steadfast_tin_soldiers

((I don't either, except for pet abuse, which doesn't usually come up in RP, but I do try to warn for touchy subjects. Otherwise, I'm good to get as dark as the plot calls for.))

"It's only a flesh wound," Steve says, unaware he's channeling the knight from Monty Python. Except he isn't, really, because the bleeding is pretty sluggish at this point. What he means is that the muscle is torn and it hurts, but no major arteries have been clipped, he can walk on it, and unless there's some kind of venom or bacteria that Abomination carries that Steve's serum can't handle, he'll be good as new by dinnertime. "Do you still keep the med kit in the back compartment?"

Super-healing factor notwithstanding, it'd be smart to clean it out and put some gauze over it.

It's just that at the moment he's more interested in craning his neck to look out the window to watch the Raft vanish behind them. He hates this. Utilitarianism is not his preferred ethos. "I'm coming back once we get this settled," he says, promising himself more than informing Tony. "It'll most likely be too late, but..."

But it's the only thing he can promise at the moment to give himself the peace of mind to go on. Triage. They can't save everyone; they're doing triage.

Edited (hit enter way too soon sorry) 2018-06-08 12:59 (UTC)

“Once we get this settled, none of this will have happened,” Tony replies, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the first aid kit. “And if we remember any of this, then yeah, sure. We come back here and make them do something about Blonsky.” He’s only partially aware that he’s using the plural, that he’s offering his help. It’s been all too easy to fall back into the standard ways of operating when it comes to being around Steve, even if it’s been years since they’ve seen one another. Tony won’t be taking any time to analyze that, however. It would be much better to ease back into this as if they’d never had a rift.

Not that Steve will let him. Talking is, unfortunately, something Tony only excels at when bullshitting and Mr. Red-Blooded American seems to have forgotten isn’t what men his time did. Steve’s never been some paragon of the 40s, though. He’s inclusive and kind, he took right away to traversing racism and sexism too, as if he’s more like an ideal Millennial than actual Millennials are.

“If we’re even speaking after. If we’ve even met,” he continues, watching Steve hunt for the white painted metal box. “I guess it depends on When we decide to go back.” And that When is with a Capital W. “You said Maximoff destroyed the gem in Vision’s forehead right?”

Asking her to destroy Vision just after his birth might not work, though, but there are other stones out there. Strange’s, for instance. They could just head over and crumble the Time Stone. Thanos can’t destroy them if all of the gems aren’t there, right?

“That bullshit in Siberia never has to happen.”

Steve is just the kind of guy who can't keep his mouth shut. Usually. It was actually difficult, before the disaster in Siberia, to not talk to Tony about his suspicions with respect to his parents' death. Even now, he's not sure how the waters got muddied there, except that anything related to Bucky hits so close to Steve's emotional center, and his guilt complex. There would never have been a Winter Soldier if he had finished the job he meant to, and destroyed Hydra. There would never have been a Winter Soldier if he hadn't failed to keep his friend from falling out of that train.

Where he's capable of being the strong silent type is where it comes to his own emotional state. It's easier to be guarded about his own mental wounds. It's impossible not to be.

He opens the med kit and gets out antibacterial wash, dripping it carefully into the gash. "Theoretically," he corrects Tony quietly. "It ain't like either of us has ever time traveled before, except for forward the hard way. It may not work how you expect it to. And I don't even know what to expect. I think we better face the idea that we may have to do this more than once before we figure out where the crucial changes have to be made. Assuming we can manage it more than once."

He packs gauze over his hip and tears a piece of medical tape with his teeth, quiet for a long moment while he considers Tony's next words. Swallowing with a click in the back of his throat, he doesn't look up again to respond.

"I've spent a lot of time asking myself what I would do differently if I had the chance. I was never going to sign the Accords. I can't. And I was never gonna turn my back on Bucky. But I really, really fucked up with you, on a bunch of levels. I promised if this came--when it came--we'd face it together, and I broke that promise. And I don't know if it can be un-broken, but..."

The strain in his voice is audible. "But if you're going to offer the opportunity to try, I can't say no to that. Not unless it would ruin everything else we're trying to do."

Tony doesn’t have time to explain the myriad of theories that are most likely in time travel scenarios because he’s not at all that kind of nerd and, Jesus Christ, he truly would be talking out of his ass. He’s not a theorist by nature. He’s not prepared to offer the finer points of string theory, nor would he want to. Banner’s the guy who specialized in theoretical physics and even he can’t help but get his hands nice and dirty whenever the chance happens to arise.

