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ASSASSINATION AVERTED
NEW YORK, NY. -
J. Jameson, The Daily Bugle
Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, was taken to New York-Presbyterian after a shooting on the courthouse steps that authorities called an assassination attempt. Seven civilians suffered minor injuries in the ensuing stampede, and have since been released. It is a shocking turn in a tumultuous political climate marked by violence and unrest over the passage of the Superhuman Registration Act.
Rogers led the forces opposed to the Superhuman Registration Act (SHRA), but surrendered to authorities to end an explosive weeks-long series of clashes between superheroes that resulted in 53 dead, hundreds more casualties, and untold millions of property damage. It was a decision made to quell the conflict within the superhero community, between heroes who chose to register per the new regulatory guidelines established by the act, versus superheroes who refused in violation of the law. However, the latest assassination attempt has turned public sentiment in Rogers's favor, with unprecedented crowds gathering across the nation to protest Rogers's criminal charges and the new Registration law.
In the latest press conference led by Commissioner Raymond Kelly of the NYPD, Rogers was stated to be in stable condition. The question now turns to the suspect and motive behind Captain America's attempted assassination. Anthony Stark, aka Iron Man, recently appointed Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a nod to his role in enforcing the SHRA has been taken into custody for further questioning. Authorities did not name Stark as a suspect. S.H.I.E.L.D. did not respond to media inquiries, although in a separate press release, named Maria Hill, Stark's predecessor, as the agency's acting director.
The arraignment of Capain America has been delayed with no new date set.
"Thought visiting hours were over."
Sharon didn't deign Steve's greeting with a response. It was a bad joke. Little to lighten the mood after an assassination attempt, especially not with the levity Agent 13 brought with her. The temperature in the hospital room dropped a few degrees as she closed the door behind her.
Of course, Steve was a few weeks and an eternity removed from living in comfort. The private room proved better than a jail cell, even with the harsh scent of medical-grade cleaners.
Rather than approach Steve where he sat on the edge of the bed, Sharon began her sweep of the room. "Wanted to be the first to offer congratulations," Sharon remarked dryly as she peered into the connected bathroom, "with the talk of your imminent pardon."
Because that's all it took. Get shot at, and all was forgiven. There was the heavy lifting from the War working for Steve. This nation remembered him as their war hero first, and as a superhero after.
"Also," Sharon continued, "Stark's been taken into custody."
Others less acquainted with SHIELD might have thought she was allowing Steve a moment to process. Steve, though, lay in wait, knowing that small morsel of public information was enough for any eavesdroppers before their feeds got cut.
It was a fraught time for Steve and America, which was the perfect chance for an opportunist to take their literal shot at both, by targeting Captain America. Tony had led the pro-Registration forces. They had nearly killed each other in the middle of Manhattan. Loathe as he was to admit it, but Tony was, as of late, Steve's most public enemy. It was an ugly assumption to make, but they lived in ugly times.
Sharon finally approached Steve, evidently satisfied with her search. Whatever classified information she was privy to would only be shared between the two of them. "He's getting charges brought against him for your attempted assassination."
What? "You're joking."
Sharon didn't suppress her irritation at the interruption, like this was a briefing and he was not to interrupt until given his mission parameters. But neither did she seem surprised. "Why would I joke?"
There were moments, since the Winter Soldier incident, that had conflagrated during the war over Registration, that neither Steve nor Sharon could deny. It was a different magnetism than what had once existed, before Sharon faked her death and went deep undercover, and after she returned to him, finally hardened in the manner SHIELD sought in their top operatives. But they had both been taken under its spell. Now, with the delivery of the news about Tony, the bubble formed around the two of them, separating them from the outside world and its consequences, had popped.
"On what grounds? With what evidence? They haven't tried to check if, hell, the Red Skull is behind this whole mess?" That's who Steve would put his money on, but he had no shortage of enemies these days ever since that goddamned act passed. "Since I'm not going to be on the chopping block, they need another scapegoat?"
Tony would…he had said as much to Steve. He'd be willing to do things Steve found unfathomable, but it was always to protect others, even if he lost sight of what protection looked like, and how it could become like confinement. It was never to hurt someone. It would never be to hurt him.
No response or affirmation. Sharon didn't even grace him with a resigned glance, her expression carefully blank.
"Tony would never do that. He wants me to join him. He doesn't want me dead." His voice had risen, he realized after he spoke, because the room's answering silence was deafening.
