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When Steve comes out of the ice, Tony places a hand against his shoulder and shows him the future, and Steve never looks back.
*
"I thought," Tony says, staring down at the fry he's swirling around in his ketchup, "you were still mad at me."
"Yeah, well, turns out that having a near-death experience makes you reevaluate some things," Steve replies.
It's been a week since they put a shitty, half-assed bow on the whole Pleasant Hill debacle, and now the two of them are sitting across from each other in a little diner, with Steve's plate showing the remains of the three burgers he'd ordered and Tony's plate still containing a handful of fries. That makes this probably not the best place to think about the one time Steve's near-death experience had gone beyond near, but Tony can hardly stop himself. He has, after all, consistently failed to not dwell on it over the years. And yet, despite everything between them - despite the fact that Steve had still been calling him Stark as of a few weeks ago; despite the fact that Steve and he had come to blows as the world had been ending around them, because there'd been no words left to say; despite the fact that Steve had died once, lying there bleeding out on the courthouse steps because Tony had failed to protect him when it had mattered most -
Despite all of that, Steve had still chosen for them to meet here today over plates of fries and burgers, young and healthy again after everything that had happened at Pleasant Hill. So who is Tony to fight back? Isn't this what he wants, to be able to go back to calling him a friend?
"Okay," he says at last. "Well. I'm glad. Not about the part where you had a near-death experience, but, uh. The other stuff."
Steve nods but doesn't say anything more, and Tony takes the chance to eat a few fries, having nothing to add to the conversation. To be honest, he's still processing the weirdness of these past few weeks, even ignoring the shock of Steve reaching out to him. Finding out about Maria Hill's insane Pleasant Hill schemes was bad enough; being reality-warped by Kobik into thinking he worked at an auto repair shop with Miles was worse still. He can't imagine what Steve is going through right now, even as he remains grateful that Kobik's reality-warping in Steve's case was actually a good thing.
"I saw you when I thought I was going to die," Steve says abruptly, and Tony finally stops staring at his fries to look up at Steve instead. Steve's looking back, and god, Tony hates how much he loves the fact that for the first time in ages, there's actual warmth in his gaze. One man should not have so much power over his heart, but here they are. Here he always is. "You know, during the whole life-flashing-before-my-eyes thing. I thought of you."
Tony wants to joke that he thinks about Steve all the time, near-death or not, but that's not really appropriate for their relationship anymore. Or maybe it is? Steve might be going somewhere with this, but Tony doesn't dare overthink it. "So that's why you invited me to lunch today," he says instead. "Because, what, you missed me?"
"Not just that," Steve replies. He places one hand on top of the table, and as Tony watches, he slowly, slowly slides it toward him, until it's resting near his plate of half-eaten fries. "Tony. I miss us."
Us, Tony thinks, and the concept feels alien in his head.
It hadn't always been, of course. Before the incursions, before the Superhuman Registration Act, they'd found happiness together. Between the loud nights and quiet mornings, Tony would press up against Steve, breathing in the faint scent of leather and whatever budget sandalwood-scented soap he used, and feel like he was the luckiest man on earth, because - because he was. Steve could have had anyone in the world, and someway, somehow, he'd chosen Tony.
And now, it seems he's here choosing Tony again, assuming Tony isn't hallucinating. His hand is right there, a clear invitation, and - and -
"I can't," Tony chokes out before he can think twice about it.
"What?"
Tony meets Steve's eyes and immediately regrets it, hating the shock that's there because of him. Another day, another way in which he disappoints Captain America. But what's he supposed to do, take it back?
"I can't," he says again.
Steve starts to protest, but Tony stands up and manages to control his shaking hands enough to pull out some cash from his wallet and throw it on the table. "I have to go," he continues, and he pretends to himself that this weak attempt at a social nicety will smooth any of this over. "We'll - we'll talk later. I'll see you, okay? Later."
"Wait," Steve begins, but Tony's already out the door.
*
"I did good, right?" Tony asks when he's back at the lab, sprawled out in a chair and staring blankly at the wall.
"Do you want me to answer that?" Friday says.
He takes a moment to imagine how she might respond. Hadn't he done good? There's so much going on in his life right now - fighting off the board of directors trying to expel him from his own company, Doom popping up all the time, Pleasant Hill - that really, turning down the rekindling of a relationship with a complicated history was truly the mature thing to do. And sure, he loves Steve, will always love Steve, but ever since the superhuman civil war had broken them up in more ways than one - ever since he'd deleted his own memories and was unable to properly face his own actions, forced to learn what he'd done through news articles and secondhand accounts - too much has come between them for them to go back to those days. Tony's accepted it. Been glad for it, even. Maybe if they hadn't cared for each other so much, things wouldn't have gone so disastrously wrong back then.
(As though their lack of an established relationship has ever stopped Tony from caring about Steve, he thinks.)
(As though there isn't a part of him that wants to be with Steve, always, no matter what's going on in his own life.)
(As though he declined Steve not because of the reasons he's telling himself, but because what he's really scared of is losing Steve again by his own hand, just like last time.)
Tony closes his eyes, tilts his head back. "Please don't," he replies.
There's no response.
*
Steve finds out that Iron Man and Tony Stark are the same person, and everything seems to click into place.
A day later, he watches as Tony lifts a mug of coffee to his lips and downs the entire thing despite the fact that it just came out of the pot, but the temperature doesn't seem to bother him. "What?" Tony asks when he's done, the mug lowering a little.
"What do you mean, what?" Steve says.
"You're staring."
"Oh. Sorry." He looks down for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "I always felt bad when Iron Man couldn't eat or drink stuff," he eventually begins.
"I'm sorry I lied - "
"No, that's not where this is going," Steve interrupts. "It's just - I was watching you just now, and I thought, this is how you do it. You drink enough coffee for two people to get through the day. It's amazing."
Tony sets the mug down, lips quirking upward ever so slightly. "Look, Steve, I'll be the first to toot my own horn, but accolades just for drinking coffee is too much, even for me."
"It's not the coffee," Steve protests. He's doing a terrible job at explaining himself. "It's everything. It's you saving the world as Iron Man but also inventing all these things and funding us as Tony Stark. It's you being everywhere, doing everything that has to be done, because - because it's the right thing to do, and you're the right person to do it. Like I said. It's amazing."
There's a beat of silence in which Tony genuinely looks like he doesn't know how to respond. Finally, he manages a questioning, "I'm glad?"
Steve laughs, and that startles a laugh out of Tony, too. "So am I, Shellhead," he says, and he reaches over to squeeze Tony's hand.
Tony squeezes back.
*
"Thanks for coming," Steve says.
"Sure," Tony replies, doing his best to pretend everything is normal between them and that their last in-person interaction with one another didn't end with him running away. In an effort to distract them both from the memory, he looks around at the debris of the Schaefer Theater surrounding them and lets out a low whistle. "Ultron really did a number on this place, huh? What's your Unity Squad going to use as a headquarters now? My team already called dibs on the not-at-all condemned airplane hangar."
