedings in silence, and who Steve knew had not missed one second of his freakout, cleared his throat: "This is a terrible idea."

"We used to roll with them all the time," Steve said and caught his eyes.

"And it never made it better," Bucky shot back, but did not make one step to come closer and interfere.

T'Challa left them directions and the codes they needed. Steve picked up Tony like he weighed nothing, like he was a rag doll, but made sure not to jolt his injured arm too much. Against his pale skin the bruise around his right eye seemed darker now. He settled Tony into a seat in the Quinjet, aware that Bucky had followed at a slower pace, watching the proceedings silently.

"For the record," he finally said, when Steve had Tony propped up in the seat. "I still think this is a terrible idea, pall."

"He's hurt."

"He's also not going to thank you. I wouldn’t."

With his face slack and bruised, Tony looked more relaxed than he had the last couple of times they had talked. It only registered now. Stress. Steve had kept himself busy, kept himself focused, had kept his worry about Peggy compartmentalized and to the back of his mind, but he should have noticed. Stress lines getting deeper and shoulders getting more tense every time he'd seen Tony. Stress and tension. Not just Tony being contrary.

Don't bullshit me, Rogers, did you know?

"He's not," he agreed. This wasn't about that. He wasn’t doing it to earn Tony’s gratitude.

He found the med kit, rummaged through it. He found a sedative, syringes, bandages and cloth. Awkwardly he fashioned a makeshift sling from it for Tony's arm. Bucky himself one-armed and also looking worse for wear, watched him without saying another word.

"Say it, Bucky," he finally demanded, when he'd been satisfied with his own handiwork.

"He didn't pull his punches."

"I didn't either."

"I know you didn't. He was pulling his punches at the airport. He wasn't pulling his punches here. He would've killed me."

"I know."

"So?" Bucky asked carefully - a man who understood anger and regret and all the complicated nuances of control. "How long has this been..." He moved a hand vaguely in Tony's direction and back to Steve, coming to a conclusion about the two of them that Steve had carefully avoided until now.

"Bucky, don't..." Steve cut him off. He didn’t even want to hear the question.

"Ah," Bucky said, and for someone who was still muddling through the things he did and didn't clearly remember, he suddenly looked surprisingly like someone who had figured everything out. "So this hasn't been going on yet at all. Not in the actual going on sense. Steve, you were always so bad at this." He sounded disappointed but not surprised.

Steve had been in the process of checking Tony's pulse again, his fingers making out the fluttering beat of it under Tony's skin. He wasn't sure he had really ever dared touch Tony outside of battle situations and this felt exceptionally different - and painful - right now. "Don't," he said again, because right now he didn’t want to hear it.

Bucky turned away and winced. "Your timing always sucked, Rogers," he said and nodded to himself. It was like back home, back in another time, when it had taken Bucky one look to figure him out.

"Thanks," he said, feeling his throat constrict. He wasn’t going to contradict it.

Maybe I should take a page out of Barton's book. Build Pepper a farm, hope nobody blows it up.

The simple life.

You'll get there one day.

I don't know. Family, stability…the guy who wanted all that went in the ice 75 years ago.

He hadn't stopped once to think about what it was he wanted now, hadn't stopped to consider why the thought of Tony settling down with Pepper seemed to push him in the opposite direction: towards Avengers and a new team and keeping busy and not settling down.

Everyday he had waited for the news of pregnancy and kids and... He hadn't stopped to think about what had actually been going on with Tony after Ultron, after everything.

"I suppose a farm and happy family life has become even less likely now," he muttered under his breath.

Bucky threw him a pitying look and it was only emphasized by the state he was in. "You never did anything the easy way. But it used to be you who ended up sitting by my side while I got into these kinds of messes."

"I'm not sure this is comparable."

He thought of beautiful redheads and Bucky going home with a blonde and a brunette while Steve had promised to stay out of his way for a bit. This.... This was so not comparable to the kind of romantic messes Bucky used to get into. This... It wasn't a romantic mess at all. This was so far beyond it, unsalvagabe and bad. He'd led an all out war for what he believed in - and he still believed that he had done the right thing, just maybe not in the best way. He couldn't regret Bucky sitting there alive and at least mostly well, but he had made choices along the way, a lot of choices that had hurt Tony more than they had hurt him.

