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How terrible it is to love something death can touch.
The creature is hideous. Ancient and raw skinned; it looks like it has been flayed. Its ears, lips, nose, eyelids have all been sacrificed, leaving nothing but the mockery of a human face.
Steve is aware of Tony next to him, the man inside the suit running variables, checking with JARVIS about the creature. Without looking, Steve knows that Clint is in the roof, the head of an arrow trained at the creature’s head; that Natasha is armed to her teeth, just waiting for Steve’s word to attack. Bruce is peering over the top of his glasses at the creature, clearly considering how much of a risk it is – whether this is a job for him or the Other Guy.
‘What do you want?’ Steve’s voice sounds loud in the room, and for a second the creature looks almost shocked. Then it starts laughing, huge wracking sobs of laughter. Steve tightens his grip on his shield, properly nervous for the first time.
‘Why are you here?’ Tony cuts across the laughter, and the creature pauses, looking thoughtfully at Iron Man.
‘I am here for your lives,’ it says, and its voice is a cracked and broken thing. ‘I am here to kill Captain America.’
The Avengers don’t respond – they are used to the threats by now, but Steve can feel Tony’s anger at the words, the frustration coiling through him.
‘We won’t allow that,’ Tony says. ‘Try again.’
‘I am afraid,’ the creature says, ‘you have no choice in the matter.’ He fixes them with eyes that are a startling blue in the ruin of his face. ‘This is a debt you owe me and it must be paid.’
The creature laughs again, softly this time, and takes a few, painful steps forward.
‘You are all so young,’ it grates. ‘You have no idea what lies ahead, do you? You think you’re invincible. Well, I will be proof that you’re not.’
‘Not this time,’ Tony says, and the fight starts in earnest.
For all its ruined appearance, the creature can fight, and it does. It’s unusually strong, and unnaturally cunning.
In the end, it takes the Hulk and Thor working together to bring it down.
Steve averts his eyes; the creature’s laboured breathing is all that marks it as alive. It’s stuck full of arrows; battered and bruised and cut, and, for some reason, Steve feels like he is intruding on something incredibly private, something he has no place in.
It takes Tony’s hand on his arm to bring him back to the moment (and he’ll deny it to his last breath, but there is nowhere Tony can’t lead him) and they approach the creature together.
It’s in pain, and it’s clearly dying, but when it reaches out towards Steve, its eyes are gentle and so sad that Steve almost stumbles. Tony sees this – but then Tony is always preternaturally aware of Steve it seems – and he raises the visor of his suit, and it’s like everything else is gone from the room.
The creature looks at Tony, and the look on its face is so infinitely tender and loving, that Steve has to force himself not to look away. It’s clearly using the last of its strength, but it reaches towards Tony, and Tony – wild, impulsive, Tony – goes down on one knee beside it, helps it sit up, and listens with an impassive face as the creature whispers something into his ear.
It takes a lot to shock Tony, but he looks shocked now, and Steve takes a half-step closer before Tony waves him back. He’s cradling the creature now, like the pieta, Steve thinks, and doesn’t know where the thought comes from, but they’re talking, low and urgent, and Steve has an uncomfortable curl of jealousy in his chest.
He turns away, so he misses the movement, only catches the snap as Tony breaks the creature’s neck, quickly and mercifully, and then it finally is all over, and they leave, and the clean up is someone else’s problem.
oOo
(Of course, it takes them a while to get out of costume, and you can’t keep track on people all the time, but Steve is still very aware that Tony takes longer than normal to join them, just a little longer, but still. He doesn’t ask; Tony doesn’t say.)
oOo
‘Shall we have Shawarma?’ Thor asks, voice booming with anticipation of a feast.
‘Must it always be grilled meat?’ Natasha says, a sigh in her voice. ‘Can’t we have Thai? Just once?’
And Steve loves these guys, as much as he ever loved the Howling Commandos, and he loves Tony most of all.
oOo
It must have been something about that night, because Steve decides he can’t wait any more, doesn’t want to wait any more, and so after the Thai (because everyone is scared of Natasha) and the cocktails (and the karaoke, goddamit Barton) Steve kisses Tony – crowds him up against the wall of an alley, and kisses him like he’s drowning.
Tony makes a tiny noise of surprise, but his hands on Steve’s shoulders are warm, and his beard scratches at Steve’s face, rough and just this side of painful. It’s messy, and unplanned, and everything Steve has hoped it would be.