Steve chuckles, taking a few steps toward him as he follows Tony's gaze for a few seconds. "We'll figure something out," he says. "In the meantime, I'm just grateful we managed to handle him. That's partly why I asked you to meet me here today, actually, so that I could thank you for your help that night."
"Oh." Tony looks down at the space between them, catches himself, and looks back up again. "That was Bruce's idea from way back when, mostly. I just piloted the suit remotely."
"Yeah, but you still came." Now Steve is the one looking down, though Tony can see just enough of his face to tell that he's worrying his lip. Eventually, Steve continues, "You came even when you didn't have to. You know. After our last - encounter."
"Well," Tony says softly. "You called for me."
Their eyes meet, and for a long moment, they just gaze at each other in silence. Tony wonders what could possibly be going through Steve's mind. Once, it had felt so easy to read him, but then he'd died, and it had never been the same since. Even now, with Steve apparently liking him again, something feels different about it all.
Maybe, he thinks, that's part of the problem. Just - why now? What changed? Steve had been so angry with him not so long ago, and now he keeps wanting to see him. And Tony comes, because he always comes, but he hates not being able to understand.
"I'm sorry," Steve says suddenly, and Tony blinks a few times, unsure if he heard right. Quickly, Steve continues, "It probably felt like an ambush, what I did last time. I didn't mean for it to come across like that. I was just... overwhelmed after everything that had happened, and I felt - compelled, I guess. Compelled to let you know how I was feeling. Probably not in the best way."
Tony manages a small laugh. "It's fine," he says. "It's not like I've always handled things in the best way, either. And..." He shrugs, attempting to come off as casual. "I'm sorry, too."
He pauses then, trying to decide what he can possibly tell Steve to explain why he'd reacted the way he did that day at the diner. There's the truth, of course, but the truth is Steve's blood staining the courthouse steps because Tony had led them to disaster, and he doesn't want to think about it, much less speak it aloud. Then there's the half-truths, the justifications, but doesn't Steve deserve better than that? If Steve still cares for him, shouldn't he know that Tony feels the same way?
No. No. There's no point. Confess his feelings, and they'll just wind back up on the path Tony so badly wants to avoid, because he'd rather deny himself Steve forever than be the one responsible for his death again, if, god forbid, it were to happen. Better to wave it all off and move on.
"I miss us, too," he says at last. "And I think we're better together than apart. But not - not that together. Steve, we drive each other crazy. You'll regret it if we do - "
"I'll regret it? You're going to speak for me?"
"See, this is what I mean - "
"And what about you?"
"What?"
Steve steps closer, close enough that Tony thinks he catches a whiff of that same sandalwood soap from - from before, when things were so different between them. "What about you?" he repeats, enunciating every word. "Are you going to regret it?"
Tony loves him. Would go to hell and back for him. Has sacrificed himself for him, over and over again.
And unfortunately for Steve, if he's trying to find any hint of that, he's picked the worst possible way to ask about it.
"Yes," Tony says, and he means it more than he's meant anything.
*
Steve seems to let it go after that. They see each other a few times more, and on the night they all join up and fight off the Celestial Destructor before it can live up to its name, Tony clinks his glass of sparkling cider against Steve's and almost feels like things are back to normal.
Then Rhodey is killed, Stark Tower gets blown up, and -
"I'm really sorry to be contacting you now, Tony," Rick Jones says from the other end of the line, and Tony squeezes his eyes shut, wishing he cared just a little less so he could hang up without feeling bad about it. "I know there's a lot going on with you, and what happened to Rhodes was - "
"Tell me why you called," Tony interrupts, because he's at least at a point where he doesn't care so much about being blunt.
There's a beat of silence, long enough that Tony almost does actually just hang up. Then: "I think Steve's in trouble," Rick replies finally, and somehow he's found them, the magic words needed to force Tony out of his funk.
"Details," he demands.
So Rick gives him the details: a mission in Bagalia, Zemo and Selvig dead, Jack Flag in a coma. A disaster on all fronts except for maybe the Zemo part, but Steve, at least, had made it out alive.
"I'm - sorry about Jack," Tony begins, guilt surging in him after his earlier shortness, even if he's still not seeing the part where Steve is in trouble. "I know you two were friends - "
"We don't have to talk about him," Rick says, prompting Tony to fall silent. He supposes he understands; it's not like he wants to talk about Rhodey. "But - what happened to him is important for this next part. He fell out of the plane they were all in, and I wanted to see if I could find footage in case that could help Jack somehow. I couldn't access the security drive 'cause I guess it got destroyed in the crash, but - "
"But Bagalian cruisers usually have two drives installed, and you managed to locate and decrypt the second one remotely," Tony finishes, thinking he's getting an idea of where this is going. "Okay. So you found - what, Zemo talking about a trap he's laid for Steve?"
"No," Rick says, and there's a tremor in that one short syllable that somehow seems so heavy with foreboding. "Tony. I found footage of Steve saying he's Hydra."
Hydra. Hydra. Hydra. Tony's brain repeats the word over and over, as if that will somehow make it make sense, but of course it doesn't, because Steve is the antithesis of Hydra. He hates everything Hydra stands for, has spent his whole life fighting against Hydra, would never be Hydra -
"Don't joke about this," he grits out, suddenly furious. "Is this some kind of S.H.I.E.L.D. plot to get me to stand down over Ulysses? Is Carol really stooping that low?"
"Tony - "
"Rhodey was fucking murdered by Thanos because Carol sent him chasing after the visions of some guy whose powers nobody understands," Tony hisses, barreling onward. "And then everyone tries to smooth it over with posthumous medals and memorials, like that makes up for the fact that my best friend is dead, and then - and then you, you - what are you? Their new lackey? Gone from working against S.H.I.E.L.D. to working for them? You have the goddamn audacity to - "
"Watch the video," Rick says.
"File transfer complete," Friday adds.
Tony hesitates, and Friday, apparently sensing an opportunity, starts playing something in a new window on his monitor. There's not much to see - even if the footage weren't so low-quality, something is blocking most of the camera - but the audio, while also choppy, conveys what it needs to well enough: a gasped, "Cap?" - a scuffle - a scream -
And then, in a voice Tony would recognize anywhere - "Hail Hydra," he hears, and the video cuts off.
Nothing but silence follows. The rage Tony had been feeling a minute earlier has evaporated, replaced by a cold knot of dread settling in the pit of his stomach. Hydra, Hydra, Hydra, his brain repeats again, almost mocking. He lives in a world where Rhodey is dead and Steve is maybe Hydra.
He would have preferred the rage.
"Who else knows about this," he says at last.
"Only you."
"Why?"
"'Cause - " Rick begins, then pauses briefly, seeming to sift through his next words. "I don't know how true the video is. The footage is genuine, and Steve said that, but I don't - I don't know if he did it under duress, or if there was someone else on board that happened to sound exactly like him, or what. But you - you know Steve like no one else does. And you're a founding Avenger. If Steve really is Hydra, I - I trust you. To figure out how to fix it."
