Chapter Text
“I don’t care. He killed my mom.”
Tony didn’t remember much after uttering those words that left the worst taste in his mouth. All he could think about was the video, that video of Bucky choking the life out of his dad, of his mom breathing in the night air for the last time.
He heard shouts, maybe… voices were trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t…couldn’t concentrate, not after finding out that it was Bucky’s fault his life had been ruined from the start.
“Tony, please! He wasn’t in control! He had no choice!”
That was…that was Steve, his old friend, now his enemy. How dare he try to placate Tony, try to defend Bucky when Steve knew what Bucky had done?
Tony was only mildly aware of how much of a ruckus he was causing, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. His repulsers were firing in all directions, and that was good. Tony wanted the world around him to hurt, to burn like he’d been burned.
And killing Bucky in the process would only make everything taste sweeter.
Only, Tony hadn’t thought he’d actually be able to do it.
In his mind, he would’ve never been able to best the Captain America and the Winter Soldier.
But he hadn’t been counting on the fact that they weren’t trying to kill him. They hadn’t been the ones to attack him. They didn’t want to hurt him.
They were holding back.
So when Tony had been pounded into the ground too many times to count, when he’d been given way too much whiplash by that dang shield, he fired his repulsers as soon as Bucky came into view, not even caring that he could no longer aim with FRIDAY’s help.
And he didn’t miss.
Oh, God, if only he’d missed.
But Bucky had gone down with a blazing hole for a chest, and Steve had frozen, and Tony hadn’t comprehended what he’d just done.
All he saw was that Steve was open, and he fired up his repulsers again.
Steve could’ve dodged. Tony shouldn’t have ever been able to take him in a fight like this. But Tony hadn’t taken into account how much Steve’s will to live depended on Bucky.
When Bucky went down, Steve didn’t even try to move out of the way, didn’t even try to block the hit.
Tony’s repulsers hadn’t been at full charge, not after the beating his armor had taken. And Steve had been a lot farther away. Which meant Steve didn’t die instantly. He fell to his knees, gasping, clawing at his chest, his eyes wide with shock and grief as he collapsed onto the floor.
And that’s when Tony woke up from his daze.
The video of his parents’ murder stopped replaying in his mind. He could no longer hear his dad’s last words to his already-dead mom.
All he could hear was Steve choking on his own blood.
Tony was out of his suit instantly, running to Steve with speed that didn’t match up with all the energy he’d lost in the fight.
He was at Steve’s side in an instant. His enemy.
His friend.
Steve’s chest was nothing but blood and fried muscle and charred flesh, and he looked so scared.
Tony was on his knees, trembling beside the super soldier with no idea how to help, no idea how to make it better.
“Steve,” he whispered, hesitantly gathering the man up in his arms.
Steve was by no means a small man, but he looked like it just then, in that puddle of blood.
“Is…is he dead?” Steve gasped, turning his head in Bucky’s direction and hacking up bile for his efforts.
“I…I didn’t…”
Tony was speechless. Was Bucky dead? Yes. Because of him?
Yes.
Steve deflated in Tony’s arms, his whole body shaking so hard Tony worried he might vibrate straight through the ground.
“He…he always wanted to…to be b-buried in Brooklyn…by his ma.”
Tony choked back something ugly.
“I'm going to fix this, Steve,” he kept whispering, “I'm going to fix this.”
And in his mind, he was already thinking of ways he could call a Quinjet to come pick them up, ways he could get Steve out of this godforsaken country and into a hospital that would fix him right up, because he had the serum, right? He would be completely fine, right?
He always was. He was Captain America. Even when he crashed into desert tundras and was turned into an icicle for 70 years, he was still fine.
But Steve gave Tony the barest trace of a smile, and that told Tony more than anything Steve could’ve said.
“I…as much as…it was different–”
Steve began coughing again, more blood spilling onto the ground.
“–I still…I liked the 21st century. It wasn’t always…kind to me…but it was good. Because of you…and the others.”
