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It's just a coffee mug.
It's been a week since Tony woke up with half his mind missing, and of all the things he's learned since then, all the strangers he's met who smiled at him like he used to be their best friend -- he thinks the fucking coffee mug is the thing that might break him.
He just wants a cup of coffee.
He's standing in the kitchen, in what is apparently the communal living area of a skyscraper he built. He just got here this morning. They tell him it's called Avengers Tower. They tell him they just got it back from Norman Osborn. He has no idea who Norman Osborn is. He remembers building the place, though; it was called Stark Tower when he built it, and he intended to rent it for commercial use, but the only people who are here at all are Avengers -- who live here, as weird as that is -- and he doesn't know why. A lot of his thoughts go like that, these days: he'll be following a perfectly logical, normal narrative, a coherent train of thought, but then he'll just get to a part of the story he no longer remembers and everything is ripped away, dissolving into fog.
It's not a normal case of amnesia, the doctor said. But, then, normal cases of amnesia don't happen as a result of forcibly deleting large portions of one's own brain. Tony's brain is a hard drive, the doctor told him. Tony has no idea how it happened. He had no idea that it was even possible. He also has a glowing blue light implanted in his chest; it's apparently powering his brain. He's willing to buy the hard drive thing as plausible, seeing that.
(The doctor had blue fur. No one else seemed at all surprised.)
He's had a lot of time to think of analogies for his situation. Metaphors. He keeps thinking of himself as trapped behind glass, with the rest of him, all of his other memories, on the other side of it. He pounds, but he can't break the glass. And then he realizes he's not a very metaphorical guy, so his brain just circles back to reality. The world is full of superheroes. Apparently he used to know that. Apparently he used to be one. And then he took his fucking broken hard drive of a brain and typed grep -ir 'superhero' | xargs rm -f -- or whatever it looked like in his head -- and poof. All gone.
And so he's standing here, in the kitchen of Avengers Tower, where he apparently lives, and he doesn't know which coffee mug is his.
It's a stupid thing to get hung up on. He wanted coffee. The coffeepot still has coffee in it. He was just going to open the cabinet -- he figured that the one closest to the coffee machine had the mugs -- grab a mug and pour a cup. It should have been easy.
He expected rows of identical mugs, the kind of thing he'd have hired any interior decorator to provide him with. There shouldn't have been anything to choose.
There are mugs in this cabinet, all right, but they aren't a set of anything. There's an Air Force mug. There's a Marines mug. There are a couple of old Stark Industries mugs. There's a godawful tacky tourist-trap mug shaped like the Statue of Liberty's head. There's a yellow one half-turned around, with a black and red design that he can't quite make out. There are five or six mugs of various colors with a capital A in a circle, and the crossbar of the A turned into an arrow. Tony hopes that they aren't for excessively stylish anarchists.
This-- this is personal. This is someone's home. These belong to people. They're individual; they're mismatched. He doesn't want to take one that doesn't belong to him. Is one of those his? Does he have one? What if he doesn't?
Maybe he doesn't belong here after all.
He sighs and shuts his eyes, staggering forward, bracing himself on the counter.
"Tony?" a man's voice asks from somewhere behind him. "Is there something I can help you with? You look a little lost."
He wants to laugh. Of course he's a little lost.
And then he turns around. The man who spoke is blond, blue-eyed, muscular. He's wearing a t-shirt and jeans, not a garish superhero outfit, but he's leaning against the doorframe with the kind of familiarity that suggests he lives here. His face is furrowed in discontent. He's also really fucking handsome, but that doesn't mean much; every superhero Tony has met so far -- with the exception of the short, grumpy man with the Canadian accent who had wandered in, grabbed the last beer out of the fridge, and wandered out -- has been almost preternaturally attractive. He's half-convinced that the Avengers are models and not superheroes.
"I just-- I wanted coffee," he says, and the plaintive words rasp at his throat, which closes tight with shame and anger. "I didn't know which mug was mine."
The blond man half-smiles. "I can show you."
Before Tony can say anything in reply, the man's walking forward. He steps close, into Tony's personal space, to reach above him to get to the cabinet. He moves to Tony's side easily, confidently, like he belongs there, like he knows Tony won't mind that he's brushing against him at the hip and shoulder.
Tony takes an uneasy step backward.
The man's head jerks around when he sees Tony move. "Sorry," he says, and his cheeks are red-stained. He shuffles away. "I guess I forgot that you-- sorry."
He has a mug between his hands, the yellow one, but instead of handing it to Tony he sets it on the counter and pours coffee in it himself. He doesn't ask Tony how he takes it, doesn't offer him cream or sugar; he just turns the mug around and presents it handle-first, inches from Tony's left hand.
Whoever he is, he knows a lot about Tony.
"This one is yours," the man says, and his smile is pained but gentle, very gentle. Like he's trying to go easy on him.
Tony takes the mug. The design on it, he sees now, is a black cat. He doesn't think he would have picked it himself; he wonders who gave it to him. He takes a sip. "Thanks," he says, and then he flounders a little, letting the sentence drift off, when the man doesn't provide a name. "I'm sorry, I-- I don't know who you are."
It's a little odd that the man didn't offer his name; judging by his behavior, he already knows about Tony's amnesia, so he must know that Tony wouldn't know who he is.
The man flinches like Tony's punched him. His eyes fall shut for an instant; it looks like he's blinking back tears. "Oh," he says, and it's a tiny exhalation, a disconsolate sigh. "You don't-- I thought you would remember-- oh, I guess you don't know what I actually look like, huh?" He smiles a little again; the smile looks even more agonized. "You met me in Oklahoma last week, Tony." His voice is soft. Kind. Sad. "I'm-- I used to be Captain America."
Oh.
"You look different without the uniform," Tony offers, but it doesn't seem to be what Captain America wants to hear.
Captain America's face creases in dismay, but then the expression is quickly smoothed away as a blonde woman in a domino mask and a dark leotard comes up behind him. Tony remembers meeting her just before he met Captain America. She'd been wearing that mask then too, but she'd taken it off when she'd started crying. Tony doesn't remember her name. Sheryl? Carol? Caroline? Something like that.
"Hey, boys," Sheryl-or-maybe-Carol says. "Just wanted to check how you're settling in."
"Fine, Carol," Captain America says, but his voice is terse. It's the sort of answer that sounds like he's giving it at gunpoint.
Tony wonders if that's ever happened to Captain America.
Tony wonders if that's ever happened to him.
"Fine," Tony echoes. "I was just getting coffee."
He gestures at his mug, intending something reassuring -- see? coffee! normality! -- but Carol looks at him like she knows he's lying.
"Can I talk to you for a minute, Steve?" Carol asks.
