Archive of Our Own

Steve had asked Vision once why he chose Wanda and not Tony. He’d known as soon as he asked that it was horrible of him to ask but he’d just come back from the tower, from hearing Tony speak to FRIDAY and watching him wince with every word she spoke, and he had wanted to know why Vision, who had as much of JARVIS in him as the Mind Stone had so easily latched onto Wanda and only Wanda. He hadn’t meant it the way it sounded, hadn’t meant to imply that Vision had chosen one and sacrificed the other; rather, that Vision, who had chosen the voice of someone Tony had just lost, hadn’t immediately latched onto Tony.

He’d apologized immediately after asking, said, “You don’t have to answer that.”

And Vision, in that odd way of speaking that he had, had said slowly, “No, I don’t but I think it might help.” He’d hesitated for a moment. “I… am not JARVIS. Perhaps it would be best to think of it in terms of a parent and child. JARVIS was my parent, but I am not him, even though we share the same voice. I do not think Mr. Stark would ever be able to forget that, no matter how much he tried.”

Steve had let the issue drop after that, not wanting to offend Vision any further (and anyway, it wasn’t right to deny Wanda what happiness she could find after Sokovia), but he’d still thought to himself, But who’s there with Tony?

For whatever reason, that’s the conversation he’s thinking of when Nat shows up at the team’s safehouse three days after Steve breaks the team out of the Raft. She’s welcomed with open arms, hugs from those closest to her and a friendly wave from Scott, who doesn’t know her at all. Even Steve hugs her, murmuring his thanks for coming to join them.

But in the back of his mind, he asks that same question he’d asked last year: But who’s there with Tony?

He knows the answer, even as he asks it: Colonel Rhodes is there with Tony, Colonel Rhodes, who will never again be able to fly War Machine; Vision, who spends more time with Wanda in their rented hotel rooms than he does in New York; and a child whose name Steve still doesn’t know, who is in no way ready to be an Avenger. And he winces, because by this point, his letter will have reached Tony. His letter, in which he’d given the team to Tony and called them his, only they’re not, are they? Because he looks around the cramped safehouse and he realizes—he hadn’t left Tony with anyone really, had he? Out of the original team, Clint had stood by him all along, Bruce and Thor are gone, and now Nat’s come to join him. He had always had Sam and Wanda, and Vision might as well be with them, for all the time he spends with Wanda. Even T’Challa, so firmly supportive of the Accords, has gone behind the UN’s back to give Steve and his team assistance.

And he thinks about the letter he sent, about being worried that Tony was rattling around in the Compound by himself, and he wonders if that’s exactly what he’s forced on Tony. Because he looks around and he realizes that no matter what he said, the team isn’t really split apart at all. They’re almost all right here with him.

And not for the first time in the last week, he wonders just what, exactly, he’s done.

He’s still thinking about it that night when he gets into bed. He’s still wondering if he did the right thing. There’s no doubt in his mind that signing the Accords, as they are right now, would have been a bad decision but he thinks about Tony and he just…

Hell, he doesn’t even know what he wants, just that he’s still thinking about Tony alone in that compound, in that situation that Steve has put him in, and his heart hurts.

The flip phone, sitting on the nightstand next to his bed, lights up. Tony. Steve all but dives for it, casting a furtive look at Sam asleep in the next bed. The team doesn’t know about the phone he sent Tony and Sam is the only one who knows about the letter. He’d said it was a bad idea, that Tony might use it to track them down. But Sam doesn’t know Tony like he does. Tony wouldn’t do something like that.

To his surprise, the phone isn’t ringing, just lit up from a text message. He frowns. He supposes that he knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that the phone didn’t necessarily have to be used for emergencies but somehow, he’d always thought that that’s what Tony would use it for. He hadn’t thought Tony would use it to send texts, especially not less than a week after Steve nearly… nearly… well, especially not less than a week after Siberia.

From TS: I want to talk

He stares at the message for almost a minute, wondering if there’s supposed to be some sort of subliminal message coming from it. Tony—Tony—wants to talk? Why? Shouldn’t he still be mad? Is this supposed to be a trap?

Steve glances over at the other bed again, where Sam is laying on his side and snoring lightly, and makes a decision. He gets back up out of bed, throws on a coat, and leaves the bedroom. He makes his way silently out of the safehouse to the front porch, where Clint is standing guard, having drawn the short straw for the first watch.

“Go on to bed,” he says. “I’ll take the watch instead.”

Clint doesn’t even startle. Out of nowhere, Steve thinks about a game Tony and Thor used to play with Clint and Nat when they all first moved into the tower. Well, they’d called it a game, but Steve had always thought it to be more like training, since the object was to see who could successfully sneak up on Clint or Nat. He’s forgotten about that, over the last year and a half forgotten how much fun the original team had had with each other. He’d been so focused on the new team back then that he’d forgotten how much he had loved the old one.

“You sure?” Clint asks. “I don’t mind.”

“I can’t sleep anyway,” Steve says. It’s only partially a lie. Now that he has that text from Tony, he’s wide awake but before, he’d been dead on his feet.

“Won’t say no to that offer,” Clint says, climbing to his feet. He pauses in the door and looks back at Steve. “I miss them too.”

“Who?” Steve asks but he knows who Clint is talking about.

Clint must know that he knows because he ignores the question. “Feels like they should be here with us, doesn’t it? Well, anyway, good night.”

As soon as he’s gone, Steve dials the only number programmed into this phone and raises the phone to his ear. It only rings once before it goes straight to voicemail. He lowers it, frowning at the phone as though it’s the machine’s fault Tony ignored him.

From TS: Not now, idiot

From TS: In person. Next Monday

The next message is an address, one that Steve recognizes from one of the team bonding exercises he’d held back when he, Nat, and Clint had left the remnants of SHIELD for the Avengers. It’s one of Tony’s houses, the one in Sweden, originally built by Howard to be off the grid so that the Stark family could escape the press. According to Tony, only he and Maria had used it, Howard too caught up in his own brilliance to want to get away for a few weeks.

He taps the phone against his chin, thinking. It could be a trap. If it had been Steve planning a message like this, it definitely would have been a trap. But the house in Sweden…he doesn’t think Tony would compromise that, compromise the best memories of his mother, just to catch Steve.

From SR: I’ll be there.

Steve actually doesn’t really like the house in Sweden. The home is set high in the mountains, high enough that there’s snow almost all year round. It reminds him just a little too much of the mission in the mountains where he had lost Bucky during the war, though he had always set aside his discomfort because the team absolutely loved the house, with its ski slopes and fireplaces stretching to the ceiling and hot cocoa makers in the kitchen.

He had always thought he hid his discomfort well, but Tony must have known about it. Why else would he have chosen this house for a meeting place, so soon after their fight in Siberia?

He snorts as he walks up to the house. Fight, he calls it, like it had been one of their typical blustery arguments and not the two of them doing their very best to put each other down for good. There’s a familiar twinge of guilt in his heart at the thought of how he had left Tony there, suit broken, arc reactor cracked. T’Challa had assured him that he had sent assistance to Tony before they left, that Tony would not have been stuck there, and in the heat of the moment, that had been good enough for him. But he looks back on that moment with shame now. He should never have left a teammate behind like that, even one that he was fighting with.

The house is already lit up inside, telling him that Tony is already here, and he hesitates on the front porch. He had arrived early, planning on getting there before Tony so that he would have enough time to mentally prepare himself to see Tony again. Doesn’t look like that plan is going to work now.

Before he can steel himself, the door swings open and Tony leans up against the doorjamb. “You gonna stand out there all night?” Tony asks him. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re more than welcome to but the forecast is calling for a storm tonight. Wouldn’t want you to freeze to death. Again.”

Despite himself, Steve feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth at Tony’s unique brand of irreverent humor. “I’d come in,” he says, “if you would move out of the doorway.”

Tony glances away and then back at him. What is he thinking right now? What thoughts are running through his mind? If Steve knows Tony, he has a million of them, all contradicting each other.

“Guess that’s true,” Tony says eventually and stands aside.

Steve is careful not to brush against him as he walks inside, though it’s close. The doorway isn’t large, and Steve is a big man. He drops his bag on the wooden table in the entryway, not sure if Tony has a room set aside for him, or even if he wants Steve to stay there at all.

“So,” he begins awkwardly.

“Did you know?” Tony interrupts him brusquely.

Steve hesitates. “You already asked me that.”

Tony jams his hands in his pockets. “I know. I want to hear what you say when he’s not standing right there.”

“I didn’t know it was him,” Steve tells him again. He’ll tell him as many times as Tony needs to hear it before he’ll believe it. He never would have hurt Tony like that, never would have used him like that—because he knows he had. He had used Tony’s money and his resources and his considerable brains to track down Bucky. It hadn’t been until they’d realized that the psychologist—Zemo—was a fake that he had even started to suspect that Howard and Maria’s murderer was Bucky.

“But you still knew they were murdered,” Tony states.

He shakes his head. “I suspected.” And that’s true. Zola had made the claim that Hydra had had the Starks killed but Zola had claimed a lot of disasters that were easy enough to prove false. When the mission report hadn’t surfaced after the fall of SHIELD, he had assumed that was a lie too.

It’s time for a question of his now. “Are you still angry?”

“No,” Tony says quietly. “I was never really angry.”

“But you attacked—”

“And you fought back. Were you angry?” They’re both quiet for a couple minutes. “I don’t know, Steve. I saw it up on the screen and it was right there in black and white and all I wanted was for someone to take responsibility. But he wouldn’t. You wouldn’t let him.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Steve says sharply. Maybe, if he keeps saying the words, he’ll even start to believe it, because right now, it can be so hard to believe that with Bucky in cryo again and those mission reports sitting right in front of him with pictures of a monster wearing his best friend’s face. He wonders if Tony has realized yet that he wasn’t the only person who’d lost people to the Winter Soldier that night. Steve and Bucky both had lost a close friend.

“I know,” Tony murmurs. “But my parents are still dead, Steve.”

Oh.

He hadn’t thought of it like that, not in the heat of the moment in Siberia and not afterwards. Steve had thought—well, Tony has often told him about how contentious his relationship with his parents, particularly Howard, had been. He supposes that he’d just figured that Tony has long since moved on from their deaths, that it wasn’t still affecting him almost thirty years later. He looks again at Tony and this time, he sees the dark bags under his eyes. It’s been a few weeks since the Avengers broke apart and it looks like Tony has barely slept since then.

Who’s there with Tony?

He aches to give Tony a hug, soothe his mind until it quiets enough to let him sleep. There had been a time once, a time before Ultron, before the Civil War, before Siberia, when he knows Tony would have welcomed his touch. He would have let Steve pull him into his arms and take him upstairs and tuck him into bed, maybe even curl up under the blankets with him until Tony finally dropped off to sleep. They had never moved beyond the shy touches and quiet words, but Steve had held out hope for the two of them. But then Ultron had happened, and then Bruce and Thor were gone, and then Tony was leaving too and that had been the end of whatever they’d been building up to.

Steve opens his mouth, intent on offering up something—he doesn’t know what, but he can’t stay quiet.

Before he can though, Tony says, “You’re welcome to any of the rooms upstairs. Won’t make you go out in this storm. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Steve knows him well enough to know that’s a lie though. Tony will be long gone by the morning.

Steve is the one to arrange their next meeting a month later. Clint and Scott have been talking about wanting to return home and join their families again. He doesn’t blame them. He would love to go home as well, back to the Compound, back to Tony though that’s something he only admits to himself in the dead of night when no one else can hear him. He made his choice. Now he has to live with it.

But Clint and Scott though? That’s something he can do something about.

He texts Tony and sets up a meeting date and time at one of the safehouses he has and then he heads over there and waits. The team is more than capable of handling any problems without him while he’s gone, and he’s determined to beat Tony to the safehouse this time. If that means he has to wait there for four days until Tony arrives, then that’s what he’ll do. The world seems very quiet right now anyway, like it’s recovering after the Avengers’ split. He doubts that’s really the reason, doubts that the world could be so centered on his team, but that’s how it feels to him anyway.

Tony arrives a few hours before their scheduled meeting time, although Steve can’t tell if that’s because that’s the way the flights worked out or because Tony wanted to get there early. His face isn’t betraying anything other than disdain as he wrinkles his nose at the shabby safehouse.