Sharon's shoulders weren't tense, and her stance wasn't too ramrod straight. But, her fingers were splayed over her thighs, and she held herself like she was careful with her breaths, aware of each inhale and exhale. It was a fascimile of her usual cool air, an attempt to not appear affected. She was…trying too hard. Because she was nervous, Steve realized. And if Steve could read that into her body language, then it was past nerves. It was fear.
"They have grounds to take him in."
"What are you suggesting?"
Peter had described it to him, how his spider-sense worked. How it went beyond instinct, where your body screamed at you about the impending danger even when your brain couldn't figure out what to react to yet. Steve could run a marathon and not break a sweat. But his heart pounded against his chest, and the temperature of his skin fluctuated between feverish and chills. On the battlefield, fear could be overcome with the force of his own will and his body's capacity to follow through. But there was no physical threat here, no matter how much his body believed there was one. There was only the impending inevitablity of what words came next, and nothing Steve could do to stop them.
"They had evidence they couldn't discount," said Sharon, and an involuntary shiver ran down Steve's spine. "A confession."
"Um, sir, no personal items are allowed past this point. You'll have to leave that here."
"Right," Steve said. He removed the shield from his harness, nodding curtly at the desk attendant. A senator had hand-delivered it back to him, with Steve still in a cast even, in a show of grace and unity in front of national news cameras.
The SHIELD agent swiped his keycard, before proceeding with a retinal and handprint scan. In the next hallway of the cell block on the Helicarrier, only one cell was manned. The new guard nodded at them both as they approached.
Two SHIELD agents at all times immediately in front of the cell, not to mention the rotating patrol. The tightest technological security measures available that had warranted keeping their superpowered prisoner here rather than a federal jail, that couldn't contain him, or the Negative Zone prison, that he'd helped build.
All of these safeguards, but nothing in this facility could really stop their prisoner. Steve had a thought to if Extremis's capabilities alarmed the government as much as it did him, or if they had saw it as an opportunity to harness control over its terrifying potential. A futile effort that came down to whatever the hell Tony Stark felt like.
Steve didn't know what Tony wanted, anymore. Steve didn't know if he ever really knew.
"We'll be accompanying you, Captain," the new guard told him. "There are also security cameras and an audio feed in there."
With Extremis, the monitoring amounted to nothing useful. Steve wondered if they knew that. But even as co-leader of the Avengers, Steve wasn't privy to the extent of what Extremis could do, or how it had changed his friend. He doubted Tony understood, either, only seeing it as a tool, an extension of his ingenuity in the same way as the armor. He'd warned Tony, how Extremis was never his to begin with. It was a virus taking him over, a weapon wielding its owner.
How much came from them, and how much came from what controlled them? It was a common dilemma for anyone who'd been in this business long enough to face mind control. Tony himself had been victim to it, with what'd happened with Wanda exploiting his deepest fears.
To find out the answer to his question, Steve set his sights on his next obstacle: the two SHIELD agents. It made it more difficult when they had a partner to check in with to reaffirm their own hesitations. But Steve needed to talk to Tony alone, and that easily outweighed their commitment to their duty stations. Steve hoped it would only have to come to persuasion.
"I was actually hoping for a moment alone, first."
"I'm sorry, Cap, but no visitors are to be left alone with the prisoner."
"I heard that he's not talking to anyone." Steve dropped his voice. "It's a matter related to national security and superheroes, beyond your clearances. They wouldn't have called me in here if it wasn't."
"We haven't received orders telling us otherwise. As it stands, he falls solely under our jurisdiction, and has the right to only speak with a lawyer present," the new guard said.
"He's not talking to her, either," Steve said. Jen had immediately offered her services as Tony's representation, but received no response. She really had reached out to Steve, but Steve had been coming here whether or not she'd called.
The new guard continued. "Now, you'll have up to 30 minutes with him. However, if we find it necessary, we will ask you to leave."
Steve exhaled slowly through his nose, leveling an even gaze with the man. Not even a hint of stubble. He was just a kid. "Son, I don't think you're understanding the gravity of this situation."
"Sir," the first guard tried. "There's video of the last time you and Iron Man met in Manhattan. With the civilians pulling you off him."
Steve was aware someone had to have been recording, and how it'd been subsequently plastered all over the Internet. It was one thing to come to blows in the Negative Zone, or the ruins of the mansion, but under the unrelenting eyes of the entire world…it was something Steve would come to regret for a long time. This was why superheroes needed to take care of their own, and not be beholden only to government oversight. The more the public got involved, the more they involved civilians. That was exactly what led to this mess.