Maybe right now he was making another.

He bit his lip and decided to push through. Tony was hurt. They couldn't stay here. They would figure out the rest as soon as all of them were safe. All of them.

With a pang he realized that Zemo would still be able to gloat about this, alerting Ross to Tony's involvement with the first word he spoke to the general. And what then? What would they do then?

"This isn't comparable," Bucky agreed and he sounded tired, and more downtrodden than he had back in Berlin when all he’d wanted had been to be left alone to deal with this himself. "None of your non-existent love life that I remember got this out of hand."

"Remember the husband who wanted to throttle you for hitting on his wife when we went dancing…?"

"Yours, Steve," he said. "Not mine. My love life existed. What was her name again? Dinah? And her husband did not have a lethal red and gold armor. Nor did she, as far as I can remember, anyway."

"Diane," Steve said. "Her name was Diane. And this is not..."

"Sure," Bucky agreed keeping his voice level. "Not the same. Keep telling yourself that. Also, have fun hauling in the armor, while I'm going to sit here, hoping he's not waking up."

He really wanted to disagree. But Tony had been so far beyond talking... So bitter and angry, like all the hurt had needed to break out of him with the nonnegotiable violence of a natural disaster. How much of his life had been spent living up to or failing the memory of parents who had been taken from him when he hadn't been ready?

"He's angry at me," Steve said softly. "He's really angry at me." For the betrayal, perfectly orchestrated and brought to light by a person who understood that the Avengers would always come back from anything less than broken trust. He'd played into Zemo’s hands when he'd kept things from Tony. He had played along like a good little blind man.

"He's angry at me," Bucky said. "I'd hate me. Would you be so calm if I had killed your mother?"

The uneasy feeling that had gripped him when he'd realized what Tony was about to see, when he had realized what Zemo had brought them there for, came back. Not power, not evil plans of world domination or destruction, but personal revenge. He remembered the emptiness when he'd woken up to a world that had moved on around him, the disconnect, the anger. A rug had been pulled from under his feet. Peggy had lived a whole life without him.

Was that what it had felt like for Tony to learn the truth?

He fingered the syringe and looked at the anesthetic. He'd dealt with Tony after battle a couple of times. Usually he wasn't in need of medical attention. The couple of times he had been, he'd been difficult about it. He wouldn’t like being sedated. But right now he wouldn’t get a vote.

Steve knew how to handle the syringe and how to administer the drug.

He didn't want to.

Tony would hate it.

Tony already would hate everything about this.

But if he woke up, who knew what he would do? Throw himself out of the Quinjet? Make Friday take over? Get all of them arrested or killed?

This really was the worst possible idea. At least in the privacy of his own mind, he could admit it.

He put the syringe down, decided to just leave it be, found a pair of discarded handcuffs instead, slapped one end around Tony's good wrist and firmly attached the other cuff to the side of the seat, then he strapped Tony in securely.

Uneasily he looked at Bucky. "I'll get the armor."

Bucky looked like he really wanted no part of any of this. "At least when he wakes up too soon, he'll want to kill both of us," he called after Steve, sounding like it was meant to be comforting.

When Steve returned, finding Tony still out like a light, his worry mounting to new heights, Bucky snapped his eyes to the front and just let him take his place in the pilot seat. His uncomfortable look alone spoke volumes.

“I hope he doesn’t die on the way over,” he muttered in Steve’s direction. “I’m sure I’ll get blamed for it.”

Throwing a last look over his shoulder at Tony - beaten, bloodied and unconscious, but breathing evenly - he set the coordinates and pulled the Quinjet off the ground. Tony needed help and fast and he had wasted enough time here. Zemo was T’Challa’s problem for now.

He drifted in and out of the dream. Lights and voices reached him in the blackness and yet he felt alone.

"He's waking up."

"Would be just like him to make this difficult," a more familiar voice said.

"So, then that is why? I was wondering about the appeal."

He knew the voices, but they never made it deeper into the dream. Something was pulling him under like a swimmer swallowed by the swirling waters, like Iron Man swallowed by a vortex of black space. He couldn't breathe. Darkness.