“It’s clean,” Steve informs him. He’d made sure to do a thorough cleaning right after arriving, knowing how much Tony appreciates a clean house. He grabs two mugs—old novelty Avengers mugs that Clint had found at a garage sale—out of the cupboard and pours some of the coffee he’s kept heating into them. He adds cream and sugar the way they like and hands one mug, the black and red one for Natasha, to Tony as Steve sits down at the kitchen table.

Tony wrinkles his nose at the mug.

“I’m sorry I don’t have the finest china for my mugs,” Steve says jokingly.

“Apology not accepted,” Tony replies primly. Steve grins at him and for a moment, it’s like nothing is wrong. They could be back home in the Tower or at the Compound, joking around with each other like any other night. But they’re not, and Steve’s grin fades as he realizes that nothing will ever be the same again.

He exhales slowly, taking Tony in. Tony looks a little more rested than he did the last time Steve saw him, the shadows under his eyes not so deep and dark. He still looks tired though and he’s still moving rather gingerly like the injuries he sustained in Siberia are bothering him even almost two months later. Not for the first time, there’s a pang of guilt in Steve’s heart. But just like with his letter, he’s still not sure how to apologize in any sort of meaningful way.

“Clint and Scott want to go home,” he begins, just as Tony asks, “How’s Bucky?”

They both smile awkwardly.

Then it hits Steve. “Wait, what? You want to know about Bucky?”

Tony shrugs uncomfortably. “I know he didn’t mean to do… what he did. And I’m sure Wakanda has thoughts on how to help him. So, you know…”

“You don’t have to ask after him,” Steve says quietly when it becomes clear that Tony isn’t going to continue. “I know—now—he hurt you.” It’s something he’s been thinking about since their last meeting, something he’s been going over and over in his head, and he’s still not entirely certain he’s got it. But he thinks about how he would feel if Rhodey had been the brainwashed one who killed his parents, and he thinks he might be close to understanding. Whether Bucky had meant to or not, Howard and Maria Stark are still dead, and it was Bucky’s hands that killed them.

Tony flashes him a quick smile, more real than the last one. “Thanks.” He twiddles his thumbs. “So…what was that you were saying about Clint and—who’s the other one? I don’t know a Scott. Or, at least, I think I don’t know a Scott. You know, I probably do. I’m pretty sure there’s a Scott on the board, bane of Pepper’s existence you know, and—”

“Tony,” Steve says warmly, heartened by Tony’s babbling. He hadn’t realized how much he misses that. Tony stops. “Scott Lang is Antman.”

He can see Tony mulling that over in his head and Steve adds, “They want to go home. They want to see their families again.”

Tony scowls, opens his mouth, and suddenly weary of all the arguing, Steve adds, “Can we not fight about this? I know you’re going to say they should have thought of that before joining me, but can we not? I know, they probably know, we all already know.”

Tony’s mouth clicks shut.

“Is it even possible?” Steve asks.

Tony nods. “After… everything, they added an amendment about what to do if the Accords are violated. Clint and Lang will have to stand trial for what they did at the airport—you all will, actually, if you want to come back—and they still have to either sign or go into retirement but yeah, if they want to go home, they can.”

He pulls out his phone—not the flip phone, but one of the StarkPhones Steve is so familiar with—and taps a few times on it. “There, I sent you a copy of the Accords as they are right now. I know you didn’t really get a chance to read over them before we were asked to sign. You can read them, pass them off to Clint and Lang, send the two of them to T’Challa when they’re done. He’ll get them started on the appeals process.”

“Why did we have so little time?” Steve asks. “It’s bothered me. It doesn’t make any sense, we should have been involved in this process from the ground up.”

Tony hums. “Well, I was, but for the most part, Ross designed it that way. He told me that he was communicating with you, and like an idiot, I believed him. He wanted to tear us apart, wanted to force you into a criminal life so he could hunt you down and—and take the serum. I didn’t see it at the time, but I do now. I’m trying to get him ousted.”

“And you?”

Tony doesn’t quite answer the question. “Guess Ross knew you better than I did, because I never thought I had to tell you about the Accords during one of the early stages. I thought, after all those times listening to you rant about American troops going into countries without sovereign permission, you’d think of us as the same. Guess I underestimated how much you wanted to help people.”

Tony stands then and drains the last of his coffee. “Look, I’ve got to get going. I’m recruiting for the new team and should probably get back to it. This was a good talk though; we’re getting better at this.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. At least they hadn’t dissolved into arguing a few minutes in. He watches Tony go, still mulling over Tony’s words: Guess I underestimated how much you wanted to help people.

The thing is, Tony is both right and he isn’t. Steve has long felt uncomfortable with the U.S. military feeling like they had the right to invade other countries just because they wanted to, and he thinks that, if he’d been given the chance to actually sit down and read the Accords before they’d been so unceremoniously thrust at them, he might have actually agreed with the things that were being said. But he had just come off of that disastrous mission in Lagos and Wanda was grieving and Tony had said they needed to be put in check, and all Steve had been able to think of was the last time he’d trusted a government agency—SHIELD—and look how that had ended up?

And he knows that the UN isn’t like SHIELD, isn’t a single government easily capable of corruption—capable, yes, but it’s harder, he thinks, when there are so many more countries to keep track of. But in the heat of the moment, with SHIELD on his mind and then Peggy’s text distracting him, he had only been able to refuse to sign. He remembers Nat at the funeral, how they’d still been able to be cordial despite being on opposing sides of the Accords, and he wonders if it could have been like that with Tony, if they could have entirely avoided a fight if it hadn’t been for Bucky. By the time he got to the airport, he hadn’t even been fighting about the Accords, it had all been about getting to those supersoldiers, though now, looking back on it, he wonders if Tony had thought that Steve had been willing to go to blows over the Accords. He thinks, if he’d been in Tony’s shoes, that might have been exactly what he thought, and he sees suddenly where everything had gone so wrong—when he had let Sam talk him into keeping things from Tony, when he had let Tony think the fight at the airport was about the Accords instead of the supersoldiers.

He owes Tony an explanation, he decides. Tony deserves to know why he refused to sign, deserves a full and complete explanation that’s more than just an “I don’t want to” and Steve walking out. They were supposed to be a team, they should have made this decision together, but he’d let Ross rip through them like paper and never even told Tony why he’d let him.

 So, he forwards the copies of the Accords to Clint and Scott, telling them that the copies came from T’Challa because he knows that none of them will ever forgive him if they find out he’s been talking to Tony without telling anyone, even though he knows Tony wouldn’t use their talks to track them all down and arrest them. It’s probably fine; he’s sure the king already knows to expect Clint and Scott’s signatures and will probably know to go along with whatever story Steve gives them, and then he sits down in his room with his own copy.

He’s fully intending on making a list of all the things that bother him about the Accords so that he can take them back to Tony and say something like “This is why I don’t want to sign.” But to his surprise, the Accords are shockingly… reasonable.

Oh, there are plenty of issues there, to be sure—whatever the Superhero Registration Act is supposed to be has him very nervous—but there’s a lot that actually kind of makes sense. He can easily see Tony, who has been all about accountability since he became Iron Man, thinking that the Accords are a great idea and deciding to get in on the ground floor. And, with a few more tweaks, he can even almost see himself having agreed with it.

“Are you thinking about going home too?” Sam abruptly asks, startling him.

“No,” Steve automatically denies. Then he grimaces. “Maybe. I—we didn’t even really get a chance to understand what we were saying no to.”

“And you want to understand now.” Sam relaxes. Huh, Steve hadn’t even realized that Sam is tense. “Little late for that, don’t you think? We made a pretty public stance against it.”

“That’s not… I know it’s probably too late for me to sign—”

“Probably? Man, you told one hundred and seventeen countries where to stick it. It’s definitely too late.”

It’s not the first time he’s heard the number, but it might be the first time it really sinks in. This had never been like SHIELD, one shady government organization with its own agenda that changed depending on who Fury was talking to. This had been well over half the countries in the world, all managing to agree on this one thing: the Avengers need to be put in check. And he hadn’t even managed to listen long enough to hear them out.

He’s starting to understand why Tony had been so angry with him.

“Why didn’t you sign?” he asks suddenly. Steve knows why he hadn’t, but he realizes that now that he doesn’t actually know why Sam hadn’t signed—or for that matter, why any of them hadn’t.

“Because,” Sam starts and then drops down heavily to sit on the bed. He leans forward, hands clasped in that counselors pose that Steve recognizes from the few times he’s attended meetings at the VA. “You know I was a double major in college?” It seems like a non sequitur but Steve waits him out. “Psychology, obviously, but also history. I had this idea of working with minorities, using cultural history to explain psychological differences or something like that. Didn’t get much further than a vague dream before Riley enlisted and I followed right after him. Point is, Ross said that he wanted to keep track of our abilities and all I heard was another 1930s Germany. I figured that’s what you heard too.”

“Yeah,” Steve says thoughtfully, tapping his tablet against the palm of his hand. “Something like that.”

He isn’t surprised when first Scott and then, a few days later, Clint come back with signed copies of the Accords, ready to go home. He takes both copies and calls up T’Challa to let him know.

“Yes, Dr. Stark told me this might happen,” T’Challa says solemnly. “He’s been preparing for it, I believe.”

“Preparing?”

“I believe his lawyers have been called to aid in Mr. Barton’s and Mr. Lang’s cases.”

Oh.

That’s—

Steve doesn’t really know how he feels about that. It’s just—it’s so—it’s such an incredibly Tony thing to do and yet it feels wholly unexpected to Steve. “He’s really doing that for them?” he asks, just seeking to double check.

He can practically hear T’Challa’s frown through the phone. “Did you think he wouldn’t?”

Scott gets clearance to return home before Clint does. “Makes sense,” Clint says as Scott disappears into T’Challa’s jet. Steve glances at him. “I did attack the Avengers’ Compound, which is more than what Scott did, even if he stole the Antman suit.”

But he sounds very forlorn as they watch the jet take off and no one is surprised when Natasha offers him a hug before they both return inside. Steve stays longer than anyone else does, long after the jet has disappeared into the clear blue sky, long after Sam comes back out and asks him if he’ll be joining them for dinner. He doesn’t remember what he says to Sam, just that Sam disappears for a while and when Steve next looks down, there’s a plate on the railing beside his elbow.

He takes out the flip phone and stares at it for a while, drumming his fingers against the wooden railing. Eventually, he flips the phone open and starts a next text message to Tony: Can we talk?

It takes less than a minute for Tony to respond and Steve bites back a smile at the sight of the address and date. It might be too late for him to sign the Accords, but maybe—if he’s very, very lucky—it’s not too late for him to rebuild his relationship with Tony.

They’re on a Caribbean island this time, at a vacation house that Tony has apparently rented for their discussion. It’s a nice house, not as spacious (empty, he really means) as Tony’s home in Sweden, but bigger than the safehouse Steve had taken them to the last time he’d met up. Tony is already there when Steve arrives, standing in the open kitchen in jean and a button-down with the sleeves rolled up as he chops vegetables. Steve hopes the meal means that Tony will be staying for longer than the duration of their talk this time. He misses Tony, his snark, his wit, the surprising care with which he treats Steve, considering how frequently they butt heads.

“Oh good,” Tony says casually as he catches sight of Steve. “You’re here, you can start putting together a salad.”

“A salad, huh?” Steve asks, dropping his bags in the hall. He rolls up his own sleeves and takes his place next to Tony, who moves away as soon as he takes up the knife. Steve watches out of the corner of his eye as Tony checks on some sort of sauce on the stove, stirring it twice before smiling and putting a lid on top of it as he turns the heat to low. Tony looks tired again but he’s moving easier than he was the last time they saw each other. “Didn’t take you for the salad type of person.”

Tony shoots him an amused look. “Ana used to say that if you were making a home-cooked meal, you should always have a salad.”

Ana, Steve remembers from past discussions with Tony, was Edwin Jarvis’ wife and the Starks’ cook. He only met Jarvis a few times during the war—he was always too busy with other things that Mr. Stark had him doing to stop and hang out with the Howlies—but he remembers an unassuming, yet remarkable man, who reminded him a lot of Coulson before—before Loki’s attack. It hadn’t surprised him when Tony let it slip one day that the Jarvises had raised him more than either of his parents. Tony might have learned how to build his shields from Howard and Maria, but the kind and generous person beneath those acerbic shields could only have come from the Jarvises.

They fall into an easy silence as they work, which surprises Steve. He would have thought, given how their last few conversations had gone, that any silence between them would be fraught with tension, if they were able to keep from sniping at each other at all. But maybe, he thinks, maybe Tony is just as tired as fighting as he is.