The first guard glanced away—even his rigorous training falling short of keeping his cool while accusing Captain America to his face. Steve forced a slow breath. "I didn't come here to hurt prisoners."
"Things are different in the middle of a battle, but based on the last time you met…" the first guard paused. "Maybe if you came with his legal representation."
"Listen," Steve said, "You're following orders, and you saw what happened in the battle. You saw what happened at the courthouse, and you know he's in here because he confessed to my attempted assassination. That's all for the public, but what you don't understand that I didn't come here as his enemy. I came here as his"—a pause, and foolish, speaking before he'd thought through what words he'd use, when his mission was to get into that cell and face Tony without the buffer of others who wouldn't understand— "I came here to save him." The words brought a brief moment of levity of the unvarnished truth.
"Hmm. You used to be friends," the second guard said, "but we don't know what you are to each other now."
Steve couldn't stop himself; he laughed, low and disbelieving. Earnest words had always had their way of working for Captain America, except now, when he needed them the most. Here, they only earned him more scrutiny and skepticism. These men were strangers to him. They were doing their job—but their doubts and lines of questioning were those of media vultures, picking apart feelings for spectacle. Constructing the most fascinating, entertaining, scandalous narrative, except they'd frame it as logical, like they were detectives rather than gawkers.
"What's it to you, anyway, whatever we are?" Steve snapped. I'm trying to save an innocent man, which used to mean something to people once." He shook his head, clenching his jaw. "Friends?" His laugh came bitter to his own ears." It wasn't just friends." He'd told Tony in the ruins of their former home. Tony had given him a reason to live in the future, with a purpose, with his home. Whatever other people called it, Steve wouldn't call this just friendship.
"Not just friends?"
A weighty pause, as it dawned on Steve how his words sounded, and what they suggested.
Deny, deny, deny, said his deep-seated instinct, one that Steve had always obeyed. But at the same time, the guards watched him carefully, waiting for his answer, their interests piqued. Vultures. Steve's mind caught on the thought, and tugged at the thread. The narrative, Tony would explain to him, and the chance to spin it in your favor, was its own superpower. Like Steve wasn't keenly aware of that: what people wanted to hear, wanted to confirm, wanted to believe, and how understanding that could get you almost anywhere.
This was a chance. It wouldn't even be so hard to take advantage, when the best lies contained kernels of truth, even if they were terrifying to admit, and dangerous to reveal. But Steve needed to get into that cell. He had come here to save Tony—his own reputation be damned.
"Yes." What was the purpose of admitting this, now, to these strangers? Yet it was another truth set free, easing another of his heart's burdens. "We were…together." And there was the lie, but this one came through unharried. "In all the ways you can be." Was this so easy because it was his desperate wishful thinking speaking? It would have made some in his life grudgingly proud, that Steve could speak to leverage his influence, or gain an advantage, or win sympathy. But Steve wasn't guided by the art of oratory. He continued speaking because the lie took on its own life, morphing into a confession. Steve had always dressed his desires up behind the radiance of the Avengers, and of a greater good, which his soul, his essence would always aspire to. But that was different from the part of his heart that wanted something just for himself, in all its unchecked selfishness.
"The Avengers had been in the limelight for too many of the wrong reasons. We didn't want to draw even more attention to us. And with the SHRA, having it be public knowledge would have just made it even worse." Being in love with Tony Stark felt like it had made much of Steve's life worse, like the universe had to counterbalance the gift that was everything that Tony had given to him in the first place. "I'm telling you this so you understand that what I have to say to him is only between us."
The guards glanced at each other in a clear show of hesitation.
"The man I…love…is trying to confess to the unthinkable. He refuses to meet with his representation, and I doubt he'd follow their legal counsel. If he's tried and found guilty, with how public everything has been, and how much anger there is, they might get the harshest sentence they can get, and win. I know you SHIELD agents well enough to know you have people you love too, enough to be in this business to protect them by protecting the world they live in."
"Cap," the second guard said. "I know you presume Stark's innocence, and he's innocent until proven guilty under the eyes of the law. But that's the purpose of the trial, for the system to determine his guilt or innocence."
"I don't care about their answers!" Too loud, too sharp, shooting through the pathos of the story he'd woven. The guards came to attention, expressions shuttered.
Shit. Shit. Steve's case was crumbling apart in front of his eyes. Frustration boiled over at his own stupidity. Trying to persuade his way into that cell: his words would have always fallen on deaf ears. He'd brought a knife to a gun fight, and only cut himself in futility.
