Chapter Text
‘A lie may take care of the present, but it has no future.’
- Unknown
For a group of fugitives hiding in the same place from the rest of the world, they didn’t really get together often.
Oh sure, they shared greetings and fleeting smiles in the stark, sterile hallway, a comment or snark tossed in the air as they passed by each other, but sitting down as a group? Having a meal together? They hadn’t done that since the first time they stepped in Wakanda.
Today was different though.
Steve stepped into the dining area to see Clint perched on one of the couches’ back, Wanda curled up on said furniture, the both of them idly flicking through the channels on the gigantic screen in front of them. Opposite of them, Scott was sprawling across the lone armchair, his head tilted back in a way that suggested that he was asleep. Sam was by the sink, idly washing several mugs.
“Hey Cap.” Several voices chorused, making Steve crack a smile despite his heavy heart.
Steve accepted the cup of coffee from Sam, cradling the steaming mug carefully in his hands. The other man handed out drinks to the rest of them, placing Scott’s mug on the table in front of the sleeping man. The Captain meandered over and sat down on the floor, stretching out his legs.
“How have you been?” he said, directing the question to the archer and his charge.
Clint shrugged, idly flipping a knife in his hand, “Went out, saw things, came back.”
Wanda elbowed him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “We went sightseeing,” she said, smiling a little, “Wakanda is a really beautiful place.”
“Could do without the heat though.” Sam interjected, grinning widely.
Clint snorted and pointed the knife at the man, “You got that right. If it wasn’t cause of her,” he nodded to the redhead below him, “I’d stay in this building with wonderful air conditioning the whole day. Y’know, so I don’t die in the heat.”
Wanda rolled her eyes, “I can take care of myself Clint,” she said snappishly, “I don’t need a babysitter.”
Steve quirked a small grin at that. Whatever he planned to say was interrupted when Natasha strode into the room, a fierce look on her face.
“Nat…?”
The Black Widow snatched the remote from Wanda’s lap and pressed a button, locking eyes with Steve, “You all need to see this.”
Their heads all turned to the screen just in time to see Tony Stark appear.
Tony sucked in a breath, trying to get his body the much needed oxygen. He tugged at the tie around his neck, wishing desperately that he could take it off. A hand landed on his shoulder, and he jumped slightly, turning around to meet the worried eyes of his oldest friend.
“Are you ready for this?” Rhodey asked quietly.
Tony smirked humorlessly, “Always.”
He turned back around, trying to calm his racing heart. He sorely wanted to go back into his lab, where the environment was completely under control, but he knew that the world needed the assurance that the heroes that had protected them weren’t about to turn on them because they breathed wrong.
Tony sighed. This was one hell of a mess.
“Mr Stark?” a woman called out, sticking her head past the curtains, “You’re up.”
Tony nodded and gripped Rhodey’s sleeve tightly for a second, soaking in the comfort of having his best friend by his side. Rhodey placed a hand on his back, both a physical and mental support. The genius exhaled and stepped forward, his mask firmly in place.
(The rogue Avengers gathered around the screen, Sam shaking Scott awake. The tension tripled in the room, now silent with anticipation.)
It was a good thing that Tony was more than used to press conferences, because the amount of cameras flashing in his face would have blinded him if he didn’t know how to avoid them. He flashed a grin and a wave for the reporters and sidled to his seat, sprawling in it with a confidence that he didn’t feel.
“You know,” he started conversationally, leaning forward to speak into the mike, “I’m feeling a little jealous that I didn’t get this much attention at the last SI unveiling.”
He forced a grin onto his face as the crowd of reporters laughed. He allowed the grin to remain on his face for several more seconds before he let it drop. Inching his chair forward, Tony’s face became serious, and he held up a hand, the laughter dying down.
“As you all know,” Tony began, “I’m here today to discuss the future of the Avengers. If you don’t know that, you’re probably in the wrong place.”
He waited for the laughter to die down once again.
Tony sucked in a deep breath, “I’ve heard the names drifting around, but I’m pretty sure that you all have taken to calling the fallout we had a Civil War. I wouldn’t go so far as to say war, but we had a disagreement. Despite that,” he raised a hand to stall the protests from the crowd, “I’d like to say that the Avengers are still around. We’re fewer in numbers, and we’ve taken a hit, but we’re still the protectors of the world, it’s what we’re here for.”
The clamor in the room skyrocketed, and Tony nodded at one of the reporters. Said reporter asked, “What about the Accords? Will you retract your support of the document?”