Tony stares at the final frame of the video, a blank rectangle of fuzzy darkness, still open on his screen. "You trust me," he repeats blankly.
"Yeah," Rick says. "Because that's what you do, Tony. You fix things."
Hydra. Hydra. Hydra.
The clock is ticking. Maybe no one's in danger yet. Maybe everyone's in danger. He can't just sit here and not act. "Okay," he finally says. "Yeah. I'll figure this out. And I'll fix it. I'll fix it."
The call ends. The video remains open on his monitor.
Tony puts his face in his hands and screams.
*
"Let me think about it," Tony says.
Steve knows Tony. Steve knows the decision Tony will make. Steve knows that the two of them are going to be sitting somewhere with Peter and the others later today, recruiting them to be part of the new Avengers.
"Great," he says, placing a hand against Tony's shoulder. "Let's go assemble the team."
Tony starts, turning away from the balcony to stare at him. "Wait, what? Are you serious? Oh my god, you're serious. Steve, we've been up all night fighting. We caught literally 45 bad guys in the span of, what, three hours? Now is not the time to be making impulsive decisions."
"This is one of the least impulsive things we've ever done," Steve says.
"I..." Tony begins, but then he trails off, and they're just standing there staring into each other's eyes, Steve's hand still against his body. He's beautiful like this, Steve thinks: flush with victory, bathed in the glow of the rising sun, looking more alive than he's ever been. Steve himself is practically bursting with the warmth of it all, and he knows - he knows - Tony is feeling the same way. They are never better than when they are together. But then -
"I don't know if I can do this again," Tony says.
"Do what," Steve whispers.
Tony just shakes his head minutely, gaze darting away, and Steve wonders if he's about to bolt. Finally, though, Tony answers, "Lead a team with you, and - nothing more."
"More?"
"More," Tony repeats. "Steve, I - " He swallows, shudders. "I want more."
Steve blinks, once, twice. There is no way Tony means what Steve thinks he means, and yet Steve can't help but hope, because he has built his entire life on hope. Something that had once felt so impossible suddenly seems within reach. "Tony," he says. "Look at me."
It takes a moment, but Tony's gaze shifts back to him, and in the sunlight his eyes are striking. Then, slowly, hesitantly, Tony reaches forward, cupping Steve's face with his hands, and Steve realizes he knows what's about to happen, just as he knows that he doesn't want to stop it. And when Tony's lips, soft and warm, meet his own, it simply feels like the natural extension of an already-perfect night. This is good. This is right. This is where he's always wanted to be.
But eventually it has to end, and so Tony pulls back, brows furrowed as he presses the tips of his fingers to his lips. Steve waits patiently, and at last, Tony says, "You kissed me back."
"Yeah," Steve replies.
"Does this mean you still want to reform the Avengers with me anyway?"
"It means I want to reform the Avengers with you even more."
Tony laughs, and it's the most wonderful sound Steve's ever heard. "God, Steve. I - " He seems to catch himself and stops abruptly, but he looks at Steve again, and what Steve sees in his gaze makes him go a little weak in the knees.
He doesn't need to complete the sentence, Steve thinks as he leans forward to kiss him again and again and again. Steve can complete it for him.
*
"Do you think," Tony asks, "that Hydra is behind this."
They're sitting inside some shithole bar in Utah, because Bruce Banner was killed nearby five hours ago and Tony wants to wallow in misery. He wants to see other people drinking. He wants to be one of those other people drinking. And he tells himself that really, what he truly wants is to prove he can resist even in the face of hardship - of having to deal with both Bruce and Rhodey dead, of having to carry the burden of Steve's secret - but honestly, who knows at this point.
"Clint admitted to shooting Banner at Banner's own request and you think Hydra's involved?" Steve says. He's drinking a beer, which is unusual because he never drinks around Tony normally. Then again, maybe he also wants to wallow in misery after everything that's happened, and besides, it was Tony's idea to meet here. "Is there something you know that you're not sharing with the class?"
Tony pauses, trying to think of how to best answer. It's been a week since Rick came to him with the news of Steve's new allegiances, and in that time Tony's managed to figure out what Steve isn't - a shapeshifter, an LMD, a victim of mind control or brainwashing - but he still doesn't know what he is. Everything points to Steve just being Steve, but then that means his two options are that Steve isn't Hydra, with the video being some kind of unexplained anomaly - or that Steve is Hydra, no disclaimers or asterisks involved. And if he is, if the man Tony has loved for over a decade has become a monster -
Stop. Focus. Now is not yet the time to fall into despair; now is the time to gather information that he couldn't gather with his tech alone. "Isn't the Red Skull running around trying to expand Hydra?" he makes himself ask. "And now two ex-Avengers are dead. Does that seem like coincidence to you?"
Steve tilts his head. "Hold on. I think you're actually onto something."
"I am?"
"Sure." Steve starts tapping his fingers against the table. "Look. We know what we've heard. Rhodey chose to fight Thanos. Bruce chose to place his fate in Clint's hands. But what's the common thread between the two?"
"Ulysses - "
"Carol."
Tony blinks at him. "Carol? You're not suggesting..."
"No, I'm not. Not seriously, I mean," Steve says very patiently. "You know her. She's probably just being pig-headed. But it's a possibility, and we need to consider it as such."
It - it makes sense. And Steve's not even being heavy-handed about it, just casually presenting it as an option for her behavior, however unlikely. But unlikely is still more likely than impossible, and now the seed's been planted. What if she is Hydra? What if she's using Ulysses as part of some mad plot to drive them all apart? What if Rhodey's and Bruce's deaths were orchestrated?
No. No. Tony refuses to engage any further with the idea. Steve's right: he does know Carol, and he's not going to do her the disservice of treating her like she's working for the fucking Red Skull. It's not her voice on that video saying "Hail Hydra". But Steve, sitting here with his beer, engaging with his hypothesis so very thoughtfully and nudging him in a direction that can't possibly lead anywhere good -
"Tony," comes Steve's voice sharply, cutting into his thoughts. "Look at me."
The words stir a memory within Tony, and he makes himself meet Steve's eyes again, remembering. Things had felt so right between them, once. And now things aren't, and he knows it's mostly his fault, but - but what if Steve did change? How far back does it go? Far enough to absolve Tony of his sins?
He stares at him.
Then he grabs his face and kisses him.
It's thrillingly familiar; it's terrifyingly foreign. Steve - who is kissing him back - kisses the way he always has, the way that never fails to take Tony's breath away. There is no obvious tell, no cruelty or even dispassion to indicate he might be an agent of Hydra trying to take this opportunity to hurt him somehow. And yet - even as Tony wants to drown himself in the warmth and familiarity of it all, to give in and take what he's been yearning to get back after all these years, something still feels so deeply, profoundly wrong. In this moment, Steve is still just Steve, and with a jolt, Tony realizes that he's the one who's changed - he's the one who can't look at Steve the same way anymore, because god, if this man is Hydra, if he's working to tear down everything they built up together -
He jerks back, breathing hard, and Steve jolts as well, staring at him with shock and some other expression Tony can't quite identify. Has Steve sensed it too, this sudden, invisible shift between them? Does he understand why? God, imagine if it's not true, if Steve isn't Hydra after all. A wild goose chase around the most important person in his life for nothing. What if Rick is Hydra, Tony thinks with a touch of delirious amusement, because if this is a Hydra plot to break the two of them apart, it's apparently working.