A clack of boots cut through the silence, and it dawned on Steve that the men weren't reacting to him, but to the person who'd just shown up.
"Rogers. You don't make your case to my men, you make it to me."
Hell. Steve hadn't even noticed her approach, not past controlling his own bodily reactions and tells. "Director Hill."
The guards probably called for her the moment Steve got antsy. The idea that she was more used to dealing with superheroes and their posturing bullshit, probably. People trained under Nick Fury weren't going to be intimidated in any way Steve could work with, and they weren't going to tend toward falling for Captain America's sob story, who, in an alternate timeline, was the one being put on trial for treason.
At least Hill hadn't heard any part of what he'd said. You didn't become Director of SHIELD by exposing your own vulnerabilities, but by exploiting others. Fury had spent a decade puppeteering Steve and Sharon's attraction and affections toward each other, to a degree that was embarrassing in retrospect, until he decided that Agent 13's skills were more useful away from Captain America. Steve didn't know Maria Hill too well, but she couldn't be under Fury's wing for this long and earned some of his trust to not understand how to work people.
"Don't threaten my men. Just because you're a free man now, doesn't mean you're in charge."
Hill was being used by the government, just like Tony, and just like Steve has struggled against for most of his adult life. But no matter his place in the nation's web of conflicting interests, self-serving agendas, and the glimpses of regard for the wellbeing of its people, Steve was his own man, and Hill was her own woman. You could get ensnared, or you could pull your own strings.
"Gentleman, you're dismissed," she told the guards.
"Director Hill," the first guard responded, "are you sure?"
"If Captain America can't be trusted around me, then we have bigger problems than visitation regulations. I'll handle this."
The guards glanced at each other . Anyone who came up in SHIELD under Fury's tenure had learned quickly to question their superior's orders more than once. Hill shared a curt nod with the both of them as they passed by her, before affixing her gaze on Steve.
When they'd last confronted each other, Hill had surrounded Steve with her own agents and tried to arrest him. This go-around, the two of them stood on the same side of a jail cell. On the supposed right side of the law, as ostensibly written, and decidedly driven by the whim of popular opinion
Hill was more familiar with superhero bullshit, while Steve was more familiar with the same for SHIELD directors. And here they had both found themselves, meaning Hill didn't doubt Steve's motives, and so Steve didn't doubt hers. Rather, he strongly suspected they had a mutual goal in mind.
The grim line of Hill's mouth quirked to the side—the thought surely occurring to her, too. Steve didn't much find the humor in it.
"Visitation rights," Hill started, "give me a break. What friends does Stark even have left? You're not here for a interrogation. You had your chances for a negotiation already, and you blew them."
A negotiation offered to him by Tony once, an offer of a peaceful resolution to Registration. So Steve had rejected the terms once. But, loath as he was to admit it, the assassination attempt had changed the tides of public opinion. They could have used that for another chance, to come to a middle. But then Tony had blown that up himself. Whatever Steve wanted, any resolution he could have hoped for, had been taken out of his hands, with Tony's false confession.
"I don't know why he's in there," Steve said. It was illogical, it was unnecessary. Regardless of whatever Tony Stark said, Steve hadn't needed to be saved after the failed assassination attempt. There was no more reason for Tony to turn the gunfire on himself, to shield Steve.
"Who knows what the hell Stark is thinking," Hill said, grim.
"It's not his MO. Stark needs to be useful. Productive. In control. Getting himself locked up is the exact opposite of what he's been trying to accomplish all along. Unless…if there's something else he's hiding, that he'll take to his grave if he thinks it's necessary."
"And what if it is necessary?"
"What Tony thinks is necessary can be far from the reality of things." Tony's judgment was almost always sound. It had to be, as one of their founding Avengers, as the person who Steve had trusted to ask to reassemble the team with. But when his judgment was wrong, Tony never took anything by half-measures. How much did they really know what Extremis did to him? How much did they already know about where Tony's own impulse-fueled, distorted reasonings could lead him—breaking and entering into the Vault, ending the life of the Supreme Intelligence, drowning at the bottom of a bottle.
Hill scoffed. "And you think you can be the one to get him to squeal?"
"Sounds like you haven't gotten very far."
"As opposed to who?" Hill asked. "You?" Her glare was frigid, but Steve had lived and relived through the ice before. He stepped forward, meeting her gaze.