He’s quiet for a moment, letting Steve have his say with minimal eye rolling. The guy has never been short on passion and this time doesn’t prove an exception to the rule. The cursing is different though. Evidently growing some balls to express yourself verbally comes along with the lumberjack beard and the hair dye. Tony finds himself painfully attracted to holding eye contact at the moment, and with FRIDAY piloting them away from the site, he has no pressing reason to look elsewhere.

“Yeah. Yeah you really did fuck up. You should have been there with me, you should have forced your self-righteousness onto me. Those Accords— They should have been better. And I need you there to make sure I didn’t sign away the rights of everyone we knew. The Accords are the right way to go. But they’re flawed. And I get that. But Jesus, Rogers, you left. You were always just leaving.”

He’s tired and he’s heart sore and his head isn’t in the right place at all here. He’s saying too much and not explaining enough.

He hadn’t wanted to do this— But that’s a really shitty defense. “I could have helped you find him,” he blurts out stupidly. “You know that, right? If you asked, if you told me...?”

But that’s not fair. They hadn’t been friends. They barely knew each other. They barely liked each other, and it’s not like Tony ever asked for help on his end either. But the engineer has a way of forgetting the anti-arguments. If it doesn’t prove his case, it means nothing to him.

“Everything happened at once,” he says. It would take weeks to try and explain to Tony what went on in Steve’s head back then, but on the other hand if they spend that much time together, it’s probably destined to spill out one way or another, because he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it and picking his own actions apart since. If he had just, if they had only, if if if--

“I wish you had come to Peggy’s funeral,” he says. “I guess you were wrapped up in business. I didn’t ask. I should have asked.”

He grimaces and forces himself to look into Tony’s face. He owes him that much. “There was no salvaging the Accords as they were presented to us. If the powers-that-be had meant for us to have any input at all, they wouldn’t have thrown them in our faces with only a few days to read, no amendment process, and no right to a fair trial for violating them. They backed us into a corner on purpose, and the only thing I know to do when my back is to the wall is to fight. Maybe…maybe that was wrong this time. In retrospect, I think I understand a little better, what you were aiming for, but…”

He sighs raggedly. “You can’t reason with the unreasonable. Besides, Hydra thrived right under SHIELD’s nose for decades. I worked for them. We all worked for them. How can I trust—anyone? Any organization, any government? How am I supposed to know whose orders I’m following?”

“Look, my problems go back to before you were born. I got no right to drag you into them. Bucky was my problem because he was my friend, and I failed him. If I’d done my job right in the first place, none of it would have happened. You know, I put that plane in the ice for nothing. Everything I’ve done, it never meant a damn thing, it’s all spangles and no substance. Tony, I…I see you doing penance. I know it hurts, and I know you can’t stand failing, and the idea that someone died because of your decisions is even worse—I didn’t think the two of us self-flagellating together would help anybody.”

“Besides, if he hadn’t gotten his memory back at all, it was a suicide mission. He almost killed me on the helicarrier, and I didn’t have the heart to fight back. If I’d brought you along, I was afraid I’d have to fight the Winter Soldier to keep him from killing us both. How’s that for irony?”

There’s so much to unpack there and Tony wants to address everything that’s being said to him. He wants to stop Steve from continuing and he wants to confirm or to interject, but in the end, Tony is strangely silent through the unloading process.

He doesn’t even make fun of or twist some of the things Steve says. Even if it would be so easy. And so amusing. Making Steve blush or blink, confused, had been his favorite pastime during the stops in New York he made before he moved back and every visit to the compound thereafter.

“You’re too much the lone soldier. I can and have taken care of myself, I just want to point that out,” Tony says the moment that Steve gives him a place to do so. “He did actually try to kill me. And I was ready. I would have been ready before too. You’re so damned infuriating. You always need things done your way. You have to give a little.”

No. Tony doesn’t see the irony in any of those statements. He never does. He has blinders for his own faults.

“Let me just... Back up here, Rogers. If you didn’t freeze yourself, Barnes would have been used to kill us all. Or HYDRA would have killed us all. I don’t know when this is going to work out. Or how far back we’ll go. I don’t know how long it’s going to take, or what’s going to happen to us, but we need to scratch out the last two years here. We have each other now. Okay? There’s not too many of us left so we need to hold onto that.”