"Tony," Steve begins, and Tony is surprised by how broken his voice sounds.
Fuck, but he wants a drink.
His gaze slides toward Steve's beer still sitting on the table between them, half-finished. Maybe this can be the actual test. Forget the video. Forget Steve's bizarre attempt just now to cast Carol in a suspicious light. Forget especially the fact that Steve has been trying to get back together with him lately, because if Tony thinks about it too hard, yeah, it's goddamn weird that this is something Steve would seek out if he were normal. Steve's supposed to have moved on while Tony stays behind, a cruel reversal of the man out of time and the futurist. It's what Tony deserves for what he's done, after all.
So. Forget all that. If he takes Steve's beer and Steve doesn't stop him, then that's it, he's Hydra, right? There is no way any of his enemies would pass up a chance for him to lose his sobriety, and so he'll have determined the truth and also gotten a drink, even if it's just some shitty, flavorless beer. Win-win, he thinks.
He reaches out for the mug, and -
"Don't," Steve says.
Tony blinks down at Steve's hand, which is now resting gently over his wrist. This - this isn't right. Thinking that maybe he's just hallucinating the hand, he tries pushing forward, making another attempt, but again Steve stops him, gazing at him with a confusing level of concern.
"What the fuck, Steve," Tony says.
"Fuck you too," Steve replies, voice hard; whatever had struck him earlier has been smoothed and hidden away. "You kiss me and immediately try to take my drink without explaining anything? Look, I'm not going to pretend I fully understand what's going on with you - "
"Good - "
"But I'm not going to let you ruin yourself over it."
Tony gapes at him, bewildered. Steve's not sounding very much like a Hydra agent right now. Which maybe tracks, since he stopped Tony, but - but he wasn't supposed to. He was supposed to prove he was Hydra. That would have made things so simple. "Why not," he manages at last.
Steve looks back at him, an equally bewildered expression on his face. "Why not?" he repeats. "Tony, why the hell would I want that?"
Tony has no idea how to answer.
*
When Tony returns to his lab, he hacks the security drives of every Bagalian cruiser he can access. He compares the metadata from those files to the one Rick sent him. He writes an embarrassingly specific algorithm to analyze the voice from Rick's clip against all the other audio samples he has of Steve's voice, running it with different inference and sensitivity settings in the hopes that at some point, the algorithm will either say that there's no match, or register one with such a low confidence level that it can be ignored.
The file is genuine and untampered with. The voice is matched to Steve's with a 99% level of confidence. Even the sounds of the scuffle are reported as consistent with the audio samples of Steve's hand-to-hand combat with a 76% level of confidence, and the scream at the end is attributed to Jack Flag with a 84% level of confidence.
The video is real. Steve said "Hail Hydra" and probably threw Jack Flag off the plane, and combined with Tony's other findings, Tony knows now that Steve was - himself. Not a shapeshifter or LMD or anything else. The wiggle room Tony has for denying the obvious conclusion is rapidly shrinking. And yet - and yet.
He kissed Tony back, and it felt as warm and good as it ever had. He cared about Tony's well-being. He stopped him from drinking. Surely, Tony thinks, an algorithm that compared these behaviors to a Hydra agent would return no match.
"I don't understand what's happening," he says to the empty room.
God, he wishes he could talk to someone about this. There's Friday, but Friday is him, and he doesn't want to talk to himself. He wants - he wants a friend. He wants Rhodey, but Rhodey is dead. He wants Carol, but Carol might want him dead. He wants Steve, but Steve is the root of half of his troubles (and isn't that a kicker, that he can't even agonize over him in peace because there's ten other potential world-ending threats demanding his attention), and he still has no goddamn clue if the troubles are valid.
His head aches sharply at the thought, and he tries to smooth away the pain. Focus, he tells himself yet again. What does he need? He needs answers. He needs a smoking gun or a confession, because accusing Steve of being Hydra with no real proof is a one-way ticket to another superhuman civil war that he'll definitely lose. So. Get one of those things, and then he can act.
(And what if he never finds this smoking gun, he tries not to wonder.)
"Okay, Friday, make a to-do list," he says out loud, and right on cue, Friday materializes beside him, holding a pencil and clipboard. "Call Pietro and see if he'll tell me anything about how Steve's running the Unity Squad and whether there's been any anomaly in his behavior. Find all the senators Steve is pitching the S.H.I.E.L.D. Act to and place alerts on any news items that come out about its progression through Congress. Hire a guard to keep an eye on Jack Flag in case this potentially evil version of Steve tries to finish the job - "
"Version, Tony?"
"What?"
Friday taps her holographic pencil against her holographic clipboard, adding the requisite tap-tap-tap sound effect for flair. "Let's say you're able to confirm that Steve is a Hydra agent. Then what?"
His stomach abruptly lurches, and he reaches out a head to steady himself. She is him and he is her, and there is nothing she can say that he has not thought of already - but there are some things he doesn't want to think about. Nonetheless, he swallows and makes himself answer: "I'd - I'd figure out what made him Hydra and reverse it."
"And what if nothing made him Hydra?"
"What do you mean," Tony says, like he doesn't already know.
"I mean," Friday drawls, "what if he's always been Hydra this whole time."
There it is. The worst-case scenario, the one he doesn't even want to contemplate as a possibility. The one that would shatter his entire life and render everything he's done meaningless. The one that would mean that the man he looked up to, the man he's built so much with, the man he's loved for half his life was never really real.
Friday starts tapping the pencil against her chin. "Could get your hands on a Cosmic Cube, maybe," she continues. "Rewrite Steve and take out all the Hydra parts. But then that's not so different from what our esteemed Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. did at Pleasant Hill, is it? Not if Hydra has always been a part of him."
Tony squeezes his eyes shut. Just for a moment, just to delay the inevitable for a little while longer. "Tell me what you're trying to get at."
"What do we do with fascists who are trying to take over the world, Tony?"
"Imprison them."
"Sure." Friday pauses, smiles, and secures her pencil against the clipboard. "I'll get started on your tasks, sir," she says, and vanishes.
They both know what she really meant. Be prepared, she's saying, to kill Steve if it comes to that. Tony may be willing to give up his happiness so that he never has another chance to lead Steve down the same road he did during the superhuman civil war, the one that ended with Steve's blood on his hands, but maybe that won't be enough. Maybe Steve will give him no choice. Maybe it truly will be the worst-case scenario.
"This is fucking why I didn't want to talk to you about this," he says, and he knows Friday is watching and listening as he starts to laugh, lashes wet with tears.