He wanted to open his eyes.

Instead he fell deeper into the void of sleep.

"Is he okay? He isn't moving."

"He's breathing okay," a voice said close to his ear. He wanted to startle and look up and see where he was, but the world was rocking gently and the world was warm and his head rested comfortably against a solid surface. "He's okay. He has to be okay."

He must have drifted again, deeper into the dream or the void or the darkness of space, but something jolted him out of it when he smelled disinfectant.

"I'm sorry. We did not want to make this your problem, you Highness."

The voice was still familiar.

So was the darkness.

Darkness.

He tried to open his eyes and maybe he did. He wasn’t sure. Everything was so hard and heavy and far away.

Someone said something in a foreign language that seemed vaguely familiar and comforting. He was ready to let it lull him to sleep.

Foreign.

Hard surface beneath.

Head clouded.

Then part of his brain realized he lay outstretched on a bed and the air smelled of disinfectant. He had the immediate urge to try and struggle and move his arms. Sudden fear gripped him and he tried to reach out, find something to pull himself up by. The voices got louder. No anger. No pain. But his head was so clouded, so terribly clouded.

"It's okay, Tony," someone said and he knew that voice. Someone touched his brow. He blinked and saw the blinding white light of a clinically white room. He couldn't keep his eyes open, and fell, fell deeper.

"We can't keep him here," a friendly, heavily accented voice said.

"We can't let him go like this."

He struggled.

"He's waking up!"

He was held down. He remembered a cave, the sounds of guns and screaming.

Something pierced his arm and he went down again.

He was out.

When he came awake, it was not slowly and not in stages. The last fragment of a dream he could hold on to was of the heavy thick scent of rotting cave walls and stale air, men shouting and his chest being on fire. Why was his chest on fire? Oh god, not again... He jolted upright, his heart beating too fast, dots appearing in front of his eyes, breath coming in short gasps. Panic. Nothing was on his mind but panic.

The he realized where he was.

Bed.

Dark room.

In the darkness he could only make out the edges of a small table, a white door. Sleek and shiny surfaces.

Walls and glass and darkness beyond.

But no cave.

His breath did not calm.

His heart beat even faster.

He needed air. He wanted out.

He tried to rest his face in his palms, but when he tried to move his left arm he hissed. A cast. Pain.

Pain, but not enough pain.

He hissed and sat up.

Suddenly the room was bathed in a soft light.

He swallowed and tried to slow his breathing.

To no avail.

In the light he could see the small dimensions of the room, the simple bed, the table by the door with a glass of water and a few pills on it. Nothing else in the whole room.

He tried to concentrate on breathing, slow, deep breathes.

The walls were coming closer.

He could still hear the angry shouting and smell the cave, feel the pain. But it was all in his mind. All but the pain.

Staggering up, everything started to spin. He realized that some of the walls were no walls at all but slated windows. Unable to walk without keeping hold on the wall, he slowly moved over. Outside was darkness, he could make out trees and leaves and... a foreign landscape.

It took his mind less than a second to put two and two together.

Wakanda.

T'Challa.

What the fuck?

And everything came back, worsening the vertigo and panic: Going after Steve, trying to help and make up for his mistake, finding out... hearing about...

Anger, overwhelmed the panic and he moved to the door.

"Rogers!" he shouted and tried the door. It was locked.

It was fucking locked.

What was this?

Was he the fucking prisoner now? Was Steve putting him away for going after the person who had killed his mother? Was he going to be a hostage? And what the hell did the Black Panther think he was playing at, helping criminals do their work?

"Get your ass in here, you coward!" he shouted and pounded on the door. "You were way out of line, but what the fuck do you think you're doing now? Do you think you can keep me in here? Do you think you gain anything? Let me the fuck out of here!"

The room was spinning. "Fuck it, Steve! What do you think you're doing?"

Nausea.

Headache.

Vertigo.

God.

He couldn't breathe.

He needed to be out of here.

He stumbled back into a corner, somewhere close to the windows, and sank down. The night did nothing to help him calm down, but right now knowing that there was a world out there helped him feel grounded, helped him calm his breathing.

His shoulder hurt.