To hell with everything, Steve would do this here and now, but Tony pulls back and cups Steve’s face, something indecipherable in his eyes.
‘No,’ he says. ‘If we’re going to do this, Cap, we’re going to do it properly.’
So Steve lets Tony take his hand, and they walk back to the tower (home) together.
oOo
He’s always known that Tony is a study in contradictions, but it’s never been more apparent than now. Tony’s mouth is filthy perfect, spilling obscenities like prayers as he kneels in front of Steve; but his hands tell a different story. They’re gentle and thorough, and they wait for Steve’s approval, completely at odds with what Tony is saying, and it’s only the look in Tony’s eyes that tie the two experiences together.
Under the touch of Tony’s hands and his focus, his concentration, Steve falls apart so easily, like he’s some experiment Tony’s conducting, like Tony can disassemble him and see all the constituent parts that make him up. But it goes both ways, and when Tony is over him, in him, his eyes are bright with a wonder that Steve’s not seen in them before.
He collapses on Tony’s chest after, running his fingers over the smooth metal of the arc reactor, listening to Tony’s breath calm and watching the shadows his fingers cast against the light.
‘So that was…’ Tony’s voice is bordering on hesitant, and Steve can almost hear him rebuilding his emotional walls.
‘I think I love you.’ It’s the only thing Steve can think of to say that will stop Tony, and it works. Tony’s hand, that has been running patterns over Steve’s shoulders, stills. ‘You don’t have to say it back… I just thought you should know. You know, in case.’
‘In case.’ Tony sounds thoughtful. ‘Yeah, I can understand that.’
He doesn’t say anything else, not then, but he tightens his arm around Steve, holding him still, and they lie like that for a long while, until the light of dawn dulls the glow that Tony’s chest casts about the room.
oOo
It’s not easy – in Steve’s experience nothing worthwhile ever is – but surprisingly it works.
They’ve always worked well together, and that doesn’t change. Tony has always been a passionate workaholic, and that doesn’t change either.
But in between the fighting and the work, there’s them, and it’s different and wonderful, and Steve finds that he no longer begrudges the seventy years he lost, begrudges nothing that brought him to this.
oOo
‘Tony?’
‘Mmmmm?’
‘The toaster?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Is it meant to be doing this?’
‘What? Probably? Oh, Jesus, no. Dummy? Dummy! You overdeveloped wine rack! Get here now!’
‘Right. I’ll just use the grill then.’
oOo
Clint is the first of them to die. Steve is heartbroken, but not surprised. He suspects that the fight went out of Clint when Phil died. He didn’t ask, and Clint sure as hell never told, but he knew that Clint got reckless, courted danger, and when he lays the wreath on Clint’s grave and blinks back tears, he hopes against hope that there is a heaven, and that Clint is happy now.
He cradles Tasha against his body through the service, back to their base, through the night, but it’s Tony’s hand on his arm that is his anchor.
oOo
‘Huh. Fury’s memos are getting positively unhinged.’
‘I wonder why that is?’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about, Capsicle.’
‘I’m just saying that I mentioned it at the time.’
‘… No one likes a smart ass, you know.’
oOo
Tony is 59 when he has his first heart-attack. He’s vigorous and sharp and one of the most alive people Steve knows or has ever known, and he looks so small and vulnerable in the hospital bed, even as he jokes with Steve about building the hospital another wing. And Steve? Steve, who’s sat next to the bed for the past three days without a break, Steve looks like he’s pushing thirty, caught by the serum at the peak of physical perfection, and trapped there while Tony winces at the pain (the newest pain) in his chest.
oOo
‘We should talk, you know.’
‘God, Tony. It’s three in the morning. The doctors said you should sleep.’
‘There’ll be plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead.’
‘Tony?’
‘Too soon?’
‘Always. You’re not funny.’
‘I am, y’know. Very funny. Lots of people tell me so.’
‘Only because you’ve paid them to say that.’
‘Humf. Steve?’
‘Seriously, Tony? You’re not going to shut up and go to sleep?’
‘You don’t have to stay, you know.’
‘What? You want me to go to another room? Are you uncomfortable with me in the bed?’
‘What? No. That’s not what I meant.’
‘Then what did you… oh. No, Tony. You’re not doing this. I’m not going anywhere, okay?’
‘But…’
‘Tony, while there is breath in my body, I will always be here for you, I will always come back for you. Understand?’
‘Yeah. Me too. I’d do anything for you.’