Tony shook his head, “I can’t speak for the rest of the remaining Avengers, but I am still in support of the Accords. I said once that I’ve been stuck in a system that was comfortable with zero accountability, and it was the reason why I shifted Stark Industries from manufacturing weapons to manufacturing tech. My decision remains the same. Without some form of accountability, the Avengers would be no better than the bad guys. It would be all too easy to cross the line and claim that what we do is for the good of the people. But where does it end? When the people are so afraid of us that they would rather die than accept our help?” Tony shook his head, “I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”
“Is that why you’re pushing for amendments?” another voice shouted from the back.
Tony nodded, “The Accords were meant to be a form of accountability, but the form it took back then was nothing short of a power play. It was a legal document allowing whoever was in charge to control the Avengers as they wished. The Avengers are protectors, not mercenaries.” Tony stressed, the dark look in his eyes causing some in the room to flinch, “As it was, the Accords allowed for total control over a group of people, and the punishment for non-compliance was far too severe with no room for compromise.”
Rhodey took over then, “The Accords that we’re pushing for now is one that we hope the governments of the world can agree on. The Avengers are primarily the world’s first line of defense against superhuman threats, we’re not exactly keen on becoming someone’s lap dog,” the colonel said drily, eliciting chuckles from the room.
Rhodey straightened up, “The amendments are meant to ensure that the Avengers don’t go unchecked, similar to reviews that are conducted in the military, but we are hoping that we can find a common understanding of the needs of both the government and the heroes so as to prevent further conflicts.”
The questions just kept coming after that, and Tony answered them as well as he could, deflecting some sly ones that he didn’t or couldn’t answer. There was a point where the discussion went off topic on the fate of paraplegics when Rhodey mentioned Tony creating his prosthetic.
The time they had was nearly up, when Christine Everhart, a sharp smile cutting across her face, spoke up, “What happened in Siberia Mr Stark?”
“What happened in Siberia Mr Stark?”
Steve winced when he heard the question. He would have dropped his mug were he holding it. As it was, the table cracked slightly from his grip on it. Sam turned around to give him a concerned look, to which the Captain shook his head.
Steve felt his heart pound with fear when he saw a flash of surprise cross Tony’s face when he heard the question, though it was wiped away as quickly as it came on. The ex-Avenger swallowed nervously, wondering what the genius would say in response to the question.
His answer came a second later.
Tony cracked a smile – it was so blindingly fake that Steve wanted to wince – at the reporter, “I believe that the question has already been answered once before.”
“You came out of Siberia with broken ribs and internal bruising,” the reporter pressed, making Steve close his eyes regretfully, “That doesn’t just happen –”
“That happens when you go up against a super soldier, even with a reinforced suit of armor.”
Christine eyed him shrewdly, “A super soldier? Or two?”
Tony smiled back at her, his eyes hard and cold as ice, “Since you seemed to have forgotten, let me refresh your memory, Zemo had released the other super soldiers, and despite the fact that I had two with me, three against five is still odds against us, so yes, injuries were bound to happen.”
“And after that? When Rogers and Barnes left?” she challenged.
“Rogers and Barnes were still fugitives who broke the law, and I was still the man who had been trying to bring them in hours earlier, so yes, they ran.”
“And left you in an incapacitated suit,” Christine finished coldly, a glint of triumph in her eyes, “Hardly hero material is it?”
Rhodey jumped in angrily, “Listen here, I don’t know where the hell you got your information from –”
“Okay that’s all the time that they have today.” A lady said, smiling saccharinely at the sea of reporters who were now clambering for answers, their voices melding into a chaotic mess.
Tony and Rhodey stood up, the former buttoned his jacket and slipped his sunglasses on, leaving the room without so much as a jaunty wave to the crowd, the latter trailed after him, a formidable glare on his face.
The screen blinked black as Clint shut it off, snorting angrily, “I can’t believe the nerve of that man. Bad enough that he lied about what happened, he still had to pretend that he was a hero?”
Sam nodded derisively, “I don’t know Stark all that well, but I thought he had the decency not to lie at least.”
Clint scoffed, “Please, that man embodies lying better than the fucking god of lies, you’re an idiot if you believe a word he says.”
Sam shook his head, “I honestly thought he was agreeing to help Cap.”
Scott shrugged from his seat, saying quietly, “I was told that you couldn’t trust a Stark.”
Clint sneered at the now black screen, “Damn well you shouldn’t, they just stab you in the back when you least expect it.”
Steve’s heart sunk with each word that his team mates uttered, all throwing in scathing remarks about Tony. The super soldier didn’t need to look at Wanda to know that she too felt the same.
“And the Accords,” Clint was saying, “he’s just trying to suck up to the government. I never thought I’d say that, but well, here we are! That’s all Stark is good at, I bet he isn’t even actually pushing for any amendments. If he even knows how to do that.”
Sam rolled his eyes but nodded in agreement, “I –”
“Enough.”
They all turned as one to Steve, who was looking down at his hands.