Using a phrase like 'self-flagellating' was probably asking for teasing, but Steve's too far gone into guilt and depression for wordplay right now. He's never been quite as innocent as he comes across, of course, but the war dampened his sense of humor a little bit. Best that Tony doesn't test him right now, all things considered. But he doesn't come back at Steve with anger or recrimination, which is more or less what Steve expected, and some of the tension in his neck and shoulders eases gradually.

"It's kind of a blur," he says. "That fight. I remember images the way I usually do--perfect snapshots, because of the, you know--" He taps his head with a fingertip. "Memory thing. The pictures are out of order, though. I remember falling and I thought he was screaming. He swears he wasn't, and it didn't sound like you, so maybe I'm crazy."

Or he's got some shell-shock, PTSD, whatever, to deal with. He's heard the term. He tries not to think about it much. "I'm kind of a basket case, but there's no stopping to recover, you know? When he was about to punch my skull in on the helicarrier, I remember feeling--"

No, wait, that's too much information. He shakes his head and drags his focus back to the present. "I'm fucking tired, is the problem."

Still, what Tony's saying sinks in slowly, and if anything, it gives him a few grains of hope. Which is amazing, because Tony's style has in the past been more along the lines of humor to slice through drama and tragedy, rather than gentle pep-talks. Steve can at least take what he can dish out, in the inspirational speech department, and while he looks at Tony like he's never seen anything quite like him for a moment, a little smile shows up on his face, and he nods.

"I missed you," he confesses.

“I would have missed me too, if I had to spend time away from me,” Tony replies with the humor that Steve had been expecting. Tony can only be in Dad Mode, something he’d honed with Parker during their small interactions over the last year or so, for so long. Trying to give pep talks to an all too optimistic and talented and stubborn and enthusiastic teenager had been trying but a little trial and error did give Tony some insight into how to deal with a stubborn kid.

Like Steve Rogers... and that crazy depression he’s battling. Yeah. Tony doesn’t need any more evidence to decide that’s the case. The wild blue fire in his eyes had been doused, and that tells him everything. Couple it with the mournful singing on the deck of the Raft, the constant pausing and far away looks, and the small verbal flinching he gives paints a very somber picture.

Steve is broken.

Tony gets that. He’s broken too.

Turning back around, Tony taps in a code to check on FRIDAY’s progress, both in the journey back to New York and with the global population profile she’s building. His words are quiet, voice softer than most people get to hear when he’s not being a sarcastic, bullshitting asshole.

“Don’t make me miss you, Cap.” It’s subtle. If Steve doesn’t pick up on Tony trying to tell him that he’s vibing on the suicidal thread shooting through their interactions, that’s all right.

He feels like he's seeing a side of Tony he didn't know existed. Which is not that surprising; they've spent a lot of time working together, but Steve knows they're both very guarded. He would be the first to insist he did and does think of Tony as a friend, but there have been some pretty rugged barriers between them, too, among them pride, history, and a few conflicting personality traits.

He's consistently underestimated Tony, or at least mis-estimated him, Steve thinks. Not his intellect or his stubbornness, this time, not his analysis or his physical strength, but maybe his kindness and sensitivity. And his perceptiveness.

In short, Dad Mode is new, and that gentle note in his voice is new, too, and something in Steve cracks and shifts and he feels a sudden, wild desire to just...confess everything, cry and beg for forgiveness or...something. He doesn't even know what, but it hits him hard enough to take his breath away for a long moment.

"I'm too old for this bullshit," he chokes out a moment later, and it's clearly meant to be funny, even if it comes out a little stilted. "But, um. Yes. If you wanna keep trying, I'm with you. I-i hear you."

“You’re too old for everything, Grandpa,” Tony says to remind Steve that he is well aware of his age and how stupid it is that he even brought it up. Tony is nearly twice Steve’s actual age and while he hadn’t fought in wars or been sick and poor for the majority of his life, he sort of literally is too old for any of this. At least his dad gave him some good genes, though Tony is pretty sure most of the thanks goes to his mother.

“What I said about letting things out— I’m right. I’ve been through a lot of therapy in my life. You’ve got to figure out a way to work that stuff off.” Tony is my no means suggesting that Steve work it off with him. But punching stuff seemed to have helped at least a little and working towards a goal is something they can both get behind as a form of release. “I’m going to need you level headed for this, for as long as it takes.”