Dinner is some sort of rice and yogurt-marinated chicken dish with a fruit salsa piled on top, plus the salad that Steve had prepared. They make light conversation as they eat. Steve asks after SI and how the preparations for Pepper and Happy’s wedding are going. The last time he’d seen Pepper, she and Happy had just gotten engaged. It’s a little shocking to realize that the wedding is now only a month away. Tony eagerly tells him all about the wedding and then asks about how the team is doing, careful not to ask where they are right now, a gesture that Steve appreciates. Steve thinks he sounds a little lonely and remembers that question he’s been asking himself for almost a year: who’s there with Tony? So he tells him about Clint saying he missed Tony, Bruce, and Thor; about Natasha doing yoga on her own, leaving it up for Tony to figure it out on his own that she misses doing yoga with him; about Sam doing routine maintenance on Redwing and starting to say something to the empty air only to realize that Tony isn’t right there beside him, tinkering on his own project.

“If you’re trying to make me guilty about—how did you put it?—breaking up the Avengers,” Tony begins.

“No!” Steve exclaims, horrified that that’s probably exactly how it sounds to Tony. How does everything he say always manages to sound smarmy and rude? “I just—we do miss you. And Rhodey. And—” He stops before he can say Vision because, after all, Vision spends a lot of time with Wanda, and he’s sure that Tony knows that. “We miss you,” he repeats. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

Tony smiles tightly, though it looks like more of a grimace and opens his mouth to say something. He almost immediately shuts it again, and Steve can’t help but wonder what he was going to say. Would it be about it being the team’s own fault they can’t see him? They’ve already had that conversation. Would it be about being unable to follow Steve and the others into exile? Because it’s true, and Steve can’t believe he didn’t see it before—the public face of SI would never have been able to go against the Accords so publicly. He would have always had to work within the system.

“I wanted to talk about the Accords,” Steve says, instead of waiting for Tony to say something. He has a feeling they would have been waiting a while.

“Yeah?” Tony asks, gratefully seizing on the subject change. “What about them? You read them?”

“I did,” Steve says slowly. He needs to be careful about what he says here. He doesn’t want to sound like he’s attacking Tony or the Accords. “I—what is the Superhero Registration Act?”

To Steve’s surprise, Tony makes a disgusted face. “A compromise,” he says. “Supposedly.”

“Between what?”

“Superheroes having complete control over themselves and Project Wideawake.”

“Wideawake?” Steve asks. “I don’t remember seeing that in the Accords.”

Tony smiles viciously. “Because I made sure it never saw the light of day.” He sighs, smile fading as he runs his hand through his hair. “You gotta understand Steve: people are scared.”

“Scared? Of us? Tony, we’re just here to help.”

“I know, but our version of help looks a lot like destruction. Look at what happened with Ultron. Or with SHIELD. Fuck, for that matter, look at what happened with Johannesburg. And it wasn’t like Wanda was an Avenger at that point. She let the Hulk loose on a city full of civilians, and I know that she regrets it, I know she’s reformed, but it still happened and she never even saw a trial.”

“She was young.”

“She was a fully-grown adult, albeit one who was angry and brainwashed by Hydra. But even you can’t deny that her abilities have incredible destructive power. She’s a little Hermione gone rogue.” At Steve’s confused look, Tony adds, “You know, because she’s got the magic powers and she’s really powerful and—you know what, never mind, it was a bad analogy. Point is, she put Vision through several floors of the Compound and that’s when she was only a little annoyed.”

“Because you locked her up.”

“Point taken, I should have talked about it with her, but in my defense, I did think she would have the wherewithal to realize that there was an angry mob gunning for her head.”

“She can take care of herself.”

“Yeah, except taking care of herself would have meant harming civilians, which would have only had people more afraid of her, and it would have been a terrible cycle. Anyway, my point is, Wideawake was a project designed to stop people like her. Not Wanda exactly, but other people like her, with powers and without the morals that she has. It started off as just an idea, a way to stop heroes gone rogue, but secretly, Ross managed to actually create these robots—he called them Sentinels. Their entire purpose is to stop superpowered individuals with evil intentions, but I think we both know how easily Ross could have abused that power.”

The very thought sends shivers up and down Steve’s spine. He knows what Ross wanted to do with the Abomination, knows what Ross’ plans for the Hulk had been. He can easily see Ross—or someone else like him—twisting the Sentinels’ abilities to their own purposes, expanding the definition of evil intentions to anything not like their own.

“But you stopped it,” he clarifies.

“You’re damn right I stopped it,” Tony says. “I—hopefully you can understand that I don’t want anyone else to know where the Sentinels are, but no one can get to them.”

He wants to insist on knowing what happened to the Sentinels—he’s seen what can happen when Tony hides things from him—but he knows what will happen if he pushes the issue. They’ll argue, again, and he’s so very tired of arguing with Tony. And after everything that happened in Siberia, he doesn’t think he gets to judge Tony for keeping secrets.

“And the Registration Act is a compromise?”

Tony sighs and tilts his head back, staring at the ceiling for a long moment. “Come on,” he says eventually. “These chairs aren’t the most comfortable. And I think I’m going to want something to drink if we’re going to talk about this now.”

The words make Steve more than a little nervous, but to his surprise, Tony doesn’t go for any of the wine in the fridge. Instead, he heads for the coffeemaker, tossing over his shoulder, “You want a cup?”

Steve almost refuses, but if Tony is really that worried about the conversation, maybe it’s better that he have something to hold on to. “Yeah, that’d be great,” he says, and works on clearing the dishes while Tony waits for the coffee to brew. He washes them, setting them aside on the drying rack, figuring it’s probably easier than bothering with the dishwasher for only a few plates.

The coffee is done by the time he sets the last fork in the rack. Tony passes him a mug as he murmurs, “One cream, five sugars.” It’s the way Steve has always taken his coffee and he’s a little surprised at first that Tony remembered, but then again, Tony has always taken care of them, keeping Natasha’s favorite fruit—blackberries—in the fridge all the time, making sure that there was always something sweet in the pantry for Thor. It really shouldn’t be that surprising that Tony remembered Steve’s coffee order.

“The Registration Act,” Tony begins once they’re settled around the fire pit in the sunken living room, “is a compromise the same way…” He stops, clearly searching for an example. “Well, it’s not really a compromise at all. It’s a list, a list of every superhero that signed the Accords, what their powers and abilities are, and what their secret identity is, if they have one, so that they can be tracked, which obviously can still be abused by anyone smart enough to read between the lines.”

“And you thought we’d ever want to sign something like that?” Steve asks, unimpressed and more than a little horrified.

“No, and frankly I didn’t want to either. But I could read the writing on the wall. New York had people nervous. Sokovia had people scared. The whole point of the SHRA was to make sure that if someone was abusing their powers, the UN would know who committed the crime and stop them. I wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea, I don’t like anyone having access to the suits, even if I am compromised, and I’d almost managed to have it removed from the Accords entirely, but then everything with Crossbones and then the UN blowing up and the evidence pointing to Bucky… It’s not going away, Steve. Not anymore.”

“So what are you trying to do about it?” Steve asks, because if he knows anything about Tony Stark, it’s that he always has a plan.

Tony smiles at him, a real, genuine smile, not a smirk or a grimace or the melancholic one that he’s seen since the fight in Germany. The sight makes Steve’s heart ache. He’s missed that smile. He’s missed Tony.

“Right now, I’ve been working on stalling the creation of the list while I convince the UN that they can keep the SHRA, but the list needs to be in the hands of a superhero, not the UN.”

It’s the sort of unexpected genius that Tony is so good at. Steve doesn’t know that he would have ever thought about making sure that the UN couldn’t get that list. He would have been—and had been—so focused on stopping the Accords from happening at all that he would have forgotten about other ways to get around the system.

“I like it,” he says honestly. “I wish I could be there to support you.”

Tony sighs and admits, “I wish you could be too. Would have been a lot easier if I had Captain America behind me.” He takes a sip out of his coffee. “So. You’ve been reading the Accords. What did you think?”

“I still have reservations,” Steve tells him. “I don’t feel comfortable signing anything while there’s still the possibility someone other than a superhero has access to the list. But I can see why you thought I’d be willing to sign.”

“Or at least give them more than a cursory look.”

Steve huffs. “Yeah.”

“So you’re still not willing to sign them as they are,” Tony says quietly, fingers tapping a staccato beat on the arm of his chair.

“Sorry, Tony, no.”

“Do you have ideas about what you’d want changed?”

Steve looks at him sharply. “As in—”

“Amendments.” Tony tilts his head to the side. “Technically, since you haven’t signed, you don’t get to propose any amendments, but…” He glances away nervously, then back at Steve. “But maybe you could bring your ideas to me? We could talk about them at least.”

“And you’ll take them to the UN?” Steve asks, slightly amazed that Tony is even willing to listen to Steve’s thoughts after everything that’s happened between them.

“Yeah, well, I’m doing it for myself, so don’t get too excited,” Tony says in that gruff tone that means he’s lying and a little emotional about what he’s lying about. “I’m tired of Vision leaving the team so he can see Wanda. And I might have found new team members, but it’s not enough to deal with all the threats in the world.”

“You found new team members?” Steve asks curiously.

Tony shrugs. “A few.” His voice quiets to a whisper that even Steve has to strain to hear, “And maybe I’m tired of the Compound being as quiet as it is.”

Steve has a feeling that he probably wasn’t supposed to hear that, so he says instead, “You really think this could work?”

“Maybe? I can’t promise that the UN will go for any of it, but.” He looks up and meets Steve’s eyes, his gaze softening to something fond and half-familiar from their brief time on the team together. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Natasha is the one watching the news when Tony’s press conference about the new Avengers begins. Steve is in the kitchen, talking to Wanda and Sam as they cook dinner (though Steve’s contribution is chopping vegetables and that’s it), but he looks up as soon as he hears Tony’s voice. His distraction nearly leads to him chopping his own thumb off, so he quickly sets the knife down and heads into the living room.

“—new team members, effective immediately,” Tony is saying.

“What’s going on?” Steve asks Natasha, whose eyes are glued to the screen.

“Tony’s been recruiting apparently,” she says, not turning her attention away from the TV.

“Oh,” Steve murmurs. That’s right; Tony had mentioned new team members during their last meeting. He just hadn’t thought it would be so soon.

Natasha finally turns away from the television to give him a curious look. “What do you know about this?” she asks.

Whoops. Apparently, he hadn’t sounded surprised enough. “N-nothing,” he stammers out. “It just makes sense, doesn’t it? Rhodey’s injured, Vision divides his time between the team and Wanda. Tony’s the only full-time member on the team right now, and he’s not even supposed to be that. He’d have to find new members, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes,” Nat agrees slowly, but her eyes are narrowed. Steve looks back to the TV, hoping that he seems casual enough that she’ll drop the issue.

“—as permanent members, it is my honor and my pleasure to introduce Hope van Dyne, Agent Sharon Carter, Maria Hill, and Ororo Munroe. Agreeing to a temporary rotation, I’d like to welcome Dr. Stephen Strange, King T’Challa Udaku, and Vision. Being welcomed to our probationary status, I’d like to introduce Scott Lang. I will now be taking questions.”

“Is this live?” Steve asks Natasha as the reporters begin clamoring. She nods, right as Tony selects one of the journalists.

“Dr. Stark, what about War Machine? Will Colonel Rhodes be returning to the team?”

“Colonel Rhodes has been moved to a consultant position while he recovers from injuries sustained during a mission. Next—"

“And what do you have to say to allegations that Colonel Rhodes was injured by Captain Rogers and his team after they refused to sign the Accords?”

“I’m sorry, we’re not taking questions about past team members at this time,” Tony says, clearly annoyed by the interruption. “Any questions about current members?”

“But—”

Tony lowers his sunglasses to give the reporter such a quelling glare that Steve is surprised the man doesn’t hide. He would have if he’d been glared at like that. “Next,” Tony bites out, “question.”

Steve waits until after the press conference is finished before texting Tony. He’s sure he could have texted during and Tony would have just waited until later to reply, but judging by the rapid speed of Tony’s answers when he’s texted in the past, Tony probably has the phone on him and he doesn’t want to distract him during the press conference.

From SR: What happened to the other one from Germany? Spiderman?

From TS: You really think I’d bring a kid on as a full team member?

From TS: He’s just a kid

From TS: He should be doing homework, not getting into fights

From SR: You brought him to Germany.

