Spinning Through Grief

Nonymos said there won't be a sequel, but I'm too caught up in "what happens next" to let it go. This is wild speculation in the shape of a fic.
Also, while this is probably readable on its own, the meaning changes rather drastically without the original.

Work Text:

"I know you all saw that amazing kiss last month, where the two hottest men ever to punch aliens in the face came out on national television. Sadly, Mister Stark passed away from the injuries he received while fighting those aliens, but Captain Rogers did not, so here he is! Say hello to Captain America!"

The crowd, undaunted by the mention of Tony's death, cheered wildly as Ellen crossed the stage to shake Steve's hand. He smiled wanly as he did so, knowing she'd take it as a sign that he was still thinking of Tony--which, he supposed, he was; he'd probably be thinking of Tony every day for a long while yet.

She led him over to a very soft couch; public interviews had certainly gotten a lot more comfortable since the last time he'd done them.

He looked out over the crowd and tried to smile. It probably didn't work, but that was fine. The cheering died down as they realized that he was supposedly in mourning, and this was the only talk show he'd agreed to visit. He could feel them shift from adulation to rapt attention as they waited for him to speak.

He tried to get his thoughts together--dammit, he had a script, a set of points to go over--but he still couldn't hear Tony's name without wanting to flinch. He couldn't say it at all.

Ellen, smooth and friendly as he'd seen on the video clips they'd shown him, stepped in. "So, Steve--is it okay if I call you Steve?"

Steve nodded. Non-military people who called him Captain Rogers were never his friends, and Ellen struck him as someone who could be, even if she could never know the truth.

"Steve, then. I know you've suffered a great loss recently, and I want to thank you for coming here so soon after."

Steve closed his eyes briefly, then looked at her. "I know... I know there are a lot of questions. And I'd like to answer some of them, the ones I can, anyway, so I can..." and here, he paused and looked down, like he'd practiced with Natasha, and then looked back up at her. "So I can get on with my life."

Ellen nodded, and said softly, "It must be very hard for you."

"I can't--" he broke off, and looked away. This was harder than he'd expected. "More than I can say." And that was almost a whisper.

"I only have a few questions, if you're willing..."

"Yes, please. I need... I need to start putting this behind me."

And they'd all read that the wrong way, and that was just fine with him.

"So, you and Tony Stark... how long were you involved?"

Involved. What a fascinating word for it. "A few months," Steve said. "It was... very sudden."

"You never hinted at anything in your work as an Avenger." That was almost a question.

"We didn't... He didn't... want anyone to know, and I wasn't sure if I did, at first."

Ellen nodded, as if that were only reasonable. She stayed quiet, and Steve recognized that as his opening. He took a deep breath, and split his attention between his hostess and the crowd, as he'd learned to do for the newsreels.

"We... we didn't want to compromise the team, and I wasn't sure what public opinion would be. Back in my day, we could've been killed for..." he trailed off, not sure how to finish that. But that seemed to be fine with them, so he continued. "Being an Avenger has been an honor and a privilege, and I didn't want to lose that. I didn't want... our... the..." he couldn't say the word relationship; practicing it with Natasha was one thing, but this was too public; he couldn't say it here-- "to take that away from me."

He looked into the camera, raw hurt on his face, and heard the audience sigh. Ellen leaned toward him, like any minute now she was going to hug him, so he took another breath and sat up straighter on the couch. She sat back.

"So..." she spoke carefully, now; no trace of milking a romance for the media, but more like someone offering comfort to a friend. It was probably false--Steve had a lot of practice with people looking friendly for the cameras--but for now, he'd take it. "That kiss, the one everyone saw..."

Steve looked down. He certainly couldn't meet anyone's eyes and talk about that.

"... Any regrets?" she asked softly.

"Only that I didn't do it sooner," he answered fervently.