And that will be the end of that discussion.

Besides, Steve will have some time to himself. When they return, Bruce and a talking raccoon are back at the compound and Tony gets to work making new enemies and catching up with old friends as they put their heads together to figure out how to turn the Ant Man suit into a time traveling device.

There are only a few explosions, and two heated shouting matches followed by death threats, but before the following day is over, Tony is ready to fill everyone in on what they’ve come up with.

It gives Nat the time she needs to finally sit with Steve, too, should he need that shoulder to cry on.

Tony gathers the group individually, or rather, he follows the familiar halls in one of the buildings on the compound to a room he had been in many, many times. It had been left like a shrine, like parents do for dead children. He hadn’t wanted to touch anything, save for flipping through sketch books when drunk.

And maybe putting an Iron Man bobble head on the window sill.

“Cap? Are you decent? I’ve been through too much to have myself emasculated by your nakedness,” Tony says, knocking on the door.

They're both too old for this, in Steve's opinion, in their various ways. Tony's physical age is older, but there is something to be said for the time-displaced mentality. Steve has adjusted fairly well to cultural trends, but that doesn' t mean he doesn't still feel lost on a regular basis. The surreality of where he started and where he's ended up still gets to him. It's nothing anyone could have predicted, least of all a poor artist from Brooklyn.

"I'm trying," he tells Tony, and opts not to elaborate, for now. Everything is raw and too-present, and if he lets himself get worked up here it will make for a horribly long plan ride home. But really, what better can he say? Steve's always tried, always trying, and on the rare occasions he doesn't succeed, it isn't through lack of determination.

It's just that trauma is so insidious. Depression is so quiet. An ailment that saps an indefatigable will is hard to combat. But he's far from over, and when he smiles at Tony, there's an element of honesty in it. A secret shared, a promise that he's down but not out. Not yet.

He is of course no help whatsoever in working out how to alter the Ant Man suit, but he hangs around behind the scenes for a couple hours anyway, to make sure no one gets bitten, punched, or otherwise injured. Rocket's temper rivals that of humans several times his size. It's obvious from the way Steve reacts that the little furry guy is growing on him, though. Small, mouthy, potentially doomed to a short and uncomfortable life--there are some obvious parallels between him and Steve's past self. Still, he does his best to operate as a conflict mediator rather than choosing sides. Choosing sides hasn't worked out well in the past.

It's Natasha that undertakes to drag him away and talk him into eating and resting, mostly by convincing him he's getting on the nice mad scientists' nerves, let them do their work. She's gotten very clever at Steve-wrangling these last few months, and gets him talking the quickest way she knows how: asking his advice about how she should approach Banner. She in no way needs it, but as a ploy, it works. The catharsis is quiet and incomplete, but it's there.

"I'm wearing my favorite chicken costume, you won't feel emasculated," he calls back when Tony knocks. "It's unlocked."

In point of fact, he's in sweatpants and a sleeveless black shirt, and he hasn't shaved or cut his hair but he looks much cleaner otherwise. There are a couple light scars on his bare arms that weren't there before. They're probably from the recent battles; his skin will swallow them up in time, leaving no visible external marks. The only scars he's held onto since the serum are from bullet wounds.

He's been looking through the old sketchbooks. The one open on his lap has a new doodle of the bobblehead in it, in progress.

"I'm keeping that," he tells him seriously. He's put Redwing on the windowsill next to it. Sam wouldn't mind. Tony made the drone for him in the first place.

Chicken suit? Tony’s pretty sure that Steve’s cracked. He opens the door slowly, peeking in, only to be disappointed by the lack of fluffy yellow feathers. Unless that crazy beard counts.

There’s evidence of dishes and a few crushed water bottles, evidence that Steve hadn’t entirely been alone for most of the day. That does a lot to make Tony feel better still. If Steve Rogers crumbles, then there’s probably no hope for the rest of them and that scares Tony to even think about.

He decides that the clean space on the low dresser is good enough for a seat and Tony perches there, glancing down at what Steve’s sketching. It’s an old book, and Tony knows the orders of the drawings in there by heart. His gaze wanders over to the window sill and he smirks. “If I would have known that, I’d have outfitted it with a camera and a recording device,” he comments. “Rhodey and I have a bet going on if you actually need to sleep or not.”

