Work Text:
Tony's not sure he'll go until he calls up the armor exactly 13 minutes before the transport will arrive in front of the courthouse. He'd been working until the last possible second — he knows, coward that he is, he could just stay and do more work. But Extremis keeps him informed of the progress of the armored car, counting down the seconds, telling him exactly how much time he has to get there himself before Steve will be led into court.
He half expects an ambush.
He half hopes for an escape plan; Avengers standing by to get Cap out.
Either would be a mess he'd have to clean up, but he's not sure he wouldn't be happier with Steve running than seeing him brought low. Things have escalated to the point of no return though and the least Tony can do is be there, look Steve in the eye before the trail and then work out how he'll live with himself after — how from now on he’ll be able to meet his own eyes in the mirror.
He knows whatever he'll do, it'll look bad.
The world will think of Tony as the man who wants justice done even if Captain America has to go down — or the man who doesn't even stop when it's his best friend going down.
If he doesn’t go… it’ll look like Tony’s hiding from all this. Coward.
If he’s there it'll look like gloating. It'll look like he's the winner — after Steve lost control and nearly killed him in front of too many cameras. Only Steve’s surrender has saved Tony.
Steve's look of burning anger as he let the shield crash down again and again on the armors throat joints is seared into Tony's memory. He keeps telling himself it's better if Steve hates him and gets out of this unharmed but the mantra feels shallow. At least four military programs have already tried to get a hold of America's very own super soldier for “rehabilitation” in case of his very likely conviction. Tony knows that every one of them means “study” and “dissection”.
He's already made sure none of them will get custody of Steve whatever happens.
Tony's where he is to make sure superhero prisoners will be in a prison nobody can break out of — and nobody can get into.
Things in Washington have been moving too fast for comfort.
It’s Tony's failure.
The gold of the underarmor starts forming, then red and gold pieces close around him and he's Iron Man— out of the window and traversing the sky before he's sure it's the right thing to do.
Better not think now.
It'll take him exactly 11 minutes and 2.41 seconds to get there. He'll make it in time.
Extremis makes it easy enough to stay out of sight. Perhaps he can slip in without anyone noticing.
Cowardly.
As befits him.
He makes no decision, tired mind torn. The part of him that's filled with self-loathing wins out though. He needs to be there. He should face Steve before this goes down. He owes the man the chance to let Tony know exactly what he has betrayed.
The one person who always meant more to me than anyone else.
Even before he arrives he follows the news broadcast. He's seconds away when Steve's ushered out of the heavily armored SHIELD vehicle. SHIELD agents stand aside as the US Marshals push Steve out of the armored car in front of the crowd waiting.
“Free Cap” signs are held up right beside those reading “traitor.” People are shouting and booing. The crowd's in an uproar. Tony expected it. That's why SHIELD's standing by despite not being in charge here.
It's 0.34 seconds until a tomato flies, hitting Steve right in the face and bursting, leaving juices running down his cheekbones. The Marshals try to shield him and make him move, but Steve stops, eyes narrowed.
You did this, Tony thinks to himself. You put him there. That should have hit you.
He looks for a good place to land, somewhere where the cameras can't catch sight of Iron Man and make him another piece in this spectacle before Tony chooses to reveal himself. But in the broadcast — down there where he could see Steve if he were ready to look — Steve has spotted something.
His eyes narrow. He shouts something.
Tony has spotted it too.
Extremis reacts faster than Tony processes the conscious decision. He fires a blast towards the building where the sniper must be — but the cameras all catch Steve's cry; his shoulder is hit, blood gushing from the wound.
Sharon Carter's down there shouting trying to push through to Steve.
Tony's not focused on her — his eyes are searching for the sniper. But he doesn't go after him — Extremis is already sending out the location to all present SHIELD agents.
He lands right above Steve, in a crouch.
Extremis warns: Winter Soldier on the scene. Inside the HUD three black and white still of Barnes' half-obscured face appear taken by security cameras nearby.
Tony doesn't care.
The Winter Soldier's not here for Steve. If he's here to kill, Tony thinks, it's likely myself.
A second shot rings out from somewhere else. An US Marshal, leans over Steve behind Tony.
Steve gasps: “Tony.”
“Shhhh,” Tony hisses.
That's when Sharon arrives pushing her way through the people, shouting for Steve. A medic arrives from the other side and the only thing Tony sees — from the corner of his eyes, no alarm triggered by Extremis at all is the glint of metal.