From TS: I didn’t think that was going to turn into a fight

From TS: Or I would have left him in New York

Steve blinks. Tony had really thought that he’d be able to bring them in peacefully? Did he know anything about Steve “I’m picking every battle ever” Rogers? Or was it that he’d hoped? After all, Spiderman (geez, just a kid, Steve had nearly dropped a truck on a kid) had been formidable backup. If it hadn’t been for Nat’s assistance, Steve doubts they would have made it out of there. Most of them hadn’t.

From TS: We’re thinking about a training program for younger heroes

From TS: They’re too young to sign the Accords

From TS: But a lot of them want to help

From TS: So a training program

From TS: With a mentor and supervised missions

From TS: And then they can sign once they’re adults

From TS: What do you think?

He sits back. Out of all the things Tony could have said, asking for Steve’s opinion is the one he’d expected the least. It’s not that he doesn’t know that Tony respects him. Tony has always been one to consider Steve’s opinion after Loki and New York, with the notable exception of everything that happened with Ultron. Even during the whole mess with the Accords, Tony had been willing to listen, even as he’d pushed for Steve to sign.

And Steve had—god, he hadn’t listened at all, had he? He’d been so caught up with Peggy and Bucky and the other supersoldiers that he’d completely ignored all of Tony’s overtures. No wonder Tony was so quick to bring up the possibility of amendments. He’d thought Steve had objected to everything instead of having other things on his mind. And he had objected, but not to nearly as much as Tony probably thinks. Fuck, he owes Tony another apology, doesn’t he?

Well, the least he can give is an answer about the amendments, right? He sends a text to Tony telling him that he loves the idea of the mentoring program and then sits down on his bed with the copy of the Accords on his tablet and his notebook, pencil poised to write. He’s going to get through the Accords in one go if it kills him.

And it might.

Steve is capable of facing down bullies and insane gods alike, but this legalese might actually do him in.

“What did you like about the Accords?” he asks Nat a few days later as he sits down beside her. She’s sitting on the roof of their safehouse, feet dangling over the edge as she looks at the distant mountains. He wonders what she’s thinking about, if she’s missing Clint and Tony as much as he is.

Well.

She’s probably not missing Tony as much as he is.

But their team being together again, certainly.

She doesn’t even startle at his approach, sneaky spy that she is. She just leans her head against his shoulder. “Like is the wrong word,” she says eventually. “I didn’t like the Accords. I still don’t like them. But the Accords were going to happen either with us or to us. There was no escaping them, no Tony mocking them into submission, no funny quips that would make the UN drop the whole thing. And I thought the idea of accountability was a good one.”

“But it’s not accountability if the blame is just being passed along to someone else.”

She grimaces slightly. “That’s not really how the Accords work.” He glances at her questioningly. “It works more like an auditor, somewhat. We have a battle, we do a certain amount of damage, we then have to account for that damage to the Accords committee. They ask why the damage was unavoidable, what could have been done to mitigate the battle, and then we work out a way to repay what happened, whether that’s financially or helping with the cleanup or whatever else might be decided.”

“They know that supervillains won’t necessarily play to their tune, right?”

“Probably not. People in power always think they can control everything. But what matters is that we are beholden to someone, instead of being able to do however much damage we feel like and leaving the financial burden of cleanup to the people we hurt the most.”

Steve nods thoughtfully, turning his notebook with his notes on the Accords over in his hands. He doesn’t know if he agrees with her that this is accountability, but maybe even just the illusion of it is what people need to feel safe.

“And the rest of it?” he asks after a moment.

“Hmm?” she asks, though he’s sure she knows what he means.

“Why did you sign?”

She tilts her head, thinking about it. “I thought we needed to have one hand on the wheel to give us a small bit of control so that worse things weren’t done to us. I know that there were things in the original drafts that had even Tony worried, but he never told me what they were.”

“You said you wanted to keep the team together.”

“That too.”

“But then you left.”

“I thought most of the team was going to sign. Honestly, I still think most of us would have if it hadn’t been for Zemo and the threat of the other supersoldiers. Wanda was really shaken by what happened in Lagos. I think it would have been easy to talk her into signing if she hadn’t tried to leave the Compound. Clint was retired anyway and he rarely thought through things like this. If he had, he probably wouldn’t have saved me.”

“Hey,” Steve says sharply. “You deserved to be saved.”

She smiles tightly. “Not back then I didn’t. I don’t regret what Clint did, but if he’s stopped to think for a minute instead of acting on his instincts, he would have known to shoot instead.”

Steve looks at her. She seems very matter-of-fact about all of this, not revealing even a hint of fear about what almost happened to her. And maybe she is matter-of-fact about it. Maybe she’s decided that the past is in the past and it doesn’t matter anymore. But he doesn’t think so, and just in case, he knocks his shoulder into hers and says, “Well, thank god he didn’t think about it.”

Her smile is a little more genuine this time. After a moment, she continues, “As for you and Sam, I thought Rhodey would be able to talk Sam around… and that Tony would do the same for you.”

He thinks about his secret meetings with Tony and how they were able to rationally discuss the Accords during their last one. She’s half-right at least. He’s not ready to sign yet, but a few more conversations with Tony and he might be. He thinks he might do just about anything to be able to go home and have Tony smile at him the way he used to.

“But then everyone followed you to help you take down Hydra’s soldiers. Tony and I thought that we were still fighting about the Accords. I realized differently during the fight; that’s why I changed sides, even knowing it meant breaking the Accords and going on the run. But I don’t think Tony knew until he talked with Sam at the Raft.”

He hadn’t known that. Or, rather, he supposes he objectively knew that when he and Sam decided not to tell Tony about finding Bucky. But he guesses that he just thought that Tony would have figured out that something else was going on, that Tony hadn’t gone into that airport believing Steve would be willing to come to blows over the Accords.

“Fuck,” he says heavily, startling a laugh out of Natasha.

“Language,” she teases.

“Yeah, yeah.”

She turns pensive, looking back out at the sunset. “Are you thinking about signing?”

“I don’t know yet,” he says honestly. “There’s a lot in the Accords that I don’t agree with, that I can’t, in good conscience, sign. I wish I could. I want us all to be able to stop hiding. But I can’t compromise my values.”

“You wouldn’t be Steve Rogers if you did,” she agrees. “Does Tony know that?”

He shakes his head ruefully. “You figured it out, huh?”

“You aren’t exactly subtle.”

Like a bull in a china shop, Tony used to say about him.

“But,” she adds, “I think Clint and I are the only ones who knew.”

“Guess that makes me feel a little better,” he says. At least it’s only the two spies. “Yeah, we’ve been talking. We’re just barely at civil, so talking about my problems with the Accords is—” He sighs heavily, “—not on the topic list yet.” But he wants them to be. He wants to be able to have a rational discussion about his reservations that isn’t just Tony giving him meaningless platitudes or telling him about the worse things the UN wanted to do to them.

“Maybe you should mention them,” Natasha says. “I think he’d like to know what you’re thinking. He values your opinion.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“When you two aren’t emotionally compromised,” she amends. “But the two of you worked well together when you weren’t being influenced by the scepter or Wanda’s magic or the UN’s timetable. Why else do you think we had a standing bet about when you and Tony would start dating?”

She gets up and heads inside before the full impact of her statement hits him. But as soon as it does, he shouts after her, “Wait! You guys had what?”

While the team is in Prague about a month later, he texts Tony and asks to meet up when he gets a chance. He’s finished going through the entire Accords—a much larger document than he’d expected, though he isn’t sure how much of that could have been condensed without the legalese—and he thinks he’s ready to share his proposed amendments with Tony. To his surprise, Tony turns out to be attending a conference in the city and his hotel is only a few blocks away from Steve’s safehouse.

As Steve is heading out to meet him, Natasha stops him just inside the front door. He bites back an impatient urge to tap his foot, even though he is impatient. He doesn’t know what Natasha wants. It could be important (it could be completely unimportant too, but he doesn’t know that) and she can’t possibly know that he’s going to meet Tony, so she wouldn’t know that he’s in a hurry.

“You realize he’s one of the most visible people in the city right now, don’t you?”

Or she can do her “Wonder Spy thing,” as Tony calls it, and know exactly where he’s going and who he’s going to see while he’s there.

“Who?” he asks defensively.

She gives him a sardonic look. “I think we both know who.”

He sighs. “I’m being careful,” he says. “I’m not going to risk our team.”

“Good. We gave up too much for you to just throw it away.”

“Yeah? Have you told Wanda that?”

It’s a low blow and he winces even as he says it. Their life is rough enough without him begrudging Wanda for finding what little happiness she can and fighting to hold onto it.

“I tell Wanda that every time she goes out,” Natasha says evenly. “But no one’s mentioned that to you yet, and I think it’s time one of us did.”

“I am being careful.” He pats at the beard he’s started growing over the last few weeks, after Sam mentioned that he has one of the most recognizable faces on the planet. “We both are. I’m not the only one who has a lot to lose if we get caught; neither of us want to go to prison.”

She nods, gaze falling on the tablet he’s clutching. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do if Tony isn’t able to pass all of your amendments?”

…No, he hasn’t. Truthfully, the thought hadn’t even occurred to him until this moment. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if Tony can’t convince the UN to pass the amendments. To Steve, they’re perfectly reasonable requests, but for all he knows, the UN is going to look at them and laugh Tony out of there. And if they do… these amendments are what makes the Accords palatable to Steve. If they don’t pass, he doesn’t know that he’ll be able to promise to sign.

“Of course I’ve thought about it,” he lies, not very well if the amused look Nat gives him is anything to go off of.

“Well, I won’t tell you not to see him,” she says. “Will you tell him… tell him I said hi?”

He smiles. “Course I will.”

Tony isn’t in his hotel room when Steve breaks in, carrying a bag with a couple skewers of chicken that he picked up from a vendor down the street. He sets the bag down and settles down in one of the armchairs next to the balcony to wait. It isn’t long before Tony walks in, looking entirely unsurprised to see Steve already there. Steve pushes the bag towards him; Tony looks stretched thin, like he hasn’t been eating enough since the last time they saw each other. It wouldn’t surprise him to find out Tony’s only been eating one to two meals a day; feeding Tony had been Steve’s job when they were still a team. He doesn’t know if there’s anyone taking care of him now. When Tony’s face lights up with a bright smile, he knows he made the right call stopping to grab food.

“How’s the new team working out?” he asks as Tony digs into the food.

“Good,” Tony says around a mouthful of chicken. “Not the same as the old team, of course, but I’m working on whipping them into shape. Ororo’s got the most amount of experience working on a team, which is surprising cause you’d think the SHIELD agents would, but then, she grew up with her abilities. There’s this guy—absolutely brilliant though he kind of terrifies me—he takes in kids like her and trains them. She’s been with him since she was five.”

“And what can she do?” Steve asks curiously. The new team hasn’t been called out yet, so he hasn’t heard much about them other than what Natasha has been able to pick up through the grapevine.

“Think Thor but without the magic hammer.”

Oh. Wow. That’s—that’s actually pretty impressive. “How did you find her?”

“She came to me. Her and that guy—he calls himself Professor X—I mentioned have been talking about their kind becoming more prominent, and they thought the best way would be by working with the Avengers.”

“Their kind?”

“Mutants.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Professor X says it’s a genetic mutation—the X-gene—that causes superpowers. Just think, if you’d had the X-gene, maybe you wouldn’t have needed the serum. Maybe Ross wouldn’t have created the Abomination, or Bruce the Hulk.”

That’s—Steve doesn’t know how he feels about that. Tony hadn’t mentioned it, but he can’t help but wonder if he does have the X-gene, if the reason the serum only worked on him and, to a lesser extent, Schmidt is because it unlocked the genetic potential in a dormant gene. Or maybe biology doesn’t work like that at all and he’s only trying to come up with an explanation that answers a question he’s had since the forties. It makes about as much sense as every other theory he’s come up with has.

He casts about for another topic and lands on, “How are Clint and Scott?”

“What, Nat’s not keeping you updated?” Tony asks with a light chuckle. Steve doesn’t know how to answer that. He hadn’t known Nat was still talking with either of them. Tony takes pity on him and says, “I’m pretty sure Clint’s still in contact with her, though he’s been staying pretty tight-lipped about it.”

“Well, loose lips sink ships,” Steve quotes.

“They do at that. Scott’s trial wrapped up about a month ago. He’s being confined to modified house arrest for a year.”

“Modified?”

“He’s on probationary status as an Avenger, which means he can’t be on complete house arrest or else he’ll never be able to train with the team. So, he’s confined to either his home or the Compound with the possibility of a lighter sentence depending on how he works with the team, to be evaluated at the six-month point.