He's not here to poke fun, though.

“FRIDAY’s finished her inventory. There’s more world leaders still around than what statistcs would have told us. Not sure if I’m relieved or annoyed.” He doesn’t bring up Pepper. “Not that I’m looking for permission for what we’re about to do. Ready, or do you want a second to put on some socks?”

He would have gone with 'bunny outfit', but that would have been asking for innuendo.

"I only need about ten hours a week, based on how I operate in the field," he says, blowing graphite dust off the page and then setting the sketchbook aside. He's got one pencil in his hand and another tucked behind his ear, like an absentminded schoolteacher. "As long as I have enough food, anyway. Which is great when I'm working but not so much during downtime."

It's incredibly frustrating to be up alone night after night.

He frowns thoughtfully. "Relieved or annoyed might depend on which world leaders we're talking about. If T'Challa hadn't died, we would all be in better shape. And he'd be all for this plan."

He wants to ask about Pepper, about Happy, but the fact that Tony hasn't brought them up is telling. He doesn't want confirmation of his guess, here. Rather than ask, he gets up and grabs not only socks and shoes, but also a hooded sweatshirt with the old Brooklyn Dodgers logo on it."Where are we going, and who's coming with us?"

“Just us.” Tony’s eyes follow the graphite as they fall from the page, his mind actually wrapped up in Steve’s confession. He’d been joking. He had no idea that Steve didn’t sleep. He had no idea that he himself actually got more sleep than someone else here. He knows that Vision hadn’t been one for sleep, and he’s always had an inkling that Banner rarely slept either, but he’d thought that the latter had just been part of the tortured genius syndrome he himself suffers from.

Banner had to have more PTSD than Tony did, even if he rarely shows it because those teddy bear smiles of his.

Tony finds himself leaning back, though the lampshade pushes against his shoulder blades as he crosses his arms. He tries to be mindful of making a mess, since they don’t need anything else to break honestly, enough so that he doesn’t mention his own lack of ability to sleep. It does, however, dawn on him that he needs a new boxing instructor since Happy seemed to be a pile of dust right now. Maybe he can mention it if they get stick in some Doctor Who-like Time loop.

“In case we don’t make it back, Banner and Thor’s pet bunny rabbit are going to have second and third chances. I was going to see if Rhodey will come with me for the first shot, but you’re better at keeping me on the rails.” And Steve needs this, Tony knows that intimately. He needs the task and, most importantly, he needs the win.

Partly it's just that Steve's metabolism is a full-speed freight train. He's hardly invincible, but he's designed for stamina and strength. The nightmares don't help, granted, but he wasn't looking for sympathy. He genuinely gets by on the amount of sleep he gets, most of the time, provided there's work to do, and it was useful during the war.

Why have they never had slumber parties, anyway? PTSD parties. They all have bad nights. Steve could have made popcorn and cocoa.

Meanwhile, Steve pulls the sweatshirt over his head, which dislodges the pencil behind his ear, and he looks comically confused as it drops to the floor out of nowhere. He picks it up and tosses it onto the table, then scoops up the bag that houses his battered combat suit and slings it over his shoulder. Stealthy, it is not, even with the bright parts scraped and sanded down.

"Better send Romanoff with Rocket. She won't be left behind, one way or another." He worries his lip.

"Are you sure I'm the one to keep you on the rails?" As soon as he says it, he realizes Tony has a point. Rhodes would be as good an option, maybe, but Banner is awfully good at taking a cue from Stark and following along, he and Natasha don't trust one another well, and apparently he doesn't get along with small furry animals.

"...I'll be sure to bring you back in one piece."

As big as Steve is, he sort of lumbers, despite how graceful he makes it look. Each movement is more like a dance. Even just watching him walk is sort of a spectacle, and not because his elbows can’t touch his sides due to the size of his biceps. Tony has no problem admiring the guy as he scoops up the pencil and his bag, but he smirks the moment Steve looks his way again. “Leave your smelly gym bag here,” he commands, standing up from his perch on the dresser. “FRIDAY, ship out Bay 19. You can just leave it on the South Lawn for now.”

Peter’s not the only Avenger, past, present or future that Tony’s designed for. And as the need has risen for the two of them to do something stupid, they pretty much need to guarantee their ability to stay quantumly linked together. It’s far easier to do so encased in metal and Tony’s already created a harness to ensure that neither of them will tumble off into oblivion.