His head hurt.

The reflection in the window revealed that he had a black eye and a red bruise on one cheek. Even in the dim reflection he looked like hell.

He remembered throwing the first punch.

He tried to breathe slowly.

He remembered his father's face before he died, remembered his mother's voice; remembered all the years he had spent blaming himself for the argument, for thinking he had driven his father into speeding that night; remembered Obie and the way he broke the news to him. Heavily, he let his head fall against the wall. Then with more force he did it again, hoping the pain would drown out the spiraling thoughts.

He would have killed Barnes if Steve had given him the chance.

Of course he hadn't.

Under different circumstances he would have been thankful.

Maybe.

But his fingers were shaking and the only thing he could think of was his mother's dying voice.

And the fact that Steve had known.

That Steve hadn't just protected his friend because he had known he had been framed.

He had protected him despite what he had done.

Despite what he had taken from Tony.

With even more force he let the back of his head hit the wall again.

It didn't help at all.

Betrayal.

It stung.

It was too familiar, but it still stung.

Why would he have told you? You're the one who was never worth fighting for. You mess up. Look at yourself now, Stark. You always mess up. Only constant in your life. Why would Captain America choose you over someone he grew up with, whatever he has done?

I sure as hell wouldn't choose me.

Who would?

Pepper hadn't and he couldn't blame her. She had never signed up to be with an Avenger. She had actually signed up to be with eccentric and better-than-his-press-at-least-sometimes Tony Stark - and not even that he could do.

He huffed, balled his right hand into a fist.

That finally helped him focus.

His heart was still beating too fast. His knuckles hurt from hitting the door too hard. But he was working through it.

Had he hurt Steve?

Had he hurt Barnes?

Had T'Challa come to collect what was left of all of them?

Had Zemo escaped?

Had he botched even that up?

The questions kept coming and Tony counted his breaths in time with the opening and closing of his fist. He hated the confined space, the locked room, the uncertainty. There were more important things that needed doing. Ross couldn't be allowed to do as he pleased. Rhodey was hurt. That Peter kid needed supervision.

And Tony? Tony needed to make sure none of them took the brunt for what had happened today. He had messed up, by wanting so badly to trust Steve, by letting his own hurt take over.

God damn it.

He sat there, counting, gnashing his teeth and trying very hard not to think about the room, closed doors, dying parents or Barnes' cold eyes as he shot the surveillance camera. He was not fucking thinking of Steve's face as he admitted he had known.

Zemo had said: So good to finally find a flaw.

Tony disagreed. For months he would have liked nothing more than to make Steve see and admit for once that he wasn't infallible. He could have done without finding that particular flaw or without everything crashing down on them this way though.

Fuck Zemo.

Fuck Barnes.

And, goddammit, fuck perfect Captain America taking only his own counsel.

Time to take stock.

His watch was gone.

He had no tools.

No idea where the armor had been put.

He fucking hated the idea that Steve was out there watching him, but he had a feeling that although he couldn't see them, there were cameras all over the room. And Tony was behaving like a man at his weakest.

He let his head sink onto his pulled up knees finally, held still.

Time to wait and not give away his hand, while he figured out where he was, why he was here and how the fuck he was going to get out of it. At some point while he was thinking about how he could take the bed frame apart without the cameras picking up on it to make something that would open the door, the sun had started to creep up over the lush jungle that he could see beyond a unbelievably modern and yet thrown together city in front of the triangle shaped windows. The sight was strangely comforting, like he was watching the opening credits of a movie.

He pondered that - the sun, the sight of the city, the rainforest, the feeling of calm after and before the storm - when there was a small knock on the door.

Because there was really only one answer to that, he let his head hit the wall one final time and hard.

"Tony?" Of course, now Steve would turn up. After all he had calmed down and gotten a hold of himself. Of course, now was a good time to rattle him.

"Fuck off."

"You wanted to talk."

"No, Rogers. I wanted out of here. And now you can fuck off."

He was proud of the way his voice didn't even waver.

"I'm sorry," Steve said on the other side of the heavy door. "I'm really..."

"Fuck off. I don't want to hear it, Mr. Righteous."