Captain America glances worriedly at Tony, like he doesn't know what Tony will get up to if he leaves, and Jesus Christ, it's not like he's a child.
"I'm fine, really," Tony says. "Go. I won't burn the place down."
Then they're gone, and Tony's alone again.
He's been in bad situations before. He knows he has, even though right now he's a little hazy on what a lot of them were. He always pulls himself up. Invents something new. Turns the company around. He knows how to do that.
He's not sure it will work this time.
"What do you mean, I'm broke?" he repeats.
He leans forward on the couch. Outside, the rest of the New York skyline is lit up brilliantly; it's a clear night.
He wonders if he would have liked to go flying, once, on a night like this.
"I'm not sure there's any plainer way to put it," says the redheaded woman who's apparently been working for him for years. Her name was Pepper, she had said when he met her last week. One of his best friends, she had said. A casualty of his amnesia, because once upon a time the nightlight in his chest had been in hers and he'd made her a flying suit of armor of her own to go with it. That was what she'd said. So he doesn't get to remember her either.
He wonders if every single one of his friends is a superhero.
"There's not much left after Osborn," says the guy. James Rhodes, he'd said last week too. Another one of those decade-long friendships he's lost. Tony tests out the name in his head. James. Jim. Jimmy. Jim, probably. Tony apparently had built this guy some flying armor as well. Flying armor for all his friends, he thinks. Rhodes grimaces. "There are a couple of your old suits left that the bastard never got his hands on, suits you can probably still use without--" he taps the side of his head-- "you know, Extremis. You should ask Hill; she has them. And it would be really great if you could take a look at mine; I took some damage and could use a tune-up."
And there's just... nothing in his head. No information.
"Someone else can't do this?"
Rhodes and Pepper look at each other.
"You don't know how?" Pepper asks.
Tony shakes his head. "Nothing. Sorry. I might have left myself notes, but--" he shrugs helplessly-- "I haven't found them yet."
"You've got files, right?" Rhodes asks, still hopeful, leaning forward. "Maybe a repair manual?"
Oh. Of course he probably has files. He can look all of this up somewhere. He can--
He stops. "I don't know my passwords."
Why the hell wouldn't he know his passwords? He doesn't know his company passwords either. He should remember those. What the hell would that have to do with superheroes?
Shit. Okay. He can do this. He's still Tony Stark. He's a genius. First thing tomorrow, he's going to crack his own accounts. He's probably got plenty of projects he was working on. He can just look at what he was doing, catch up on his own research, turn some of it into something he can sell. It can't be that hard. He knows how to build things. He remembers that. He's just not sure why he doesn't remember anything recent, unless it was all tied up in his armored-suit plans. There are probably copies of those. Instructions for fixing up Rhodes' suit. He hopes.
And he can build something, something wonderful, and SI can rise from the ashes, like a phoenix.
"I remember how to design weapons," he offers, and Pepper's face falls. "We could sell--"
"Tony," she says, quietly, delicately. "The company mostly doesn't-- didn't-- not anymore--"
"Oh."
What the hell has he been doing with himself? He remembers the consumer products now -- phones, laptops -- but that can't have been everything, can it?
"You put me in charge of special projects; I can get you a report. You were working a lot on energy, recently," she said, and she gestures toward the eerie glow of Tony's chest. "You said you had some new plans, for the company, involving the repulsor tech. Maybe-- maybe you left yourself more notes? About what you were planning on doing with it?"
"Maybe," he says, but he knows himself, and he doubts it.
After all, he thinks, he's a genius. Why would he ever forget anything like that? Why would he have needed to leave himself detailed instructions from the ground up? He knows how he comments his own code, the stuff he never writes for anyone else to see -- and that is to say, not at all, because he always remembers exactly what he meant. He's brilliant.
He can't be that brilliant, because he never saw this coming.
Tony's lived his life -- at least, the half he remembers -- in wealth. Opulence. Elegance. So he's a little surprised when the room that the lightning-bolt leotard woman -- Carol -- shows him to is almost spartan, practically one step up from barracks living. The furniture is minimal. There's a bed, a nightstand, a desk. On the desk is a laptop -- one of the newer StarkBooks, he notes -- and other than the picture on the far wall, the place is bare of adornment.
He wonders if this really is his room, or some kind of guest room.
"Like I was saying earlier," Carol says, looking away awkwardly, "we literally just reclaimed the Tower from Osborn, so we haven't really had the opportunity to move all of our stuff in ourselves. The clothes in the closet are yours, though, and so is the laptop. There's probably not much on the laptop itself, but the Avengers servers are running again, and your files should still be on it. Reed was over here yesterday getting the network back up. Ordinarily you would, but--" she grimaces-- "we didn't want to bother you."
He wonders who Reed is.
"You don't usually sleep here anyway," Carol adds. "When we can get you to sleep. You're usually passed out on a cot down with your suits or draped all over a couch, or something like that."
That explains why it doesn't look lived-in, he supposes.
"That picture," Tony asks, tilting his head toward it, "that's mine too?"
It's a group portrait. He thinks from the wall behind them that it's at the old Fifth Avenue mansion, although he can't for the life of him imagine why he wanted superheroes to live there. It's painful enough thinking about his childhood. The picture looks professionally-shot, carefully posed. It's a strange assortment of people. In the back row is a man in a black bodysuit that covers even his face and gives him pointed cat ears, then Carol with her domino mask, then a brunette in a long red dress with her arm around a bald man in a yellow cape. The man's skin seems to be both red and green. Crouched in front of them are a man in a red suit and silver helmet, a green-skinned woman, and a man who has dressed himself to look like nothing so much as one of the face cards in a deck.
Sitting on the floor, in front of them all, is Captain America, along with someone in a red and gold suit of armor. Captain America has his arm around whoever it is in the suit, and he's grinning. He looks happy. Proud.
Captain America doesn't look like that now.
She blinks a few times, like it wasn't the question she'd expected him to ask. "Yeah," she says, quietly. "You always liked to decorate with pictures of us."
"Am I in the picture?" he asks. He can't imagine he's the guy in the cat suit. His friends -- these people who say they're his friends -- called him Iron Man, and therefore Iron Man is probably the suit in front. The one who's sitting there like he leads these people, like he knows what to do, like these people are his friends. The one Captain America is smiling at.
It doesn't really seem possible.
Carol makes a very quiet distressed noise in the back of her throat, and she taps the suit of armor. "Iron Man."
Oh.
Iron Man's face is hidden by the mask. He wonders if Iron Man was happy.
In his dream he's lying on his back, on a table. The air is sticky and hot, and his chest hurts like he's been stabbed, and Ho Yinsen is leaning over him.
There's something heavy on him, something heavy on his chest, and he can't move.