It’s not like they’ve had the chance or the ability to really test this thing, after all, they FRIDAY is hard at work replicating the original design in case the others need to have a shot at fixing the universe.

There are a bunch of tired, weary faces gathered in the main conference room and Tony points to an empty chair before he gestures to the wall where a screen has been projected showing a floating schematic of the device he’d been working on for the last several hours. Much of the text will mean nothing to Steve and Tony doesn’t try to explain it. He’s delving right into mission control here.

“Cap and I are going to link up through FRIDAY, but I’m pretty sure that the connection is going to break the moment we complete the field that this device here will generate. Our first designated stop is 2012, just prior to the Battle of New York. We’re going head to where Fury had been testing the Tesseract and destroy it before Loki can show up. Easy peesy, back before lunch.”

If only there was footage of him running down the street right after the serum, how he lost control of his own speed and crashed through a shop window--without getting cut by the glass. Tony would laugh and laugh. So would Bucky.

"No tactical gear?" Steve raises an eyebrow at the command, but it says something that he puts it back down without question. He trusts Tony and his planning ability, and follows him down the hall to the conference room like a trusting little lamb.

He slumps into his chair and gives the others a nod and a grim smile, but doesn't speak, letting Tony debrief them. Except that he immediately has several questions. "What do you mean by 'link up', exactly? And do we have a plan to destroy the stone?"

Because Wanda isn't an option in this time period, and she wouldn't have been given her powers yet at the time Tony's suggesting. That, and she might only have been able to hold sway over the Mind Stone.

"That's a long way back, Stark," Natasha speaks up. "Suppose that causes some of us to never meet?"

“Gear’s outside,” Tony promises, leaning on the table with one hand, fingers splayed. Bruce tries his best to explain the technicalities behind being linked, throwing all sorts of pseudonyms out for it, but it just seems to confuse everyone. Tony lets him finish though, amused at how many times he needs to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

It’s cute. He even says it, but no one takes him seriously. Tony manages to insult and flirt with everyone so much that it’s impossible to really know when he’s being genuine.

“If some of us never meet, at least we’ll all be alive,” Tony says.

He’d rather not know Peter and still have him in this world.

“We know that the Tesseract is the space stone. And we know that the scepter is the mind stone. We have enough information on the former to craft a weapon to destroy it,” Tony eventually continues, only to have Thor drop his axe on the table with a thud.

“Only one worthy may lift this, friend Stark,” Thor boasts. “It is why I must attend to this task with you.”

But Tony shakes his head in response. “Rogers lifted your last sword in the stone just fine,” he says, well aware that there will be shock all around for that.

Steve had been such a good sport, playing it off like he couldn’t move the hammer. But Tony is no fool. And it’s gotten harder and harder over the years to trick him.

Thor turns one blue and one brown eye towards Steve with a frown. “Does Stark tell the truth?”

"Will we?" Natasha frowns. "Even if the Chitauri invasion is stopped in its tracks, they'll still be out there. So will a lot of other fires we put out."

"I think," Steve tells her, "this is going to involve a lot of trial and error. If Tony and I succeed and come back and you're all wearing cute little HYDRA uniforms, we'll know we have to try again."

This is about as arrogant as a group of human beings can get, and Steve knows it. They think they can change a few things and get a better outcome, but there is no way to track the ramifications of their actions (well, maybe Strange could have, but he's not here right now), and once they get started on this, they've made their bed and will have to lie in it, no matter what. No one in the room has pointed this out. No one in the room is going to point this out. Half the life in the universe really is enough for them to throw caution to the wind.

The fact that Steve and Tony are on the same side of this argument seems to be enough for Natasha. She nods slowly, misgiving still written on her face, but she's with them, and in for both a penny and a pound.

Steve, for his part, would rather invite Thor along than have this particular secret aired right here and now. He actually pales when Tony brings it up, eyes widening. "How--" he begins, "You saw--?"

And then there's no point denying it. He looks at Thor helplessly. "What the hell would I want to rule Asgard for? And we didn't need the complications. I felt it move and I stopped trying to lift it. But, Tony...that was a while ago. People change."

“People change. But not you,” Tony says with a stubbornness that is both legendary and horrendously annoying. He embraces both equally.