*
Every single one of Tony's to-do items comes to nothing. Jack Flag remains comatose but alive. The S.H.I.E.L.D. Act that Steve's been trying to push through apparently stalls out. The Unity Squad is fine.
Tony's back at square one, and he's losing his goddamn mind.
He contemplates, not for the first time, that either Rick is Hydra, or that someone from Hydra fed Rick the intel that made Rick think that Steve is Hydra, because yeah, all of this is fucking Tony up. Besides the video and some individual one-off instances of strange behavior, he has no reason to think Steve is Hydra, and yet - he can't just ignore the video. If it's real, if Steve is Hydra, then it's Tony's duty to stop him and, he hopes, to save him. But he's been unsuccessful at finding any further evidence for this, which leaves him with - what? Proving a negative, that Steve isn't Hydra despite the video? It's actually not entirely impossible, but most of what Tony could attempt is deeply invasive, and he can't bring himself to go through with any of it. Not after the mindwipe. Not after their war.
So the days tick by, and Tony hits dead end after dead end even as he remains forced to interact with Steve, to look him in the eye and pretend like the man he thought he knew hasn't been swallowed and enveloped by something dark and terrible. Steve places a hand against Tony's shoulder at Bruce's funeral, and Tony can only feel an oppressive weight upon him. Steve steadfastly supports him when Tony gives Carol the low-down on Ulysses' powers, and Tony just wonders if this is part of some larger plot to pit the two of them against each other. Steve, Hank, and some others group call him, saying they're worried about him after everything that's happened, and Tony spends the entire time thinking about whether he's capable of looking Steve in the eye and killing him.
Tony hates it. He hates that his relationship with Steve has been corrupted, that he can't see him in the same light anymore, and - worst of all - that he knows Steve can tell something is off. He wants them to go back to what they were, but he can't, not as long as this is hanging over them. He loves, will always love the man he thought Steve was. He can't love the man he's afraid Steve might be.
God, but he needs an epiphany, a revelation. Something, anything, to point him one way or another.
Then Ulysses has one more vision, and it is exactly what Tony had been waiting for.
*
He's afraid.
He's standing at the door to Tony's room, and while the serum's already healed the visible bruises around his neck, the invisible hurts remain. Ask Steve a day ago if he could ever believe that Tony would attack him for stopping him from murdering someone, and Steve would have dismissed the question as ridiculous. But the impossible's happened, Tony's no longer himself, and Steve is afraid.
It's because of Extremis. He knows this, and the knowledge provides some small amount of comfort because it's a convenient asterisk: this isn't really Tony, he can say; it's Extremis Tony. But Extremis Tony and Tony are the same now, aren't they? There is no removing Extremis. Tony did something strange and terrible to himself, and Steve doesn't know where they can go from here.
But he has to find out. He owes it to Tony to find out.
Tony looks at him once Steve lets himself in, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't think you'd want to come over tonight," he says.
"I almost didn't."
Neither of them say anything more for a long moment. Finally, though, Steve makes himself continue, "Are we going to talk about it?"
"Are you going to ream me out for getting Extremis again?" Tony snaps back. "Because if you are, I can already guarantee you we won't cover any ground we haven't already covered - "
"Except for the part where you were twenty-two minutes late and attacked me today - "
"You were never in any real danger - "
"Yeah, tell Graviton and Crimson Dynamo that!"
Tony throws up his arms. "Steve. How many times am I going to have to tell you? I'm fine. What I'm doing here is the future. You're too busy fighting battles to see that we can win the war with this tech, but if you could just give me a chance and actually engage with it in good faith, I think you could see what I see."
Good faith, he says, like it's so easy. Like Steve can watch him do these things and brush it off, because it's all for the greater good. He's seen the way this story plays out before.
Still, he approaches Tony. Sits down beside him. Looks at him. And thinks -
"I can't do this," he says, and he gets back up and leaves.
*
"Are you afraid?"
Steve lets out a sharp exhale, leaning back against the balcony as he turns toward Tony. "No. It's just a possibility, like you explained to us earlier. It probably won't happen."
Tony forces himself to stop thinking about contingency plans, at least for the time being. This is important. Ulysses thinks Miles Morales is going to kill Steve, and at long last, Tony feels that his path forward is clear. "Because you trust Spider-Man."
"You defended him against Carol. And I trust you."
"Do you," Tony says.
"I do," Steve replies.
It's their first time alone with one another in weeks. Tony's seen Steve several times in between, but their last moment where it was just him and Steve was when he'd had kissed Steve in that bar and realized things were broken between them. (The lack of further alone time with Steve was by design, he tells himself, and not because he's been afraid.) But now here they are, just the two of them on the balcony of one of Fury's old hideouts, and Tony is ready to move forward.
"Then maybe," he says, "you should trust me enough to tell me why you think Ulysses had that vision in the first place."
Steve's gaze slides away from him, looking off into the horizon for a moment. "What if we listened to Carol?" he asks, voice quiet, and Tony blinks, surprised by the direction of the conversation. "Have them arrest Spider-Man. Keep him in custody for a bit. Then free him, but ban him from ever entering D.C. again. Then the vision couldn't happen, right?"
"You'd never stand for that."
"Of course," Steve says with an idle wave of his hand, as if it's so obvious that they don't need to consider the possibility any further. Tony misses the days when it felt obvious. "But let's say I did, and I told you to stand down. Would you?"
It feels like a trap. Not a particularly sophisticated one, but one nonetheless. Tony thinks he knows what he's supposed to say, but he also thinks both he and Steve know what he will say. So he smiles bitterly, lips drawn tight against his face, and tells him: "No."
Steve lets out a muted chuckle, dipping his head as his shoulders shake a little. "Yeah, I thought so," he murmurs. Tony doesn't reply, and eventually Steve continues, "You know, I've wondered so often over the past few years whether or not I was more important to you than your ideals. We've fought so much, Tony. But then you'd tell me you were sorry, that it wasn't worth it, that you'll listen to me, except - well, here we are, and maybe that's not so true after all." His lips quirk. "You'd follow me into hell, but only if you thought it was the right thing to do, wouldn't you?"
Tony closes his eyes briefly, inhales, exhales. What is Steve looking for here? Is this the Hydra part of him asking this question? Or is this the Steve he thought he knew? Because his belief that yes, there is a Hydra part of Steve is growing. Ulysses' visions have a high probability of being bullshit, he knows - but something in all that data and energy the kid is absorbing caused him to come up with the possibility of Miles killing Steve on the steps of the Capitol Building, and Tony thinks he's finally understanding what it could be.
But it's hardly a certainty, and so he decides to play Steve's question off as a joke: "That's right," he says, and smiles.
Steve gazes at him, and Tony abruptly realizes he isn't ready for how it makes his knees buckle just a little. He shouldn't be feeling this way, he shouldn't, but the memories it stirs up are too powerful. It's been so long since Steve has looked at him like this, so long since things had fractured so much between them -
"I love that about you," Steve says very softly, and then he leans forward to press a kiss against Tony's cheek before turning to go back inside.