‘I know. Would you just come here and go to sleep now?’
‘Mmmm.’
oOo
It’s after Fury dies but before Natasha vanishes, that Steve realises there’s a problem. He’s used to it now, the familiarity of his face in the mirror, but it’s on his birthday that it sinks in.
He’s out with Tony, a quiet meal in a restaurant they both like, and Steve’s in the restroom, washing his hands when he looks in the mirror and realises.
He’s not aging.
He’s as young now as the day he woke up to the rest of his life, as the day he took the serum.
There’s a queasy feeling in his stomach as he goes back to the table and sees, properly sees, just how old Tony looks for the first time.
‘You okay, Cap?’ Tony peers over the top of his glasses, and Steve takes in his hair that’s more white than salt and pepper now, and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, and squashes down the fear that threatens to overwhelm him as hard and as fast as he can.
‘Shouldn’t have had the oysters,’ he says, and smiles at Tony.
He thinks Tony, the smartest man he’s ever known, the most ruthless truth-teller, will call him on his BS, but he doesn’t. He just reaches over and rubs his thumb over the soft skin of Steve’s wrist.
‘So, I was thinking we could head to Miami after this,’ he says. ‘Catch a few rays, relax in the sun, that sort of thing.’
‘That would be nice,’ Steve says, and smiles, and tries to ignore the feeling that time is short in favour of enjoying how precious this moment is.
oOo
He catches Tony occasionally, looking at schematics, poring over medical websites, always with a frown on his face, a look of speculation in his eyes. In the end, it’s almost a relief when Tony slings himself down on the sofa next to him, a glass of scotch in his hand and his face relaxed like it hasn’t been for months.
‘So,’ he says, moving closer to Steve to burrow into his warmth. ‘I decided that I’m human.’
‘Yeah?’ Steve nuzzles into Tony’s hair, smelling shampoo and engine oil and the familiar scent of Tony’s skin. ‘You weren’t sure until now?’
He feels Tony tense slightly, catch himself mid-tell, and relax again as if Steve wouldn’t have noticed.
‘There was an option,’ he says. ‘You know, I’m not getting any younger, and… well…’ He shrugs and Steve tightens his hold. ‘You get an old car, you replace parts so you can keep using it. Bodies aren’t that different.’
Steve feels his heart catch, and swallows past the lump in his throat. ‘Was an option?’ he says, fighting to keep his voice calm.
‘Mmmmm.’ Tony turns, presses a kiss to the line of Steve’s jaw. ‘I love you, Cap. You know that, right?’ Steve nods, runs his thumb over Tony’s forearm, letting himself feel everything about this moment, this man. ‘Well, I don’t want to leave you. Was figuring out a way I could stay round, be a voice in the wires for you, or something. New hardware, but same software. But…’ He swings round, looks Steve direct in the eye. ‘I realised earlier, it’s not fair. Not fair on you, not fair on me. I’m just a human, Steve. If I try to be anything else, I’ll end up holding you back. I’ll end up hurting you.’
‘Tony…’ Steve feels very humble right now, overwhelmed, as he often is, by Tony’s generosity, by the size of his heart. ‘You don’t have to make decisions like that, you know? Not for me.’
Tony smiles, but there’s a look in his eyes that Steve can’t place. ‘You’re the only one I would do anything like this for,’ he says, and takes Steve’s hand. ‘I’d do anything you asked, Steve. Always.’
Steve looks at him, knows exactly what he’s losing here – and what he’s keeping. ‘Tony, I just want you to be you, okay? For as long as you can be. That’s enough for me.’
And Tony nods and smiles, and they go on with the groove of their lives. Let the future take care of itself. They have years yet.
oOo
‘Do you ever think about it?’ he asks Bruce when it becomes obvious that Tasha isn’t coming back this time, that they won’t ever really know what happened to her.
‘Death?’ Bruce asks, sipping his tea and looking out to where the sun is setting over the sea. ‘Yes.’
‘And are you scared?’ Steve hates to ask, but this has been obsessing him, and he has no-one else to talk to, not really.
Bruce shakes his head.
‘No,’ he says, and there’s a tiny smile on his face. ‘I tried to kill myself, you know, before the Avengers, before Tony showed me there was another way to do things.’
Steve nods. He knows – or at least he has suspected – but he still shoots Bruce a sharp look.