He doesn’t really want to get involved with the argument about what may or may not happen in their new future. The Chitauri will have no reason to come here if Thanos doesn’t. But if he’s hell bent on taking out half of each world he visits anyway and does show up, then the Avengers will all be in place to take care of him.

Loki will still be with Thanos and cause Thor to come back to Earth. Natasha and Barton will be in operation with SHIELD. Steve will be awake... and for he and Steve, their memories won’t change. If they live through this and they choose to keep the new future they create, then they will undoubtedly be relics, left overs in a world where they already exist.

But that’s all right. Peter will be alive, a snot nosed kid that Tony evidently met at some point dressed in an Iron Man costume. And Bucky— Well they can do that over, rescue him before he’s sent after Fury.

It will be fine. Tony demands that it will.

Right now, they need to focus on the damned axe that one demigod is looking hurt over and Steve is being too modest about. Tony tilts his head towards Steve. If there’s one man in the world you can always bet on, it’s Captain Lumberjack.

"Despite all evidence to the contrary," Steve can't hold back the mild snark, "I am a person, not the embodiment of the American Dream."

The sarcasm bodes well for this venture. It's a return to some form of normality between him and Tony--although maybe better than their previous normality, because at least they understand one another a little bit better now.

"I'm sorry," he tells Thor. "I should stick to honesty, huh? It's usually my comfort zone. Can't blame me for freaking out, though, right?"

He stands up at Tony's cue, and it still looks like touching the axe is the absolute last thing he wants to do. "It's better if you stay here and keep an eye on your people," he tells Thor, "but I'm not touching it unless you give me permission. Rocket told me what you went through over it."

The raccoon, meanwhile, just rolls his eyes. "Pal, if I could pick it up, I'd take it. But if you lose it, I will personally rip off your nutsack and shove it up your--"

"That hardly seems necessary, Rabbit," Thor interrupts, and makes an invitational gesture to Steve. "Steven is a friend."

"Yeah, well, that axe has Groot's old arm attached, so I got a right."

Steve glances at Tony 'just like old times?', and grasps the wooden handle of the weapon. It comes up easily when he hefts it, no heavier in his grasp than an ordinary axe, and no one looks too surprised at this point. "We'll get the rest of Groot back for you," he tells Rocket, and clasps Thor's arm with his free hand.

"Thank you."

Just barely holding his tongue, Tony internalizes a comment about putting the ‘arm’ in ‘arms.’ He vaguely recalls mention of a tree person being recently dead and joking over anyone whose fate had been decided in a cosmic coin flip is something even Tony won’t do on his most tasteless day. Getting along is a priority, because their chances of success are incalculable. In the engineer’s book, that skews them towards the notch right about Impossible on the scale of probability. Banner had suggested that there was no telling if opening up the quantum level of reality would do anything more than create a black hole and end their neck of the woods the moment Tony pressed the button.

They had all immediately decided not to bring up the potential. Either they attempted to Avenge their colleagues or they go about rebuilding.

‘Rebuilding’ had more or less been thrown off the list with pitchforks and torches.

With Steve grasping the axe, Tony leaves the room. Rocket jumps off of the table to follow and the rest filter out behind them, Thor taking up the rear. There’s more conversation on the way out to the lawn, mostly voices raising questions that couldn’t be answered fully, and though Rhodey does attempt to dissuade Tony from this course of action, Tony can do nothing but hug him. It lasts too long (though it’s no where near the embrace they had shared when Rhodey found him wandering around the wilderness in Afghanistan) and when Rhodey pulls back, there’s a heartbroken look on his face from whatever it was that Tony had whispered against his ear.

Waiting for the group is a set of armor much larger than the Iron Man power suit that they’re all used to. This one is jet black with navy accents and a shadow embossed star surrounded by three concentric rings on the chest radiating from the arc reactor set within the metal. It’s obviously made to Steve’s specifications. Tony had been busy over the years.

He pulls the prototype of the nanotech reactor from his pocket and slips it around his neck. One touch and a more familiar armor forms around him. “Banner?” Tony’s voice is metallic, projected from the helmet as FRIDAY boots up the HUD. “You’ve got the tether cord?”

The scientist holds up a short piece of rectangular plating with clamps meant to attach one reactor to the other. Part of Scott’s suit has been welded to the center.

“Then we’re good to go.”