"If he enters now," Yinsen says, eyes wide, face grave, "all our work will have been in vain."
Tony tries to reach up to grab him, to stop him, but he can't move, he can't breathe--
And then he wakes up, gasping. He can't draw a full breath; the glowing node in his chest is a little too heavy.
He's had much worse than this, he knows.
Right now he just can't remember what.
Tony's workspace is stunning. He has pretty much every tool and piece of equipment he ever dreamed of having. Half the floor has an intricate arrangement of human-shaped cutouts against the walls, molded metal holding chambers; he guesses it's for the suits he doesn't own anymore. He has long, uncluttered workbenches. He has at least eight different monitors and several of them are holographic. There's a cot in the corner. He could sleep down here. He could live down here.
And it's all completely fucking worthless, because everything is locked down with passwords he doesn't know anymore.
EXTREMIS LINK NOT ESTABLISHED, the screens all read. SPEAK OR TYPE PASSWORD TO PROCEED.
He's been at this for two fucking hours. No luck. He can't hack his own systems. The encryption's too good. He's competing against someone better than himself, the self who apparently spent a decade setting up superhero network security, the self who has had practice doing this.
He knows he's not stupid enough to have made his password his birthday, but he tries it anyway. He doesn't try his relatives' names, because no. Just, no. He has no pets -- at least, he thinks he has no pets. Someone would have told him if he had pets. He would remember pets. There's nothing superheroic about pets. He doesn't try "1234" or "password" because he still has some dignity left.
Not much of anything else, though.
"Fuck this," he mumbles, and he scrubs at his face with the heel of his hand.
When he looks up, Captain America's standing in the doorway. He's wearing the same t-shirt and jeans as the day before -- Tony wonders if he slept at all -- and his face is hollow-eyed, haunted. But he smiles that same careful, gentle smile, like he thinks Tony is going to break if he doesn't treat him with the utmost kindness.
He remembers Captain America's arm around his shoulder, in the picture.
"Can I do something for you?" Captain America asks.
Tony laughs, a harsh sound. "I can't get into my files. I need to-- I need to know what I've been working on, and Rhodes wants his-- his armor fixed, and I need to see if there are instructions, and I can't because I don't remember my goddamn password." He's helpless. Useless. A wiped drive. "I'm not any good to anyone if I can't--"
"Hey," Captain America says, softly, stepping into the room. "Don't talk like that, Tony. You're still good."
It sounds familiar. Like Captain America's said something like this to him before. Like Captain America, hero of World War II, Sentinel of Liberty, has had time to spend cheering him up. Ha.
He still can't believe he was really friends with Captain America.
Tony snorts. "Yeah, well." He looks up, into Captain America's concerned eyes. "Carol said yesterday that someone else set the network up. You don't-- you don't know anyone who would know how to get into my systems for me, do you?"
Captain America blinks a few times, and his face tightens. When he takes a breath it sounds shaky. "I used to be able to," he says, and his voice is barely above a whisper. "I used to know your passwords, but I'm sure you changed them at some point, while we were-- anyway, they wouldn't be current. They couldn't be."
Okay, why the hell would Captain America know his passwords? Passwords are a level of trust somewhere beyond regular friendship, and while he can hardly believe he was friends with Captain America he really, really can't believe that they shared that much. He must be mistaken. Hell, he's old enough -- somehow -- to have been alive in the 40s, so he probably got confused and means his own account.
"Humor me," Tony says, summoning up most of a smile from somewhere. He waves his hand at the keyboard. "Please."
Captain America gives him a startlingly bleak look at the last word, like he would do anything if Tony said please, even if he hated it, and he clears his throat. "Tower," he says, addressing the air, "log in to user account Tony Stark. Password: Captain America."
The screens blank out, and Tony is about to thank him for having tried -- because, really, his own name? -- when suddenly the screens all flare into life, displaying desktops, file lists, a spinning holographic representation of a suit of armor.
"Welcome back, Tony," a serene computer-generated voice says.
Holy shit. Captain America knows his password. Captain America is his password.
What the hell were they to each other?
And then it just gets weirder, because Captain America is staring at him and he looks like he's about to cry. His skin is too pale, drained of color, and his eyes are wide and shocked.
"I didn't think that would work," Captain America says. His voice is rough, hoarse. "There was no way that should have worked. You should have changed it. God, Tony, all this time and you didn't change it, all this time and I still knew it and you still trusted--" His voice breaks. "You were waiting for me to come back all along, and I-- oh Christ, Tony."
He has no idea what's going on, except that Captain America's going to cry. He made Captain America sad. Again.
"I'm sorry, Captain," he says, and Captain America's head snaps up and he's looking at him like he's realized Tony's not the person he wants to be talking to.
The Tony Stark he wants to talk to won't ever be here again. He's letting Captain America down just by existing.
"It's all right," Captain America says, even though it clearly isn't. "I just-- I'm going to go now. I can't-- I'm sorry."
He turns and leaves as quickly as he can without actually running. There's another voice in the hallway, a woman's voice; it sounds like Carol again.
Tony has no idea what he did wrong.
His files are useless.
One hour stretches to two, to three, to five -- and nothing.
Oh, it's not that there's not information, but... it's useless to him. He's a genius, and he doesn't use that term lightly, but his previous self had a good ten years' worth of work poured into technology he can't even remember thinking about. There are terabytes and terabytes of models for armored suits that apparently he once controlled with his mind. He would have sworn that was science fiction. He doesn't know how he even flew these things.
There are schematics for a few older models, with simpler controls, but even those are beyond him right now. He doesn't know how long he'd need to practice, and he's not sure anyone would clear him for flight, what with the brain damage. Even if he were able to mock up something like the -- he frowns at the screen -- the Model IV, he just can't be the man who wore it. He's not a superhero anymore. It's not him.
There's nothing like a repair manual for any of the suits, much less Rhodes' suit specifically. He guesses that he just remembered everything, and he never thought he'd forget.
In retrospect, he was a pretty stupid genius.
A knock resounds against the door, and when he turns, it's Captain America. In the intervening hours Captain America seems to have made some effort to pull himself together; he's showered, shaved, and is wearing a different shirt with his jeans. In one hand he balances a tray with a sandwich and that yellow mug of coffee.
"Any luck?" he asks, and there's a hopeful little smile on his face that fades as Tony shakes his head.
"Nothing," Tony says. "I mean, there's information, but -- it doesn't make sense to me." It's awful and humiliating, to admit that to his greatest hero.
"You'll get it," says Captain America, instantly, confidently, like it isn't even a question, like he believes in Tony with all of his heart. He holds out the tray. "Here," he says, "I didn't know if you wanted to be disturbed for team dinner -- not that there's a team right now -- so I brought you some food."