"I'm coming in. I..." Tony was sure he had rattled Steve as much as Steve had rattled him now, because he sounded unsure. "You need food and you should take your meds after."

"Yes, mum. Now go fuck off."

The silence that followed stretched and Tony had the hope that Steve had finally gotten it and left; left him to ponder the best way out of here.

But then something happened and he could hear three different sets of locks springing open and he braced himself. Steve opened the door and then angled in without opening the door too wide. He was balancing a tray. Without giving Tony a view of the corridor outside he closed the door behind himself.

"Hi," Setve said calmly and held up the tray.

Tony stared. He wasn't sure there was any other weapon left in his arsenal.

"How is your...?"

"Peachy. Say what you have to say and go." He was proud of the coldness in his voice.

"I'm sorry," Steve started. "You were... unconscious and I didn't know what else to do."

"You could have fucked off," Tony suggested. "No need to stick with me now of all times."

"Stop that! I would not have left you!"

"Why? It was my own fault for coming after you in the first place."

Steve flinched. He had the audacity to flinch.

And Tony felt all the anger and hurt rise up again. He knew if he let it come up there was no place for rational thought. Then Steve crouched down and slid the tray across the floor.

"Eat something?" he asked. Suggested really.

And Tony did the mature thing. He grabbed the tray with his good hand and threw it with as much strength as he could muster. Which wasn't much, but enough to make it hit the wall with a satisfying clang, splattering eggs and pudding and whatnot all over the floor.

Before the final item had stopped rolling, Steve's jaw had set in the way that Tony hated so much.

Disappointment.

"Breakfast finished. Will you go now?" he asked, not flinching when Steve turned to look at him.

And he recognized that look. Steve's eyes narrowed, his mouth set in a thin line and he nodded. Then he said: "No."

Of course not.

"Okay," Tony spat. "I am game. Say what you have to say and then go."

"Got it out of your system yet?"

God, he really wanted to hit Steve in his stupid face right now. Perfect teeth, perfect calm face and all.

"The anger? Or the drugs?" he shot back, rewarded with another subtle tightening of the jaw.

"I'm sorry."

"So am I," he said, because that at least was the truth. "Now that we've gotten that off our chests I'll be on my way." He didn't even pretend to move. He knew the door would be locked to him anyway.

"You okay?" Steve asked.

And that just took the cake.

"Do I look okay?" Tony spat.

"Calmer."

"How long were you watching?" He put as much aggression into it as he could muster, because the hurt little kid inside wanted to shrink into the wall. It was one thing to have Pepper and Rhodey see him at his lowest. It was a whole different story to have a panic attack in front of Steve Perfect Rogers.

"I was close-by when you... banged at the door. Talking to..."

"Ah," he said and felt himself close up. "Of course. Were you and Barnes talking about where to go next? What is this then? Am I security or...?"

"I was talking to T'Challa. Sorry, we can't let you go right now. We can't risk you..."

Tony regretted having thrown the tray already. Too early. Now would have been the perfect time. He pushed himself to his feet. "What? You're adding kidnapping to the list now? Is it that relaxing to be a criminal?"

"Tony, calm down. The doctors said you should take it easy. When they give you the okay, you'll go home."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No, now calm down."

"What do you want? Ross to know I'm league with you?"

"You're not in league with me," Steve said calmly. He too rose to his feet, taxing Tony where he stood. "We're not in league."

"Right. We're not." And he really pushed down on the need to throw a punch. Mostly, because the room was spinning again and he couldn't trust himself to even make his fist connect with the right Steve in front of his eyes.

"I hurt you," Steve said and swallowed. It was impossible to figure out if he was talking about Tony's arm, his black eye, any of the other bruises, Rhodey, or the fact that he had kept the truth from him.

"Stop saying things like you actually care," he shouted and let his good fist connect with the wall, because that was all he could trust himself to do right now. The burning in his knuckles helped him keep his focus, helped him stay in the here and now.

"I care!" Steve's voice rose to match his.

"Yes! I know! But not about that!" he shouted louder.

"I care! I didn't want things to go this way!"

"Then you should have fucking told me! I had a right to know! My mo..." His voice broke and he shut his mouth glaring. "You know what? Fuck off. It doesn't matter."