Knife, he thinks but it's a gun.
He whirls around just a second too late, but fast enough to knock Sharon's arm to the side. She's holding the gun and her eyes are a dull, gaze far away. Steve's eyes are clear and blue — he's looking at Tony, not Sharon. Then his face scrunches up.
The bullet found its target after all.
Tony kicks the gun away.
Shouts ring out around them.
He lets the helmet bleed away.
Sharon is crying.
Blood on her hands.
She doesn't know what she has done.
“Steve! Help him.”
“Steve,” Tony says and grabs him, let's the gauntlets vanish to touch him and make sure how bad it is. “Cap, stay with me. Stay with me.”
Blood, blood everywhere. Blood's on his fingers. The blood on your hands, he thinks and feels like Happy's ghost is breathing down his neck, as if Bill Foster is laughing at him from the SHIELD morgue.
Gasping, Tony pushed his hand down on the wound. Steve's eyes flutter shut. There's blood all over his face too.
Extremis runs calculations.
An inch to the side and Steve wouldn't have survived long enough to get into an ambulance.
The crowd's screaming.
“Iron Man killed him!”
“Stark saved him!”
Panic. Anxiety about to turn into violence. People are being ushered away.
“Kill him!” someone shouts and it's not clear if he means Steve, Tony or the shooter.
“Steve,” he repeats, his voice nearly breaking on the word, while Sharon breaks down beside him sobbing. “Steve, just breathe. I have called an ambulance. You hear me? Stay awake. We'll get you out.”
“Director Stark,” someone shouted. “We have the sniper.”
Tony nods. But that's when another shot rings out and people flee the scene. One of the US Marshals tries to pull Tony up. But Tony doesn't move. He shields Steve's body with the armor, doesn't move an inch, doesn't allow his pressure on the wound to lessen.
Sharon's the only one not running. She's staring at her hands.
The gun's gone.
Someone must have snatched it.
“I've got you,” Tony tells Steve, gnashing his teeth together. Steve blinks, trying to look up. Then his head falls to the side as he loses consciousness. The clock is ticking.
Extremis sends all relevant information right at the SHIELD agents.
A medic returns, looking frightened and Tony nods at her to come closer. He uses the armor to shroud them in fog.
“Help me,” Tony demands. “I need to get him out of here now.”
The rest becomes blur, of smoke and blood, sirens, Sharon hitting him in the face, agents talk at him, Carol calls in. Extremis keeps up the stream of information.
And Tony doesn't lessen the pressure on the wound until two doctor's pry his hands away and take Steve away on a stretcher.
Tony remains sitting in the waiting room area, not entirely sure how they made it to the hospital.
Two shield agents are there uncomfortable with their director being hunched over, hiding his face behind bloody hands.
Dugan checks in every forty minutes. Tony sits beside Steve's bed in an uncomfortable plastic chair. He doesn't even feel it. But he takes in the sounds and smells of the hospital room — too familiar from the years before Extremis.
Doctor's try to send him away, then nurses. He plays the authority card.
“Someone has to guarantee his safety,” he explains and for the first time since all this happens he sounds fierce even though he still feels like breaking down. His world has been coming apart at the seams step by step the more he has tried to hold it together. If Steve dies, he'll shatter and the world will go down with him.
Steve breathes, helped by machines and contraptions that give a steady stream of data.
Extremis feeds him the information of what the world is like outside this room and it's a nightmare.
“You do know the Director of SHIELD has to make a statement sooner rather than later?” Dugan asks, sneaking a furtive glance at Steve and his pale face.
“I will,” Tony says simply, making it sound like dismissal. Extremis is busy leaving coded messages for Barnes all over the city and it's causing Tony the worst possible headache. But someone tried to assassinate Cap on Tony's watch, using Tony's arrogant mistakes against Steve.
Something's strange about the wounds, the doctor says. But the super soldier serum in Steve's blood is holding him at the brink.
Tony keeps an eye and ear out, lets his mind bleed through all the security and communication systems the hospital has to offer.
“Too stubborn to die,” a nurse says and Tony glares inwardly then nods to himself.
“Think he's behind it?” someone whispers.
“Are you kidding? I think Stark was crying.”
He hears all the unkind words and rumors, hears what the news anchors have to say, but there's no sign of the assassins coming for them here.
He's too out of it to care about who listens when he pulls the chair closer to the bed and says: “I know you hate me and you have every right to.” His voice breaks. He grabs Steve's hand and squeeze his fingers. “Just don't die. Don't die on me.”