Tony stands up, takes the offered tray in both hands, sets it down. "Thank you, Captain."
Captain America's face falls. "Listen," he says, very quietly, "I know you don't remember anything about me, but do you think you could call me something else? It's just-- it's a little hard to take. I'm not Captain America anymore."
"You're not?"
The captain shakes his head. "No. Bucky is."
"Bucky... Barnes?" Tony ventures, and Captain America starts to smile, but the smile dims when Tony adds, "Like in the comics?"
"Yeah," he says, dully. "Just like in the comics."
Tony wonders how it is that they're both still alive and why he isn't Captain America now when he was wearing his Captain America uniform last week. He's not sure that now is a good time to pry.
He'd said his name was Steve, Tony remembers. But he can't just call Captain America Steve, like-- like he knows Captain America. But that's what Captain America wants.
"Steve," he says, and it feels deeply weird saying it, incredibly invasive, but the other man smiles and it's clearly the right decision.
"That's me," Captain America -- Steve -- says, and the smile is a little less faint.
"You have a last name?"
Steve looks at him for a second like he expected Tony to know that, but of course Tony doesn't. It's not like they printed his name in the comics, not like Bucky's. Captain America's identity was top-secret. "Rogers."
"Middle name?"
That's the kind of thing a friend would know about a friend, right? Tony tilts his head and tries to picture it. He feels like there's a name on the tip of his tongue.
Steve shakes his head. "Don't have one."
Fuck. Well, so much for intuition.
"Anything else I should know about you? Birthday?"
"Fourth of July." Steve chuckles a little.
Tony can't help but laugh. "Captain America? Really? Born on the fourth of July? You're not kidding?"
Steve spreads his hands wide and grins. "Really."
Tony takes this opportunity to have a bite of the sandwich. It's very good, actually. Someone must know something about him. "Hey," he says, mouth half-full, surprised. He swallows. "This is a good sandwich."
"I can't take credit for it," Steve says. "That was Jarvis' doing. I just brought it down."
"Jarvis is here?"
"You remember--" Steve begins, almost astonished, and then cuts himself off. "I mean, why wouldn't you? He's not a superhero." He pauses. "Hey, I have an idea. Why don't you eat your sandwich, and then come back up with me, say hi to Jarvis, and I'll get out some of the photo albums? We can see if anything-- if anything looks familiar."
He looks so goddamn hopeful that Tony hates to think about the inevitable disappointment. Still, Captain America's asking, and he'll do whatever Captain America wants. Won't he?
Tony edges away from Steve a little on the couch, so they're not quite pressed thigh-to-thigh anymore; he makes it subtle enough that Steve won't notice him, this time. Steve responds by pushing half of the photo album into Tony's lap.
The first picture looks old. It's professionally posed and staged, another group shot. No one in the picture is standing very close to each other, not like the one that's on Tony's wall. If he had to guess, he'd say they don't know each other very well yet. Tony's in this one too, in a similar metal suit, but this one looks clunky, like something out of low-budget sci-fi. An early model, he guesses.
"The founding Avengers," Steve says, and then he frowns. "Well, near enough to founding as we've got pictures of here; I'm sure there are ones with Bruce somewhere. That's you, me, Thor, Hank, and Jan." Tony looks up, and Steve's scrutinizing his face, looking for some kind of reaction. He taps the picture of the woman; she's maskless, and her bobbed hair swings into her face. "You don't remember Jan? Janet Van Dyne?"
"No, should I?"
Steve bites his lip. "I thought maybe-- you knew her socially, before the Avengers formed, so I thought maybe you would remember her?"
Tony shakes his head. "No, sorry. Nothing." He wants to try to be helpful though, so he says, "I'll talk to her if she comes by, though? Maybe meeting her would jog something--"
"She's dead," Steve says, very quietly.
Oh.
"I'm sorry," Tony says. The words are awkward, and he pats Steve on the shoulder in the hope that maybe Steve will stop looking like that. Captain America shouldn't be sad. It seems intrinsically wrong. "It sounds-- it sounds like you miss her."
"Everyone misses her," Steve says. His throat works and he flips the page. "Uh. Here. More people."
He lets Steve talk him through the photo album, full of people in bright costumes. The names mean nothing. The faces mean nothing. As the photos go on, the groups get closer and closer together. They're friends now, he knows.
He's in a lot of the photos, in a metal suit every time. A lot of the time he's with Carol, or Steve, or sometimes Jan. Tony frowns at a picture where he's probably asleep in the suit, head against the blue mail shoulder of Captain America's uniform. Captain America's grinning fondly at him. He puts his hand carefully across Steve's, to prevent him from turning the page.
"Why am I always in the suit?"
"Ah." Steve half-smiles. "That's a story. You had a secret identity. For a few years there, you didn't tell us you were Iron Man. The public only found out recently, but it was a secret even from all of us at the beginning. You told us Iron Man was your bodyguard. So there was Iron Man, the Avenger, and then there was Tony Stark, the businessman who funded the Avengers. Two totally separate people." The smile is reminiscent, and there's a tinge of color in his cheeks. "The truth came out eventually. I was... well, I was surprised, at least."
Iron Man's the one you wanted, Tony thinks, looking at the picture. Iron Man's the one who's gone.
"There are pictures of me out of the suit, though?" Tony asks.
"Yeah, sure," Steve says, and he's flipping through the book, settling on an informal shot. It's this tower. It's dinner. He's sitting next to Steve and grinning and Steve's reaching out with his fork to eat something off Tony's plate. A man in a red and blue bodysuit hangs upside-down from the ceiling, and there's a very muscular black guy in a yellow shirt holding his own plate possessively like the upside-down guy is going to take it, while a woman in a red and yellow costume laughs at them.
Tony looks at the picture, at his face, at the expression he'll never remember making. "Can I ask you something?"
"Anything," Steve says, and the word has far too much intensity in it.
"Was I happy?"
He waits for Steve to give him the easy platitude yes, of course, but Steve's looking thoughtful, his gaze far away, like he has to devote thought to his answer, like above all he wants to tell Tony the truth.
"You've always been... hard on yourself," he says, finally. "You expected so much of yourself, and you always judged yourself harshly. More harshly than anyone should ever be judged, I thought. You were... self-destructive. There were times I didn't think you'd make it. But I like to think you were happy with m-- with us. It seemed like you were. I always wanted you to be." He blinks a little mistily at the picture. "I thought this was going to be it for us, this team. I thought it was fate. This is-- this was the last team. Our team."
"There's not a team now?" he asks, remembering that Steve had said something to that effect earlier.