For a moment, Tony stands there alone on the balcony, stunned. What was that? What had just happened? Tony had thought he was going to find some answers tonight, but all he has are more questions. He can't let Steve leave things like this; he can't. "Wait!" he calls.
Steve pauses, turns. "What?"
Tony swallows. There's so much going on right now. Steve might love him. Steve might be Hydra. Steve might die. Tony has all of this information, but he doesn't know what to do with any of it, and he thinks he might be done trying to be covert about it all.
"Are you Hydra," he blurts out.
Tell me no, he begs silently. Say I'm crazy. Ask me what the hell I'm talking about. Please. Please.
Steve stares at him, and as the silence stretches and the opportunity to issue a flat denial vanishes, the feeling of dread, of the terrible truth Tony wants so badly to avoid, only intensifies. "Would you follow me into hell if I were?" Steve finally asks.
"Never," Tony whispers.
"Then there's your answer."
His answer, he claims, but it's not really an answer, is it? It's a non-answer, a side-step, an evasion. All to avoid a simple no, which Steve would have never hesitated to say if he weren't Hydra. So that's it, then, Tony realizes dimly. Steve is Hydra. Steve is Hydra.
Without another word, Steve turns away once more and leaves. And by the time Tony is able to gather his wits about him and follow, Steve is gone, and Tony can't find him again.
*
The following are true:
One, Ulysses has a vision in which Miles kills Steve.
Two, Miles has been nothing but a model Avenger.
Three, Ulysses' visions are not always accurate.
Four, Steve is Hydra.
Tony thinks about Steve lying dead on the courthouse steps. He thinks about Steve lying dead on the steps of the Capitol. His blood, his life, running down the stairs, running down Tony's hands, the guilt and horror of it all squeezing the air out of his lungs, because he never wanted this, never wanted to be responsible...
He's only had a few scant hours to come to terms with this. Steve had left, and then at dawn, Miles had appeared at the Capitol Building, presumably to force a confrontation: Steve had gone to him, and now Tony must go to Steve. He can't let Miles be the one to bloody his hands, but he also can't let Steve fulfill whatever his plans are, because Hydra is the antithesis of everything Tony believes in - of everything the Steve he'd thought he'd known and loved believes in. So maybe in the end, Ulysses' vision is still partially right. Steve will still die, Tony's come to realize, but it won't be Miles who is responsible: it'll be him. It was always going to be him.
He's already killed Steve once, after all.
He arrives at the Capitol from the air just as Steve gets there, and with a thought, he activates an invisible barrier around Miles, because no matter what happens today, he's going to make sure none of it is on the kid's hands. Steve and Miles are talking now - "I'm not going to kill you," Miles is saying - and Tony chooses this moment to land.
"Steve," he calls.
Steve pauses mid-reply to Miles, then slowly turns around to face him, expression inscrutable. "Tony," he says. "What are you doing here?"
"I think you know what I'm doing here."
For a few seconds, Steve doesn't answer, just stares at him. Finally, he says, "So you don't believe me."
"It's hard," Tony replies, "to believe people like you."
"Okay," Steve says, and if Tony hadn't been sure that Steve was Hydra before, he is now. This dance they're doing around one another, talking about these things without actually saying the words out loud, is only possible when they both know the moves, and Steve knows it all. Maybe he's known for a while now. Tony remembers their kiss in that run-down bar, where Steve had given him that look afterward, and maybe he'd realized Tony had had his suspicions even then.
Steve's always been able to read him too well, he thinks.
"I'm going to stop you," Tony says quietly, and he knows it's stupid to do this, to engage Steve in conversation and announce his actions, but fuck, he can't help it. He doesn't want to do this, and he especially doesn't want to do this right now, when he's barely had any time to accept what is happening. He doesn't want to be responsible for Steve dying again. The years they've spent together cannot be forgotten so easily. But he's the futurist, and a future where there is no Captain America working for Hydra is the future that he wants.
So he lifts up a trembling hand, charges up his gauntlet, and looks Steve in the eye - Steve, who is looking back at him, unmoving; why is he not moving -
"No!" comes a cry, and the next thing he knows he's in the air, Carol's furious face in front of him as she raises her fist, and it's all Tony can do to block her punch in time. Then she tosses him aside, and Tony realizes she's headed straight for Miles, who must have been the reason she'd appeared in the first place - is she thinking, he wonders, that they've tag-teamed to kill Steve?
There's no time to figure it out. He intercepts Carol before she can bring down the invisible barrier, and then they're in the air again, screaming as they rain blows upon each other. Distantly, he hears Friday informing him that the Inhumans and Alpha Flight have arrived, and he thinks there might be more fighting happening around them, but the only thing that matters in this moment is protecting Miles from Carol. A part of him thinks to explain, to tell Carol what is happening right now, but would she understand? Would she even believe him, angry with him as she is? It took him weeks to believe it. So he throws away his words and focuses only on the fight, on the light and sound and fury as Carol pummels him over and over again -
"Systems failing," Friday says -
Carol's arm is around his neck, and she's pulling the faceplate off -
"Systems failing - "
She brings a knee up to his chest, and something shatters -
"Systems failing - "
And then suddenly there is relief, and there is falling, and there is - no, this can't be right, but - but -
There is Steve -
*
There is Steve.
Tony's eyes are still closed, but he knows Steve is here because he can hear someone breathing, and he knows the sounds of Steve's breath coming and going like he knows his own. Once, listening to it would have comforted him. And now - well. Maybe it should frighten him. Steve is Hydra, after all. But he has a wild memory of Steve saving him, even if it doesn't make any sense, and he doesn't know what to think anymore.
"You're up," Steve says softly.
"Yeah," Tony rasps, because there's no point in hiding it: Steve knows the sounds of his breathing, too. He cracks open his eyes and flexes his limbs experimentally, trying to figure out if he's incapacitated or being held captive. The answer to both is apparently no, though everything does hurt. "Where am I?"
"S.H.I.E.L.D. infirmary."
"And Spider-Man?"
"Safe. Free. He left with his friends."
"Carol?"
"Also safe. She's fine."
Tony takes a moment to process all of this, but his brain is sluggish and he can't piece anything together in a coherent manner. How can Miles and Carol both be okay? Why aren't they still fighting? And Steve - what is Steve doing here, sitting at his bedside? Tony had been ready to kill him, and Steve knows it. They should not be talking calmly to one another in a patient room right now, and yet here they are.
"You saved me," he says eventually, testing the words out. They feel true, even if it's strange that they feel true. "During the battle. I don't know what you did, but you intervened and I think I'd be dead if you hadn't."
"Yeah."
Tony swallows. His mouth feels like cotton. "I was going to kill you."
"You weren't," Steve says, and before Tony can protest, he continues, "but you were right to want to."
Tony stares at him.