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Comments

Nonymos Thu 06 Nov 2014 09:07AM UTC

Fucking hell. This is perfect. The double meaning in each and every question, that's masterfully done. :D

Last Edited Thu 06 Nov 2014 09:29AM UTC

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Nonymos Thu 06 Nov 2014 09:29AM UTC

And haha, now I want to write meta. Of Steve's training for the show. I can see Natasha looking grim in the kitchen of the Mansion (since they'd have moved out of Stark Tower, and started recruiting more Avengers) and Steve noticing that it's not her resting face and that she is, in fact, in a dark mood. She could explain to him that he received yet another invitation to a talkshow and that Steve's assistant (it could be Darcy, haha) told them to fuck off as usual, that they'd undignified and won't respect his "grief." Okay, Tony being dead is bullshit, but Steve isin shock and in mourning. And of course, Steve, while he's grateful to her, is irked by her protectiveness (just like he was with Bucky, and just like he was when he resisted telling anyone about Tony for so long.) So he says that he should do one. Just one. So the others will stop asking. She scowls because she knows very well this is him being stubborn, but then she sighs because she knows how much you want to appear strong after an experience like that. So she's like, "fine, Rogers, let's do this" and tells him it's probably better to go either to the Late Night Show, or to Ellen's. Steve picks Ellen's because there are chances it'll be lighter and less incisive than the Late Night Show, which might prod a bit too hard in certain places. But that means he has to learn how to present his past with Tony as a loving relationship. Natasha helps him, and learning the answers before the questions are asked feels good for the first time in his life. Feels like he has this under control and that he can spin this thing the way he wants. But once he gets in front of Ellen, he feels hollow and wan, and finds the strength to play it off as grief, and it's working, and the public loves him and the talkshow has unprecedented audiences and the Westboro Baptists Church and other fuckers can't say another word about Steve's "sins" without the entire country turning against them like an angry snake.
But when Steve gets home to the Mansion, Bruce and Nat and Clint are there, and theyknow exactly why he's so pale. This time, it's Clint who gives him a quick hug, then they all go back to the living room and talk through the night until Steve falls asleep on the couch and actually manages to sleep since they're all there with him.

Last Edited Thu 06 Nov 2014 09:30AM UTC

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1. Cristinuke Thu 06 Nov 2014 03:41PM UTC
  
  Wait, is it meta if YOU'RE the one writing it?
  (These are the questions that keep me up at night)
  
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2. 1. Elf (Elf_Herself) Thu 06 Nov 2014 05:18PM UTC
    
    It's still meta. It's canonical meta, like the discussions the showrunners have about background details that don't make it into the show.
    
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  2. Nonymos Thu 06 Nov 2014 05:29PM UTC
    
    The Elf has spoken :D
    
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3. Elf (Elf_Herself) Thu 06 Nov 2014 04:11PM UTC
  
  Oooh thank you thank you... that's so much better than what was vaguely in my mind (which included Fury barking "you got us into this goddamn mess; you WILL accept one of these motherfuckers' invitations..."). (Fury believes any soldier who isn't actively bleeding out is ready to dive back into battle.) (Or: fix the PR situation first; breakdown and therapy can happen later.)
  I love the idea of Nat and Bruce and Clint supporting him through this, being ready for him when he gets out, and helping him get on with his life.
  Also not included: prior to the talk show visit, the video clip of Tony in a hospital bed, covered with wires and tubes, looking pale and lost and damaged (because one, he's been tortured and starved for several days and two, he's doped to the gills), surrounded by several of the Avengers with Steve holding his hand while Tony mumbles incoherently "Steve... my Steve" and Steve says "I'm right here." Steve, of course, looks like he's being twisted apart from the inside. That's the one they release to the media, along with select bits of info about the palladium poisoning a while back (few months? couple of years?) and some of his post-battle medical reports, showing how he's really been on the edge for a while now and it's amazing he's lived this long.
  That one, I'm positive Fury forces everyone to go along with, in part by telling them the alternative is to release Tony to the courts.
  Setting up a brainwashing plan for someone like Tony is easy--he's a civilian with an ego that's never been put up against anything he can't buy into silence. All they need is a good cop/bad cop routine, where the bad cop is pretty much everyone, who does things like torture and throwing him in a sensory deprivation tank and petty pranks and mind games until they sort out where the worst of his weak points are, and someone appointed to be the savior--who always takes him to medical, who takes him out of the tank, who fixes the aftermath of the pranks and so on. A couple of weeks of that and he will desperately want to please the "savior" person, especially if they tell him "I'm sorry, Tony; you did (x) and they're taking me away for a few days"... followed by harsher versions of whatever bothers him most.
  Steve would be the best pick for "savior"--Tony feels comfortable and confident around him--but he wouldn't go along with it. Coulson would probably work, but may not have the stomach for it either. Same problem with Banner, and also Tony knows damn well Banner *could* break him out of there any time if he wanted to. I expect the "savior" would need to either be a new character, or a variable person in a role--"a person wearing a stocking over the head and a red bandana" so he imprints on the "uniform" instead of the person.
  Brainwashing only makes sense if they want him to work for them. Easy to set up; hard to keep effective over the course of many years. (Two years: no problem. More than that: if he's got enough independence to be useful, he can start breaking the conditioning. Also, it's really fucking hard, esp. in an organization like SHIELD, to make sure that ALL of his handlers aren't sympathetic to him. After the initial setup, Nat and maaaaaybe Barton are the only ones they could allow to work on him.) If they just need him alive for legal-ish reasons, they can give him a lobotomy. (There might be drugs that do the same thing. Trouble is, those stop working if he escapes, and Tony Stark is really, really good at escaping places he doesn't want to be.)
  Or, of course, they could just kill him. I'm pretty sure they want to tear JARVIS down to its last motherboards, and then burn the boards. (Headcanon: Bruce didn't break JARVIS, and didn't defeat it either--he had some permissions from when he worked with Tony, and they'd never been rescinded. He just had to finesse them into including the new data.)
  I am so so glad you like it! I was twitchy all evening after I wrote it, 'cos I didn't know if I'd overstepped.
  