He sobs, pushes a hand against his mouth to stop it.
“Don't die,” he begs the silent form.
Then the fingers squeeze back.
Steve's eyes open. He wheezes. Tries to reach up and pull the masks from his face the tube from his throat.
His hand is tied down.
Tony squeezes his fingers harder.
He can help him get the mask off.
Instead he loosens the restraints.
Steve coughs and gags and falls bag moaning in pain.
“You have bullet holes,” Tony informs him, sitting on his bed side trying to be casual, one leg over the other. He knows his voice is hoarse, threatening to “Just do me the favor and stay down and don't make me regret this.”
He indicates the restraints.
Steve glares.
Tony doesn't have it in him to glare back. He looks away, his eyes burning. His cheeks are hot. He never wanted it to be like this. He never wanted Steve to hate him. He can deal with it though if it means they're all safe.
He knows he's held it together for so long because he had to.
He can't anymore.
He tries to get up, but Steve's fingers grab his wrist and while his grip isn't his normal super soldier strong, it's tight enough to hold Tony back. Tony remains sitting with his back to Steve, holds his head high.
Too much of a coward to face him again, he thinks and waits for it.
“I take it this wasn't...”
“Me?” he snaps before Steve can finish.
“Something you knew would be coming.”
He makes fists, releases them, tries to find words for what he feels.
Steve nearly dies. Steve nearly died because you put him in that place.
“No,” he says and his voice is breaking. “If I had known I wouldn't have hesitated till the last minute but been there keeping you safe from the start.”
It's happening. A tear rolls down his cheek and he can't stop it.
“Even though I...” Steve says and he sounds so terribly weak. “I tried to...”
“Everything is going to hell, Steve.” It's the first time he admits it. “I wouldn't have held it against you.”
“If I hadn't stopped...”
“I know.” He can admit that he hadn't been surprised by the anger, hadn't been surprised to find himself at the receiving end of it. He deserves it. “That doesn't mean I want you dead. Or behind bars. Or in this room.”
His voice becomes a croak.
Steve pulls at his arm until he turns.
It's more than one tear now.
Tears.
“I didn't know you could still...” He reaches up to touch Tony's cheek. He looks deathly pale.
“What?”
“Feel. Extremis...”
He pushes Steve's hand away and gets up. “Still about that.”
An incoming message jars him, headache spiking to the point of migraine, drowning out the news feeds just long enough to get through.
NATASHA ROMANOFF, INCOMING MESSAGE..
SHARON CARTER SAFE. WEAPON SECURED. DOCTOR FAUSTUS GOT TO HER.
“I'm sorry, Tony. I know it wasn't you. Sharon tried to shoot me,” Steve says matter-of-factly. “But it wasn't her.”
“I know,” Tony says and tries to hide how shaken he is, how much this hurts. “It might as well have been me. I put you there. I failed to notice. I let the Marshals take over. I wasn't there..”
Steve tries to sit up. “You were there. You were. Why were you?”
How can he answer that? He pinches the back of his nose.
Then Steve says, “Sit down.”
Tony thinks he means the chair but he pats the edge of the bed. That places Tony closer in case Steve needs to punch him, he presumes.
He sits down.
Extremis relays a coded message from an undisclosed location: RED SKULL. IF HE DIES YOU DIE NEXT.
Charming.
He nearly laughs and Steve catches it, glares.
“I think I found Barnes,” he says. “He's on the case. I think.”
Steve blinks but isn’t sidetracked. “I think the two of us need to talk.”
He looks better already. The healing factor must have kicked in.
“I've been telling you for weeks and it didn't get me anywhere,” he admits. Laughter bubbles up.
He sounds hysterical.
Steve catches his hand again, pulls.
“You look terrible,” he says.
“You haven't looked in a mirror yet,” Tony nearly snaps. “You're death warmed over. You nearly died.”
And it's my fault, his mind keeps telling him.
But Tony settles down despite the urge to flee.
“What now?” Steve asks.
Tony shakes his head. “We need to...”
“...work together,” Steve finishes.
His eyes widen and he meets Steve's eyes. Then Tony nods.
His heart clenches with the memory of Steve's face going slack, all the blood...
More messages come in and he tries to push them away, tries to focus all his attention on Steve and here and now. Jessica Drew has a warning for him, there's an update from Dugan, the President wants to be informed, a senator has used the commotion to push for an investigation into the Avengers Academy program, the Daily Bugle wants all their heads.