“As for Clint, his trial finished yesterday. He’s being fined a small amount for the repairs for the Compound and he’s confined to house arrest at his farm for two years and isn’t supposed to pick up his bow for three years, though how the UN thinks they’re going to enforce that is beyond me. I mean, really, I’d love to see them go to Clint’s house to try to tell him he can’t shoot for three years. They’d all come back with suction cup arrows plastered to their foreheads.”

Steve laughs. “I’d pay money to see that.”

“So would I,” Tony says with a smile. “So what brings you to my hotel room on this fine Sunday evening?”

He gives Steve a filthy wink, making Steve grin. He can always count on Tony to lighten the mood. “Down, boy,” he says teasingly. “Nothing like that. I just wanted to give you my list of amendments.”

Tony straightens, making grabby hands for the tablet Steve places on the table. Steve slides it to him, watching intently as Tony flips through the document he had prepared.

“I talked about it with Sam and Wanda as well; they both agreed on this list,” Steve continues. Tony glances up at him, a faint worried look in his eyes. “They think I’m going through T’Challa, so you don’t have to worry that our secret’s been compromised. Uh—do these seem at least a little bit reasonable?”

Tony hums. “At a glance, yes. At least more reasonable than what Ross has been trying to bring to the table, and I think that’ll relieve the committee a bit. But I don’t know how much will manage to get passed. People get hung up on the craziest things sometimes, and I don’t want to promise you something I may not be able to keep. Have you thought about what you’ll do if these don’t all pass?”

“No,” Steve admits, grimacing. Tony’s brow creases. “It didn’t even occur to me that you wouldn’t be able to pass all of it.”

“That’s a lot of faith to put in me, Steve,” Tony says softly.

“You deserve it.”

“You didn’t always think that.”

“I was wrong. I should have. I let my emotions about Bucky cloud my judgment. I should have told you right from the start that I was worried about an army of supersoldiers instead of letting you think I would fight my own teammates over the Accords.”

Tony is quiet, staring silently down at the tablet long enough that it goes dark, before abruptly saying, “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“For what happened in Siberia.”

“Tony, that wasn’t your fault. Zemo was—”

“I did my best to put you and Barnes in the ground. I think I share at least a little bit of the blame.”

He could keep arguing. But Tony sounds like this is something that’s been bothering him for a while, and Steve knows him well enough that he knows it’ll keep eating away at him if it’s not absolved now. If Steve can help him with that misplaced guilt, then that’s what he wants to do.

“It’s okay,” he says. “It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t told you about my suspicions about your parents’ murders. I swear, I didn’t know it was Bucky—I would have told you if I did—but I shouldn’t have let you find out that they were murdered the way you did.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t great. I spent my entire adulthood convinced my dad was an alcoholic who killed my mom by driving drunk and was just starting to get over that when…”

“I would have told you,” Steve says again. He has to believe it’s true, has to believe that he would have done the right thing if he’d known the full truth and said something, that he isn’t the ass who kept this quiet to benefit himself.

“I know you would have,” Tony says gently, reaching across the table to squeeze Steve’s hand. “You said you thought Zola was lying. I believe that.”

Steve’s breath leaves him in a whoosh. It’s only now that he realizes how much this has been weighing on him, how much the thought that Tony might not believe him, might think he’s a liar, has hurt.

“I’m still sorry,” Tony continues. “I crossed way over the line, so thank you for stopping me before I kil—before I did something I would have regretted. I shouldn’t have let my anger get the better of me. The therapist Pepper insists I see says I’ve got some unaddressed anger issues about this whole mess.”

“What happened in Siberia?”

“No, my parents. Anyway, resentment is corrosive so I just wanted to get this off my chest. And I feel better for it, so hey! Win-win, right?”

“Right,” Steve says, smiling at the way Tony’s rapid-fire speech is coming back. He’s missed that. He turns his hand over just enough that he can squeeze Tony’s hand back.

“Alright, that’s enough feelings for one night,” Tony says, suddenly taking his hand away. Steve would feel hurt by it if it’s not for the fact that Tony rubs his fingers over the spot where their palms had touched. “What brings you and the team to Prague?”

Steve shrugs. “I remember Prague from the war. Wasn’t here very often but I really liked the architecture. Thought it might be nice to lay low here for a little while. And it helps that we’re close enough to Sokovia that Wanda can visit. You? I googled this conference, doesn’t seem like it’s up your alley.”

“Ah, that’s because it’s not,” Tony says, smiling slyly. “I’m here for plausible deniability.”

“What?”

Tony checks his watch. “Yeah, I think it’s happening right around now. Come on.” He leads Steve over to the couches where he turns on the TV and flips through the channels until he lands on one of the news stations. Steve immediately sees what Tony is talking about: the screen is taken up with Ross’ furious face, spitting abuses at anyone who’ll listen as he’s shoved into a police car. He can’t immediately read what the banner at the bottom says, as it’s in another language, but Tony does something with his phone and the language changes to English. Ross, it appears, has finally been arrested for his inhumane treatment of the Avengers and the crimes he committed by trying to institute the Sentinels program.

“You did this?” Steve asks incredulously. By the way Tony had talked about it, he’s spent all this time thinking it would take a year or more to bring Ross down.

“Technically, Shuri did. She attended the last session of the Accords Committee and apparently, something about Ross struck her as off, so she did some digging,” Tony says.

“Uh-huh. And she did that all by herself?” Steve asks, giving him a knowing look.

Tony’s look of innocence can better be described as the cat who got the cream, the canary, and the whole tin of tuna. “Well, maybe someone pointed her in the right direction, but it clearly wasn’t me. I’ve been here for the last four days since the committee session broke. Anyway, King Kitty Cat has been calling for Ross’ arrest since Shuri made his files public. Looks like he put enough pressure on the committee to agree.”

Without thinking about it, Steve throws an arm around Tony’s shoulder, pulling him in to lean against him. “You’re brilliant,” he says honestly.

“What he did, what he’s doing, wasn’t right. Someone had to bring him down,” Tony says. To Steve’s delight, he leans further into him instead of pulling him away.

He spends another few hours at Tony’s hotel, watching badly dubbed movies with him until Tony’s yawns almost come faster than he can finish the previous one. “Okay, sleep,” Steve says, carefully climbing out from under Tony’s arm. “Come on. You look exhausted.”

“Such a charmer, you,” Tony teases. He stands and promptly sways on his feet. Steve makes an executive decision and scoops him up, ignoring Tony’s protests in favor of carrying him to the bed where he dumps him on the expensive sheets and stands there until Tony stops protesting, pulls off his shirt (no, Steve does not turn pink at the sight, Natasha, thank you very much), and climbs under the blankets.

“You know, this was nice,” Tony says sleepily, which is likely the only reason he says it. An awake Tony would never admit to this. “We should do this more often.”

“What, throw popcorn at movies every time they mess up a translation?”

“No, spend some time outside of talking about the Accords. We were good at this once, weren’t we?” Tony’s Bambi eyes are big and wide and Steve doesn’t even bother to fight against their pull.

“Yeah, Tony, we were.”

“So we’ll do this again? We’ll see each other without talking about the Accords?”

He allows himself a fond smile. “I’d like that.”

Steve is nearly to the door before something else occurs to him. “Tony, who did you want to give the list of superheroes to? You said you didn’t trust it with the UN, but you must have trusted it with someone.”

Tony’s smile is sad as he says, “You.”

Steve waits, but that’s it. “Anyone else?”

Tony shakes his head. “You were always the only person I’d ever trust with that list. You still are.”

And that—that’s something to think about.

They meet up again several times over the next few months, both to discuss the proposed amendments and to talk about other things. Steve has a lot of thoughts about the Accords, about how much they would need to change to become palatable for him and what he’d be willing to compromise on, about the treatment of people born with their powers under the Accords instead of people like Steve and Tony, who became superheroes in some other way, and about that list that Tony keeps talking about. It helps that Tony is more than willing to listen to him—oh they argue a lot about what they don’t necessarily agree on, but it never comes to blows again, and Tony does listen to him, just as Steve is listening to him. It makes him wish they could go back to when they’d first heard about the Accords. Maybe, if he’d known how easy they would find it to talk about their disagreements, he would have been more willing to listen than to insist it was his way or the highway.

“No sense in crying over spilled milk,” Tony tells him when Steve mentions that to him. But Steve knows him better now. He knows that Tony wishes things could have been different too. The Avengers mean the world to him, just as they do to Nat and to Steve himself. There isn’t a lot he wouldn’t do to have them back together.

That’s why he isn’t surprised when Tony doesn’t say anything to him about the amendments passing. Instead, Tony—always one for a show—texts him one day to turn on the TV. When Steve sits down next to Sam and Wanda, Nat perched on the back of the couch behind them, he sees Tony standing beside T’Challa as the king announces the new changes to the Accords.

“—to make them friendlier to those who have risked their lives to protect us from those who see this world harmed. The Accords are meant to protect all people, including superpowered individuals themselves, and that is why, effective immediately, the Accords will include protections for the individuals we call superheroes, both powered and not.”

“Did you have something to do with this?” Sam asks Steve quietly as T’Challa begins to list the new amendments. It’s only then that Steve realizes how broadly he’s smiling. He hadn’t realized the amendments were up for vote. He suspects Tony hadn’t told him on purpose, not wanting to build up hope only for it to come crashing down in the event that none of Steve’s amendments passed. It’s kind of him, and he makes a mental reminder to tell Tony thank you when they next see each other in person.

“How mad are you going to be if I say yes?” he murmurs, glancing at Wanda out of the corner of his eye. She’s crying through a wide smile as the realization that these changes meant to protect mean she’ll be able to be with Vision again soon finally hits her. Natasha reaches down and ruffles her hair affectionately.

“A bit,” Sam admits. “I thought we were in this together.”

Steve gets up, not wanting to disturb Wanda and Natasha’s celebration, and heads outside. Sam follows him. Steve leans on the balcony of their rented apartment, Sam turning so his back is pressed against the railing next to Steve. He spends a moment looking out over the city. They’re in Edinburgh this week. He’d never been there during the war, but he can’t help but hope that Dum Dum made it here. It seems like his kind of city.

“I’m sorry,” he says, unprompted.

Sam blinks at him. “What?”

“I should have told you I was talking to Tony. I just didn’t want to hear you say I was making a mistake trusting him again.”

Sam is quiet for a moment, his face unreadable. Eventually, he says, “Yeah, you should have said something. I figured you were talking to somebody when you started asking us our opinions on the Accords, but I thought it was T’Challa or something, not Tony.”

“I knew he could be trusted.”

“No, you thought he could be.”

“I think he could have been back when this whole mess started if it hadn’t been for everything else going on in our lives.”

Sam makes a doubtful sound.

“I know, I was taking a big risk on our safety. I should have said something.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees slowly. “I’m glad it worked out this time. Maybe we’ll even be able to go home soon. And I’m glad that you and Tony are working through whatever mess is going on with you two. But when I let you and Natasha break me out of the Raft, I thought that meant we were partners. You trusted me during the whole supersoldier thing. You trusted her to help you break all of us out. I thought that was supposed to extend past that moment.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says again. “I wish I had a better reason than I didn’t want you to tell me it was a mistake talking to him.”

“Uh-huh.” Sam looks like he’s thinking about something for a minute, then he abruptly says, “You know, I was the one who told Tony where to find y’all in Siberia.”

“Sam—”

“It’s not that I didn’t trust him. Well, maybe a part of it was because of that. Tony feels a lot of guilt cause of what he’s done, and every time he messes up, he tries to find someone who can steer him back in the right direction. And when we couldn’t be that someone anymore, he went and found someone who could. Unfortunately for all of us, that happened to be an organization you and I couldn’t trust, so it was hard to trust him because of that. But that wasn’t all of it. I knew it was going to be a lot harder for him to run than it was for the rest of us. Tony isn’t someone you just hide. But he really seemed like he wanted to help, so I took that chance and told him where you and Barnes went. Clearly, that backfired on all of us, but my point is—I did trust him too.”

Steve thinks he understands. He isn’t the only one who took a chance on trusting Tony. Sam did too, so he thinks he’s owed better than Steve lying to him about who he’s been meeting with for the last several months.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to make up for it—”

“You will,” Sam says confidently. “You’ll figure something out. Might just take a while. I’m pretty angry about this.”

He nods. “That’s fair.”

“Well, thank you for your condescension.”