Steve opens his mouth to reply, but then Tony's attention is caught by the other picture on the page. It's him and Rhodes clinking glasses, laughing, sitting opposite Pepper and-- "Hey, that's Happy Hogan!"
He knows someone after all. He knows one person in this entire album. Maybe some small thing is okay with the world. Maybe this one thing can be right. He knows one person who's not a superhero. He gets to remember something.
This doesn't seem to please Steve, though; his face is shadowed. "You remember Happy?"
"Of course I remember Happy!" Tony says, and he breathes out, relieved. "He's my driver! He taught me to box! How could I forget Happy? Hey, is he around here--"
Steve shuts his eyes. "Tony, he-- he died."
Oh God.
"I... I don't remember that," Tony says. It's like he's lost his footing on a cliffside path, everything ripped away from under him. "I don't-- why don't I know that?" He knows why as soon as he says it. "Something to do with superheroes, I guess?"
Steve looks infinitely tired. Old. Exhausted. "Yeah," he says, miserably. "Something like that."
Before he can ask Steve for more details, Carol's in the doorway again.
"Steve?" she asks, in one of those tones that suggests she's picking up an earlier conversation. "Can I see you again?"
Steve looks up. "I told you," he says, "I told you I'm telling SHIELD yes and the Avengers no. Let Bucky--" He looks over at Tony and stops talking.
Tony knows when he's not wanted.
"No, don't let me keep you," Tony says, and he smiles politely, stands up, and edges out of the room, leaving Steve Rogers sitting there with his book full of strangers.
In his dream there's metal decking underneath him, like a ship or a submarine, and there's metal surrounding him, weighing heavily on him. A helmet obstructs his vision. Through the eyeslits he can see an iceberg on deck, and the dark shape of a body within it. Whoever they are, they're dead, they've got to be dead, Tony thinks, but at the same time he's so happy, happier than anything--
Tony opens his eyes and wonders what the hell that was about.
"So I have another question," Tony calls, tentatively, across the breakfast island.
"Shoot," Steve says. His voice is muffled. His head's buried in the refrigerator, and after a second of rustling he comes back with the orange juice.
"How are you--" Tony gestures, inarticulately-- "alive? Young?"
The grumpy Canadian, whose name Tony still hasn't managed to catch, is leaning against the wall and scowling. "Jesus, Cap, are you not telling him anything?"
"Hank said not to rush him." Steve sounds defensive. "As he asks, Hank said."
The guy snorts. "Just don't Google yourself, bub," he says, and he stalks out. With a beer. Again. It's 9 a.m. and the guy's drinking. Tony wonders who the hell these people are.
In the silence, Steve is wide-eyed, stricken. "Did you Google yourself?"
He doesn't want to read about his other self. His better self. The one everyone wanted. The one Captain America wanted. "No," he says. "I thought I'd--" He stops. He finds he can't really say that. Not to Captain America, anyway. His perfect hero. The man he always looked up to. How is he supposed to tell him he doesn't measure up to himself, his past self? Reading about it will make it true. Irrevocable.
"Okay," Steve says, slowly. Tony's walking blindfolded across a minefield. "Well. Maybe it's better if you don't, for a bit."
"Fine." It's not like he's in any hurry.
Steve pours himself a cup of juice and sits down. "Right. You were asking about how I look unusually well-preserved for a 90-year-old?" Tony nods. Steve looks at him. "Well," he says, "that's the super-soldier serum's fault, really. Near the end of the war, Bucky and I were on a mission, and we... fell off a plane. Into the ocean. And I froze."
He remembers the iceberg, in his dream. He remembers Steve sitting next to him in Oklahoma, saying you rescued me with tears in his eyes.
Maybe it wasn't a dream.
"We found you," Tony says, uncertainly. "I found you?"
"Yes," Steve says, and his eyes are wider. "How did you--"
He doesn't want to tell him about the dream. It's not enough to go on. He doesn't want to get his hopes up. He doesn't want to have to keep disappointing Captain America. "You said so," Tony points out. "When I met you, last week."
"Oh." Steve sighs. "Okay. Yeah. So you and the rest of the Avengers pulled me out of the ice, much later. About ten years ago now." The corner of his mouth twitches. "You were... you were the first person I heard."
Steve seems so careful, the way he talks. As if he's trying very, very hard to be gentle with him. Tony wonders what Captain America's really like. He was his friend, he said. Was he angry at him, before this?
"And we found Bucky Barnes too?"
Steve shakes his head. "No, Bucky's a... different story. More complicated. I think that's not mine to tell." Under his breath, he murmurs, "God, what I wouldn't give for another Cosmic Cube."
Tony has no idea what that is. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Steve says, but his voice catches. "You didn't-- you didn't do anything wrong."
"Okay," Tony says slowly, warily. He doesn't understand what's going on here.
And then Carol's in the doorway again, giving Steve a significant look.
"Excuse me," Steve says, with an apologetic glance at Tony, and he gets up, following Carol out of the room.
Tony's beginning to feel like there's a lot people aren't telling him.
For lack of anything else to do, he heads back to his workspace, back to his files, hoping that he can find a document that explains something: how the suits work, how the power source in his chest works. He'd take anything. But there's nothing. He spends a couple more hours reading through directory after directory.
He suspects that, if his brain was a hard drive, all the key files were in his brain and nowhere else. It sounds like the kind of thing he'd pull, given what Pepper has told him about the superhero database that used to be in his brain. He's pretty sure Hill gave him shit about that, when he was director of SHIELD--
He was director of SHIELD?
He stops and thinks about it. There are hazy memories. The deck of the helicarrier. His own white-gloved hands. He was-- he was-- he was director, wasn't he? Recently? Just before this?
Why would he have agreed to be the director of SHIELD? Why would anyone have wanted him to? What the hell did he do, back then?
He was a superhero, he tells himself, as unbelievable as it seems. He would have stepped up if he had to. Save the world. Keep people safe. He'd always dreamed of it when he was a kid, being a superhero like... well, like Captain America... and now Captain America's alive, and Captain America used to be his friend but keeps looking at him like he wants to cry, or like everything in the room is going to break, and Tony has no clue what any of this means.
It's a fucking mess.
He wants a drink.
He glances at the computer clock. It's afternoon. Good enough.
Upstairs, he finds that the grumpy Canadian has left one beer in the fridge, and Tony wrinkles his nose at the label because, really? Molson? Is he going for some kind of stereotypical Canadian award? Still, if Tony's got a flask around here he hasn't found it in his desk, and even crappy beer is better than no alcohol whatsoever. He guesses he can buy the guy a replacement. Possibly even a higher class of beer. He might be broke, but he's pretty sure he's still good for beer money.
Beer in hand, he tries to guess which of the drawers has a bottle opener. He checks the closest drawer. Flatware. Nope.