‘You’re not, you know…’
‘No,’ Bruce says. ‘Not for years now. I’ve come to peace with the Other Guy.’ He squints as the last rays of the sun strike his face. ‘But I’m looking forward to it, you know? Release. The next great adventure. Whatever you want to call it, Steve, when it’s my time I am going to welcome it with open arms.’
Steve smiles. Put like that there seems less to be scared of. He stands up and touches Bruce on the shoulder.
‘Thank you,’ he says, and goes off to drag Tony out of his lab before it gets dark.
oOo
And Tony dies.
Of course he does. He was an Avenger – he was human. It’s in the nature of humans to die… but still.
Steve makes the arrangements; he gives the eulogy; he stands with Bruce and Thor at the graveside; he goes back home after and sinks down to the bed. He knew this would happen, accepts it’s inevitable, but still… all he can think is it’s not fair.
He can’t stay there, so after Bruce and Thor go, he packs up the things he wants to keep and locks up the mansion. It doesn’t even cross his mind what will happen to JARVIS, and when he returns, fifteen years later, there is no sign that JARVIS is still there.
He never does find out what happens to him, and he never goes back again.
oOo
He tries again. Tony would never have wanted him to be alone forever, so 147 years after Tony dies, Steve marries again. He is happy enough, he supposes. They have two children, who in turn have children of their own.
It isn’t Tony, it isn’t the Avengers – it isn’t even close, but sometimes, just occasionally, it feels like it might be.
oOo
At some point, Steve’s life becomes a list of conscious lasts.
This, he thinks as he sips it, is the last time I will ever have a cup of coffee in America.
(This, he thinks, even later than that, is the last time I can think of that country as America.)
He knows what he’s doing the last time he takes off the Captain America uniform, he knows what he’s doing when he buries it deep, where no one will ever find it. America is gone now, and even if it wasn’t, there is no place for heroes anymore. No place for villains either. This is a strange new world, and Steve cannot, for the life of him, find his place in it.
When he kisses the forehead of his great grandson, a man of 98, on his deathbed, venal and wicked but still his, Steve knows for a fact that this is the last time he will seek this out. Family; love – those are things a human has – and Steve can’t hide from this any more. He is not human. Humans live and love and die. Steve just exists.
oOo
There are lasts that can still catch him by surprise: he doesn’t realise that this is the last time he’ll see Bruce; that the meal they share in the wilderness of the Gobi desert will be the last time he gets to talk to this brilliant man, so haunted by his demons, yet still so pure of heart. He’s old, of course, Steve knows that, but he doesn’t expect this to be the last time, the last embrace.
The Other Guy survives, of course he does, and Steve, out of pity or a desperate, desperate longing, keeps track of him; goes to visit him on occasion; bringing food and a companionship that the Other Guy seems to enjoy. It’s hard though, for Steve, burning hard. There is something in the Other Guy’s expression, some confusion or compassion, that never used to be there, and Steve remembers that conversation all those decades (centuries? Steve can’t remember) ago, when Bruce said he would welcome death with open arms when it arrived for him.
oOo
Life without purpose is something that Steve never thought he would have to get used to. Even as he cuts his ties, with his past, with America, with his humanity, he tries to find something, anything that he can fight for, that he can believe in.
It’s no good, though. The Earth is too small, his resentment at Amway too great. He feels like a Roman centurion, searching for remnants of the Roman empire in the world of the twenty first century. He feels useless and adrift.
In the end, he does the only thing he can think of that might help – he goes to see Thor.
‘Steven, my friend!’
Age has not dimmed Thor. His hair is still the gold of flax, only touched by the slightest lines of frost at his temples. His body has broadened, the hard lines of his muscles cloaked in a layer of fat now – ruling Asgard has matured him.
Steve embraces him, and for a few seconds he feels that connection again, the team that he loved and misses more than the country he allegedly fought for. But then Thor pulls back, calls for mead for his honoured guest, and Steve notices how cold Thor’s eyes are.
‘We must feast,’ Thor says. ‘Tis too long since I have seen you, shield brother.’
He guides Steve through the halls of his palace, his pride in his land evident in the stories he tells.
They feast long into the night, and Steve feels more like himself than he had ever hoped to again. But despite the decades it’s been since he has seen Thor, he notices that Thor does not once talk of Earth, or ask about the Hulk. Instead they talk in passing of Tony, of Jane, of the fights they fought together, and more of Asgard, of its struggles and enemies.
He walks Steve to the guest chambers at last, and hesitates, just a second, before he enters them with Steve.
