Work Text:
Civil
"Did you see the news?"
Steve looks up from his battle plans to see a stony-faced Jessica Drew. He sighs. "No. Not today, not yet. I've been busy. What is it?"
She crosses her arms, looking furious and pale and uncomfortable. "Someone--one of us is spreading rumors about Tony." She laughs sharply. "Rumors. I mean, they're true. But they're not nice. And they're private."
Steve stands up. "About--?"
"Not about the two of you," Jessica snaps. "About him. About his history."
"Oh," Steve says, once he figures out what the hell she's talking about. "But that's not--relevant."
Jessica swears. "You're such an idiot. Anything that makes him look weak is relevant. And what could be weaker than being a woman?" She pauses. "It's been circulating for a couple of weeks now, I think. But we missed it. I want to know who did this."
"It wasn't me," Steve says. "Obviously. I don't fight dirty."
Jessica relaxes just a fraction. "I know. But I want to know who does."
*
Steve doesn't know if calling a meeting about this is the right thing to do. In a lot of ways, it's the opposite of helpful. But he's so tired and so angry about everything and he has no time or energy to handle things with sensitivity.
(A tiny part of him wonders why he's bothering to do this for the person Tony has become. But no. That isn't who Steve is, and it's also not the point.)
"Okay," he says, rubbing his temples, "I know you've all seen what someone from this group has been saying about Tony. I need to know who. I'm not messing around."
There's a flurry of movement and chatter among the assembled superheroes. Luke looks as murderous as Jessica. The Young Avengers look scared, just like they have for weeks. Peter is doing his best to fade unhappily into the background, and while he was the first one Steve thought of, Peter's face tells him something different.
After a long silence, Jessica says, "Look, I think a lot of nasty shit about him, but we're not using that. Listen, next time I meet him, I'm going to rip his head off, but I'm not going to throw a name that's not his in his face."
Steve nods. "We don't use lies to win. We're not going to call him by a name that isn't his. We have enough true names to call him."
"Oh, come on!" Frank Castle bursts out. "Look, it was me, okay? And I'm not sorry."
"What?" Steve says, furrowing his brow. "No. No. Castle, what's wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with me? Are you all forgetting what he's doing to us? He's literally killing and torturing your people. And you're telling us we can't fight back? First I start this for you, on your behalf, mind you, then I come over here to help you out, and this is what I get?"
Steve tries to remind himself that they knew Castle's moral code was a little skewed when they brought him on. "You can fight back, but this is a low blow."
Castle snorts. "What, and the shit he's doing isn't a low blow? Have you heard what he's told the press about you?"
"Some of it," Steve says stiffly. He can't pretend none of it hurts, either. But there's a reason to keep the moral high ground. Maybe, when this is all over, that will matter. "But this isn't why we're fighting Tony. It never has been and it can't be now. Plenty of us are . . ."
"Gay," Eli says, giving his team an almost paternal look.
"Etc.," Teddy agrees.
"I know!" Castle snaps. "For fuck's sake, I don't have a problem with it. But we're losing. We know where he's always been weak, and that's with the media."
"NO!" Luke shouts. "That's now how you fight a war!"
Castle looks around at all of them, and settles on Jessica. "All you've talked about for a week is how much you hate him and Ms. Marvel and how bad you want to fuck with 'em. Don't you think--?"
"You're a fucking idiot," Jessica says flatly. "I know you're unhinged, but I'm not okay with this."
"Oh," Castle says. "Yeah. I should have known you'd stand up for him. You used to be such great pals."
Jessica raises her eyebrows. "We were on a team together. Trust me, it's not the same thing. I knew he'd fuck up like he's done lately ever since he started tracking us down and unearthing our history to put that team together. That's part of the reason I didn't mind so much when it didn't work out."
"I read about your team," Billy says, eyes wide. "It was one of the things that made me want to be a superhero. What happened?" He covers his mouth, looking like he wishes he hadn't spoken.
Jessica shrugs. "Stuff happened. Tony got really invested in the Avengers at the same time we had a big blow-up about whether or not to come out as a team. Tony really didn't want to, mostly because of the Avengers. Sorry, Steve."
Steve inclines his head toward her. "I stand by Jessica and the others. "Tony Stark has done terrible things. But I won't let you stand here and call him a woman on my watch. And that's not personal. That's just how it is."
"Fine," Castle says shortly. "I misjudged the situation I guess. I'm going for a walk."
He leaves.
"He'll probably be back, unfortunately," Luke says.
The team disperses, but Steve overhears Billy saying to Teddy, "See? This is how you know we're on the right side."
Steve hopes that's enough.
War
Tony Stark's dreams are coming true. He's moving up in the world, taking charge, being the man he always wanted to be. He's got money, power, respect.
He's completely fucked. He can't keep track of how fast he's losing things, and he can't do the math to see if he's losing more than he's gaining. He thinks he is. (He had a ring.)
He thinks Peter might be slipping away, and he isn't sure if that's good or bad. Good, get out while you can, Peter. Bad, don't just--leave. Don't leave, because that will be nearly everyone.
Tony is winning.
He's winning, and he's doing to Peter almost what somebody did to him a long time ago, except that's different, probably.
He's winning the war.
He had a goddamn ring.