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4. 1. Nonymos Thu 06 Nov 2014 05:47PM UTC
    
    Those are some scary headcanons you got there. I don't even want to know how you know so much about the actual ways to brainwash someone.
    You're writing off SHIELD as evil, here. And while my AU was definitely darker in a whole, I don't think Fury could coldly consider death, lobotomy and torture. Yeah, not even torture. I mean, what Barton did to Tony was torture, that's for sure - but he had a purpose; making him talk, making him confess. After JARVIS broke, Tony knew he was screwed and confessed by the end of the night. And that was the end of his physical ordeal.
    In the end, why is SHIELD keeping him at all? One reason: PR. Steve's desperate cry-for-help kiss almost burned them to the ground, but Tony's timely "death" brought back the sympathy of the masses. They need everyone to believe he's dead, so they can't put him in the legal system, so they're keeping him. But they don't want anything from him - no sane man would ask Tony Stark to design even a toy for them under duress. So he's just isolated in his cell.
    Now, Fury might consider brainwashing, but of a more irrealistic, comic-book kind - like the machines we see in The Winter Soldier or Agents of SHIELD. But when Steve hears this, he defends Tony so vigorously and with such anger you'd think he was really in love with him. But Steve is just a good man. Just because he suffered at Tony's hands doesn't mean he wants to see him suffer in turn. He's just glad it's over (and ashamed and confused and grieving, but that's another story.) So he checks up regularly on Tony (like, once a month) to make sure he's fine, and it drives Tony completely crazy because this is Steve being perfect and, have I mentioned Tony hates that? I might have written an entire fic about it, I think. :D So this is, surprisingly, a good situation; both a punishment for Tony and a way for Steve to become himself again. To do the right thing.
    Natasha is rolling her eyes, Bruce is very cautious about the whole thing and Clint is casually asking Steve how it went this time, but secretly they're all super impressed and they feel even more sorry for what they let happen to Steve Rogers, who's such an impossibly good man, even though he's also a stubborn idiot.
    The video thing? No way Steve would do it. No way Fury would suggest it, either, because it would look a bit too convenient, invasive and demagogue, but mostly because he might be an asshole but he's got self-preservation falling out of his ass and whoever suggests such a thing will get mauled by the Black Widow, Hawkeye and possibly the Hulk. At the same time. So, no, the official version is that Tony's heart attack was sudden and caused instant death. No footage.
    The Bruce and JARVIS thing? YES. :D I Officially Declare This Meta Ascended To Canon. Bruce simply used the "guests" access he had to JARVIS, and hacked the unsuspecting AI from the inside so it would reconfigure around him being "sir", which was much easier than breaking through the virtual miles and miles of firewalls. So, now Bruce is JARVIS' master, which he never saw coming at any point in his life, but damn a superpowered AI is useful for his research like whoa.
    