"It wasn't him..."

"I don't care."

"Do you blame Natasha for any of the things she did? Or Clint for what he..."

"Do you?" he asked back. "Because you know what? It doesn't matter. Natasha blames Natasha. You know that right? She's making up for it and maybe it will never be enough to make her feel less responsible."

"She broke her conditioning. You can't blame Bucky for something that he couldn't fight, that wasn't his choice."

"See," Tony said and narrowed his eyes. "There's the thing. I can. And so can you."

Steve took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. "But I don't."

"Because he's your friend." Tony laughed. It was hard to stop after he had started, the manic sound growing in volume. "That explains why it was so easy with Ultron. Wanda just touched my mind for a bit, giving me a fear I already had and pushing me into an idea I had already thought about too much. How convenient that we never were friends then. Just a spell. Nobody to be blamed. Can't cast blame, right? Oh, wait. Not your friend. Different rules. And suddenly casting blame is easy." The thoughts just bubbled up and out of his mouth. He blamed it on the painkillers or whatever he was on. He didn't want to sound like he had thought about this as much as he had.

"We are friends," Steve shouted.

But Tony wasn't finished. "I can't even blame you? It's not like we ever agree on anything. I always make up my mind and you make up yours and that's it."

"We are friends, Tony!" Steve shouted over his voice, angry.

"Not friends enough for me to learn the truth. Or get out of a locked room." He was shouting too and he was glad he had no armor in this moment. He would have used it perhaps. And even now he didn't want to hurt Steve. Not really. He had tried to make him stay out of it before...

Panic and anger and pain.

It all mingled and made his voice rise and shriek.

He wanted to lash out, hurt, punch, get Steve to leave. "Fuck off, damn it! I can't stand to look at you right now."

And Steve moved and did the last thing Tony expected, suddenly he was in Tony's space, wrapping his arms around him and holding on with the super-soldier strength that had carried him through battle after battle.

"I am sorry!" Steve shouted and he was so close to Tony's ear now that the sound hurt; the embrace hurt - not because Steve was squeezing him, but because the unexpected touch seared his skin with the anticipation of violence.

"You don't get to be sorry!" he shouted, but did not find the strength to pull away.

And Steve wasn't finished either: "I was grieving. I was upset. I didn't allow myself to look and then Bucky was back. A part of a life I've lost forever. I didn't look. I thought you and Pepper were starting a family and I was alone. I've always been alone if not for Bucky. But..."

Tony started struggling. "I get it! Now go and elope or whatever! I don't care! Just get him the fuck away from me and then both of you can stay there!"

Then Steve shifted, was trying to make Tony look at him, but Tony stared down at the floor, childishly refusing to meet his eyes. The cast got in the way. He hissed in pain. Steve, gripped him hard around the midsection and suddenly they were kissing.

Steve was kissing him.

Hard and insistent and Tony already in the kiss, responding and fighting a whole new desperate and losing battle before he knew it was happening, a tongue explored his mouth and he was holding on to Steve's stupid inconvenient uniform with one hand and shaking fingers. There was no room for thought right until there was - and he pushed himself back, breathing hard and feeling panic pull him under. What the fuck was he doing here? What were they doing?

But Steve wasn't willing to let him move away.

"I thought we were just dancing around each other... like... God, you were with Pepper!" Steve growled. “I thought you and Pepper were...”

"You are an idiot!" Tony shouted back, because he'd had his share of stupid entanglements and dysfunctional romances – and break-ups and falling-aparts. But this was soap opera level of stupid drama. This was the first time someone had broken up with him before he'd even known they had anything to break up. "I still want to punch you in your perfect teeth. You are such an idiot."

"I know. Bucky told me so around 50 times on our flight over here."

"Shut up about that damn..."

Steve kissed him again and this time Tony didn't fight. The kiss went on so long that he was heaving, his head swimming by the time he got air into his lungs again.

"I'm sorry. I thought keeping this away from you, keeping the whole search for him away from you, was better for all of us. I needed to find him, but I did not want you to look too closely. I thought I was keeping you safe, both of you safe. I thought it would only open old wounds if you found out."