‘You seek a boon,’ he says, fixing Steve with a stare that is not softened by the evening of food and drink, nor the lateness of the hour.
‘I do.’ Steve closes his eyes, unwilling to see Thor’s face as he asks. ‘You deal in magic here.’
Thor sighs, and Steve hears the movement as he sinks onto the bed.
‘We do,’ Thor replies. ‘Yet we cannot do as you would ask. And…’ he pauses again. ‘Even if we could, I would not advise it.’
Steve turns round.
‘I have not asked yet,’ he says.
Thor fixes him with a look that is pitiless in its calculation.
‘You would turn back time,’ he says. ‘You think I do not see the way you yearn for your past? For the people you loved?’
Steve deflates.
‘I hoped there would be a way,’ he says, and he can hear how rough his voice sounds with the hope stripped from it.
‘My friend.’ Thor reaches out his hand and pulls Steve to sit on the bed next to him. ‘There is no going back. You loved deeply, and there is no shame in that, but you must move on with your life. Find a new purpose.’
‘I can’t,’ Steve says, hanging his head. ‘I’m not like you, Thor. I was never meant to be immortal.’
He feels the weight and warmth of Thor’s hand on his shoulder, and can’t remember the last time he had contact with anyone. It gives him the courage to ask.
‘Please,’ he says in a small voice, and Thor sighs, withdrawing his hand and standing up.
‘If you are resolved on this, you should speak to Loki.’ His voice is cold, but Steve feels his heart leap, and looks up at him.
‘There might be a way?’
Thor nods, but his mouth is compressed into a tight line.
‘Think on it,’ he says. ‘And think well. This is not a path you can step off once you have chosen it.’
He steps close to Steve again, cups Steve’s face in his large hand.
‘There are other paths, Steve. Stay here. Make a life here. There are men and women enough for you to tumble with, we will be shield brothers again.’
Steve looks up at him, sees a shadow of the man he used to know in the god in front of him, and smiles.
‘You honour me, Thor. I will consider your offer.’
Thor smiles sadly and steps back.
‘I fear I know your choice already,’ he says. ‘Though I shall hope I am wrong.’ He walks to the door and pauses, not looking at Steve any more. ‘Tell the wench in the morning what you choose. If you wish to stay, we shall hunt together, and plan your role in court. If you wish to go, then summon a guide. I will make sure that one is available for you.’
Thor opens the door.
‘And Steven? If you choose the guide, do not seek me out to bid me farewell. You will no longer be welcome here, and I would have this evening be my last memory of you, not anything you become from here.’
He leaves the room, leaving Steve in the dark, unable to sleep, unable to do anything but weigh the choices in front of him.
oOo
He chooses the guide.
oOo
It is years since Steve’s done the whole superhero thing, years since he’s bothered to keep up with what happens on other worlds. He hasn’t seen Loki in nearly twice as long – Midgarden, after all, is a small world compared to the infinite potential of the universe, and Loki is fickle.
Loki is imprisoned. Under the earth of some godforsaken planet, he is bound with the entrails of his son, a snake suspended above him and dripping venom onto his face.
When Steve arrives, a slight woman dressed in a shift that does nothing to hide the protrusion of her spine, the stark lines of her ribs, is holding a basin over Loki’s face, catching the drops. He smiles at her, but she flinches and won’t make eye contact.
‘Who is it?’ Loki’s voice is querulous, cracked with pain, and the woman shuffles her feet.
‘It’s Steve Rogers.’ Steve is surprised how calm his voice is, but the acoustics of the cave take his words and twist them, so the echoes that bounce back sound sinister, distorted.
Loki laughs. ‘Captain America, how very fitting. Did you think to come and witness my defeat? For I will have you know that I still have some tricks left. I would not discount me yet.’
‘No,’ Steve says. ‘I didn’t. And I don’t go by that name anymore.’
‘No.’ Loki sounds thoughtful now. ‘You wouldn’t. So why are you here then, Captain?’
‘I need your help.’ The words come out softly, and Loki stills.
‘Sigyn,’ he says. ‘Leave us.’
The woman hesitates, but leaves. She takes the bowl with her, and as the first drop of poison lands on Loki’s face, Steve finally notices the pit-marks that mar his cheeks, the clouded white of his eyes. Loki hisses, his body taut as a bow-string, but makes no other sound.
Steve waits, unsure how he should start, until Loki turns his sightless eyes towards him.