At this point, Tony was sure he wasn’t breathing. He didn’t register his lungs expanding, didn’t register the intake and outtake of air. All he heard was Steve’s words telling him that Tony was part of the reason why the 21st century hadn’t been so bad to Steve.
Tony had just killed Steve’s best friend and had injured Steve beyond repair. And Steve was still telling him that Tony was good.
“The others…tell them…I’m sorry for it all. Natasha…”
Steve’s expression turned into one of pain, and Tony got the sense that it wasn’t from his injuries.
“She was one of my…first friends. And Sam…”
But now Steve was coughing and hacking and wheezing and Tony wasn’t sure if he would ever stop. By the time he did finish, Tony knew there wasn’t enough left in Steve for him to live.
Tony felt his heart beating faster than it probably had in a long time.
Steve was going to die, and it was his fault.
He had been so blinded and now sat in a puddle of blood that wasn’t his own.
Steve’s eyes began to drift closed, and Tony felt all the breath inside him leave him. But then–
“It’s the end of the line, Tony.”
And that was it. Captain America didn’t even get to take a full, final breath before he died. He simply puttered out, too weak to cough and too sick to breathe and too injured to live.
And Tony found himself alone in an abandoned Hydra base in Siberia.
There was the kind of loneliness that came when people left you, and the kind of loneliness that came when people left.
Tony dazedly looked down to see that Steve was smiling.
He looked peaceful.
Had he ever looked like this in all the time Tony had seen Steve?
Only when Steve was with Bucky.
And Tony screamed, something primal and angry and instinctive because how could he have done this? How could this have happened to him, to them?
To all of them?
He screamed and yelled and cried until his voice was hoarse and there were no tears left in them. Then he pried Steve Rogers’ already-cold, lifeless form off of him and laid him gently on the ground. The floor around him was covered in blood, but Tony didn’t want to move him.
He slowly got to his feet, his knees shaking, and only then realized how cold he was.
But he didn’t put his armor back on. Not when that armor had caused this kind of destruction.
He would rather die of hypothermia.
Tony wrenched himself away from Steve’s body and limped to Bucky’s side. It was obvious that he had been dead before he’d even hit the ground. Tony had made sure of that.
Trying to drown out the sounds of hollow wailing, Tony did his best to position Bucky in a way that left him in a somewhat more comfortable position than he’d fallen in.
Then Tony stood up and felt the weight of the world on his shoulders as he realized he would need to make calls. He would need to tell the world what he’d done. He would need to tell them that their greatest hero and his best friend were gone.
Because of him.
“What have you done?”
Tony turned sharply to see a man in a black suit standing in the doorway. The headpiece was removed, and Tony realized who it was.
“T’Challa,” he said weakly, not finding the energy in him to have a bigger reaction.
“What have you done?” T’Challa asked again, and Tony realized the man wasn’t angry.
T’Challa was staring intensely at Tony, his eyes boring into Tony’s skull.
“In a fit of rage, you have murdered two heroes. They were by no means innocent, but they did not deserve this kind of end.”
Something like righteous indignation was in T’Challa’s tone, only amplified by a thousand. This was a king who knew when two of the world’s best warriors had fallen unjustly. This was a king who was demanding that Tony recognize this, that Tony realize what he’d done.
Tony definitely knew what he’d done.
“I will take Zemo to Wakanda, where he will face judgment for his crimes. But the bodies of Steven Rogers and James Barnes? You will arrange how they get taken care of.”
And just like that, T’Challa was gone, his footsteps leaving no sound as he left the room.
Once again, Tony was alone, and he should’ve felt colder than he’d ever been in his life without a coat in Siberia.
But his phone was burning a hole in his pocket.
Digging it out with shaking fingers, shaking hands, shaking everything, Tony called the only person he could think of in the moment.
“Tony?” Rhodey’s voice came through on the second ring, “What the heck is going on over there? Are you alright?”
Tony’s mouth was dry. His tongue was swollen. His lips were bleeding. His throat hurt.
How in the world was he going to force those words out? Those horrible, horrible words?
“I…killed them. I killed Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.”