Steve's gaze slides away, becoming unfocused. "I was Hydra," he says very quietly, and the sound of the admission in Steve's own voice sends a shiver through Tony's body. "I put Jack Flag in a coma. I drove Banner to experiment on himself again. I manipulated Ulysses' visions. I did all of that and more, all for the glory of Hydra. It was me."
For the glory of Hydra, Tony thinks, and for one dangerous, terrifying moment, Tony can almost feel it, his mind teetering toward some dark and bottomless pit from which there is no return. His whole life, meaningless, in service to a man whose ideals were a lie this entire time -
"It was me," Steve repeats sharply, and it's enough to bring Tony back from the edge, at least for a little bit. "I had so many plans. Things I was going to do to make sure the world was a better place under Hydra's leadership. And you, Tony - I wanted you there with me, helping to build this new world. We've always been better together than apart."
"I would never," Tony croaks out.
"I know," Steve says.
He reaches over and places his hand over Tony's own, but Tony yanks it away, even if the movement hurts. "So what are you gonna do, then?" Tony snaps, because he's confused and in pain and he still doesn't get why Steve hasn't killed him and is instead confessing to him. "You gonna bring in Faustus or someone to mind control me so that I'll stand nicely by your side? Because you forcing me to is the only way it'll ever work. I'd never do it willingly, not if you're Hydra. You disgust me, Steve, and if I'd known the truth, if I'd known what kind of person you were this whole time, I - "
"You would have taken me down long ago," Steve cuts in. "I know. I know."
Tony swallows again, his throat dry after speaking so much. "Then what is this," he whispers, and he hates how desperate he sounds. "What are you trying to accomplish right now?"
Steve gazes down at him, expression unreadable. "Do you think I'm blind?" he asks softly. "Emotionless? That just because I'm Hydra, I don't know how to feel?"
"Yes," Tony says, because that's the easy answer.
"That day you kissed me at the bar," Steve continues, ignoring Tony's response, "I could tell things were different. That you thought something was wrong. That you thought I was wrong. Ever since I almost died at Pleasant Hill, I wanted nothing more than for you to feel the way you did about me before, and - you didn't. I told you just now, Tony. I had plans for Hydra and I had plans for you, but in that instant, I realized it was never going to happen. There was no future where I could have both.
"You forced me," he finishes, "to choose."
Tony shakes his head weakly, barely able to comprehend what Steve is telling him. "Choose what," he rasps.
"Don't you understand?" Steve says, and his voice is so very gentle. "I want to be the man you actually fell in love with."
"But he's not Hydra," Tony says helplessly.
"No," Steve agrees, "he isn't."
Finally, the enormity of what Steve is trying to say dawns on him. Steve, who has manipulated and misled and murdered for Hydra, is giving it all up, for - for him. For Tony. Belatedly, it occurs to him that maybe this, too, is a lie. Maybe it's all a lie. He only has Steve's word that Miles and Carol are safe, that he's resting in a S.H.I.E.L.D. infirmary instead of some other place, a Hydra captive without even realizing it. And god, imagine if it is true, what Steve has taken credit for -
"You've done so many terrible things," Tony manages, voice cracking a little bit in the middle. "Bruce is dead because of you. And Spider-Man - if you manipulated Ulysses' visions, if you made us all fight like this, if you were fucking enabling fascism - Steve, it's - it's unforgivable."
"I know," Steve says. "And I will do whatever I can to make up for it. Please. Give me a chance."
Tony looks into his eyes. They're the same eyes he's looked at for the past ten years, even with everything he's learned. Eyes he knows. Eyes he loved, once. But -
"You have to turn yourself in," he says, and he surprises himself with how little his voice is shaking. "You have to confess to everything you've done. To everyone. You have to stand trial for your crimes and you have to accept your sentence and serve it out. If you're being honest, if you really mean it, you'll do that, because the Steve I knew - the Steve I thought I knew - that's what he would have wanted, too."
"Okay," Steve says.
For a moment, Tony oscillates, wondering if he should leave it at that. It would be so much simpler if he does. Steve is agreeable, compliant, and Tony has always believed in redemption for everyone but himself. There is a path forward - a long, winding path, but a path nonetheless.
But it's not the right path.
"And even once you do that," he continues quietly, "there is no us. There is no together. Not for a while, and probably not ever again."
He hears Steve's breath catch.
The disbelief is palpable, but it doesn't matter. Tony shudders, shakes his head, and adds, despite his better judgement, "This isn't how I wanted things to be." God, he shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be laying his heart bare to this man - this stranger. There is no possible use it could serve. But stranger or not, isn't it too late for him, anyway? Hasn't Steve already had to deal with Tony at his lowest and most vulnerable?
What does it matter if Steve sees him as a broken man one more time, he thinks.
Still, for this next part, he finds a point behind Steve's head to stare at instead, because he can't look into those eyes anymore. Too blue, too familiar. "I want to believe you," he says, voice barely a whisper. "I want to believe that you can turn things around. Prove that you're the man we always thought you were. Do so much good that we can look past everything that came before. And then, once we get to that point, you and I, we could - go back. Back to what we were before. And I could have the thing I want most in the world."
"Which is," Steve prompts.
"What do you think?" Tony clenches his fists, lets out a low, bitter laugh. "Happiness with you," he finishes, and he feels as pathetic as the words sound.
Steve looks at him for a long time. Longer than is comfortable, but Tony bears it, doesn't interrupt. Doesn't want to do anything more that will spur Steve into commenting on how pitiful he is. "And what exactly," Steve asks finally, "is stopping you?"
Tony remembers that day in the diner, when Steve had reached out to him before the possibility of Hydra was even on Tony's radar. He wonders if Steve is remembering it, too - asking himself, maybe, why Tony hadn't taken his hand then. Why he won't take his hand now.
It's me, he thinks. I'm the reason.
Today's - or yesterday's; he's not exactly sure how long he's been out - events have only proven it. Tony had been so afraid of being responsible for Steve's demise, so afraid that Steve's blood would be running down the stairs once more because of his own choices, and in the end, where had that led him? Straight to the steps of the Capitol, ready to fire a blast into Steve's head.
It doesn't matter that he didn't. It doesn't matter that Steve thinks he never would have. It doesn't even matter that he had all the reason in the world to believe that he should. It only matters that he could have.
He will never deserve Steve again.
But this he can never share. Even if Tony's already confessed so much to Steve, even if things weren't so wrong between them right now, this shame is for him and him alone to bear.
So he turns to the excuse. "You were Hydra," he says, and the wonderful, horrifying thing about this excuse is that it's actually just as valid. "This whole time. I fucking fell in love with you, and I never knew, because you were just that good at hiding it, and - " He inhales sharply, because he realizes then that leaning into this, accepting it, means that there really is no absolution for him, that he will never be able to even try to work things out with Steve, because he never existed. An assortment of images flash through his mind, unbidden: the shining afternoon the Avengers had pulled Steve from the ice, the rose-washed dawn when he and Steve had first kissed, the starlit evening they'd finally made love. He'd lost so many moments with Steve when he'd deleted his memories, everything after Extremis, but at least he'd still had these. Still had some of the best days of his life. And yet this whole time it was never actually his Steve who'd touched him, held him, but instead a monster wearing his clothes. The need to claw the skin off his body suddenly seems unbearable.