‘You were craving a boon?’ he says, and yes. There is the malice and mischief that Steve remembers so well. ‘Speak, then. I do not have all day to wait on your pleasure.’
There is something in his face though that belies the words, and Steve recalls Loki’s own desperate chase after a fool’s errand… and it gives him the courage to start.
‘I need to go back,’ he says, and Loki smiles as if he suspected this was Steve’s wish all along. ‘I need to go back and see the team again.’
‘You cannot change time, though,’ Loki says. ‘Would you still seek this? Even though you knew it does not happen as you desire?’
Steve nods, then remembers that Loki can no longer see him.
‘I figured that would be the case,’ he says. ‘I know there’s no do-over, Loki. I just want to see them again, so I can remember them properly.’
‘And you choose this even knowing it might mean your death?’ Loki says, and Steve laughs.
‘I am hard to kill,’ he says, the echoes amplifying the coldness of his words. ‘And I guess that particular gift will be harder to find.’
Loki shakes his head, the drops of venom flying from him, like water from a dog.
‘You might be surprised,’ he says. ‘But I will grant this favour.’
‘What do I need to do?’ Steve asks.
‘Seek the Dvergar,’ Loki says. ‘They will have the answers you seek, and they will help you if you bring them treasure enough.’
Steve nods, then hesitates. ‘And what do you gain from this?’ he asks, because he knows Loki too well to think this is a generous impulse on his part.
‘I could ask you to free me.’ Loki shrugs, despite the bright spots of colour from where the poison has burnt his face. ‘I could ask you to sow seeds of unrest in Asgard. Yet I won’t. I have lived long enough to know that everything has its season, and the corn grows to meet the reaper’s scythe once more. I believe I will stay here a while yet.’
This gives Steve pause. Given enough time, even Loki has become a shield brother of sorts, and Steve is now very alone.
‘Yet still…’ he begins and Loki snorts, his face overcome by contempt.
‘You think to pity me? I am a God, mortal, and am greater here than you could ever be.’ He strains against his bonds, but they hold, even as they glisten, organic and still, horribly, alive. ‘Get out. Get out and send Sigyn in, and know this, Rogers.’ He looks blindly towards Steve. ‘There is nothing you can give me that this quest has not done already.’
oOo
Loki’s words follow him from the cave and fester in his mind as he seeks the Dvergar. There is a part of him, the part he thinks that used to be Captain America, that advises him to turn back. But then he wakes from a dream and realises that he can no longer remember the colour of Tony’s eyes, and thinks about all he has lost, and all he has still left to lose, and he makes his decision.
His soul, what is left of his humanity… these are only small things and are prices worth paying if he can see his team again, if he can see Tony again. In all honesty, the choice had been made when he left Asgard for the last time... or when he chose to go to Asgard to seek this out.
He finds the Dvergar. They are cautious in their welcome, and it takes all of Steve’s charm and ingenuity to make them accept him. In the end, he doubts he would have succeeded without Loki, who sends word. After that they grudgingly help him – or at least point him along that paths where he can find the answers he seeks.
It is neither quick, nor easy, but Steve has nothing but time now, and danger has never scared him in any case. And he was right: he pays his admission to these paths using the coin of his body, and his humanity, and his sanity, but in the end it is worth it, and he is left with a portal that will take him where he needs to go.
‘You are decided on this, then?’ Brokkr asks him, and Steve nods. Of all the Dvergar, he is closest to Brokkr. There is something in the dark glint of his eyes and the fierce joy that he takes in working metal that reminds Steve of Tony, but he will not – cannot – accept such a poor imitation when the man he loves is so close again.
oOo
This was inevitable; is inevitable; will be inevitable.
While Steve has breath left in his body, he will not leave Tony behind.
oOo
He can’t believe it when it actually works, though.
He recognises the familiar door of the Stark Tower living quarters, but even if he didn’t, the light on Earth is different, and Steve sags against the door, exhausted with relief.
‘Captain Rogers?’ And, oh, it’s JARVIS’s voice, and Steve never thought he would hear it again, never thought he would miss it as much as he has.
‘Yes,’ Steve croaks. ‘I am home, JARVIS. Please, would you let me in?’ He glances at the twisted claw that is his right hand now. ‘I seem to be having a problem with the fingerprint recognition system.’
‘Are you alright, sir?’ JARVIS sounds nervous, and Steve smiles. He had almost forgotten how protective the AI could be.
