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It starts with a shield.
Or maybe, that’s how it ends.
***
In 1944, Howard Stark gives Steve Rogers a vibranium shield.
(That is where it started.)
72 years later, Steve Rogers uses that same shield to pierce Howard’s son’s iron heart.
(And this is where it ended.)
***
And then Steve drops the shield, and he leaves.
And Tony sits there on the cold ground, a dry, cold draft sweeping through the bunker, chilling him to the bone.
(It’s easier to say that he shivers because of the cold, not because he is so, so, furious.)
He eyes the shield on the ground and watches Steve leave, a dark and twisted anger stewing in his (broken) chest. Raw and ugly and utterly, utterly, painful.
He spits out blood, and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
(Even his father’s scotch will never wash and get rid of the taste of blood born from betrayal from his mouth.)
***
As he lies there, broken, battered, bleeding, bruised and betrayed, Tony thinks.
***
Tony wonders which is worse – the heat? Or the cold?
A scorching desert? Or an icy tundra?
He thinks it doesn’t matter, both burn just the same.
***
Tony thinks of meeting Steve for the first time.
That’s the guy my dad never shut up about?
Tony thinks he was wrong. That guy never came back. That guy died in the ice.
***
Family. Stability. The guy that wanted all of that went into the ice 75 years ago. I think someone else came out.
Tony thinks Steve was right.
***
Time has eluded him. The sun bows beneath the icy mountains, and the moon is hung by the stars, and Tony, still broken, battered, bleeding, bruised and betrayed, continues to think.
***
You are my greatest creation.
And Tony thinks – liar.
***
Tony thinks it’s funny that after all this time, his father continues to hurt him, even from beyond the grave, after so many years.
He closes his eyes and he sees his father’s creation – the shield, ram into his chest again and again and again.
He closes his eyes and he sees what’s behind the shield, another thing his father created, smash the shield into his chest.
And Tony dies, and dies, and dies.
(He doesn’t think it’s funny at all.)
***
What would you say, Dad, if you knew that your greatest creation was the one to break your son?
Would you still choose him over me?
Would you?
***
It’s interesting, Tony thinks, that the very things and equipment which were used against him at the airport were the ones he created.
Then Tony thinks about another time, another age, another era, when he was carefree and the weight of the world wasn’t on his shoulders, when the closest brush with death he had was bouts of alcohol poisoning induced by nights of hard partying.
When he still manufactured weapons.
He thinks about sitting behind a rock, on scorching sand, and staring at his name.
Staring, staring and staring, as he waits for his weapon to be used against him.
Well, if you don’t learn, history does tend to repeat itself.
***
Tony thinks that maybe, in another life, in another time, in another place, things could have turned out differently.
If Steve had just told him, if he had just told him, then maybe, maybe, it would have been better.
But now? Now it just hurts.
***
Tony thinks about a time way back when, when he was on a farm in the middle of nowhere.
I don’t trust a guy without a dark side.
Well, let's just say you haven't seen it yet.
Tony thinks, sadly and bitterly, the taste of the thought sour in his mouth – I think I trust you now.
(Revenge is sweet, but betrayal turns out to be sour.)
***
Then Tony thinks about another moment in the same time, on the same farm, on the same day.
Sometimes my teammates don't tell me things.
Well Captain, Tony thinks, everybody lies.
***
Captain America. God’s righteous man. Pretending you can live without a war.
And Tony laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs.
Because Ultron was wrong about many things, but he was not wrong about that.
***
I think he loved the fight so much it became his drug of choice.
***
Tony realizes that even before they had officially met, Steve had always been a constant fixture in his life.
His earliest memories were his father telling him stories about Captain America. The great hero. The best man he had ever known. The only good thing he had done in the world.
From stories to memorabilia to old relics that had belonged to the Captain himself, Tony grew up through the years with a certain image of this man in his head.
(Well, they did say to never meet your heroes.)
***
Then, Tony thinks – wasn’t I a good thing, Dad?
***
Tony’s life started with Captain America, and he thinks morosely, that maybe that was also how it was meant to end.
***
Tony shifts, and his limbs feel like ice, weighed down by an invisible load, and as he turns to his side he jerks violently, his chest spasming, sending sharp flickers of pain through his leaden limbs. He gasps, a dry and throaty sound, and his vision blacks out and Tony thinks one last thing before letting the darkness take hold.
Maybe our story was always meant to be a tragedy.
***
And then.
Then Tony sleeps.
***
Tony?
Mom?
Yes honey, it’s me. I’ve missed you so much.
Mom!
***
(It’s not sleep at all.)
***
In the end, a box with a phone inside lies unopened, gathering dust.
And many miles away, a man desperately clutches a phone that he doesn’t know will never ring.
Wishing, and hoping, and praying, for an absolution that will never come.
***
It started with a shield.
And that is how it ends.