"Tony," Carol says, from the doorway. "Hey, Tony, are you-- oh my God." The question breaks halfway through and her voice is hideous, horrified.
When he looks up, Carol's got both hands over her mouth, like she's going to be sick. Her skin is gray and sallow.
"Are you all right?" he asks.
Her eyes are fixed not on him, but on the bottle on the counter. She drops her hands and swallows hard. "You don't drink, Tony." Her tone is full of absolute misery. "Oh God. You don't-- you really don't drink. You haven't in years."
What? He remembers drinking. Of course he remembers drinking. He hasn't stopped, has he? Wouldn't he remember stopping?
"Really?"
She nods shakily. "I swear. Completely sober."
He's never had a drinking problem. He hasn't. Sure, he drinks socially -- who doesn't? With the life he has and the large number of open bars at SI events, it's pretty much expected. Of course he drinks. In moderation. Responsibly. He looks away from Carol and suddenly all he can picture is being six years old, his father looming over him, liquor on his breath, seething with rage, and everything within him recoils because, Jesus Christ, he never wants to be that. Did he grow up to be just like dear old dad after all?
It can't be true. He'd-- fuck, he'd kill himself first.
But Carol wouldn't lie to him, would she? She sure doesn't look like she's lying.
It has to be true.
"Okay," he says. "Okay." He puts the beer back in the fridge and watches Carol relax slowly as he closes the door, like he's putting down a loaded gun. He holds out his hands, empty, surrendering. "I didn't know. I'm guessing this is something else that involved superheroes?"
She shrugs. "It involved-- a lot of your life, really. I don't think I knew you that well at the beginning, the first time you tried to quit, but probably it was Avengers business. You'd have to ask someone who was there."
"The first time?"
"You tanked your company," she says, evenly. "More than once. Fucked up your life pretty good before you eventually got sober." She looks away and breathes, wetly. "You-- you helped me out, when it was me. When I didn't really want help either." Her smile is bleak. "It was very kind of you."
"You're welcome." Not that he can remember it.
She sighs. "If you want more details, Steve is probably your best bet. I don't know that he'll want to talk about it, though. It was pretty rough on him too."
That's okay. He doesn't want to talk about it, anyway. He should change the subject. Say something normal. What does a normal person say? How the hell would he know?
"Hey," he says, as the thought occurs to him. "Why did I want to be director of SHIELD?"
Carol blinks. "You remember that?"
He waves his hand from side to side. "A little bit. Not much in the way of details."
She sighs again. "You didn't want to. Not really."
He wonders if his life would even make any sense if he remembered it.
When he dreams that night he's in the suit again, encased in metal. He's at a party. He has his arm around a man, and he's posing for a picture as flashbulbs go off in front of them, and then his hand glows blue and he knows he's fired. He's killed the man he's standing with. It wasn't him, it wasn't him, he never did it -- but it was his hand, his suit, his weapons, and he can't handle this--
Tony struggles awake, panting in the darkness, and he doesn't go back to sleep.
In the morning it's just him and Steve at breakfast; if there's going to be another team of Avengers -- like all the people in the picture -- he hasn't seen any sign of them so far. Just Captain America, Carol, and sometimes the Canadian. Tony's going to get a name from him one of these days.
Carol turns up a few minutes after Steve finishes his bagel.
Steve eyes Tony significantly, then looks at the door.
"I'm sorry," Steve says. "I'm sure this will only take a minute, right, Carol?"
She smiles winningly. "Right."
Tony drops his plate in the sink, gets up, and heads through the alcove to the main living area. He stops, suddenly, a few feet away from the stairs. Whatever they're talking about, he wants to know. They don't want him to know. Doesn't that mean it's something he should know? What are they hiding from him?
He turns back, presses himself against the wall, takes light, shallow breaths. He doesn't think either of them can hear him.
There's a scraping noise against the floor; presumably Carol is sitting down.
"Don't think I haven't noticed," Steve says. "You don't have to keep inventing excuses to come check on Tony. You're his friend too." He sighs heavily. "If you wanted to shadow him, I don't know why you didn't just say that instead of bringing me up here. You know damn well I didn't want to be here. But, no, he remembers Captain America, you said."
"He does," Carol agrees.
Tony's stomach clenches. Steve didn't want to be here. Steve doesn't want to see him at all. But he is here. He's practically underfoot. What the hell is going on?
Steve just sounds perplexed. "But it's like every time I get a minute alone with him, you pop up and you're always keeping me away from-- oh. Oh."
There's a long silence.
Someone in the room breathes shakily, a long rasping sound.
"Jesus Christ, Carol," Steve says. His voice is scraped raw. "How the hell can you possibly think-- I wouldn't hurt him." The words are desolation and agony. "I swear to God, Carol, I wouldn't. You have to believe me."
Why in the world would Captain America hurt him?
Carol's voice is even. Measured. Dangerously calm. "I want you to think very, very hard about the last time the two of you were together. And then I want you to consider why I might be concerned for Tony's welfare."
"Don't you think I feel guilty enough?" Steve's question is low and twisted with pain. "I look at him and I-- I remember what I did, Carol, I look at him and I remember the way his face looked, the way he begged me, and I know he'll never know. I look at him now and he trusts me, he thinks I'm his perfect goddamn hero, because he doesn't know what I did to him, and I can't ever apologize, because now he's gone--"
"Steve--"
"I can't be angry at him." The words are almost emotionless. "He doesn't know."
"It doesn't mean you're not still angry," Carol says, very quietly.
Did Steve break up with him? Were they dating? He can't imagine he ever rated Captain America. He can't even imagine that Captain America's queer. But that... that really sounds like a break-up of epic proportions.
That makes the awkwardness a little more understandable. Captain America is his ex. And Steve's trying to be nice to him -- because he's Captain America -- but of course it's painful.
He wonders why Steve wouldn't just have told him.
Steve sighs. "That wasn't the last time we were together, you know."
"What?" Carol's voice is high in surprise.
"He came to see me. At the Raft." Wherever that is. Steve takes a shuddering breath; it sounds like he's trying not to cry. "We were yelling at each other, of course. It's not-- it's not important now. I kept asking him if it was worth it. You know what he told me?" Steve laughs, a hollow sound. "He told me I was a sore loser. Like it was about winning. Like it was a game. And that's-- that's the last thing he ever said to me." Steve sighs. "That's it. That's how I get to remember him. He hated me, in the end."
Steve makes a low choked-off noise, something very like a sob.
Tony thinks maybe his past self was an asshole.
He can't listen to any more of this. He leaves quickly, stepping lightly, so they don't hear him. He's pretty sure they're not listening.