‘I am, JARVIS.’ The door swings open, and Steve walks in. He runs his hand along the wall and thinks Home. ‘It’s been a long day, that’s all.’
His heart is in his mouth as he walks towards the living room. For all that he has thought of this moment over and over again, he has no idea what he will say when he sees the others, how he will explain this, how he will persuade them to keep his appearance secret from his former self.
The silence as he enters hits him like a wall.
He can’t see Clint – knows he’s there though. He can see Natasha, beautiful, brave Natasha. She’s fierce and solemn, and he would fall to his knees and kiss her feet, but then he sees Bruce, and his heart melts all over again.
Even that pales into insignificance when he sees Tony again, though. He reaches out, but can’t say anything because this must be what it’s like when your heart breaks.
The feelings threaten to overwhelm him, and for a second he doesn’t even notice the other man in the room.
‘What do you want?’
Steve looks up. There, in front of him, is… Steve Rogers. And he is young, younger than Steve can ever remember being. For a second the shock of it takes his breath away, and then he realises what this means, and he can’t help himself. He laughs and laughs and laughs.
‘Why are you here?’ Tony’s voice reminds him what’s happening, and he pauses, trying to remember how this game plays out. He looks at Iron Man, racking his memory, and he is sure, is almost sure, that he will get to see Tony’s face, at least once before the end.
‘I am here for your lives,’ he says, the words returning to him like he has a script. ‘I am here to kill Captain America.’
The team are silent, and Steve sees them for the first time from the outside. Despite everything, even now, he is gripped by such a fierce pride in them it almost takes his breath away.
‘We won’t allow that,’ Tony says. ‘Try again.’
‘I am afraid,’ Steve says, and, oh, he would do anything to save Tony from this, but he can’t. He can’t. ‘You have no choice in the matter. This is a debt you owe me and it must be paid.’
He laughs and walks forward, tired beyond imagining, and glad that it will end this way.
‘You are all so young,’ he says, like saying it will help them see the miles they have to go yet, the pain they will have to endure. ‘You have no idea what lies ahead, do you? You think you’re invincible. Well, I will be proof that you’re not.’
‘Not this time,’ Tony says, and Steve remembers this. He lashes out, catching Bruce a glancing blow that has him turning green and the fight starts in earnest.
It’s like a dance, fighting like this. Something from his distant past that’s part muscle memory and part joy of battle. He knows no one will get hurt – no one who counts, and that grants him a curious freedom. He had never expected in his wildest imaginings that he would get to fight with his team again, and this is not quite what he would have hoped for… but it is not so very far from it either.
In the end, as he remembers, it takes the Hulk and Thor working together to bring him down, and their blows feel like redemption.
When he sees his younger self approach, he is struck by such compassion and love. He has so far to go yet, and Steve wants to gather him in, tell him to make the most of every chance while he has it, to treasure these people while they are still his, but then Tony raises his visor and Steve cannot think of anything else.
He knows this is the end, he knows he is dying, but he struggles to sit up, to reach Tony for just one last time. And Tony, as he remembers, as he must do, comes close, goes down on one knee next to Steve and looks him in the eyes.
‘I don’t know who you are, or what you’ve done to JARVIS, but he said…’ Tony’s voice is low, too low to carry to the others, and Steve tries to smile at him.
‘He’s right. You know who I am.’
‘But…’ Tony looks shocked, and Steve would do anything to keep from hurting him, but he can’t. Not now.
‘We have no time, Tony. Not at the moment. Not for me. You’ll have the rest of your life with Steve, and he will never realise what has happened here. Not till it’s too late, anyway.’
Tony moves to cradle him, and Steve is so very tired now that he can’t help but relax into the embrace of metal.
‘There must be something I can do,’ Tony says, and Steve shakes his head.
‘Just the one thing, Tony.’
‘But…’ Even through the suit, Steve can feel the tension of Tony’s body. ‘I can’t. There must be some other way.’
‘Trust me, love. There isn’t. Do you think I would do this if there was?’
‘But, Steve...’
Steve lets his head fall back against Tony’s shoulder. For all the gravity of his wounds, he can feel the serum at work, and this cannot end differently.
‘Please, old friend. Do me this one, last favour?’
Tony reaches up and cradles his head gently.
‘There’s no other way?’ he asks, and Steve, who knows there isn’t, who knows that Tony will keep this secret to the grave, hopes for redemption, hopes for a better place after this and smiles as he says ‘No.’