“Cap –” Sam tried.
“No, that’s enough.” Steve said.
“You’re seriously trying to defend this guy?” Clint asked incredulously, jabbing a finger at the now dark screen.
“Stop blaming Tony for everything that happened Clint –”
“No I’ll blame him however I want!” the archer snarled, “He’s the reason I was put in jail, the reason why I can’t see my family anymore. He never wanted to amend the Accords before, so why the fuck should I believe that he’s starting now? He’s just some selfish, stuck up asshole –”
“But he did!” Steve yelled, lurching to his feet.
“What?” Sam asked confusedly after a beat of silence.
Steve swallowed, sucking in a deep breath in preparation for the hardest conversation of his life. “Tony wanted to make amends. Back in Berlin, when we were talking, I mentioned the need for safeguards. That there had to be conditions to prevent people from abusing the power of the Accords. Tony agreed. He said – he said that if I signed, he could erase what we did to get Bucky away from T’Challa, and,” he looked at Wanda, “he could make sure that Wanda wouldn’t suffer the fallout from what happened in Lagos.”
Complete silence.
“Cap…” Sam said, his forehead marred with a frown, “Are you telling me that Stark offered a way to make what we did legal, and on top off that to clear both you and Wanda’s name, and you didn’t take it?”
“I –”
“No.” Clint growled, stalking closer to Steve, “Tell me that’s not true. Tell me that you didn’t just say that. Because what I heard is the fact that I could have stayed out of this whole fucking mess if you had just signed the goddamn papers.”
“It wasn’t so simple,” Steve protested, feeling defensive, “Tony had kept Wanda imprisoned –”
“Steve,” Sam said shakily, “Even if you didn’t agree with it, I still had the right to know.”
“Sam –”
“No!” the other hero snapped, taking a step backwards, “I had the right to know that there was an option. I had a right to know that we had the chance to make everything right before it even began.”
“What else is there?” Wanda asked quietly, pinning Steve with calculating eyes, “You would not have that strong of a reaction if this was the only thing, what else is there Captain?”
Steve looked away, his throat clenching involuntarily. He hadn’t told them anything more than vague details, and he wished that the ground could swallow him up now so he didn’t have to face their accusing looks.
But he couldn’t let Tony take the blame either. Not when the other man had done nothing but try and protect them, even now.
Steve licked his lips, “Tony lied about Siberia to the press, but he didn’t do it to make himself look good.”
“What does that mean?” Scott asked, confusion radiating from his entire body.
Steve swallowed, “I – you know that we fought, Bucky and I against Tony.”
The rest of them nodded, Clint narrowed his eyes, “What about that Cap?”
Steve worked his jaw, not knowing how to say the truth, “I haven’t been truthful with you, I let you draw your own conclusions because I was a coward. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not hearing anything Cap, what. Happened?” Clint ground out.
“Tony was there to help us.” Steve said, his hands trembling at his side, “He did his own research on Zemo and came after us. We were – we were searching the base, we were ready to fight the other Winter Soldiers. But Zemo killed them – a bullet to the head – and holed himself up in a bunker, taunting us from the other side.”
He took a shaky breath and continued, “There was a computer outside the bunker, and Zemo started playing a video. It was a file, a mission report: December 16th 1991.” He swallowed, “It was a video of one of Bucky – one of the Winter Soldier’s missions, a hit.”
“On who?” Wanda whispered, her widening eyes pleading with him not to confirm her suspicions.
“Howard and Maria Stark.”
Clint stumbled back as though he had been punched, and Sam reached behind him to grip Scott, who was equally shocked.
“Tony – Tony watched everything, up to the end. He – he asked me if I knew.”
“And did you?” Clint demanded, “Did you know?”
Steve pressed his lips together and nodded.
A force smacked him across his jaw, and in his shock he stumbled backwards, flicking startled blue eyes to Clint, who had his hand clenched into a fist.
“Jeez Steve,” Sam breathed, “How long?”
Steve looked away guiltily, “Since SHIELD fell.”
“Oh my god.” Sam coughed, “Oh god. Steve that was three years ago!”
“I know alright?” Steve snapped back, “I made a mistake, I know that now!”
Clint shook his head, his mouth twisted in a disgusted sneer, “This is a fucking mess. I can’t stay here right now.” He turned on his head and left.
Sam shook, “I’m with you Cap, but this – I gotta clear my head.”
He left too, and Scott tailed him out, shooting Steve a confused and disappointed look which cut into him more deeply than any anger could.
That left Wanda, and when Steve looked at her, she just said simply, “I know better than anyone else how it feels to watch my parents die.”
Then she too walked out of the room, leaving Steve alone in the common area, with nothing but the weight of his mistakes to keep him company.