Work Text:
In the aftermath of the funeral, long after everyone else had left—first the crowds, then the SHIELD personnel, then, together, the other Avengers, Steve sat on a stone bench overlooking the cemetery, staring without seeing. The freshly-filled grave and its bright-white headstone stood out from the rest, but in the late-dusk gloom, Steve could barely make out the words: “Here Lies Phil Coulson…” The words still don’t feel real, even though Steve dug Phil’s cooling body from the rubble himself, cradled the broken and bloodied form in his arms and carried him back home. The last few days felt surreal, had passed in a distant, quiet, dreamlike way, none of the Avengers meeting one another’s eyes or speaking more loudly than a murmur. Except for the third day, when Clint screamed himself raggedly, raged and broke things and wept until he didn’t have anything left in him, seemingly. Since, the archer had been quiet and dull, a sort of blank that didn’t imply apathy so much as emptiness. He recalled the hollow look in Clint’s eyes as they’d tossed the first handfuls of soil in after the casket, and his mind skittered away from the memory, too unsettled by it to think on it long.
He’d glanced at Natasha, met her eyes, glanced at Clint and saw her tip her chin in a tiny nod as they’d left. She’d watch him. Keep him safe, even from himself.
Shattering the silence, his phone rang, making Steve jump and fumble for it. It was a blocked number, one he’d seen on his caller ID numerous times before, and for a moment, his hand hovered over the touchscreen, indecisive. Finally, an overdeveloped sense of responsibility won, and he slid ‘Accept’. Raised the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
The voice on the other end of the line came as no surprise, he realized distantly with some surprise for the fact it didn’t surprise him. To think he had the gall to call after what he’d done... ”Hello, Captain.”
Hate and rage swelled for one moment, and then faded away into the now-familiar exhaustion. “You. What do you want.” He hasn’t even the energy to make it sound like a question, much less angry. Hateful. Like he should.
“I…I wanted…” the hated voice trailed off, uncomfortable and with something that might be regret or guilt to it, but Steve reminded himself—this man didn’t feel such things. “I’m sorry. I never intended…never wanted…”
Now the anger rose. “Well for not intending, you’ve done a good job filling a casket with a better man than you could ever be. Why did you call me?”
“I just wanted to…express my condolences. He was a good man. He wasn’t meant to—that wasn’t supposed to happen. It should’ve been empty.”
Steve snorted. “Yeah, and it would’ve been, if he wasn’t there because he knew you’d been. If he wasn’t there looking for the bombs you planted. Trying to protect people. Innocent people.” Only, he knew, the people killed weren’t always innocent. There was always something…but this time, it had been nobody but Phil Coulson, and that was an unforgivable crime. The world couldn’t afford losing good men like Phil. There weren’t many of them left.
“I know.” He almost thought that was grief…but it couldn’t be. Not from him.
There wasn’t anything to say to that, and they both sat in silence, listening to one another breathe across the phone and distance.
Minutes passed, and Steve almost might have thought they’d disconnected except for the soft breaths through the phone. Then…
”Do you ever think…if things were different…maybe we would have been friends?”
For a moment, the world seems to stall around Steve, everything going quiet and dark like he’s looking at it all through a pinhole, his blood rushing in his ears, and he’s never hated anyone so much in all his life.
“I think,” he gritted out with a heavy breath, “that I can’t see any world in which I would be friends with someone like you. Don’t call this number again. I don’t ever want to speak with you without a gun between us.” Not giving the other time to respond, Steve pulled the phone from his ear and closed the call, and after a moment, turned the phone off entirely.
Steve put his phone back in his pocket and looked out over the grave, thinking grimly that maybe what Clint, all the Avengers, needed most was revenge. Not something he normally thought was healthy, but just this once…
The part of him that had always hoped things might change withered and died. It was a fool’s hope, and fools only got themselves and their loved ones killed. It was a lesson hard-learned, but Steve had lost enough people he cared for.
Across the state, Tony Stark sat in his dimly lit workshop slowly lowering the phone from his ear, looking down at it pensively. His lips trembled a little bit and he swallowed hard, blinking harder to keep his eyes dry. He hunched a little further forward now, shoulders bearing just a little more weight. Just a little more guilt. One more red mark in his ledger, he thought mirthlessly, a hopeless kind of self-loathing cold in his gut. Familiar. An old friend.
“Yeah, guess you’re right, Steve,” he breathed into the empty room, JARVIS and the helper bots quiet but watchful, sorrowful, “in what world could I have ever…” He trailed off. Not because there weren’t words, but because there were too many. Been good enough. Been lucky enough. Been strong, brave, or selfless enough. Been smart enough.
No, there wasn’t a world like that out there, he thought with a sigh as he turned around on his stool to look at the darkened form of one of the many Iron Man suits standing by, dark and motionless, but ready. It was his greatest and most terrible creation, and was the last weapon he would ever design. He’d promised himself that.
Tony Stark hated killing people. But he had a goal, a mission, and not even the Avengers would stop him. He’d raze them and the rest of the world to the ground to see it happen if he had to. It wasn’t like there was any reason to stop. He was in too deep already.
More than anything, he looked forward to the day when they’d win. When they’d kill him for the atrocities he’d committed. But he couldn’t let that happen yet, and so he turned to the bar and fetched up his tumbler of bourbon and tossed it all back at once, already reaching for the bottle.
It felt right that Steve was the one to do it. It felt right that Steve would be the one to serve final judge, jury, and executioner for the mass murderer Tony Stark. At the very end, the armor in ruins around him, Tony on one knee and looking up at Steve, repulsors primed for one last blast while the First (last) Avenger raised his shield for a blow, Tony started charging the repulsors and then abruptly stopped, let the building blue-white light fade to nothingness and held still as the shield came for him.
He thought, in the final instant before the vibranium struck his skull and ended everything, he saw Steve’s eyes go wide with shock. Then there was just a burst of bright white and nothing, so fast it didn’t even hurt.
Too merciful a death for the likes of him.