Horrified, Steve’s eyes dart up from where he’d been looking at his hands to Sam. “No,” he exclaims. “That’s not—I didn’t—”

Sam breaks, grinning at him. “I’m kidding, man. Calm down.”

Shuri contacts him later that week to tell him that one of the Dora Milaje tested Bucky’s trigger words. They no longer work on him. He’s completely free. Steve is—elated, of course he is. No one deserves to live with something like that in their head, especially not Bucky. But he’s not sure what to do now. He’s still trying to rebuild his relationship with Tony. They’re in such a fragile state and he isn’t sure what Tony will do if Steve tells him they can’t keep meeting anymore because he wants to go take care of his best friend—which he does, but he doesn’t want to leave Tony behind. Not again.

It’s almost a relief to have that choice taken from him when Shuri tells him Bucky isn’t sure he’s ready for visitors just yet. “He’s settling down on one of our farms near the border,” she tells him. “He keeps a small herd of goats. He named the littlest one Steve, if you can believe it.”

Steve laughs. “I can believe it,” he says. “That’s just like him.”

Through the grainy video, he sees her smile. It’s distorted by the way the video keeps glitching—they don’t have the best service here—and he wonders if her video of him is any clearer. It probably is. He knows how advanced Wakanda tech is, and Shuri’s view that everything can be improved means it’s probably even better than it was the last time he was there.

She signs off. His thoughts turn, as they so often do, to Tony. He needs to tell him. He’s realized the mistake in keeping things from Tony. He can’t keep quiet that Bucky has come out of the ice and is free enough from his words to live alone without fear of someone finding and imprisoning him again. Tony deserves to know that the man who—who killed his parents (even if it hadn’t really been Bucky, he adds to himself) is fully recovered, if only so that he can start making plans to get Bucky home again.

He tries not to think about what he’ll do if Tony tells him he won’t help get Bucky home.

“Bucky’s awake,” Steve blurts out as soon as he opens the door to see Tony standing on the front step.

Tony hesitates. Steve can practically see him ask himself if he should just turn around and leave.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have sprung that on you,” he adds hastily. “Please, come in. I wanted to talk to you.”

It still looks like Tony is going to refuse and turn, but then Tony surprises him by saying, “Okay.”

It’s the most hesitant Steve has seen him since the first time they talked after Siberia, but at least Tony is agreeing. Tony drops off his bag in one of the bedrooms, which heartens him a little bit. It means that Tony is staying the night, right? He busies himself preparing a small snack of cheese and crackers—Tony has to be hungry from his long flight—and pours two glasses of water before carefully balancing all of it on a tray and carrying them out to the living room. Tony joins him a few minutes later, accepting his plate and glass with a small nod.

An awkward silence falls over them, making Steve regret just springing the news on Tony. He should know better by now. He shouldn’t have just blurted it out like that. Tony doesn’t handle news well when he’s not eased into it.

“So,” Tony says eventually. “Barnes is awake. Trigger-free, I guess?”

“Yeah,” Steve replies. He crosses his arms, trying not to hunch. He has no reason to be defensive. Tony should have been expecting this all along. He couldn’t really have thought that Steve would just leave him frozen. “Shuri and one of the Dora Milaje have been working with him.”

“Right.”

Well, he supposes it’s better than Tony getting angry and throwing things.

“Thanks for the heads up,” Tony says after another awkward pause.

“I thought you should be the first to know. I won’t keep things from you again, Tony.”

To his surprise, Tony gives him a small smile. “Thanks.”

“He’s not leaving Wakanda yet. Shuri says he doesn’t think he’s ready. She said he’s raising goats, named the smallest one Steve.”

“I’ll bet it’s the fightiest one too,” Tony teases warmly.

“Fightiest?” Steve repeats.

“Don’t look at me like that, it’s definitely a word.”

“Maybe one of Clint’s words.”

“Possibly Thor’s. I’ll bet Goat Steve picks fights with every goat that looks at him wrong. Probably does a lot of headbutting.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Definitely goes after a lot of goats three times his size. Reminds me of someone else I know. He sounds a little bit more endearing than the person I know though.”

“You know what, Tony—”

“Oh hush, I’m only teasing.”

Steve gives him a fond smile, says, “I know. How’s Rhodey?”

Tony takes a bite out of a cracker, chews, and swallows before saying, “He’s good. I’m working on a set of leg braces for him. If I can get them to a reasonable cost, I’ll add a new division to SI, medical tech and all that, you know. It’s kind of a racket and I don’t want to add to that.”

“And War Machine?”

Tony sighs heavily, ducking his head. “He’s having trouble looking at the suit. He says it shouldn’t be this hard. He flew tons of combat missions, never had any trouble with knowing it could be his last, but then it happened and—he’s scared, I think. About it happening again.”

“Yeah, I can understand that,” Steve says, thinking of all the nightmares he’s had since waking up from the ice. He still tries to avoid places too far north during the winter and it’s been years since he woke up. “It’ll be okay. Rhodey’s strong. He’ll figure out a way to get back up there.”

“Maybe,” Tony says quietly. “Maybe not.”

He hates it when Tony looks like that, when he looks like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders. It wasn’t Tony’s fault Rhodey crashed. If anything, it was Steve’s for running.

“You wanna watch a bad sci-fi movie?” he asks, hoping to wipe that look from Tony’s face. “I won’t even complain when you make fun of the science.”

Just as he’d hoped, Tony smiles. It’s a little more reluctant than he’d like, but it’s still a smile. He decides he’ll count it as a win.

Steve, Sam, and Natasha decide to spend a few weeks in Wakanda while Wanda takes some time to see Vision again. After the announcement about the amendments to the Accords, there has been a surge of interest about Steve and his team’s (or the “Rogue Avengers” as they’ve been dubbed by the media) whereabouts and Wakanda is one of the safest places in the world for them. He clears the team’s arrival with T’Challa—he doesn’t want to seem like they’re imposing, despite the open invitation to visit whenever they like—and is informed that Shuri will be ecstatic as she’s been dying to get her hands on their gear for months.

“What’s wrong with our gear?” Steve asks, looking down at his suit. Sure it’s a little dingier than he’d like but that’s what happens when they’re bouncing from safehouse to safehouse. And besides, it’s all still functioning.

T’Challa chuckles. “To hear her talk, everything.”

“Better not let Tony hear that,” Steve replies, laughing as well. He’s heard plenty of stories from the king about his sister’s thirst for improvement. He just hadn’t realized it would spill over to them and not just her brother and country’s equipment.

“I believe he already knows. He and Shuri talk nearly every week.”

Steve isn’t surprised by that statement at all. Tony has a tendency to find other likeminded people and befriend them now that he’s not as self-absorbed as he once was. Steve has been following the articles about the new team Tony has been putting together: not just superheroes, but scientists and engineers and physicists all together. It’s a big change from when Steve was running the team and the Compound was peopled with ex-SHIELD agents.

They arrive in Wakanda a few days later with one of the Dora Milaje as their escort. She isn’t a talkative sort of person, but Steve doesn’t think he’s met a single Dora who is. The most he knows about her, though Natasha tries to draw more out of her, is that her name is Yama and she’s served as a Dora most of her life. She nods politely at them once they land and disappears down the ramp without another word.

“Chatty woman, isn’t she?” Sam observes wryly, joining Steve as they walk down as well. Steve stifles a laugh as he realizes that T’Challa is waiting for them with a worried expression on his face.

“Captain Rogers,” T’Challa greets him. “Would you walk with me?”

“Uh, sure?” Steve exchanges looks with Natasha and Sam, smiling reassuringly at them to urge them on when it looks like they’ll hesitate. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve had a visitor,” T’Challa says, turning to walk inside once they’re alone. “I thought you would be interested in seeing him again.”

Steve has his suspicions about just who this visitor is, only to be confirmed when they enter the throne room and he spots Tony quietly talking with the Queen Mother. “Tony,” he exhales, not sure if he’s relieved or worried. It’s great to see Tony again, but it can’t be good news that brought them to Wakanda at the same time, and T’Challa had looked worried.

“Yes, Dr. Stark brings grave news,” T’Challa says, sitting in the throne. He waves Steve and Tony both to chairs of their own. “We were going to reach out to you to ask you to return, but then you announced your imminent arrival and we thought it best to wait.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve heard from Thor,” Tony says without preamble.

“Thor?” Steve repeats. It’s been nearly two years without word from the god. He had assumed Thor was still traveling the Nine Realms, looking for word about whatever had so spooked him during the battle with Ultron and the Maximoffs. “He’s back?”

Tony grimaces. “Not exactly. As it turns out, Asgard has been destroyed. Thor is bringing a ship of Asgardian refugees to Earth in the hopes of making a new home here—along with Bruce.”

Stunned, Steve stares at him for a long time, not sure what to focus on first. That Thor is returning to Earth? The destruction of Asgard? That apparently Bruce has been out in space this entire time, which explains why he and Nat couldn’t find him here?

“Refugees?” he finally manages weakly.

“There’s more,” Tony says grimly. “Thor was concerned about Infinity Stones, right? Turns out he’s not the only one who’s looking for them. He calls this guy the Mad Titan, also known as Thanos. He’s trying to collect all of the Infinity Stones so he can wipe out half of all life. And it doesn’t get any better from there, because he apparently started with one Infinity Stone only to lose it almost five years ago.”

He gives Steve a significant look, who catches on almost immediately. “The Battle of New York,” he says. “Loki’s scepter.”

Tony nods. “Got it in one.”

“But that Stone is in Vision’s head; there’s no easy way to extract it.”

“No, there isn’t. But that isn’t the only Stone on Earth. Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, claims he’s the steward of another one. And Thor and Bruce are bringing the Tesseract back here, so that’s three all on Earth.”

Steve had always had a more than decent grasp on military strategy. “That paints a target right on our backs.”

“Thor thinks Thanos will be coming here once he collects the other Stones. We need to be ready. We need everyone we can get. Steve, you promised me you would think about signing the Accords if they were amended. They’ve been amended; where’s your signature?”

He sighs, leaning back in his chair. How does he tell Tony that it’s no longer that simple? When he and Tony had first started talking about the amendments, he’d thought it would be, but his team has shown him otherwise. Sam still isn’t comfortable with the Accords, even with the recent changes; he’s made that abundantly clear over the times that he and Steve have discussed them. Natasha has been setting missions for herself—missions that Steve suspects she wouldn’t be able to complete if she were limited by the Accords. And Steve—well, Steve won’t return without the other three. They left as a team, they’ll come back as a team. But he tries anyway, in halting words that don’t do his complicated feelings justice, to explain the complexities that have arisen in the weeks since the amendments passing.

Tony’s face is thunderous by the time he’s done. “So that’s that, then,” he says bitterly. “Can’t get everyone to agree, so it doesn’t matter that I stuck my neck out for you? That I helped rework a document that a hundred and seventy-five countries were fine with just so that you could be happier with them, only for you decide that it still wasn’t enough? I—” He cuts off with a low groan, covering his face with his hands. “I don’t know what else to do, Steve. I need you at my side for this.”

“And I will be,” Steve protests.

“How? You can’t set foot in a hundred and seventy-five countries without being arrested. Believe me, this will be a public spectacle and you won’t make it out without being noticed.”

Steve looks to T’Challa for assistance, but the king is frowning thoughtfully. He looks back at Tony and quietly says, “Tony—”

“I can’t talk to you about this right now,” Tony says abruptly, standing. His chair screeches along the floor, making Steve wince. He leaves, one of the Dora Milaje following him at a glance from the king.

“You don’t trust him?” Steve asks, eyes following the swish of the Dora’s coat as she turns the corner.

“No, I do,” T’Challa corrects, “but he’s angry and angry men can make mistakes.”

Something that Steve knows all too well. “I’m sorry that I can’t sign.”

“Help us understand. You worked with Dr. Stark on the amendments, yes? Why are you going back on them?”

“I would sign if it were just me,” he says. “But I’m not alone, and I won’t leave my team like this. They deserve better than me abandoning them.”

“Do you think that Mr. Barton or Mr. Lang abandoned you?”

“Of course not!” Steve says immediately, appalled by the suggestion. “They wanted to rejoin their families, I don’t fault them for that.”

“Then why is it any different when you want to rejoin yours?”

Steve’s breath hitches at the implication that Tony is his family. It’s something that he doesn’t even let himself think when he’s alone, never mind speaking it aloud. It feels too much like a claim on Tony that he doesn’t get to have, not after everything that’s happened between them.

