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“Steve?” Tony whispers into the waiting dark. He flips over, nestling into his lover’s arms, and pauses for a second, in the quiet.
“I’m a monster. And I’m just waiting for you to realize that, so I can pick up the pieces when you leave. I made weapons, Steve. I made weapons, and I called their destruction, sacrifice, and peace, war. I looked in people’s eyes, while my bombs destroyed their homes, and my guns, their families, and I said ‘Isn’t this great? Isn’t this wonderful? Isn’t this progress?’” He laughs bitterly.
“Boys and girls blown to bits as the Merchant of Death smiled at the price of protection and I killed them, Steve, I killed them all.” His eyes burn with familiar tears.
“You have killed,” Steve says, because Tony never found solace in lies, only in the truths others refused to tell him. He draws Tony closer.
“But that’s not your only destiny. That’s not all you are. You secretly watch reruns of I Love Lucy at 1am when you can’t sleep, and press save twice when drafting new suits even though JARVIS does it for you, and replace Clint’s hearing aids because ‘that hunk of junk couldn’t hear Hulk fangirling over a shirtless Thor,’ and you care, Tony, so much.”
Steve rests a hand against his face. “You are a hero,” he says simply.
“Maybe. Probably not though.”
But at least for a moment, at least for tonight, the possibility is enough.