Chapter Text
The balcony’s metal bars were cool underneath his palms, a contrast to the heated balcony itself, thanks to Tony and JARVIS. In fact, everything was a contrast to the heated balcony, including the snow that softly coated every surface outside, the temperature, and even the wind. It softly whistled in the background, powerless even against the weak snow that had just ended an hour ago. Underneath the dark early morning sky and the full moon, the snow seemed to shimmer brightly and cover up all of the city’s imperfections in one white blanket. On a different day, Steve wouldn’t have come outside and risk triggering himself against the cold, but there was something so pure and innocent in 2 AM snow and its quiet aftermath that he couldn’t keep away from.
New York City was the city that didn’t sleep, and there was full evidence of that even now. The streets were still filled with bright white, yellow, orange and red lights from cars, and the lights from street lamps and traffic lights and the lights from the signs of businesses, bars, and early diners. The faint sound of cars honking passed through Steve’s mind as he lightly smiled at the unchanging aspect of it all. This was beautiful, this was appreciation, this was something he desperately wanted to capture on a canvas, and this was something he would forever remember in times of chaos. The city flowed like a river and with the wind, bringing people in and letting them leave just as fleetingly.
Liminal spaces. That’s what they were called.
He wasn’t paying attention to much of what was happening outside, merely letting the scene wash over him like a comforting shawl. No; Steve’s mind was occupied by a plague that was threatening to take him over. It had already left him unable to dream well, unable to sleep, and unable to clear his mind. With everyday that passed, Steve knew his time was running out and that plans had to be set in motion. And maybe a few days ago, he wouldn’t have had any qualms about it, but the entire game had changed and the worry had set in. If only Steve hadn’t snapped, hadn’t ruined their perfect image of him—no, what was he wishing? Steve hadn’t regretted that. He still didn’t regret that, even if it made this decision harder.
Steve was snapped out of his thoughts by a voice calling out his name. He turned around and almost cursed when he saw who it was. Tony. Of course it was Tony, of all people, and of all times. The universe loved toying with him like a puppet, didn’t it?
“Steve?” Tony uncertaintly asked, looking harried. Actually, now that Steve was getting a proper glimpse of him, the sleep-deprived genius looked like he had run up here in a hurry to do something, but now didn’t have to. His face melted into relief, and Steve had no clue why. “JARVIS said that you were going to...” He trailed off as he waved a hand in a vague gesture, though Steve noticed Tony’s eyes darted to the railing, and why lie underneath and off the railing.
Steve exhaled sharply when he finally caught Tony’s meaning. “No, no, I wasn’t going to... sorry, I must have pulled you from—“ His words came out in a blur, slips of Brooklyn peeking out from underneath the showgirl Cap voice he had perfected from the USO tours to mask the Brooklyn, and when he was angry, the Irish.
Tony interrupted him, shaking his head. “I, I needed the air anyway,” he unconvincingly said, seemingly staring at Steve with a far-off, distant look on his face that was both relieved and worried. Steve didn’t know what was so interesting in his face that made Tony look like that at him.
“I must have held onto the railing for too long,” Steve shrugged nonchalantly, not mentioning why exactly he was out here and staring of over the distance. Tony woukd have nothing but questions if he entertained that.
“Uh, yeah,” Tony said, still staring at him strangely. “Um... penny for your thoughts?”
He caught his reflection in the polished gleaming metal of the Tower and the door, and winced. Oh, he looked tired and every bit of his 95 years, more so than he ever had. Instantly, Steve had the look of a man who survived the Depression and World War II, with all of the wear and tear that the serum was supposed to prevent. Now he understood the frightened look on Tony’s face that had given way to worry.
Tony had no clue what that innocent question had done to Steve in that moment. He felt a wave of regret and pain sweep through him and almost knock him out on his feet with the emotions warring inside of him. What he had spent all night thinking about and debating; that was all tied to Tony and Steve didn’t know what he was going to do.