“I can’t leave my team,” he says again. It’s different when it’s him. He’s the team leader. He knows that they’re all more than capable of taking care of themselves, but he shouldn’t just abandon them because he’s in l—because he’s lonely and wants to go home.

“As you say,” T’Challa says quietly. “But I think it’s something you should consider.”

And Steve does. He doesn’t get the chance to see Tony again before he’s left the country, but Tony’s stinging accusations don’t leave his mind. It’s hard for them to when he knows that preparations for Thanos’ war are going on without him and it’s his fault. T’Challa keeps him looped in on the preparations, so that he knows what plans are being made (he suspects it’s so that Steve doesn’t have to play catchup in the event that he decides to sign before the war arrives), but he’s limited on the suggestions he can make.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Natasha asks one day, sitting down next to him on their balcony.

Steve turns the phone over in his hands. Tony hasn’t texted him since they saw each other in Wakanda. Steve has reached out a few times, but never received an answer. “I want to sign,” he says, surprising himself. He hadn’t realized he’d finally reached that stage of wanting to sign the Accords. He’d thought he was still deliberating with himself.

“Okay,” Nat says, nodding. “So what’s holding you back?”

He gives her an annoyed look. “What do you think?”

“I’m not actually a mind reader,” she says dryly. “If you want me to know something, you have to tell me.”

He sighs. “You are. All of you. I can’t sign when you three can’t.”

“You mean that we won’t. Bit of a difference there.”

“Not really,” he challenges. “Not if it means you can’t go home.”

She shrugs. “Sure there is. Won’t means there’s something personal holding us back. I could go back now, if I wanted to. I did sign in the past. I’ll have to answer for leaving, but I could still return. But I don’t want to yet. I don’t want to have to account for what I’m currently doing.”

Steve knows better than to ask what her current mission is. He knows it’s personal, knows it has something to do with her past, and knows that she won’t tell him even if he asked.

“Well, what about Sam and Wanda?”

“Wanda would probably like nothing more than to be able to go home. I know her visits with Vision have been draining. She’s tired of having to keep them secret.”

“Still leaves Sam.”

“Yeah, it does. But Steve, you’ve done as much as you can to make the Accords palatable for everyone and not just for the politicians in charge. It’s up to Sam now to decide if that’s something he can live with.”

“I don’t want to leave him out here alone. He deserves better than that from me.”

“But you don’t want to leave Tony hanging either,” she says, managing to read his mind rather well for someone who claimed she wasn’t a mind reader. “He won’t wait forever.”

“I know.”

“He really stuck his neck out to get these amendments passed. My sources say he owes more than a few favors now and a favor from Tony Stark isn’t something to be taken lightly.”

“I know.”

“He probably—”

“I know,” Steve exclaims. “Trust me, I know all of that. But I’m not the kind of man who can just leave his team behind.”

Natasha nods. “I know,” she says, parroting Steve’s words. “And I don’t think Tony would love you nearly as much as he does if you weren’t.”

“He doesn’t love me.”

“Oh, Steve.”

He glares at her. “He doesn’t.” He didn’t tell Tony about his parents’ murder. There’s no way Tony could love him after something like that. Maybe at one time, Tony could have loved him, but that was before Ultron, before Bucky, before Siberia, and he doesn’t appreciate Natasha giving him false hope like this.

“Okay.” She raises her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, don’t wait too long to figure things out. I don’t want to see you lose this opportunity too.”

She stands, kisses his cheek, and leaves. And Steve is left alone with his swirling thoughts.

Days pass without word from Tony, though Steve leaves him several messages on the flip phone. He’s worried, of course he is, but he also understands that he really angered Tony with his words in Wakanda. He can back off if that’s what Tony needs from him right now.

“This is good,” he tells himself on a day when he’s got the safehouse to himself and therefore doesn’t need to worry about anyone overhearing him. “You’re learning to respect Tony’s thoughts.” Which is definitely something that he should have been thinking of all along, but Tony’s anger about Steve’s written apology got him thinking that he hasn’t been living up to those standards very often in the last few years. What happened to the standards he used to set for himself? How did he let those fall by the wayside after SHIELD fell?

There’s a knock on the front door, startling him out of his musings. It must be Sam, because Sam is the only other member of their team in the city at the moment with both Natasha and Wanda out of the country on personal business, but he still frowns. Sam should know the knock they’d established to inform each other they were at the door and that wasn’t his knock.

Concerned, Steve silently slips toward the front door, grabbing a gun (Natasha’s insistence since he gave up the shield) from the coffee table as he goes. The knock comes again, followed by what sounds like a very weary Tony saying, “Steve, I know you’re in there. Just—just open the fucking door, would you?”

Without thinking about it, Steve tucks the gun into his waistband and opens the door. Tony is standing there, looking pale and trembling and very, very tired. Well. He always looks tired but this is worse. This is a bone-deep weariness that Steve recognizes: he’s seen it in the mirror every morning he got up since leaving Tony in Siberia. He puts on a good face for the others, but he’s—he’s… exhausted.

“Tony,” he says softly.

Tony looks up at him. “Can I come in?” he murmurs. “I have—there are things I need to tell you.”

“Of course,” Steve says automatically, holding the door open wider. He refuses to think about the possibility of this being a trap, even though he knows what the rest of the team would say if they knew Tony was here. Tony’s had plenty of opportunities to bring him in before this. “Is everything okay?”

“Okay,” Tony says, letting out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, Steve. Things are just peachy.”

“They sure don’t sound peachy.” Tony doesn’t say anything to that, so Steve gently takes his elbow and steers him over to the couch, pushing him down onto the cushions when Tony just blinks at them. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

Tony sighs, tilting his head back against the couch to stare at the ceiling. “Thor and Bruce arrived today.”

A chill goes through Steve. He hasn’t heard anything about that—they must have landed their ship somewhere unnoticed—but he knows what it means. War is coming. “Is Thanos—”

“No,” Tony says, laughing again. It sounds a little hysterical now. “You know, back in ’85, Rhodey dragged me to this ROTC thing of his—I think it was a lecture, but honestly, it could have been anything—because he had this intellectual crush or something on this test pilot who was supposed to be there. Carol Danvers, her name was, way older than us, way cooler than us, and she and Rhodey hit it off for as much as a sixteen-year-old can hit it off with anyone almost a decade older than him. Anyway, we kept in contact with her, babysat her cat a few times when we were in California, got to tour this facility she was working at, and then she just disappeared off the face of the planet. Official story was there was a crash, but no one ever found a body so we didn’t really believe it—her best friend didn’t believe it either—great woman, loved her and her—”

“Tony,” Steve interrupts, leaning forward to take Tony’s hands in his. Tony falls silent and stares down at them like they hold the secrets of the universe. “What does this have to do with Thanos.”

“I’m getting there,” Tony says, looking up at him with oddly shiny eyes. “She disappeared. No one knew what happened to her, but her friend’s daughter used to say that she was keeping the universe safe. Turns out she was right. Carol was kidnapped and brainwashed by an alien race called the Kree. They had this huge empire and when Carol found out about it, she said she was going to take them down. She’s been doing that ever since, helped broker a treaty between the Kree and another race called the Xandarians, and then she came across Thanos. Tracked him right to the Asgardian refugee ship headed for Earth and—”

He breaks off, shuddering. Steve looks at him, at the way he’s huddled in on himself, and decides that what he’s doing isn’t good enough. He gets up and moves to the couch, to sit next to Tony and tuck him against his side. Tony makes a small, choked-off noise and rests his head on Steve’s shoulder. Steve tries hard not to think about how right Tony feels against him. His friend needs comfort right now, not for Steve to—to make a move or something.

“And what?” he asks gently after a few minutes.

“And she killed him,” Tony whispers. “He’d already taken the Tesseract, but she was able to cut his head clean off. Almost six years that—that thing has haunted my nightmares, ever since New York, and she killed him just like that.”

“But that’s a good thing, right?” Steve asks desperately, not sure what else to say when Tony looks so distraught.

“I did so much damage trying to prepare for him coming,” Tony says, and Steve isn’t sure that he even heard him. “I made Ultron trying to prepare for him. And now he’s gone.”

“You didn’t make Ultron,” Steve says sharply. That does startle Tony out of his dark thoughts and he looks up at Steve, wide-eyed and scared. “You said it, you weren’t close to having an interface. I didn’t believe you then and I should’ve. You were my teammate and you needed my support.” He sighs, turning away from Tony so he doesn’t see his disappointment in himself. He’d never asked what Tony had seen in the portal, not wanting to face his own actions that day, that he had given the order to close the portal while Tony was still up there. And now he finds out that Tony had seen so much it had scared even him, who never seemed scared. “And I didn’t give it.”

“You can’t blame yourself, Steve. Emotions were running high, we’d just found out we weren’t the only kids on the block with powers, you made a decision based on the information you had.”

“Then you shouldn’t blame yourself either,” Steve shoots back. “Because you did the same thing. You just had a little more information than we did.”

“I—well played.” Tony glares at him; Steve gives him a lopsided smile. “Still. He’s not something we have to worry about anymore. And, uh, and Carol’s back now too. Decided she was gonna take a break from saving the universe or whatever so she’s back on Earth, turns out she’s friends with Nick Fury, so that was weird. I didn’t know the man had friends.”

Steve snorts. “What would you call Maria?”

“A minion,” Tony says promptly. Steve laughs, making Tony smile a little. “Thanks, Steve. I just—I wanted to talk about this with someone who understood.”

It gives him a little thrill to think that Tony thought he of all people would understand. Even after their fight, after everything, Tony thought of him first. He’s so busy basking in the warm glow the thought gives him that it takes him a few minutes to realize that Tony has fallen asleep against his shoulder. Well, he supposes he can’t be surprised. Tony’s been through a lot the last few months—last few years really. He carefully picks Tony up, carrying him like a koala so he can tuck Tony’s face into his neck, and walks him into the room Steve is sharing with Sam. He places him down on the bed, slides his shoes off, and pulls the blankets up around him before texting Sam to stay in Natasha and Wanda’s room when he gets back later.

That done, he takes another moment to drink the sight in—Tony in his bed, even if it’s entirely platonic. Then he stands and starts to leave, only to stop when he’s less than halfway to the door when Tony quietly says, “Stay?”

Steve turns to see Tony blinking sleepily at him. “What?”

“Just tonight,” Tony murmurs. “We can pretend we’re not fighting, pretend it’s like it used to be in the tower.”

And that—that sounds pretty damn nice actually. “Okay,” he says, kicks off his own shoes, and climbs into the other side of the bed. Tony rolls over to face him, gives him another small smile, and closes his eyes. Within minutes, he’s asleep, soft breaths puffing out from his slightly open mouth

Steve, though, he stays awake for a long time, wishing it could be like this all the time.

Steve awakens alone in the bed. He looks at the cold, empty spot beside him sadly. He should have expected this, he knows. Tony risked a lot by coming to their safehouse, having no way of knowing when Sam would be coming back or even if Steve would be alone at all when he arrived. It makes sense that he’s already left. He probably left hours ago before the sun had even started to think about rising.

He’s still disappointed.

He dresses, makes the bed, and heads out into the kitchen, where he can hear Sam making breakfast. But, to his surprise, it’s not Sam who’s casually flipping eggs by the stove. Sam is there, for sure, perched on one of counter stools, but Tony is the one who’s dishing up omelets.

“Uh, hi?” he says, confused by Tony’s continued appearance. Vaguely, he wonders if he’s dreaming.

“Hi,” Tony replies calmly like there’s nothing strange about this. He passes first Sam and then Steve plates. Steve surreptitiously pokes his omelet, wondering if it’s actually edible. Tony isn’t exactly known for his stellar skills in the kitchen. But the omelet doesn’t look either burnt or undercooked, and Sam is shoveling his down like it’s his last meal, so Steve cautiously takes a bite of his. It’s surprisingly delicious. Tony must have learned how to cook over the last few years, since he and Pepper broke up and the rest of the team moved out of the tower.

“So, uh, don’t take this the wrong way—”

“An auspicious beginning, Capsicle.”

Steve grins. “What are you still doing here? I would’ve thought you’d have left by now.”

Tony shrugs. “I wanted to talk to Sam about some things.”

He glances at Sam, who shrugs as well and puts his fork down. “Wanted to ask what was still holding me up on the Accords.”

“I’ll be honest with you guys. I want you back,” Tony says bluntly. “All of you. Not just Steve, but you too, Sam, and Nat and even Wanda. Thanos might be gone, but there are other threats out there. We’re gonna need the whole team.”