He was going to do something with it. Soon. It had been--what, twelve years? Twelve years,
twelve years, of course he had a ring.
The war is turning ugly. Tony has done things--he won't say things he never thought he'd do. He thought he'd do pretty much anything, at one time or another. But things he'd like to pretend he's not capable of.
He'd like to pretend the war is only turning ugly on one side. He gets some kind of sick pleasure out of remembering that Steve is still just as noble, just as fucking self-righteous for good goddamn reason as he ever was.
But Tony can't pretend that forever. The war is turning ugly on both sides.
*
"I heard the weirdest thing."
A decade ago, Tony would have flinched. Now he just looks up, distracted, from his paperwork. "Yeah?"
Reed frowns. "Some of the--people refusing to register are spreading some pretty nasty rumors about you."
"Rumors?" Tony says. Why bother? If they want to be nasty, they've got the material.
"Apparently they're saying that you're--"
There's a split second in which Tony realizes what Reed's going to say before he says it.
"--really a woman."
Not the words Tony would have gone with, even from Reed. "Huh," he says. Google it, why don't you? he thinks about saying. Reed probably will. He'll probably do it and then leave. Good. Only he and his willful blindness could get this far without listening to rumors about Tony. He doesn't even know that his goddamn best friend is gay.
Then Tony thinks about it a little harder, and--"They're dragging that up again? Steve's people? To use against me? Talk about pathetic." He means, I trusted them. Jessica let them say that? Luke? Steve?
Yeah, Tony's learning a lot today. "Just ignore it, Reed," he says. "It's not important."
*
"Guess what Steve's friends are saying about you," Carol says. She sounds pissed off. "True or not, it's unprofessional."
"You don't know?" Tony asks, surprised and temporarily derailed out of feeling betrayed.
"I don't care," Carol says. "I know Jessica was on your team. So yeah, I guess I know."
Tony knows Carol knows about Jessica. Even though Jessica is fairly quiet about her personal life, despite her short stint on Tony's first team, she and Carol--Carol knows.
"It just means they're running short on ammo," Tony says. "It's not important."
*
It's not important to Peter. He's a little too busy panicking about where his life is going to listen to rumors. Tony has a brief moment of panic the first time he takes Peter to bed, but Peter doesn't ask questions and he doesn't complain. He's got a great mouth, whatever he's using it for. Tony is a monster.
Peter is getting more and more unhappy, now that everyone knows who he is. Lying in bed next to Tony, he says, "So, am I the worst, or just almost the worst?"
Peter is obviously not the worst, but Tony doesn't think saying that will inspire confidence. "This? Or--?"
"I hate it," Peter says, his voice muffled. His face is against Tony's back. "I don't want everyone to know. I've spent my whole life--"
"Peter," Tony starts in that horrifyingly patronizing voice he borrowed, "you know--"
"How would you like it if your identities were public? All of them?"
"When haven't they been?" Tony snaps. "As if Natasha Stark could afford privacy. As if any of my family could."
Peter doesn't ask again. Tony thinks that at this point, there was no right answer he could have given.
*
And then Peter is gone. The last person Tony could pretend still liked him, and that's what he's come to. That's what he's clinging to.
(Venom is still there, though. The Thunderbolts are doing good work. And close enough, right? Wrong. Really, really wrong.)
*
"What are you doing, Stark?"
"I can't believe this," Tony says. "Where are you?"
Nick Fury smirks. "Sorry, that's not what I called to tell you. There's a lot happening that you're really not getting. I know nobody's gonna win this win, but you're gonna lose harder. Believe it."
Tony sighs and stares at the screen. He doesn't have time for this. He should try to track the call, but Fury isn't stupid. "You called me up from your super-secret bunker just to mock me?"
"I called to see if you're still capable of being bullied into getting your life together."
"I'm not," Tony snaps.
"So I'll ask again. What are you doing?"
"I'm doing what everyone's always telling me to do," Tony says sharply. He can't stop tapping his pencil on the desk. "I'm growing up."
"We didn't mean this." Fury sounds disapproving, and maybe a little regretful.
"It's not up to you," Tony says. "You may have found me when I was fucked up enough to listen to you, but you don't get to make my life choices for me."
"You know what your problem is?" Fury asks, as if there's only one. "Your problem is that you didn't meet any adults who weren't assholes until you were too old for it to matter."
"Ha," Tony says weakly. "I'm going to find you and I'm going to throw you headfirst into the negative zone."
"That's what I was afraid of," Fury says. The corner of his mouth twitches, but not like the beginning of a smile. "I heard they're talking about you again. About your personal life. Don't worry, we all know who you are. Just daddy's little failure who let her evil uncle fuck her until he fucked her over. Are they saying that part yet?"
The worst part is that Tony knows Fury doesn't mean it. He's just that angry at Tony that he's willing to play with him.
Tony thinks, This is worse than Venom. Then he thinks, What am I thinking? Something is more wrong with me than whatever has been wrong with me in the past. And then he thinks, You mean more wrong than when you let Obie fuck you? More wrong than everything you did to Pepper kind of on purpose? More wrong than trying to make the Avengers hate you when you first met them?
Fury has stopped yelling. Now he's looking at Tony and waiting for an answer.
"I'm going to win this war," Tony says.
It's the wrong thing to say, but that's not important either.