See, working for the greater good flies out the window when you start considering the possibility you might create a singularity and destroy spacetime itself. It's for the best that no one mentions this to Steve. He would probably go ahead with it anyway, but he doesn't need the additional tension in his life.

It's not until they're halfway across the lawn that it hits him that this is a one-way trip, no matter how you slice it, and he pauses in his tracks. It may look like he's just studying the armor Tony's set up, but he's not really seeing much of anything that's actually in front of him. He's seeing the nose of an aircraft tearing through fluffy white clouds as it plummets toward the arctic sea.

"Steve?" Natasha puts her hand on his elbow, and he shakes himself out of it.

"I'm all right." He smiles weakly, then gives in and hugs her. Thor gets an armclasp, next, and then a few uncertain fist-bumps are exchanged between him and the others.

He comes to stand beside Tony, eyeing the armor that's apparently for him with blended awe and trepidation. "It's beautiful," he tells Tony. He'll ask whens and whys later.

He's going to need some kind of direction, though, if he's meant to get into the suit.

Of course it was a one way trip. The people here, standing with them, will either cease to exist as they are now or will potentially carry on with their loved ones gone and the world in shambles if realities happen to break off and diverge. Tony isn’t up to date on his multi world theory but Bruce had filled him in a little while they worked.

Tony doesn’t know if the majority of the remaining Avengers understand that, but he knows that they would all give their lives for the cause.

Tony hadn’t just suggested Steve as his copilot because they’re trying to mend fences or behind he’s physically stalwart either. He chose Steve because he’s the most capable of keeping it together. There are cracks in the foundation, sure, but the building is still sound.

Besides, Steve understands better than anyone the power of true loss. And he’s the most adaptable person on the planet, whether that’s through design or birth, he’s not sure, but it doesn’t make it less true.

For a moment, Tony is left running preliminary baseline scans in the background of his HUD screen and staring at Steve as he stops. The faceplate of the helmet dissolves away. “Uh. Cap? Technically we have as long as you want but—“

Oh. Tony takes for granted how his tech works. It’s user friendly, obviously, if Rhodey, Pepper, and Banner have all piloted his armor, but Steve has trouble with the XBox. “Just walk closer. It will open and you can just step in through the back.”

FRIDAY brings the armor around the Captain and greets him merrily as she powers on his HUD. The rest is intuition mixed with mechanical know-how. The AI assists him in how to use the armor, how to access data and scans through eye and voice control, and how to let his mind move the machine as it would his body for optimum results. “We have spent a long time analyzing your movements so this armor should be easy for yah to get along with. The Boss has also installed a shield component if yah like. Cross your forearms in front of your chest to activate it. But nae now. We’re ready to get yah on yah way.”

Tony had already moved into place by then, face to... well. Chest... with Steve. He just hopes that the tether is long enough.

Steve isn't prepared to cope with realities diverging. It would mean, inevitably, abandoning the living, as far as he's concerned, and as much as he wants Bucky and Sam back, Natasha has given him a hell of a lot. She's also the most resilient person he's ever known; he has no doubt she'll adapt to whatever reality they make, but he can't pretend he's not feeling some very real grief in the face of departure.

"...take care of each other," he adds, like he can't stand not to have some kind of final goodbye, even when he's pretending it's not a big deal. Just another mission. "Till we get back."

No making dance dates this time.

Rocket is the best equipped to break the tension. "Yeah, yeah, we'll be here to pull your asses out of the fire when you screw up. Get goin'."

Steve and technology don't blend well. He's competent with his phone, and anything he really wants to learn how to work, he will, but like many old people he has a minor mental block for devices he doesn't feel are his business. Tony's armor has, up until now, been one of these. Now it's going to have to be Steve's business, though, so he steps up and into the suit with a looks of visible trepidation.

It's far less uncomfortable than he feared, although there's a moment of claustrophobia until he discovers how easy it is to move around and let the armor move with him. "FRIDAY? I never mentioned this before but your accent sounds just like my mom's did when she was really ticked off with me."

That's a good basis for a human-AI relationship, right? He picks up Stormbreaker again, carefully, then peers through the mask at Tony. "This is going to be really counter-intuitive for me; you get that, right? I'm grateful, just keep in mind there's gonna be a learning curve."

Tony, you get to be mama bird for a Steve duckling today.

"But I'm ready. Let's do this."

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Hope the time skip is all right.

absolutely!

Re: absolutely!

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