“Wanda’s not going to go back somewhere she’s just going to be locked up again,” Sam points out.

Tony sighs, putting his hands down on the counter. “There was a mob out for her head and Steve over here was causing problems in Germany; I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to explain it to her. I thought Vision would be able to explain it, but apparently he was too concerned about sparing her feelings to tell her what was really happening.”

“No, I get it,” Sam agrees. “It was a bad situation. I’m just saying that she won’t go back if it means getting locked up again.”

“Well, the UN’s not going to let her out if she can’t control her powers.”

“What about Xavier?” Steve suddenly suggests.

“What?”

“The mutant you’ve been telling me about? What if he took Wanda in? You said he works with mutants of all ages at all level of ability. Wanda’s not exactly a mutant, but maybe he’d still be willing to train her. Or find someone who can,” he amends.

“Huh,” Tony says thoughtfully. He drums his fingers on the counter, tilting his head as he thinks about it. “It’s not worst idea.”

“Worst he can do is say no,” Steve points out.

“And then we’re no worse off than where we started,” Tony agrees. He looks over at Sam. “Would that be enough for you?”

“Look, man, I’d sign in a heartbeat if I didn’t think we’d get screwed over the moment we had another Lagos.”

“We’ve been working on that,” Tony says. “The new guidelines put in place mean that we won’t just be sued when a building gets destroyed. We’ll have to help with cleanup, maybe shoulder a little bit of the financial burden—which, hey, we were doing all along—get people’s permissions when we want to go into a country, but we’re not going to be ganged up on for what’s really the fault of whoever we’re fighting that day.”

“And what about when they decide the damage was avoidable or that we did too much?”

“That’s why we have superheroes themselves sitting on the committees. We’re not voiceless anymore. Superhero registration is in the hands of a mutant who would never let that information fall into the wrong hands, couldn’t, really. Wideawake’s been shut down. Yes, we have the Accords to answer to, but we hold the reins. Isn’t that what we wanted all along?”

Tony leaves eventually and Natasha and Wanda return, and they discuss what Tony’s said. The discussion lasts for hours, stretching out into days, and they’re no closer to deciding on a solution than they were when this whole mess started after Lagos. The problem, Steve thinks, is that Sam is the only one with a firm opinion on the Accords and that opinion is that he’s still not comfortable with signing his life over to them. Natasha’s opinion is that she wants the team to stay together, whether that’s on the run or safe in New York. Wanda doesn’t have an opinion on the Accords themselves, but she wants to be able to be with Vision without having to hide. And as for Steve, while he doubts he’ll ever truly like the Accords, they’re at least palatable to him—the problem is that the team ran away together and he won’t go home until they all do.

But he wants to—go home, that is. He wants to curl up beside Tony at night and wake up with him in the morning and see if Natasha’s words hold any truth. He wants to rest, to put down his shield for a few minutes and stop running.

“You know,” Sam says at one point, “there’s one person who’s not a part of this discussion and should be.”

Steve knows exactly who he’s talking about: “Bucky.”

“Yeah. He needs to be a part of this.”

And Steve agrees, but he doesn’t know if Bucky is ready to see anyone. Still, they shelve the discussion while he sends Shuri a message and waits for her reply. It takes two days for her to respond; Bucky evidently had asked for time to decide. But she does eventually reply, giving him an affirmative answer.

They leave for Wakanda the next morning. Steve’s heart feels as though it’s in his throat; he’s so nervous. He hasn’t seen Bucky since he went back into ice. He doesn’t know how Bucky will react to seeing him, if he’ll be happy to see his old friend again, angry that they’ve been forced into hiding… He doesn’t know and that scares him. He risked so much to make sure Bucky would be safe and he doesn’t think that he’s owed anything for that, not in the slightest, but—but he doesn’t want to find out that he gave up Tony for nothing.

Bucky is waiting for them when they land near the village he’s been staying in. He looks good—grown out his hair, gained some weight, lost some of the dark shadows under his eyes. And he’s smiling, which is more than Steve had dared to dream about. Bucky steps forward as the ramp comes down, opening his arms for a hug that Steve gladly gives him.

He’s missed his brother, hadn’t really realized how much until Bucky’s clutching him as tight as he’s doing to Bucky. Bucky smells nice, like some kind of lemongrass soap. It suits him.

“I missed you,” he mutters, letting go so Bucky can greet the others.

“Yeah, you too,” Bucky says. “You get into any trouble while I was gone?”

“Never.” Bucky clearly knows it’s a lie, given his snort, but he doesn’t press, just gives Nat a warm hug, murmuring something in Russian to her, and nods at Sam. Sam nods back, and Steve thinks that’s the end of it, but then he catches Bucky giving Sam a shy look from under his eyelashes when Sam’s turned to thank their pilot, and oh. That’s interesting.

“Shuri said you wanted to talk?” Bucky asks as they’re walking back to the village.

“Yeah.” Steve grimaces. “We’ve been talking about signing the Accords.”

“Okay.”

Steve almost stops, he’s so surprised by Bucky’s nonchalant answer.

“What?” Bucky asks, puzzled. He looks between the four of them. “Why do you need my opinion?”

“You’re not—we—I thought we should do this as a team,” Steve says, looking at Sam for confirmation.

“Sure, but, Stevie, sign or not, I’m never gonna pick up a gun again. I don’t even know if I want to leave Wakanda.”

That’s news to Steve, though since he hasn’t heard from Bucky in a while, he supposes he can’t be too shocked. “Yeah?”

Bucky shrugs. “This is the first peace I’ve had in—in a long time. I don’t think I’m ready to go back to the fight.”

He wants to protest, point out that Bucky wouldn’t have to fight if he came back to New York, but he can’t promise that. New York is a lot more visible than this small village. If Bucky came back, even if all he did was stay in the Compound, Steve can’t promise that he wouldn’t be pressured into fighting again as reporters clamored to know why he wasn’t fighting with the Avengers. He doesn’t want to force anyone into having to do something they don’t want to, and he knows Bucky wouldn’t blame him, but he doesn’t want to put him in that position in the first place. And Bucky looks happy here. He’s clearly built a life here with his goats and his home and the knitting Steve spots in the corner near his bed.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “I won’t make you go.”

Bucky smiles at him. “As though you could make me do anything. Look, I’ll sign if you guys decide to—the king and I have been discussing it anyway—but it’s not like anyone can touch me if I decide not to.”

Which is true. Wakanda may be slowly opening up to the world in that they’re sharing their technological advancements (Tony, he knows from their conversations, is salivating over what they’ve accomplished), but their borders are still closed. Bucky is as safe as houses here, for as long as he decides to stay.

“Then we’re right back where we started,” Sam complains. “Split on this issue.”

“Hmm,” Steve hums, agreeing with him. He’d hoped that Bucky would be the tiebreaker, but it doesn’t look the way.

Bucky looks first at Sam and then at Steve. There’s a calculating light in his eyes, one that Steve recognizes from when they were young and Bucky was trying to figure out the best way to get Steve to come along on a double date.

“Hey, Stevie, do you think me and Sam could have a minute here?” Bucky asks.

Steve looks at Nat and Wanda. Nat nods and says, “It’s not like Tony needs an answer right now.”

He follows the two women out, stopping to murmur lowly to Bucky, “Don’t make him do something he doesn’t want to. This isn’t like me and all those women you kept trying to set me up with.”

“I know,” Bucky replies.

He doesn’t know how long Sam and Bucky spend talking—hours, possibly. He passes the time by talking to Tony, who is currently in an early morning board meeting and doesn’t want to be. Tony’s complaints make him smile, and he can’t resist gently teasing Tony about his inability to pay attention the way he should be. Tony’s rapid response is that he shouldn’t be encouraging him the way he is, and that’s true enough, but he likes talking to Tony too much to stop responding.

The sun has nearly set by the time Bucky and Sam emerge from Bucky’s home, both of them blinking in the dusk light. Steve puts his phone away and hurries over to them, looking at their faces as though it’ll give him some kind of clue as to what they decided.

“And?” he asks, too impatient to wait.

Sam glances at Bucky, a look of understanding passing between them.

“Your boy’s wasted as a sniper,” Sam says, shaking his head. “He should be doing persuasive speaking.” He smiles at Steve. “Bucky and I talked with T’Challa. He thinks he’ll be able to talk the UN into letting me try a probationary role like Scott, so I can see how this all works from the inside before I make a decision on signing.”

Steve can’t help the relieved breath that escapes him. They’re going home.

He waits to tell Tony until the next time they see each other. He could have texted him, but they’d already planned on meeting up after this visit to Wakanda, and besides, he doesn’t want to share this news over the phone. Tony deserves to hear about this in person.

“Hey, Steve?” Tony calls from the kitchen as Steve steps through the door. They’re in an Italian villa this time, owned by Tony’s mother at one point and still maintained by a small group of groundspeople though Tony himself rarely visits. “I was thinking—”

Steve sets his bag down and when he looks back up, Tony is standing right in front of him, so close Steve could count every long lash blinking at him. “Uh,” he says, wondering if he should take a step back. Tony catches hold of his arm, keeping him right there.

“Tony?”

“I was thinking,” Tony repeats. “We’ve been building toward something, haven’t we? All these talks, these secret meetings, they mean something. Don’t they?”

Like this, with Tony so close, the subtle scent of his cologne permeating Steve’s senses and overwhelming him—he never thought he’d be able to get this close again. He’d thought he’d ruined his chances at something more with Tony the moment he ran. And maybe at one time, that was true. But Tony’s right. They have been building toward something, have been since Tony first reached out to him on that horrible flip phone that Steve sent because he couldn’t resist needling Tony like he used to.

“Yeah,” he breathes.

Tony’s face lights up, breathtaking and beautiful and so close Steve wants to reach out to touch, only he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to. “Steve, I don’t know how long you’re going to be running. I don’t even know if you’re ever going to come home, but Steve, I don’t want to waste this chance. We’re working on building something better, we talk, and yeah, we don’t always agree, but really who does? Neither of us needs an echo chamber, I’ve got plenty of those on the board and they just make me miserable, but you—you tell me what I don’t want to hear but need to anyway, and Steve, I really hope you can hear what I’m trying to say here because—”

“Tony,” Steve interrupts, placing his finger on Tony’s lips to shush him. The simple, innocuous touch sends a small thrill shooting through him, sparks dancing up his spine. He cand do this, he’s allowed to do this. “I’m coming home.”

“What?” Tony asks, voice heartbreakingly hopeful.

“I’m coming home,” Steve says again, the words growing stronger as he lets himself believe them. “You, T’Challa, the two of us together, we remade the Accords into something that protects us as well as the people we protect. Sam’s still not too sure about it, but T’Challa’s working on getting him approval for a trial period so he can figure out if he’s comfortable signing or if he wants to go home to DC. That’ll take some time, so I’m not coming back immediately, but I’m ready to sign.”

Tony kisses him then, soft and sweet and a little hesitant, like he’s still not sure Steve is on the same page as him. But Steve is. He always has been. He slides his hands around Tony’s waist, fitting there perfectly as though Tony was made for him. And maybe he was. It’s always been the two of them, so maybe this was fated to happen.

After a long minute, or maybe it’s a few days, another seventy years could have passed by while Steve was kissing Tony and he wouldn’t have noticed, they pull away. Tony’s eyes are bright and shining. Steve can feel the words on the tip of his tongue, but this isn’t the time for love confessions. Not when this is so new, when they still have so far to go.

“You’re coming home,” Tony whispers, and the words sound so right coming out of Tony’s mouth that Steve has to kiss him again.

Six months later, Steve steps off the quinjet, his team following him, to greet the Accords committee waiting for them at a small folding table off to the side of the landing platform with four copies of the Accords waiting for their signatures. Bucky signed a week ago, having decided to stay in Wakanda for the time being. The committee steps forward, passing the four of them their copies. Sam’s copy, Steve notices, is considerably lighter, as he won’t be joining the team as a full member for a while, if ever. Steve glances behind the committee to see an older man in a wheelchair—that would be Professor Xavier then, going off of Tony’s descriptions, here to take Wanda back to his school so she can get the training she deserves. And standing beside him—

Tony.

Tony, eyes only for Steve. He’s smiling and, as Steve watches, gives him a little wave, small enough that it wouldn’t be noticed by the press. Steve thinks about the question he asked himself so long ago: who’s there with Tony? And finally, he has an answer: he is, for as long as Tony will have him.

He smiles to himself, bends his head to better look at the documents in front of him, and signs.