It just wasn’t fair. Not to him, but to Tony, who was genuinely one of the best men he had ever had the pleasure of meeting. For all of his faults, Tony Stark was a good man who always tried and gave everything for the world without expecting anything back, only for even those low standards to be broken time and time again. Sure, he was maybe a little more careful in his trust, and a little more cautious, but underneath that cynical, snarky, flashy exterior was a vulnerable guy that despite being hurt so many goddamn times, tried to trust again. And sure, maybe Steve was disappointed and a little mad at Tony and the rest of the team, but they were the closest thing he had to family, save Bucky. This too, would pass with time. But for Tony, he wondered, would it pass?
Steve looked at Tony with a sad smile and said, “I think inflation has raised that price.”
The older man took that as his cue to walk onto the balcony and right next to Steve, turning to face Steve so that his right side was to the world, and his left was to the door. Steve, in response, merely propped up his body against the railing, leaning in it and using his body to ensure he wouldn’t fall off of it. He didn’t say anything; instead choosing to let the silence wash over them. Steve didn’t know what to say.
He didn’t think he was ready for the main conversation, or its aftermath. He was running out of time, that much was obvious, but right now was just still not the right time. Steve didn’t know what to say, or how to say it and... he was lost. It was the coward’s way, using silence and running away, and so very much unlike him, but he just didn’t—it wasn't fair to Tony to keep something like this. Either way, it wasn’t fair and Steve hated that the man who had trusted and been betrayed, and trusted, and been betrayed, was going to go through something else.
“I’m a billionaire, Steve, I can afford buying your thoughts,” Tony said, but unlike his normal quips, this one just didn’t have the heart in it, as Tony’s smile dropped and his face lost any sort of cheer minutes ago.
Steve shook his head sadly. “Oh, Tony,” he said in an apologizing tone. He glanced over at the man, and then let all of his masks drops. He watched Tony’s eyes widen in horror, and then in worry.
“Steve?” Tony quietly, carefully asked. His voice was so soft, even when it quavered, and Steve hated himself all the more for it, but he knew that was he was about to do was the right thing. It was just going to have to be one more sin on his list.
“I’m going to step down, I think,” he said neutrally, trying his hardest to keep the regret and pain out of his voice. Tony did not need to hear that, and this would just be all so easier if Steve didn’t have goddamn emotions, but here he was, somehow still a human being that had shreds of humanity left. “From the team.”
By the reaction on Tony’s face, he hadn’t been expecting to hear that. There was confusion in the genius’s voice as he asked, “You’ll still be on it, right? But why?”
“No, I’m not going to... I’m quitting,” Steve said, biting down another remark. He nodded slightly, almost to himself, trying to convince himself that this was right, and that this needed to be done. “I think I’m leaving, Tony.”
Tony was silent for a few minutes. Steve was staring at the Tower section in front of him, faintly watching the reflection of the city on the metal and watching the lights change. He was still a coward, hoping that Tony would ask why. It was his conversation, and he still wanted Tony to take it, because he was a selfish bastard.
Tony exhaled heavily and shook his head incomprehensibly, looking at Steve with disbelief. “You’re kidding me,” Tony flatly said. “This is something to get me to go to sleep, right? Make me think I’m crazy?”
Steve felt his face breaking with sympathy as he shook his head no, and looked away from Tony’s expressive face. He closed his eyes. “Tony... this is a choice I have to make.” The Brooklyn was slipping out more and more with every sentence, and Steve didn’t really care about holding it in anymore.
“Why do you have to?” Tony whirled on him. “What’s stopping you from not leaving?”
Steve swallowed a lump in his throat. He was going to have to do this.
“I loved him, ever since I knew what that was,” he started to say, cutting off Tony’s question about the relevance of this, and why Steve was telling it now, “And he loved me. It was always Bucky and Steve, when we grew up, and Bucky and Steve when we were older. But everyone knew that one day, it’d be just Bucky. Everyone knew I was going to die of some illness or something in my body failing, or even some back alley scrap. Never in our lives did I ever think he was going to go first. That wasn’t—”
Steve paused for a second, stopping his voice from breaking, and then continued. “That wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. And, before the ice, but after the serum, I knew that I would move heaven and hell for Bucky now that I could. I failed him and now, now that I have him back, I can’t lie and say I wouldn’t do the same, if not more, but... I love him, but I found one thing that I just can’t let him get in the way of.”
Tony looked pained, and like he was bracing himself for something.