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  2. 1. Elf (Elf_Herself) Thu 06 Nov 2014 06:29PM UTC
      
      Standard brainwashing techniques--at least the framework--are available to anyone who looks into psychology with a focus on trauma or imprisonment. (Some systems for trauma recovery have the same basic structure; they have to be careful not to let the patient get too attached to whoever's helping them sort out the problems. It's a big part of why there are such strict rules about how emotionally/personally close therapists and patients are allowed to get--it's *easy* to become the Personal Savior of the person you're helping. It's easier if they're going through hell elsewhere and you're the only good thing in their life.)
      I'm not assuming SHIELD would torture him (erm, well, after the first week or so, when Natasha and Barton get to pound on him a bit), or even that they'd go for brainwashing or worse. I am entirely certain Fury would consider all those options; I think it's very likely they'd all be rejected as impractical. Kill him outright is possible; keep him in solitary is possible (and hey, mandatory therapy sessions! If nothing else, some ambitious psych doctor will get some fascinating data for a research paper!); brainwash is too complicated and too risky. Declaring him dead and keeping him in solitary means that even if he does get out, there's reams of legal paperwork to get through before he gets any power back--and they'd find him by then. (He could get out and build bombs out of baling wire and duct tape, but they're not worried about his combat abilities.)
      Steve visiting him and Tony hating it is PERFECT. And having Steve visit, and telling the guards that it's really important that Tony stay here while obviously being concerned for his welfare, will keep the guards from letting Tony convince them to help him out. (Possibilities for guards to keep them from being swayed by Tony's offer of "three million dollars if you bring me a leatherman tool and a laptop" -- Food delivered by robots, guards who don't speak English or any European language, guards rotate so none of them ever see him more than twice a month.) And if Tony is in solitary with NOTHING TO DO besides wait to see Steve, that works as a very mild version of the standard brainwashing method, because much as he hates Steve, there is NOTHING ELSE in his life, and while at first he'll focus on "make Steve angry," the first time he manages to make him angry enough to skip a month or two will make him rethink that strategy.
      (Hm, how much "nothing" does he have? Notebooks and pens? Books to read? I suppose Steve would insist he gets most of what convicted prisoners get, although Fury might draw the line at TV.)
      And, okay, I can see people not going for the vid. But they may need to leak some footage, or some very recent medical records, or people won't believe he's dead. Leaving a press conference in perfect health, followed by "sorry folks; heart attack; all dead now... nope, no pictures, no vids, no casket at the funeral, just an urn with ashes..." hits too many warning bells. (They can't sell that to Pepper, among other problems.) The conspiracy theorists would go wild with it, and the idea is to play this *down.* So: they need a funeral, if not a body, and if they mention the arc reactor problems and possible recent injuries, they can fight for a closed-casket funeral. A few pics of Tony in a hospital would help with that.
      Fury might even stage something--Tony getting some treatment that looks like electroshock, and Steve rushing in to stop it and take care of him, and the security vids of Steve rushing to his side getting released.
      (Also, if this story is even remotely compatible with Cap 2... Ah, does Tony escape?)
      
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    2. 1. Nonymos Thu 06 Nov 2014 11:00PM UTC
        
        Oh, I hadn't thought about the whole brainwashing Personal Savior aspect of therapy, but it makes total sense!
        And yes, totally. Fury is definitely going to at least consider those options.
        The guards are a cool problem. No robots - no robots in the vicinity of Tony Stark, ever, if you wanna keep out of trouble. So, yeah, guys who don't speak any language he knows... or the same system as Magneto's prison in DotFP. Now, Tony doesn't have nothing - I guess he can have books, and maybe a notebook so he can scribble his ideas and all. But not a TV - nothing electronic.
        Of course, Fury is totally gonna set up a nice little backstory for Tony's death, and I loooove the idea of Fury staging a fake torture to use the vid after! What a great idea! :D And the closed-casket funeral is easy - they can simply say, "as Mr. Stark requested in his testament, the casket will be closed" and there. It's gonna be a rough few months for Steve, till it all dies down. Meanwhile Tony will be bored to death. That's all he deserves.
        And yeah. I had vague ideas about a Winter Soldier rewriting where Tony is the bad guy. I don't even have to rewrite anything at all, actually, since Tony wasn't in CA:TWS. ^^ I'm sure poor Steve would love getting Bucky back... and at the same time, it would be so hard on him after everything else.
        