"Steve, no," Carol says, distraught, and there's the sound of someone standing up. "He never hated-- hey, Steve, come here, shh--"
Tony heads down the stairs, trying to get as far away from the muffled sobbing as possible.
Why the fuck would he have done that to Captain America?
He makes no real progress making sense of his files.
Oh, he makes some progress; he's switched to things he mostly comprehends, and he now understands the last six company chip designs. He's taken apart the StarkBook from his room; it's not like he was using it, anyway. But when he switches back to the suits, there's nothing. The most recent suits have no information on the power source, and substituting in any of the power sources that there are files for returns critical errors every time. Not enough power for suit functions, the modeler says.
Tony sighs and stares down at the alien glow of his chest, and he wishes he'd left himself an API for the power plant in his sternum.
Steve only meets his eyes guiltily at dinner; he sees it, now that he's looking for it, looking past the veneer of kindness.
That night he passes out over his workbench, screens around him flashing CRITICAL FAILURE, his face pressed against unyielding metal, and he dreams that he's standing in a graveyard in the rain, crying.
After another frustrating morning in his workshop, Tony climbs the stairs and hears voices in the living room -- loud, cheerful shouting. People are happy.
He doesn't think people have been happy around him, recently.
The room is filled with people Tony has seen in the photo albums: a man in a darker, sleeker Captain America uniform -- Tony guesses that's Bucky -- is sitting on the couch next to Carol. The woman in the red and yellow costume -- she was in some of the photos -- is on her feet in the middle of the room, engaged in what looks like a deadly battle for the TV remote with with a tall blond man in a violently purple shirt.
Steve is sitting in the far corner, alone, staring into space.
"Yes!" the blond man says, thrusting his fists in the air. One of them has the remote in it. The red-and-yellow woman is on her back on the floor, where he flipped her, and she's grinning, seemingly unbothered by the loss. "I win!" the man yells. "Dog Cops, Dog Cops forever, losers!"
"I'd just like to point out," says the woman on the floor, "that if we hadn't stipulated no powers I could have made you simply hand me the remote." She has a trace of an English accent.
"Dog Cops!" the blond man crows again, ignoring her objection. He turns and catches sight of Tony. "Oh. Hi, Tony."
"Hi," Tony says, a little uncertainly. The guy looks sort of familiar -- at least, he looks like he might have been in the photos -- but he isn't wearing any of the costumes from the pictures.
Carol sticks out her foot and pokes the man in the leg. "Clint," she says. "Manners." Then she smiles at Tony. "Tony, this is Clint, Bucky, and Jess."
"Nice to meet you," Tony tries.
"Yeah," Clint says, and he shifts his weight and scratches the back of his head. "It's, uh, good to see you again, man."
"We're apparently watching a Dog Cops marathon," Carol says. "You can join us, if you want."
Tony shakes his head. It's not quite what he wants. "Thanks, but--" he can't exactly think of how to put it-- "I'm not having a lot of luck figuring things out, and I just want to... find something to take myself out of my head for a bit. I don't think that's Dog Cops."
"You could spar with me," Steve says, from the corner, and every single person in the room turns around to stare at him. "It's... something we used to do a lot. When you had that problem."
"I spar with you?" Tony asks, dubiously. He knows Happy taught him some boxing, but he doesn't remember anything else like that. Just training with Happy.
He wouldn't, he guesses. If it was all with Steve. His ex. Captain America.
"Steve," Carol says, very quietly. "Are you sure Tony's ready to--?"
Steve's eyes are cold, ice blue. "Say what you mean, or don't say it at all."
Carol shuts her mouth.
Tony knows he's in way over his head, but somehow he's opening his mouth anyway. "Sure," he says. "Sure, we can spar. I mean, if it's something we do, we should... get back to that, right? Try to be normal?"
Steve glares at the rest of the room. "Unless anyone else has any other objections."
"Nope." Clint shrugs. "It's your funeral, Cap."
"Clint!" Carol says, sharply.
Clint looks a little sheepish. "Too soon?"
"Definitely too soon," Jess says, from the floor.
Tony has no clue what's happening here.
He has workout clothes in his closet, but they don't fit him that well. The t-shirt hangs a little loosely on his shoulders and he has to yank the drawstring on the sweats a little tight. He wonders how much weight he's lost, and why.
A few feet away from him on the mat, Steve's arms are raised into a comfortable defensive stance, but his face -- he looks like he's about to walk through hell. Tony would never have guessed that Captain America could be terrified, but that's sure what he looks like. His face is pale, drawn, and he's worrying at his lip.
We don't have to do this, Tony wants to say, and he wonders why Steve volunteered to spar with him if he's going to look like this about it. He wonders why it's affecting Steve so badly.
"So I'm hoping," Steve says evenly, like he's going to pretend everything is perfectly normal, "that we've done this enough that maybe you have some muscle memory left."
His mouth twitches, a little hopeful smile, and Tony realizes that's why Steve's here, even if Steve would rather not be in the same room with him, because Steve wants him to be better more than he cares about his own hurt feelings. It's what Tony would have expected of Captain America, really. He just can't believe that Captain America would have wanted him in the first place.
Tony raises a skeptical eyebrow. "I was that good?"
"By the time I'd taught you a few tricks, yeah. You were." It's a compliment, but the way Steve says it, it sounds like he's just speaking the truth, as simple as that.
"Okay," Tony says. He'll try it. "What do I do?"
Steve raises his hands a little higher. "Just come at me, any way you want." He still looks pale, but determined.
So Tony raises his hands in return and steps in. He tries a few light punches, from well out of Steve's range, just to get a sense of what Steve will do -- which is nothing -- and then a high kick, which he doesn't really remember knowing how to do, but anyway, Steve blocks it, handily.
Tony gets the sense that Steve's not really trying.
"All right," Steve says, and he lowers his hands a little. "Free shot, okay? Hit me."
There's something wrong with his face, Tony thinks. He's trying to say something else. There's something else going on here, and he's not sure he should, but Steve is asking--
So Tony throws a punch, and Steve dodges, grabs his arm, and tosses him over his shoulder. Tony's falling, tucking in, rolling, and Steve is saying, "I guess you didn't remember that trick -- oh, hey, good landing!"
He sounds intensely hopeful, and Tony finishes the roll, comes back up to standing, shakes the hair out of his eyes--
And Steve is staring at him, open-mouthed. "Tony. Your hands, Tony."
Tony looks down at himself. His hands are raised, palms tilted back, fingers splayed wide. He guesses it's some kind of defensive move; he doesn't know the fighting style. "Is this... muscle memory?" he ventures.
Steve gives a shaky nod. "Not the kind I was looking for. But... yes. It's-- it's how you'd fight if you were wearing the armor." He grins, but it's a weak smile. "It's-- it's something. It might be something, anyway."