Only Dugan's message matters.
DOCTOR TRIED TO SNEAK OUT ROGER'S BLOOD.
REPLY: BUYER?
MILITARY.
At least not the Red Skull. Just another problem.
“Three military projects hoped to get custody of you after being sentenced.”
“Military?” Steve doesn't even look surprised. Just pale and tired. "What does that have to do with...?"
“You're not the only one. There are at least four government agencies waiting for my downfall to dissect me.” He says it so matter-of-factly that it scares even himself but he has to say it now. “And something is... wrong.”
“And something is wrong.” Steve's eyes are wide and angry. “Someone wants to dissect you — and me? And something else is...?”
Tony grabs his hand and squeezes. “You have no idea what some of them were pushing for. That's why...” He falters.
Then Steve grabs his arm and pulls.
This is when the punch is coming. Instead Tony falls against Steve, feels the breath knocked out of the bigger body below as Tony pushes against all the wrong places.
“You could have been shot too,” Steve says, voice a pain-filled croak. “You didn't leave. You just...”
“I had armor,” Tony reminds him.
“You called back your helmet to look at me,” Steve huffed, a groan of pain barely hidden in the accusation. “You stayed. With me. Right in the line of fire, after I...”
I would have deserved it, Tony thought.
“Yes,” he says and lets his head rest beside Steve's on the pillow, facing away from him to the wall.
Nothing happens. There's the beeping of the heart monitor. Loud voices fill the hallways. The doctors will look in on them soon but Tony sends a message to make sure they have trustworthy SHIELD doctors here this time.
He only realizes Steve's arm got buried under him when Steve uses the arm to pull him closer into an awkward hug. His breath ghost against the nape of Tony's neck when he says: “I missed you, Shellhead.”
His heart beats faster in his Extremis controlled body. Tears prick his eyes and he sobs: “You nearly died.”
He's the betrayer, the traitor, the useless futurist who's always one step behind, who nearly lost Steve today. And yet, Steve's the one holding him, whispering: “It's alright.”
He's not sure anything will ever be alright.
But Steve's alive and breathing.
He can make sure it stays that way.
“This was worth the bullet holes,” Steve whispers. “At least for once you’re telling the truth.”
Tony's heart clenches. “No!” he snaps. He thinks he could argue, fight about this but Steve fingers lace with his. He stares at them in disbelief. His grip's getting stronger too. It sinks in: He's alive. Breathing. Warm. Getting better. “No, it wasn't worth it at all,” he says in a much smaller, broken voice. “And I was telling you what I could.”
Steve's fingers squeeze tighter, shakes his head. He doesn’t believe that, but he doesn’t look angry about it just now. “You were always like this. Keeping your own counsel. Making decisions for everyone else.”
Tony bites his lip to keep himself from snapping back and ruining the moment.
“Thank you,” Steve whispers. “Whatever happens tomorrow... Thank you for now.”
He hears his heart splinter into a billion pieces, hears his own thank you echo back as if from a distance: “Thank you for trusting me — for now.”
Nothing will be easy from here. All their talks have failed — because Steve doesn't want to listen and because Tony's living with his back against the wall not able to trust, not willing to share all his suspicions.
In a moment the world will crash back in on them, someone will find them, an emergency will be called, a villain stage an attack... A disaster will be waiting around the next corner.
Most of all Steve's showing him kindness.
And it never took more to destroy him than that.
Destroy me then, he thinks. As long as you keep breathing, it doesn't matter what happens to me.
He lets his fingers squeeze back, alert, letting Extremis through the buzz and direct people away from the hospital room while Steve drifts back to an uneasy sleep, Tony held in an uncomfortably cramped embrace he doesn't dare extract himself from.
Something will have to happen to clean up this mess.
AVENGERS CALL, DANVERS, CAROL
You alright, Tony? How is Steve doing?
He doesn't dare smile. He doesn't dare hope.
We're alive, he thinks and sends the voice message directly to her Avengers ID card. He'll be fine.
Tony doubts that puts her fears to rest.
With how he's shaking and how his heart aches, he doubts it'll ever help put his own to rest.
But they can have this moment, this truce, as long as it lasts inside the room — whatever happens next.
Whatever it is, Tony's warned now. He'll make sure Steve's safe. He'll make sure next time they come for one of them, it won't be Steve.