"He'll take whatever he's hiding to his grave, and I'm trying to not let him go to an early one."
Tony had already accepted death, hadn't he, when he told Steve to finish it? But, asking Steve of all people…Tony was a more efficient, effective man than that. If he really wanted to die, he would have accomplished that long ago. No, Tony was flirting with the idea of death, the shirking of responsibility and consequences. Steve was familiar with it, understanding mortality ever so intimately in a state of war. Tony was at the cliff, and Steve was here to yank him back.
"There are things I need to ask him. Without witnesses," he said. Without SHIELD, or politics, or everything forcing the two of them apart.
"Considering what you did to him last time with witnesses?"
"Dammit, Hill, I'm trying to save him!"
"Good luck convincing him with the idea."
Had it ever really been Steve trying to convince Tony? No, it had been Tony trying to persuade Steve to his own side, which was a futile effort to begin with. Even Peter had decided against Registration after some thought. Steve had figured they could wait them out, but Tony would literally rather die than lose. He was so goddamned impossible. But that wouldn't stop Steve from trying. And if Tony didn't agree…If Tony refused, then enough was enough. Screw negotiation. Tony would get out of here alive, legally or not, consent given or withheld.
"Do a better job than you have been, Rogers." Hill placed her palm on the scanner, before peering into the camera. The door slid open with a click. She met his eyes for a moment, before she turned around, leaving him alone in front of the door.
"Stark."
How the tables have turned. Not that Tony seemed to make note of it, even though he had always been a fan of irony. Through the energy bars, his expression was blank as he raised his eyes to meet Steve from where he sat in his chair. Tony sported a hell of a black eye. His face betrayed nothing. He had probably known Steve would be in here alone long before Steve did.
"It's different from the inside, isn't it?"
The remark came from a small, mean part of Steve, that had grown ever larger the longer this war waged, but had always belonged to him.
Tony didn't say anything. Was that how it went? The person on the other side of the bars bore the brunt of the freed person. How quickly things changed between them, how public sentiment shifted. This was exactly why Steve had been so against Registration in the first place. The whims of the public and the government shifted with the breeze. The Steve Rogers who had been jailed and branded a public enemy, and the Steve Rogers who stood free and hailed a hero, were the same person. The Tony Stark who had been given the most powerful superhero position in the country, and the Tony Stark who sat silent and unanswering, on trial for an attempted murder of which he was innocent, had always been the same person.
"Jen told me you're not talking to her. I volunteered for your trial, on the part of the defense, as a character witness."
"I shared what needed to be said," Tony said. It was the first time Steve had heard his voice since their last encounter in a jail cell. The indignation flared red hot, bursting from Steve's seams.
"Don't try me, Stark. What possessed you to do something so stupid to end up here?"
Tony had said before, that he wanted to work together with Steve on this. That he wanted to be on the same side. Steve wondered what would have happened if he had foregone the EMP, and taken Tony's hand as he had considered, for a split moment.
Even after everything, Steve thought there was still a way out for them. He surrendered to a ctizen's arrest, would be tried and judged under the eyes of the law, but he knew enough about this nation. They would need their Captain America again. There was a future for them.
But with Tony's confession, nothing would ever be the same for them. Tony taking responsibility for an assassination attempt on Captain America. Would Iron Man still exist? Could the Avengers ever be the same, without one of their founders? No one would ever hear Captain America and Iron Man together in the sentence and think of them as a unit. They would be forever opposed in the eyes of the public, and…Tony was okay with that. Tony was fine poisoning any perception of their relationship and an chance of recovery, for….for….
"It's another one of your plans," Steve told him. "You were so easy to tell it earlier, how you were doing this because they threatened us with Sentinels. Is this another one of those? Another moment for you to fall on the sword? No one asked you to. Who ever said you need to?"
Silence.
"It has to be that, right!?" Steve's voice cracked, to his humiliation. But Tony remained blank. He probably didn't even notice. Hell, he probaby didn't care.
"Well, good job. You really embarrassed SHIELD and all the senators who backed Registration with your stunt." If the face of Registration, the superhero willing to follow the law, would break the law so flagrantly, then the politicians who backed it had no leg to stand on.
But Tony believed in Registration. He wouldn't refuse to work with something even when it conflicted with his own morality. That was Steve's prerogative. No, Tony weighed his options, swallowed the acridity of betrayed ideals, backed up his arguments with coolly explained logic, and made you feel like an idiot for thinking otherwise.
