"I'm not trying to be cute. I'm trying to be fair in spite of my own prejudices," Steve tells him gently. "Ultron scared the hell out of me on a bunch of different levels, but I'd say it's pretty obvious now that you were 100% right about the potential danger from forces outside our world too strong to combat in any traditional way."
He takes a deep breath and lets it out again, saddened to see Tony's mood changing, to see him backing off, but not offended. This was always going to be a hard conversation. It's probably past due.
"New York wasn't our fault. SHIELD was ready to bomb the place; if anything, we prevented a lot of death and property damage there. Lagos was the same deal. Wanda didn't set the bomb, she just failed to contain the explosion. Sokovia..."
There's no getting around Sokovia. "That one's on all of us, not just you. I should have been keeping a closer eye on you after the mission. It's hard, coming down from the kind of fights we were putting in. You needed support and I failed to notice that. And you did what you thought you had to do."
"I know that's at least part of why you were ready to support the Accords. For an atheist, you sure do a lot of penance. Don't go thinking I don't feel any guilt about the messes we leave behind. I do. I guess I found a way to compartmentalize some, in the army. I'm responsible for more deaths than you are, trust me."
"I don't...think we should encourage our alternates here to hide their heads in the sand, either, though. Thanos is still going to be out there. His M.O. has been going from planet to planet and wiping out half the population for years. Just because we keep the stones out of his grasp doesn't mean he'll be defeated. Just defeatable. Maybe that's not our job, but they ought to know what's out there."
"But Tony, at the end of the day, I do have faith in you as a person. You've made mistakes, but I see the why behind most of them more clearly than you may think."
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Date: 2018-06-21 03:21 pm (UTC)He takes a deep breath and lets it out again, saddened to see Tony's mood changing, to see him backing off, but not offended. This was always going to be a hard conversation. It's probably past due.
"New York wasn't our fault. SHIELD was ready to bomb the place; if anything, we prevented a lot of death and property damage there. Lagos was the same deal. Wanda didn't set the bomb, she just failed to contain the explosion. Sokovia..."
There's no getting around Sokovia. "That one's on all of us, not just you. I should have been keeping a closer eye on you after the mission. It's hard, coming down from the kind of fights we were putting in. You needed support and I failed to notice that. And you did what you thought you had to do."
"I know that's at least part of why you were ready to support the Accords. For an atheist, you sure do a lot of penance. Don't go thinking I don't feel any guilt about the messes we leave behind. I do. I guess I found a way to compartmentalize some, in the army. I'm responsible for more deaths than you are, trust me."
"I don't...think we should encourage our alternates here to hide their heads in the sand, either, though. Thanos is still going to be out there. His M.O. has been going from planet to planet and wiping out half the population for years. Just because we keep the stones out of his grasp doesn't mean he'll be defeated. Just defeatable. Maybe that's not our job, but they ought to know what's out there."
"But Tony, at the end of the day, I do have faith in you as a person. You've made mistakes, but I see the why behind most of them more clearly than you may think."