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      2. Odyssey88 Mon 15 Dec 2014 03:18AM UTC
        
        I love all the ideas that poured out of the meta-brainstorming. That Steve is the only one visiting Tony to make sure he is alright and Tony hating it: brilliant! Though I can't help but wonder how much will Pepper learn about what happened. Because they will definitely need her help to pull it out.
        And Winter Soldier! Bucky! Steve will be SO happy to get him back but those two broken souls. >.
        
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        Elf (Elf_Herself) Fri 16 Jan 2015 05:42PM UTC
        
        It just occurred to me that Steve can't visit Tony until he gets the polymers removed, because they're voice-activated.
        
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        Nonymos Fri 16 Jan 2015 06:19PM UTC
        
        *claps hands* I hadn't thought of that! Now, Tony couldn't kill Steve with them - like, forging them into a spike and refusing to cancel his command - since Natasha's and Clint's voices are also recognized by the polymers. But he could definitely hurt him a lot. So, no visits until Steve gets his surgery.
        Which, by the way, I'm sure he'll end up getting. Because Steve doesn't back down and being afraid of another surgery would be cowardly (in his own stupid eyes.) Admitting that he's too afraid to remove the thing Tony put inside him? Yeah, that would be tantamount to defeat. So I think he'd actually give himself, what, a week? And then push for Bruce to perform the surgery on him. He'd be entirely traumatized by it but he'd still wouldn't relent until it'd get done.
        (And then we'd get that delightful scene in which Steve visits Tony and Tony tries saying "spike!" just to see what happens, is very disappointed when nothing actually happens - a moment of victory for Steve - then grins like, "I was wondering if you'd be stupid enough to come here with the polymers still in. Hey, good for you. How'd the operation go?")
        
        Last Edited Fri 16 Jan 2015 06:21PM UTC
        
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        Nonymos Fri 30 Jan 2015 05:50PM UTC
        
        Omg, I just remembered something. In the second chapter, Tony tells Steve he sold the first video to someone. And at the time, I'd headcanoned this someone (even though I didn't have an opportunity to say it in the fic) as Alexander Pierce. So... he could show it to his STRIKE team to boast. Rumlow would enjoy the show. And the Winter Soldier... might react unpredictably to their little snuff movie.
        
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        Elf (Elf_Herself) Fri 30 Jan 2015 06:44PM UTC
        
        Se-quel! Se-quel! Se-quel!
        Wow, that puts us with Steve eventually protecting Tony from Bucky, doesn't it? (I don't see Steve being able to tell Bucky that Tony's dead. I'm not sure I see Steve being able to tell anyone that Tony's dead, but most people will take that as "too heartbroken to say the words out loud." And the phrase "gone to a better place" will serve him well in public discourse.) And the Winter Solder has plenty of practice with finding "dead" people who are actually stashed away in underground bunkers with guards.
        Hm, if played right, that could be what breaks Tony--having to ask Steve for help because Bucky's going to kill him otherwise. Having to ask nicely, I mean, because he'd have no problem with "Rogers, get your patriotic ass in here and get this thug off me; isn't that your job, Captain, protecting people against murderers like your jealous boyfriend?" But if Steve's already hit his tony-bullshit quota for the day, that might be the moment where he finally decides, "fuck it; I can't do this anymore. Tony brought this on himself and I'm done protecting him from the consequences of his actions."
        
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        Nonymos Fri 30 Jan 2015 07:44PM UTC
        
        Yesss. Delicious possibilities here. First of all, this is going to fuck with Bucky's head something awful, and the Winter Soldier might go rogue before Cap 2 even began and kill the entire STRIKE team plus Alexander Pierce. Knowing he'll be terminated for this, he runs. Except... before HYDRA came out into the light, guess who was in charge of the STRIKE team? Steve!! And he pushed himself to go back in the field and do the right thing even though he's still traumatised and virtually unable to sleep because of all his nightmares (what will it be tonight? Bucky falling? The plane crashing into the ocean? Stark strapping him to a table and turning a circular saw on? Endless options) and he was trying so hard to get back to his feet... and then someone murders his entire new team. So you bet your ass Steve is blowing a fuse and determined to find the bastard who did this and kill them. Actually, he wants to find them so bad he might even... oh, say, ask Tony for help...
        