"God!" he groaned, because he was so angry and turned on and - fuck - how could both of them be so messed up? "Now you decide to tell me? Now you decide to... What is this?"

"I'm sorry, Tony. Not for everything. Just for not telling you. For nearly losing you. For letting myself be played. For trying to protect myself."

A thick knot of pain formed in his throat. He knew he had been a tool in Zemo's game too. All of them had played that man's game.

"You came and it would have all been so different if you had known all along. I'm sorry," Steve whispered.

"No, it wouldn't have been," Tony disagreed. And he still had no idea what this was or what they were thinking or doing here. Steve's arms were around him and all fight bled out of him. He was too tired to care.

"Maybe," Steve conceded, but it was the kind of concession he made when he needed Tony to shut up and get back on track. Typical. He was lucky, Tony was feeling too weak to roll his eyes right now.

"I need to sit down," Tony admitted.

"Okay," Steve said and pulled him towards the narrow bed. "Sit down."

But Steve didn't let go.

They ended up lying together. "I'm an idiot," Tony whispered while Steve maneuvered them into a position where the cast didn't get in the way. He remembered years of trying to work beyond a trauma that had tainted his life, his whole life, and never making it. It had always been there. Never forgotten. An open wound that never healed. The whirlpool of it had sucked him back in constantly. Even now.

"I wanted to kill him," he admitted.

"I know."

He felt he needed to admit that it was in part because Steve had pushed him, because Steve's decisions had pushed him over the edge into an uncomfortable hateful pool of jealousy, self-doubt and anger. He couldn't say it. It stung too much. But he knew that rejection had been too much of a theme in his life and it never brought out the best in him. "I don't think I can..." he started.

"He can't either. He wants to be put into stasis until he can be sure we found a way to break him out of it forever."

Tony let that sink in. All of this. All of this to put the Winter Soldier back on ice.

It made him feel cold and hollow.

But Steve was warm.

And the nausea wasn't that bad any more.

"I know you were trying to protect the Avengers."

What Avengers? Tony thought. Rhodey and Vision. Three Avengers weren't much of a team. And Rhodey would need time to come back. Tony would have to start at building them up again. A new team.

"I was trying to do the right thing," Tony said, "and we could have done better if we had worked together. And I still think you're an idiot."

"Maybe," Steve said. "There seems to be some consensus on that at least."

He snorted and rolled his eyes.

The drugs, he thought. No idea what they have me on, but this is the weirdest trip I ever had. Although… too much pain involved altogether to get a repeat.

When he had come after Steve and Barnes to help them stop Zemo and a bunch of new Winter Soldiers, Steve had told him: "It's been a long day." It had been true for all of them. But apparently Steve had never gotten any rest after while Tony had been put under for who knows how long. Steve's face was bruised too and he fell asleep, puffing warm breaths against Tony's neck. It was surreal.

He'd broken. Somewhere along the way Tony must have snapped.

He was utterly broken.

He wasn't sure yet if he'd be able to put himself together.

He'd never really appreciated how true the same was for the soldier out of time.

Steve had a way of just going on - determined and unwavering. You never saw his doubts. It was part of why he frustrated Tony so much and probably why he was the more compelling leader. Tony would have followed him to the end of the earth if they could have agreed on something for once.

A flaw, Zemo's smug voice whispered in his mind, and Tony thought: Fuck off, you creep.

This was finally the kind of flaw he could relate to.

Human.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized he would have acted less heroically than Steve, but as determinedly if it had been Rhodey who had been made a tool in other men's games. He hated the thought even then and wanted to hold on to his own anger. He didn't want to forgive. he couldn't. Not yet.

His mother's broken voice speaking the name of his father was enough to bring all of it back. But the anger was getting less intense every time.

His parents. They were gone.

They had been gone for so long.

Left Tony behind to fend for himself.

At least now he knew the truth.

The taste of Steve's kisses still lingered on his lips and right now he had no idea what to do with that. It wasn't even all that clear if it would matter. He had a feeling that Steve had no idea what he wanted to do about it either.

Sometimes emotions just ran high.