“This team is my family, second only to him, but still I can’t let the Winter Soldier break it,” Steve said honestly.
“Why would that—” Tony started to ask.
“Oh Tony,” Steve said for the second time that early, early morning, this time much more sadder than before. “I’m so sorry.”
The billionaire looked stricken.
Steve shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Tony, that you have to find out like this, but you deserve to know. And I... I should have told you a while ago too. Your parents... they didn’t die of a car accident, Tony, they were killed by HYDRA. By the Winter Soldier.”
He lost all color in his face and stared at Steve, grief coming over it as anger tried to make its way in the cocktail of emotions.
“You... you mean that the Win–he killed my mom,” Tony stated in lethal anger. “He killed Jarvis, and he killed the only two people who meant...”
Tony suddenly fled the balcony and headed somewhere else.
Steve pursued him, hot on his trail, and followed Tony into his lab as the engineer pulled up many of the translated and redacted SHIELDRA files on the Winter Soldier. Of course Tony had them all cracked. He watched in horror as Tony found one of a mission from December 16th, 1991 that had a video.
It was a gruesome video, and Steve didn’t know Tony could stand there and watch the Winter Soldier efficiently kill his parents, another guy in the car ahead, and then steal something from the back seat.
Tony’s eyes flashed in pain when the video was over, and he looked absolutely devastated. “All this time,” Tony said. “All this time, I thought Dad was drunk and crashed his car into Jarvis’s and into a tree. All this time I’ve been blaming him for Mom’s and Jarvis’s deaths and... it wasn’t even him.”
Tony laughed bitterly.
“He used to talk about you and Barnes all the goddamn time. You know, I wanted to punch you in your perfect teeth? Barnes, at least, sounded like a real life character I would have liked and... turns out he killed my entire family. Ironic, that Dad recognized his killer, and... all this damn time.”
“Tony...” Steve tried to say.
”When did you find out?” Tony sharply asked.
“I had a suspicion about Hydra being involved at the bunker in Lehigh thanks to the fast video Zola played. Couldn’t get the damn thing out of my mind, and a quick frame of it confirmed that HYDRA organized it a few weeks after I woke. Wasn’t hard to put the pieces between a mission Bucky had and the deaths a month and a half ago.”
“A month and a half ag—the apartments,” Tony realized, closing all the files and the video. “You...” He rubbed his face with both of his hands. “We’re talking in the morning. I have a date with a bottle of Jack and my bed before I do anything rash.” His voice was sharp and all hard edges.
”Tony,” Steve said pleadingly, knowing just how much his sobriety meant. “You can’t do that; you can’t drink.”
”And why not!?” Tony yelled, finally letting out everything. Steve belatedly thought that it must have taken a few minutes for it to sink in. “My parents were fucking killed by the man who’s currently under SHIELD protection, because he was just a fucking victim as much as they were, and I don’t even have someone to take it all out on, so why the fuck can’t I do that, huh? There isn’t even anyone to blame anymore, and I just realized that dear ol’ Dad, wasn’t to blame, just like I thought for the last twenty plus years and... none of this fucking works! I have spent the last twenty something years hating Dad more than I did during my shitty childhood for what I thought his did to Jarvis and Mom, and it turns out the old man was just as much of a victim as they were! And I’m learning this when I’m dead tired at 2 AM in the morning by Daddy Dearest’s best fucking friend, whose best friend is responsible, and it’s so funny that everything goes in circles, and it’s really not, because they’re all dead and gone and I can’t.”
”Tony,” Steve tried again, “Please, you have to stay. I have to leave, so you have to stay.”
”And why the hell can’t I leave?” Tony asked, all the anger deflating from him like air out of a balloon.
“Tony, they all need you. Without you, the team’s going to fall, and that can’t happen,” Steve apologetically said.
“And what makes you think I can do this, Steve? Why do you have to leave?” Tony asked. He blinked, and let out a yawn. “Be here in the morning, or I will kill you.”
“Tony,” Steve repeated, wondering how he was going to handle tomorrow morning. There was at least a 50% chance that Tony thought this was a dream or a hallucination, especially if he couldn’t understand why Steve had to leave.
He sighed.
Tomorrow.