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        Meece Tue 06 Oct 2015 12:23AM UTC
        
        Personal headcanon:
        Phil Coulson hears some of this discussion of what to do with Tony. After much debate and a blazing row, he'd finally sat with Nick and Maria and the SHIELD medical director and head of surgery and watched the surgery video twice through because Stark, damn him to hell, had clearly worked out not just how to cut Steve but how to anaesthetise him, and that nano mesh needs to come out. He watches the surgery and when Steve's safely in recovery, incisions already most of the way healed, he makes his way to the holding cell in the sub-sub-basement of the Triskelion, draws his sidearm and puts a bullet through Tony Stark's skull.
        
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        Nonymos Tue 06 Oct 2015 06:30PM UTC
        
        *nods* Assuming Coulson is still alive in this 'verse, that's definitely what happens.
        
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        Meece Wed 07 Oct 2015 03:51PM UTC
        
        *sulk* Coulson is alive in all the verses. XD
        
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Chrys Fri 07 Nov 2014 01:49AM UTC

That - helps, a bit. The first story was incredibly well done, and incredibly painful, so seeing this gives some closure.

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MadRabbit16 (Guest) Sat 08 Nov 2014 07:45AM UTC

I loooove the story "And Nowhere To Go". This even made it better! :D
Dayuuum thou, the double meaning is strong in this one. Steve doesn't even need to act because his "victim feels" can easily be mistaken for "lover feels"! That was kind of mind blowing!

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loverofgaydragons Sat 25 Apr 2015 07:05PM UTC

this story fucked me up. weirdly, not because of the things that tony did to Steve, not at first anyway, but the hatred. i couldn't stand the thought that tony hated , not even steve himself, but the idea of steve. anyone would have done inn steve's place and i honestly couldn't stand that. i personally hope tony is being painfully experimented on by a mad SHIELD agent who idolizes captain America. everyone loves a fanatic right?

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1. StrongOpinions_NoSleep32 Wed 14 Sep 2022 12:47AM UTC
  
  Depends on the fanatic and what they are fanatic about.
  
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ladydanni Tue 14 Jul 2015 08:48PM UTC

Oh man. I wish was part of the original story.

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1. Elf (Elf_Herself) Wed 29 Jul 2015 03:22PM UTC
  
  It's at least a semi-official sequel; Nonymos has approved it. (Glad you liked it!)
  
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fynndin Wed 29 Jul 2015 02:28PM UTC

That just fucked me up. I'm considering sending this to a friend who didn't read "And Nowhere To Go", because I think if she did, she'd just hate herself, the internet and basically everything afterwards. I'm really curious, what she'd think after reading this. On the other hand, that might get her interested in ANTG and I'm really not sure whether that would be good. I don't think so :/
But enough rambling. That is a worthy sequel. All the misunderstanding. ALL OF THEM. And just the kind I love. Also I feel like a really bad person, because look at me, relishing in Steve's pain. What have I become. Btw, I like your style of writing. It's very pleasant to read.

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1. Elf (Elf_Herself) Wed 29 Jul 2015 04:08PM UTC
  
  Thank you so much! I needed a pick-me-up today, and your comment hit the spot!
  Presumably you'd tell your friend the basic plot outline of ANTG, because without it, I think this'd read very, very differently. (You could experiment? Point her at this, and then tell her the background of the story? ... That's probably a mean thing to do, though.)
  
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2. 1. fynndin Wed 29 Jul 2015 09:32PM UTC
    
    She read it without knowing what happened in ANTG before. She said until halfway through she thought, Tony had indeed died after a relationship with Steve. Then she realized that something was off and in hindsight none of the described reactions were grief reactions. At the end she concluded that Tony had done something really awful and suspected, that Steve might have killed him.
    When I outlined what happens in ANTG, she said she probably read the first chapter a long time ago and then didn't go on, because of nope. And she didn't want to know in too great detail what happens. But she found Spinning Through Grief interesting, because of the switch in the middle where suddenly all the meaning was turned upside down.
    