Carefully he extracted himself. Steve was deep enough asleep to not even blink. He turned and sprawled to fill the space Tony had opened and went back to even breathing. Tony carefully picked up the fork and spoon and quietly set to work. Despite the wall panels having been fitted with perfect craftsmanship and his own progress hampered by the broken arm, it took him less than 30min to break open first the wall, then the door. It opened with a soft click and let him out into a long corridor - one side white wall and the other glass windows that allowed a view of the forest beyond.

After the panic invoked by the suffocating narrowness of the supposedly comfortable prison cell, it came like a relaxing revelation.

He didn't even try to conceal his movements. He had a feeling T'Challa's people would know already he had escaped and would be following his every step.

Getting his bearings was his first order of business.

He walked for a while and wasn't surprised to pass more medical facilities. What he was looking for was a way out though.

What he hadn't expected though was to walk past more glass walls that allowed him to watch doctors and patients, and the work going on in the labs. Nobody stopped him as he walked past. Nobody even gave him a second glance.

Then he came to a halt. In one of the labs three doctors or scientists, two female and one male, were taking readings. The patient, asleep on the bed, missing one metal arm, was all too familiar. He had really hoped not to see him again.

"I am sorry, it has come to this," someone said and he recognized the soft voice of T'Challa, before he met the eyes of his reflection in the glass pane.

"To this?" Tony asked and raised his hand even before he turned, when the young king held out his watch for him.

"Destruction. Zemo set out to destroy the Avengers and he made all of us take part in it."

Tony nodded, and couldn't wait to get the familiar weight of the watch back around his wrist. He tried to put it back on immediately. Seeing his struggles to accomplish that with one hand, T’Challa was gracious enough to reach out and close the clasps. It was perhaps the most humbling gesture extended to him this day.

"I won't have to stop you from breaking his neck right here and now?"

The first sentence on his lips was: Only because I don't have the armor, and I doubt I can do it with just one hand. But even then he knew it to be a lie.

He was wondering how much privacy that little cell-cum-recovery-room down the halls had offered Steve and him. Probably not much. So he shrugged. He threw one final glance at Barnes. "You seem to have calmed down, your Highness. You were out for blood, too."

The young man grimaced and nodded. "I followed you to get revenge for my father. You reached out to Captain America then, because you had found out the truth and were ready to face your mistakes. Now I have no need for revenge anymore. James Barnes never killed my father."

"Funny how that goes," Tony said and sniffed. "He killed mine."

T'Challa nodded and Tony could read in his eyes that he understood the pain of that better than Steve ever could. Revenge hadn't helped either of them. It had just turned them into pawns in another man's game of revenge. That was perhaps the most painful realization of them all.

He looked over at Barnes again, wondered how much of this would have happened if his programming hadn't run as deep and hadn't made him a convenient target for Zemo. How many people had died yet again, just so someone could pull Tony's strings, and to make Steve and him fight to the last?

“He wants to be put in stasis. For now. Until we can help him.”

Tony nodded.

“I'll send you some information on a prototype. Binarily Augmented Retro Framing. Might help. Might not.”

T'Challa nodded.

"Your armor is in the room down that hallway," T'Challa pointed. "You've been hiding inside your mansion since your chopper returned to New York."

They nodded at each other.

"I was never here."

This was the kind of deal he understood.

He didn't say thank you, or good-bye, or anything more. He marched forward. Out of here. He had to get back home. Whatever happened next, he was going to be with what was left of the Avengers at home. No more promises to Pepper, no more doubts, and no more thoughts of revenge would keep him from being Iron Man again.

Maybe this wound could finally heal now, after all these years.

Four days later a courier service employee made Rhodey laugh for the first time since he'd come home to the Avengers facilities - and the huge package revealed the perfect round shield of Captain America.

A note was sticking to it.

"Hold on to it for me. I might need it again. Don't get into too much trouble without me. I'll be around when it's safe."

"Right back at you," Tony muttered. "Idiot."

But, god, he hoped Steve didn't want to discuss feelings next time they met. He would have to lock Tony up again, if he wanted to go there.

He smiled.

He had a feeling they were far from through.

Zemo’s goal had been their destruction; the fall of an Empire from within. They had come close and there were conflicts that were yet to be resolved. But this wasn’t their end.

Nobody would keep them down forever unless they allowed it.