Doing some sort of harebrained, impulsive thing with the most eyes on him, confident in inspiring others to his side enough to have them follow them….it only worked for Captain America.
"They have to make an example of someone, and you wanted it to be you instead of me. Because it always has to be about you, doesn't it?" Steve didn't know what he was spouting off anymore. The words spewed out, boiled over from the heat of blood-red love—rage—hurt. Steve wanted some of them, any of them, to burn Tony like they burnt Steve.
"It can never be anyone else. Not if you have a say in it. Even though I already made my choice," Steve said. "Even if I decided, knowing I'd have to live with the consequences of my actions."
It was disconcerting, not having the mask between them. Steve would have welcomed it before, without the cool impassivity of the faceplate. Instead, he contended with the outwardly blank expression on Tony Stark's face, the mask Steve had always struggled the most with.
Steve had to live with his decisions, even— especially when it had to do with the man in front of him. Was it Steve's fault, that Tony still refused to speak to him here?
"I was the target of the sniper. Whatever you're doing here isn't going to stop whoever was behind them. They're not going to go after you instead of me just because you're making a spectacle of yourself."
Something flashed behind Tony's eyes. His lips parted slightly. But still, Tony didn't speak up. Steve hadn't noticed, or maybe he had, and been too polite—or perhaps too cowardly—to draw further attention to it. Tony liked to hide, isolate himself from the world, and whenever Steve tried to dig him up, bring him to the light, it made Tony retreat further from him. But when Steve had done the same, hidden away from the world, Tony had found him without any issues at all.
He was endlessly aggravating. He was eternally out of Steve's reach, at his heights and his nadir.
It was a stubbornness to rival his own. Words hadn't created any chinks in his armor. Even when it had turned to physical violence, out of an irrational need for escalation, out of desperation for nothing else working, Tony had used Steve's need for something more, against himself.
"I told the guards that I have to talk to you," Steve said. "They asked me how to prove that I wouldn't hurt you. And I told them, I wouldn't want to hurt you. They didn't believe me. Our friendship was over, according to what people on the streets recorded of us. So," Steve shrugged, "so I told them that I wanted to talk to you because we weren't just friends. I wanted answers from the man I was in a relationship with. That I love."
Tony's gaze shot to his, practically searing. With the facade of stone that the war had cultivated, that he was hiding from Steve behind, he might as well have shouted.
"Why?" Tony's voice faltered, his equivalent of bursting into tears.
It'd worked. He could pummel Tony on the streets, leave cuts and bruises and scars, but nothing will hurt Tony as much as these words. Steve's skin crawled, the realization settling in his body before his mind processed it.
"Why would you tell them that? You…you used my drinking against me, when we met at the mansion. But you'd even use this?" Tony whispered.
Steve had used it because there had to be some glimmer of truth tucked away in this web of lies. It had been his own truth, but here…he had wielded it as a weapon, a thorn to be lodged into Tony's heart. Something to use against Tony, that couldn't be taken back.
"Tony?"
This wasn't supposed to be how this went. This was supposed to be realized with a heart full of budding, quietly nurtured hope, opening to a future of possibilities.
It wasn't supposed to be a bruised and battered Tony Stark, watching him like Steve had taken his world, his feelings, beautiful and untouchable, stored away to be admired behind the glass of a snow globe, and thrown it to the floor to shatter into a million little pieces. Like how Tony had left Steve's own remains.
"I…you…" Steve stepped as close as he could to the bars. "Take these down."
A shadow passed over Tony's face, before he closed his eyes. The bars between them disappeared, confirming Steve's suspicions that Tony was a prisoner by will.
Steve removed the glove of his uniform. He raised his hand, and Tony flinched.
Steve moved his hand closer, telegraphing his intentions as he approached Tony like he was a skittish cat. Tony's hair was soft beneath his fingers. It came as a surprise to both Steve and Tony, who froze beneath his hand, looking up at him beneath his eyelashes.
Steve had long resisted entertaining the physicality of his attraction to Tony, not outside of dreams that made him unease and guilt upon awakening. He dragged his fingers through Tony's hair, and Tony was the first to break eye contact.
"Steve," Tony whispered, finally. The sound of his name on Tony's lips splintered Steve apart.
"If you also feel…then why? How could you?" Steve told him. "I don't understand."
Tony was supposed to break it down, even for Steve to make sense of it. He did it all the time, when he cared to let Steve in. But Tony didn't even give the courtesy of trying anymore. Like he'd given up on them.