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fynndin Wed 29 Jul 2015 02:55PM UTC

Oh I think I forgot the most important part in my last comment:
Me, while reading this fic: *internal screaming from first to last word*

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Fossore Tue 03 Nov 2015 06:55AM UTC

The problem with fictional characters is that one can't give them the nice, warm, comforting, carefully-planned-to-be-non-triggering hugs when one really, really, wants to. Like here for example.

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1. Elf (Elf_Herself) Tue 03 Nov 2015 03:24PM UTC
  
  Nonymos and I have established that Steve gets lots of non-triggering hugs and other affection from Natasha and the rest of the team. And hey, when Bucky finally shows up, he can start working toward a coherent romantic relationship again.
  ...Which will probably have its own problems, because this universe's Bucky has probably been through the worst of the Hydra Trash Parties. But hey, at least they'll be together, mutually facing their assorted traumas, with help from the rest of the team.
  
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BrokenOrBornThatWay Thu 31 Dec 2015 10:11AM UTC

*tries to go to bed* *reads all this meta till 4am* seriously though I liked this a lot

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AgentMal Sat 26 Mar 2016 08:57PM UTC

I love this! An excellent epilogue to the masterpiece it follows. Short but very effective. I like that you have Tony die. Makes me smile.

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1. Elf (Elf_Herself) Sun 27 Mar 2016 04:05PM UTC
  
  Thank you!
  Tony's not actually dead, though! If you read the comment threads in the original, Nonymos and I discussed what happened next - which is that Fury locks up Tony in a prison (with no tech, no really, NO TECH; we're pretty sure he doesn't get ballpoint pens because those have metal parts and sometimes springs) and tells the world that he died.
  And Steve visits him. Regularly. To make sure he's not mistreated, because Steve's good (and stubborn) like that. And it drives Tony crazy, because if he's too mean to Steve, Steve goes away and doesn't visit again for a while and Tony gets damned lonely.
  ... We're pretty sure the guards don't speak any language that Tony does, because Tony is clever and charming and persuasive.
  And this stressful state of affairs lasts until Bucky shows up.
  
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AmethystUnarmed Mon 18 Apr 2016 07:32AM UTC

Hehehe I like the double meanings

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VampiresAngel Mon 06 Jun 2016 03:52PM UTC

Only that I didn't do it sooner... Poor baby... He should have ripped that battery out of starks chest when he had the cance...

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alyuchiha913 Mon 20 Feb 2017 02:00AM UTC

Thissssss omg. So many double meanings! My HEART! Steve! *cries* My heart can't handle these FEELS!
On another note, I'm really liking the idea of Steve and Ellen as friends XD
Great work!
Peace Out! ^_^

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RikasGrayWolf Tue 07 Aug 2018 03:04AM UTC

......Brroooooooooooooo
AaaaAaaaAAAAAAaaaahhhhhhHHHHH!!!♡♡♡♡
I
FUCKING
LOVE
THAT THE ENTIRETY OF THIS INTERVIEW IS DOUBLE-SIDED.
This is brilliant
-RGW

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bittercasgirl_asterisk Tue 02 Apr 2019 10:54PM UTC

this was a fANTASTIC addition to ANTG, and all of the meta and commentary are bRILLIANT. <333

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IantoLives Mon 02 Nov 2020 09:21PM UTC

This is brilliant!! It really has two very different opposite meanings depending on if you've read "And Nowhere to Go."

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1. Elf (Elf_Herself) Tue 03 Nov 2020 09:50PM UTC
  
  Thank you!
  There's a note above from someone whose friend read this without the original, because "And Nowhere to Go" was a hard NOPE for content. And apparently, about halfway through, she could tell there's something really wrong here but couldn't sort out what.
  I did enjoy playing with the idea the media is going to take "Steve not willing to talk about Tony" as a sign of grief rather than trauma.
  
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AgentMal Sun 30 May 2021 03:26PM UTC

Extra kudos!

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TedraKitty Fri 26 Nov 2021 05:40PM UTC

💜💜🥺💜💜

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TedraKitty Wed 22 Jun 2022 05:50PM UTC

Back again for a reread

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