Who is Steve, if Tony had never really known him all along?
Who is he, if the things he clings to most are built around lies?
He can feel his eyes start to burn, and, ashamed, he turns away so that Steve won't be able to see. "I just - I can't trust anything you're saying," he whispers at last. "You're still Hydra. You're lying to me. That's what you did and that's what you're doing."
Because in the end, this is the truth. This is the real path forward. His past self had been foolish enough to believe that there could be as good a man as Steve Rogers in this world, but now he knows better. There is no going back to what they had before. If Steve has hidden something so terrible from him for this long, who knows how much else he's hiding? Maybe getting himself incarcerated is actually part of some larger grand plan. It's not like Tony knows. It's not like Tony knows anything about Steve, now.
The silence between them stretches. Eventually, Tony wipes the wetness from his eyes so that he can turn back to Steve, who's since lowered his head. For a wild moment, Tony wonders whether this is it, if Steve is now mentally preparing himself to kill Tony. Why not? Tony's made it clear that he doesn't believe him. Made it clear that there is no future for them.
"You always said I was the best of us," Steve finally murmurs, voice soft, eyes downcast. "But you never really knew who I thought was the best of us through all those years, did you?"
This isn't the direction Tony had thought their conversation would take, but maybe it's just another manipulation tactic. "The Red Skull," he says, because he's tired and he doesn't care anymore.
"No." For a moment, Steve's gaze flickers back up before looking downward again. "Tony, I spent over a decade with you before Kobik reminded me of who I was - "
"Kobik reminded you?" Tony interrupts, heart leaping into his throat as he forces himself upright, even though it makes every joint in his body scream with pain. "What do you mean? That she did this to you?"
"Does it matter?" Steve asks. He's still staring at the floor. "I chose to leave her path. My path. We've diverged."
Of course it matters. It is suddenly the thing that matters most in the world to Tony. If there's a chance, if there's the slightest possibility that something was done to Steve, that something could then be undone to him -
"Steve," Tony begs.
But Steve says nothing more. Tony's strength gives out and he falls back onto the bed with a gasp, wondering if he dares grab hold of this shimmering, fragile thread of hope that has just been laid out before him.
It is almost certainly another lie. What's one more of those, when it's coming from this Steve's lips? When this Steve has already proposed something so improbable as the idea that Tony was worth Steve changing his life for? There is no way Steve actually wants to be redeemed, not for Tony. And yet, Tony thinks, hope is a choice. Tony can decide right here, right now, that he will scour the earth to find Kobik if he has to, all to chase this fleeting whisper of a shadow of a strand of hope, because -
Because he wants to believe. Not in the unbelievable fantasy that he alone is enough to change Steve, no - but rather in that ephemeral possibility that he can find whatever missing piece there is, Kobik or otherwise, to bring Steve back from wherever he's gone, to pull him away from the precipice they are so dangerously teetering on. And then, once Steve has been restored, maybe - maybe he can remind Tony that he didn't throw away his life following Steve after all. That the world isn't tainted. That their presence on this pale blue dot remains something worth fighting for.
And - that's it. That's all Tony wants. He knows better than to actually expect absolution for what he did to Steve, and he won't ask for it. He just needs Steve to come back.
He feels his lashes get wet again, but this time he doesn't hide himself, instead continuing to gaze at the top of Steve's bowed head. And as Tony takes the sight of him in, as he thinks of all the terrible things this stranger has done, he chooses to summon them deliberately: those memories of that shining afternoon, that rose-washed dawn, that starlit evening. Steve smiling, earnest, wrapped so carefully in a gossamer thread of hope.
Tony closes his eyes. Ignores the tears. And imagines reaching forward to hold onto that thread like his life depends on it, because it does.
*
There is Tony.
He's unkempt and unconscious, but despite all odds - despite Steve distinctly remembering watching helplessly as Tony had stopped his own heart to save him - he's alive.
Quietly, Steve lets himself into Tony's patient room and takes a seat, watching his chest rise and fall, rise and fall. Amazing, Fury had said about it all. Steve doesn't know if that's the word he would have used to describe the situation, but he's grateful. Yes, he's still upset at Tony for what he's done to himself, but he loves him, and if Extremis is the reason he survived this, then maybe Steve can hate it a little bit less.
But it's not Extremis that he wants to talk about today.
Eventually, the rhythm of Tony's breathing changes, and Steve knows he's awake now. Still, he says nothing, and after a moment, Tony cracks an eye open and croaks out, "Steve?"
"I'm here."
Tony lets out a long exhale, lashes fluttering. "Good. I'm glad. Needed to be sure you were okay."
"Yeah. I'm fine." Steve pauses then, remembering again the chain of events that had led them here. "Tony. Do you - do you remember what happened? Why you're here in the hospital? You killed yourself to save me."
"I'd kill myself to save anyone," Tony says with a bark of laughter, like it's a joke.
"I know," Steve replies, because it's not a joke. The man threw away his secret identity to rescue a dog. He'd end his life in an instant if he thought it would save the world. Hell, this isn't even the first time he's sacrificed himself for Steve, and Steve is afraid it won't be the last. "But you shouldn't. Not for me. Look, I heard from Fury about what happened, but despite all that - " He pauses, swallows. "Tony, you - you're the futurist. You can do and create and build all these things, and we need you. The world needs you. And I'm not worth losing you."
"Not worth - " Tony begins incredulously, and suddenly there's a flurry of movement as he pushes himself up into a sitting position with far more vigor than he should be using, given his injuries. "Are you insane? Steve, the things you've done - the way you've inspired everyone, inspired me - god, Steve, you're the best of us. You're the one most worth it in the world."
"You might be a little biased - "
"No!"
The vehemence of his answer stuns Steve, and he sits back a little, shocked. Tony leans back against his pillow too, breathing hard. "You're worth it," he says again, more softly this time.
Steve sighs, reaching over to take Tony's hand; Tony twists his fingers around so that he can clasp Steve's hand in return. For a few minutes, they just sit there in silence, enjoying the contact. Finally, Tony continues, "I think - I think something big is coming. Something that'll hurt if you and I aren't working together. I don't know what yet, and I don't know what'll happen to us when it does. But I just need you to keep in mind that - that..." He swallows, closes his eyes for a moment. "I know we've had our differences, Steve. And I know we'll have more. But I love you. And that won't change, no matter what."
No matter what, he says. Steve wonders how that could possibly be the case, not when there is so much that could come between them. But Tony is making this promise anyway, because he believes. Believes in Steve. Believes in them. And in this moment, Steve resolves to himself to always be this person that is so worthy of Tony's love, because if that stays true, then they will be alright.
"Okay," he whispers. "And Tony. Know that it's the same for me. Remember that."
Extremis won't let Tony forget, he thinks.
"Yeah," Tony says quietly. "I'll remember. I'll remember."