"We should have talked earlier," Steve whispered. Much, much earlier. Before Registration, before Stamford, when Steve had convinced Tony to reaassemble the team again. There was a normaly that suited them, that Steve realized he needed before he could admit to himself who it was that made it real for him. Steve knew Tony had capitulated far too easily to truly be against the idea of a new Avengers team, but…it may have been for more of the same reasons all along that drove Steve to ask.
"Would anything have changed?" asked Tony.
"…Yes," Steve whispered, the guilt curdling his gut. Steve's ideals couldn't be compromised, but the loyalty he had to someone he had dedicated himself to, in partnership. There were only so many betrayals he could face or handle. He would have fought harder, have gone to Tony first when he'd heard about the act, instead of gathering everyone else to resist, first.
Tony's eyes squeezed shut. A whimper that had to be involuntary escaped his mouth. Steve's hand, still in Tony's hair, squeezed and tugged on a fistful of hair.
"Once," Steve told him, "I left you behind, and came back again so you wouldn't burn to death." That's why Steve was here, again. "Whatever possessed you to lie under oath, to confess and land yourself here. You're killing yourself, just like back then. You swore an oath you'd never end up like that, again," Steve said. No matter what, Tony Stark would never drink again. Not if Steve had anything to say about it. "Never again."
"It's not a lie," Tony said. "You did…you did die. Because of me."
Steve frowned. "I was injured, Tony."
"No, you," Tony shook his head. "It's…this world…we're lucky. There's so many where we aren't…If this is all it takes, it's an easy decision."
Steve tugged at Tony's hair, until Tony looked up at him, until Tony was forced to stand, rising almost to Steve's own height.
"I won't accept that," Steve told him.
Tony shuddered underneath him, and Steve brought his other hand up to the side of Tony's jaw. He watched the bulge of Tony's Adam's apple bob, before he grabbed Tony by the shoulder, down the side of his waist, fitting his hand over Tony's hip. Each caress sparked underneath Steve's skin. If Steve was a gentler man, he would have softened his touch, to see how much he could feel without barely any contact. Instead, he dug his fingers in, squeezing hard. Tony groaned beneath him, like he was capable of being as overwhelmed as Steve was.
The bruises already on Tony came from Steve, from their last fight of the war. Steve would carve new ones, marking him for their future.
Tony's bulge was hard under Steve's touch. The shape of it shifted under his fingers as it stiffened, while Tony's face twisted in agony. A rush of ice dampened the heat rushing through Steve's blood.
Steve fumbled with his accursedly tight uniform pants, peeling them down, shoving his briefs until he freed his cock far enough to grip it. The rush of shame wasn't enough to overwhelm the surge of pleasure, even if the leather of his fingerless gloves, smooth and pliable in a fight, were rough and bordering on the edge of painful in a fuck.
Tony suppressed a flinch—Steve saw it in the stiffness in his shoulders. Before Steve could reach out, force Tony to stop and look at him, explain himself for once, Tony had dropped to his knees. Steve muttered his name to no response.
Tony didn't look at Steve's exposure that was at his eye level. He looked down, his long eyelashes obscuring his eyes. His lips parted, and Steve saw the sheen of saliva on the bottom lip. Tony never looked so determined as when he sported a cast and several lacerations; there was no difference between that and his most spruced up and clean at a charity gala. But this wasn't resolve. Tony's mask had slipped, and he looked…trapped, unable to escape, unable to escape Steve. The last time Steve had seen Tony so lost in himself was in a flophouse, where Tony could barely see Steve past the next swig of alcohol.
This was a mistake. This was…Tony wouldn't…they shouldn't be there. Steve willed Tony to protest otherwise, as he forced the other man to comply.
Steve pushed his fingers into Tony's mouth. Tony opened underneath him easily, his eyes steely when they met Steve's. Steve could see his indent of his fingers through the outside of Tony's cheeks, the incongruity of it ratcheting up the surreality of the situation.
He took his fingers out, and both of them paused, teetering on a knife's edge.
Steve always broke first. Whatever bad choice Tony made, whatever hurt he inflicted on Steve, was always premeditated. In their bubble of unreality, Steve had a moment to marvel at the prickle of facial hair against his cock, until he pushed himself through and enveloped himself in the heat of Tony's mouth.
Whatever…whatever Steve could figure out, past the jolt of pleasure, was that Tony was no stranger to this. Even though he'd all but admitted that he loved Steve back. The other men on the receiving end of Tony's well-practiced technique—Steve's hearing blew open, stretching out to the limits, just to hear Tony breath steadily through his nose to stave off his gag reflex as he fell into a rhythm.