He remembers something. This is something, really something, and Tony finally lets the glimmer of hope within him begin to grow. If they keep going, if they can just fucking push through this, if Steve actually fights back, maybe they'll get somewhere. Maybe he'll remember.
"Come on," Tony calls out, curling his hands into fists. "Let's keep going!"
Steve still looks a bit shaky, but he nods and steps in -- and he's definitely not trying. Tony steps away from every swing easily, and, really, he expected more from Captain America.
"What are you waiting for, Steve?" he pants, holding up his fists. Steve started this. It was his idea. "Finish it!"
And Steve goes white. His eyes are wide. He takes a few staggering steps backwards, trips over his own feet, and then sits down hard on the mat.
Something is wrong here.
"I can't," Steve says, and he hangs his head, miserably. "I can't, I can't do this anymore."
Tears slide down his face in shining tracks, and Steve shuts his eyes. He's an ugly crier; his skin is blotchy and red and something is very wrong, Tony did something wrong and he has no idea what.
He has to try to fix this.
"It was what you said," Steve says, in between hiccuping sobs. He would never have pictured Captain America like this. "You said-- oh God, Tony, I can't--"
Slowly, carefully, Tony steps closer to Steve and then sits down at his side. Steve doesn't look up at him, but he leans against him, like it's an instinct, as soon as Tony sits down. Steve's body is warm, pressed against his. Tony may not remember him, but he knows that Steve is looking for comfort, for solace, for some kind of forgiveness. And, well, Tony knows how to use his body to make other people feel better. Surely Captain America, more than anyone, deserves that?
"Hey," Tony says, softly. "Hey, shh, it's going to be okay." He wraps an arm around Steve, pulls him closer.
And it might be a lie, but Steve looks up at him, his gaze shifting. His eyes are glassy with tears, and he's looking at Tony like he's seeing through him, to someone who isn't there, and Tony can't be that guy, but he wants to be. He knows what Steve would want from him.
Tony tips Steve's head up, then leans in and kisses him.
He tastes awful. His lips are dry, his skin is salty with tears, and he's shaking. For an instant he returns the kiss, surging against Tony's mouth, and Tony thinks yes, he can do this, he's finally doing something right--
And then Steve's hands are on his shoulders, and Steve is gently pushing him away.
"Tony," he says, and he looks like he's about to cry again, "I think there's been a misunderstanding."
Tony lets his hands fall away from Steve. They're not touching anymore.
"We weren't together," Tony says. It's not a question. He knows that, now.
"No, we weren't," Steve agrees. It's not a categorical denial, it's not I don't like men or I'm not like that or any of the vintage homophobia Tony might have expected from a man of Steve's era. It's just a statement of fact. Steve sighs and wipes ineffectually at his face with the back of his hand. "Was there something I did or said that... gave you that impression?"
Tony gestures at the space between the two of them. "You've been... close... to me," he says, and Steve looks down at the bare inches separating their bodies now, but he doesn't move further back. "And the other day, I overheard you talking to Carol--"
Steve shuts his eyes. "You weren't supposed to hear that," he says, and Tony knows they've been hiding things from him and he hates it. "You're-- you're lacking a lot of context--"
"So fill me in," Tony says, frustrated, his voice louder than he means it to be. "Because to me it sounded like we broke up."
And Steve starts laughing. It's a horrible, racking sound, like he's choking. "I guess you could say that. We had one hell of a break-up. But we were never together."
Tony just stares at him. "Tell me."
"Look," Steve says, eyes wide and desperate, "I think maybe you'd rather hear this from someone else."
Tony gives him a look.
Steve sighs like he's lost, like he's failed. "Okay. They told you about the database of superheroes that you used to have in your head, right?" Tony nods. "Did they tell you how or when it got there?"
Tony shakes his head. "I was assuming it was... just something I had. For a while, I suppose."
"It's recent." Steve grimaces. "Prior to a few years ago, there was no central list of superheroes. Then there was... a tragedy... that led to the passage of the Superhuman Registration Act. All superhumans would be registered. Made official. You supported the SHRA. I... disagreed with you. The entire superhero community took sides. We fought. We literally fought. In the streets. I... I did a lot of things I'm not proud of."
"You hurt me," Tony says, very quietly, and he remembers Steve telling Carol that.
Steve exhales, a sob of a breath. "I was about ten seconds from murdering you when I turned myself in. Then I died, so I can't really speak to what happened next, not personally."
"You died?"
Steve shrugs, as if death is so commonplace as to have become uninteresting. "One of my longtime enemies had a shot and took it. I get the impression that the world... wasn't very kind to you, while I was gone. You won the war, but they hated you for it. They blamed you for what happened to me."
"Oh."
Tony considers this. He got Captain America killed. The world hates him. Steve blames himself.
He wonders if it would be better if he'd died. At least then he might have come back whole, not like this. A patchwork monster nobody wanted.
"Yeah." Steve spreads his hands wide. "It's more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it. We were best friends for a decade, and then we were mortal enemies, and now you're not even--" He stops. "I'm sorry. I know you're Tony Stark."
"I'm not the Tony Stark you wanted," he says, and Steve doesn't contradict him. Tony glances over; Steve's face is still gray, set and sad. "You were in love with him."
"That's not relevant." Steve's voice is a raspy whisper. It's as good as saying yes.
"Was he in love with you?"
Steve shuts his eyes for long seconds.
"I don't know," he says, finally. "I told myself it didn't matter. It was enough to be at his side. To be his friend. It was."
Tony reaches out and fits his hand over Steve's; Steve flinches a little at the touch.
"I'm not him," Tony repeats. "But I'm what you've got. And I'm offering."
It's only his body. He's sure he's done worse with it, over the years. He's a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit into the space, but maybe he can be enough. People often say yes to him. He's rich, he's brilliant, he's attractive, he's charming.
Steve wants him for absolutely none of those reasons. Steve wants him for reasons that no longer exist.
Steve wants the man who was smiling at him in those pictures.
Steve shakes his head. "No, thank you." He squeezes Tony's hand briefly before letting it go. "It's a kind offer. You've-- you've always been a kind man. But no."
Even if he deciphers his files, even if he learns how to build the suits again, even if he learns how to do something worthwhile -- he can never be the man Steve Rogers wants. He'll never be good enough for that.
"Can I hug you, though?"
"Sure." Steve smiles like his heart's breaking, but he holds out an arm, and Tony leans back in.
The weight of Steve's arm on his shoulders feels familiar, warm and solid in a way that reaches past concrete recollection and quiets something grasping and sharp-edged in his chest.
For the first time since he woke up in Oklahoma, he thinks maybe he can see the future.