He pulled open the side of Tony's mouth, breaking the suction of Tony's lips around him. He tensed his thighs, his muscles fluttering under the restraint against shoving himself into Tony. Tony tensed as if in response to Steve's own body, their bodies in a twisted synergy of magnetism and repulsion, like shoving the wrong sides of two magnets together.
Steve pulled away. He squeezed his eyes shut, heard Tony make a sound that might have been protest and might have been relief, before coming harder than he could remember. When he opened his eyes, he saw the remnants over Tony's, in his goatee, and he had a brutal urge to smack it away. Instead, he tugged Tony up again, before shoving his thigh between Tony's legs.
"Go on," he told Tony. Tony tipped his forehead forward, to Steve's shoulder. He made an incoherent sound as he rubbed off against Steve's bunched up uniform pants, the friction of their fabric warming them up, making them both pant and Tony's face glean with unshed sweat.
If this had happened before, Steve would have stopped Toy, no matter how desperate they both were. He would have put a hold on both their physical desires, strip him out of his clothes and ran his hands over his body, to assauage their emotional needs. Needs. Steve couldn't know what he needed from Tony anymore, or what Tony needed from him.
Tony seized, his body strung taut as he finished. In the space of several seconds, the reality of what they'd done—what Steve had done—made Steve's knees buckle.
"I—" Steve started.
"Don't," Tony said. "Don't make this harder than it already is."
But Tony wouldn't stop him, would he, if Steve insisted on saying whatever the hell he wanted. Tony hadn't stopped Steve when Steve started touching him. He hadn't stopped Steve from bashing his face in with a shield. He'd goaded him on, told him to finish it. He had left it up to Steve to stop himself, but Steve hadn't known how to, anymore. The civilians had made that choice for him, instead.
Everyone Steve talked to about Registration, he had allowed them the courtesy to make their own choices on whether to join him or not. But Tony hadn't had a choice. He had forced Tony to…to…
Steve wanted to throw up.
"I"—
I'm sorry, Steve didn't say. "It's not your fault."
When Tony was overwhelmed, Steve had watched Tony sob, berate himself and his inability to see out of a situation. When Tony was traumatized, Steve had seen him shut down. It was the same and different type of abyss.
If Tony was at his lowest, even if Steve had helped put him there…then it was Steve's job to drag him out of here, until his Tony woke back up, and came back to himself.
"Work with me, Tony. Please."
Tony squeezed his eyes shut, hiding any emotions in his gaze, while Steve watched them flicker unbidden across his expression instead.
"Sharon," Steve said, once he'd reached ground level and activated his comm.
A short pause. Steve held himself still, like he was waiting for her to realize what had happened from the intonation of his voice, the particulars of his uneven breathing.
"I hear you, Steve."
He had half a mind to confess. Tony would never breathe a word of what happened, so the onus fell on Steve.
"Steve?"
Tony was in prison, but Steve was the one who committed a crime.
"He ingested it," he finally responded.
"Didn't even need that update, Steve. The nanites are already active. Vitals are already shared. We even have direct comm links to Stark, if needed. Finally, the man is compliant for once."
"Right," said Steve. "I'll be taking the bike back."
Sharon heard it for the dismissal it was, and the line cut out.
Steve hesitated, before deactivate the earpiece and tucking it away into his pocket. If Sharon wanted to talk to him, she could call his phone, instead.
Compliant, she had said. Tony was one of the most stubborn people Steve had ever met, and too goddamned smart for his own good. It was impossible that he wouldn't have noticed what Steve had snuck into the cell, what he had slipped into his mouth alongside his fingers, forcing his mouth open with a thumb and shooting down his throat alongside Steve's come. He knew what Steve was doing. He didn't stop him. There was no way, otherwise, that his Tony would have accepted anything he didn't want.
It was impossible for Steve to drive impaired through practical means. But, as he swung his leg over the saddle of his bike, it felt like it could be dangerous to allow himself to turn it on, to drive through the streets right now. Not with how his fingers shook, how his legs trembled, how his body felt utterly ungrounded. Steve did it anyway, because he had to.
If they had to break Tony out and violate their short-lived freedom, if they could work from the inside through the court system to free him instead. Whatever route they took wouldn't change the outcome. Steve simply wouldn't allow anything to happen to Tony, least of all Tony himself.