Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The early days passed by so quickly that Toni had to stop herself to wonder whether or not they had existed at all. For someone with only two friends in the world- before the Avengers- Steve had clicked into place in Toni’s life with as little trouble as Captain America could, and between curling around him late at night or beating the nightmares away in the gym Toni began to realize that maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

                Of course she could remember a time before him; she would never forget the cold childhood and the even colder years following the car accident, or the hurt in Rhodey’s eyes every time he dragged her out of a frat party and- later in life- her own wine cellar, the way Pepper’s mouth became a thin line whenever she had to escort Toni’s reporter of the month out of the house in the morning. But somehow Steve made all of those memories as remote and distant as his own war, seventy years earlier. She could afford to drown in his blue eyes because they both had scars, so they didn’t flinch away when they touched each other.

                Sometimes, however, both were reminded that they still had a lot to learn about the other. Steve’s choice for a day trip proved that.

                Toni’s date night the week before had been to a bowling alley, where she had proceeded to complain about Steve’s serum-enhanced bowling skills, ask if it would be publically inappropriate to bowl with an Iron Man gauntlet on, and re-wire the scoreboard to give her 1,000,000 strikes and change Steve’s screen name to Queen Frostine. Steve had apologized profusely to those around them, but for Toni it was a lesson in learning how to get him to lighten up, and Toni thought it had been a success.

                That, of course, meant that it was Steve’s turn to choose an activity.

STSTSTSTSTST

The Museum of Modern Art didn’t exactly seem like Steve’s type of art- from what she’d seen, he preferred pencils or charcoal, maybe chalk, but nothing extremely colorful or modern like the riotous paintings and sculptures in the MoMA. Still, it was where he wanted to go so they took the subway- “No, Toni, we are not taking the suit to a museum,”- and entered, and Toni let herself tune out as Steve did his art thing.

                After a while she zoned back in, watching the way his eyes lit up as he talked all about the modern artists he’d researched, how exciting it was to have so many places devoted simply to art when back in his day he’d been struggling with a WPA job making PSA posters and ads, had never dreamed of a career of pure creative bliss. Toni squeezed his arm as they walked, a smile toying on her lips- he didn’t sound bitter at all, even though she knew he could be. He just sounded… happy, and that was a nice change, as nice as the first time they’d told each other about the nightmares, and he’d let her make him a Captain America suit even though he didn’t need one, because he knew she worried. He still hadn’t used it, of course, but it made her feel good knowing the protection was there.

                Steve’s favorite part of the museum, aside from the charcoals and simple human sketches, was the temporary Chihuly installation, on loan from the Chichuly Garden and Glass museum in Seattle. The great glass chandeliers speared from the ceiling in a melody of color, the lights shining through them painting the rooms serene blue or dappled green, and around each corner there was a new expanded masterpiece, like something from a coral reef or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

                Toni didn’t get art, she had very little appreciation for it unless it had her face on it, but Steve’s enthusiasm was enough for her to hold on, and even she had to admit that- were they for sale- she would have bought a Chihuly then and there for the tower. Instead she contented herself with winding her fingers through his and trying not to say something stupidly offensive about people who drew naked models for a living.

                She’d spied on too many of Steve’s varied drawings to still be ignorant of the fact that he was good enough to draw anything he wanted and make it look like Da Vinci, and if his new art class happened to feature model drawing, then, he make all of them look like angels. He was generous like that.

STSTSTSTSTST

Hours later after they split up to wander, she traced back her steps to find her wayward Captain. She found him in the sculpture garden but he wasn't there, not really. He was a million miles away in Nazi Germany, or Italy, or a train the Alps, his back straight like he was at attention but he looked too anxious for it to be a good memory.

Brooklyn, maybe, before the war. All the drawings inside might have woken some bad memories, and Toni's feet sped up a little at the thought of Steve out here alone with nothing but him and his ghosts. Her converse smacked the worn stone paths of the garden, breaking the serenity of the place, the held-breath feeling it gave Toni when she saw the way Steve's shoulder, inexplicably, slumped.

When she rounded the corner and saw his profile, his eyes, she realized something more. He looked sad.

STSTSTSTSTST

A breeze rippled across the clear glass water of the pond, reflecting the climbing spires of the sculptures in its surface. Steve's fingers curled around the front of the smooth white stone bench where he was sitting, clenching but not hard enough to grind into the seat that was a work of art in and of itself. He had too much respect for that, but somehow he couldn't breathe quite right until he felt Toni slide down beside him.

"You ok?" she asked, fingers sliding up his shoulder and messaging the tenseness out of him.

"Yeah," he said, but his gaze was distant as it surveyed the sculpture garden. Twisting spires of multicolored glass grew into the air, surrounded on the ground by creeping emerald plants and vibrant flowers that stood out like paint spatters against the smooth white stone of the benches and pathways and fountains. It was a stark contrast to the colorlessness of the museum interior but somehow less peaceful, despite the bright sunlight and gentle breeze carding through his hair.

"You don't look ok," Toni murmured. That was when he realized that it was her combing through his hair, pushing back the blond locks that were growing out past military standard but he hadn't cut yet because Toni said she liked it. "Come on, Steve- talk to me."

There was something painful in his chest, constricting like an asthma attack but he knew he was seventy years beyond that.

"You have that look in your eyes that tells me you're not even in this century," Toni said, an odd hitch in her voice. "Wake up, Capsicle. Earth to Steve."

                “Huh? Sorry,” he still had that glazed look in his eyes, but it was fading as he looked at her and he felt her hand on his shoulder squeeze. “I was… lost in thought, I guess.”

                “I’m the only walking disaster around here who can use clichés,” Toni joked, but the seriousness never left her eyes. “Say something, or I’ll start making arm puns.”

                That got a small chuckle out of him- Bucky had been home for a few weeks now and his teammates were merciless with their jokes about his arm, but Steve took it as a good sign that he was beginning to take them gracefully. Which was to say, without choking people.

                “It’s just strange,” Steve said haltingly, reaching into his pocket and taking out his sketchbook, turning it over in his hands. “I haven’t drawn in so long, and being here just… I don’t know.”

                He looked down, and then over at her, smiling weakly although his hands tightened imperceptibly on his sketchbook.

                “We can stay a little longer if you want,” Toni offered, even though it was late afternoon and they’d been there a ridiculously long time already. “You can sketch a little.”

                Steve shook his head. “Nah, I don’t want to bore you. I know you aren’t into this stuff.”

                “Come on-”

                “Besides, don’t you have a PR thing to do for Pepper?” he asked, and Toni groaned dramatically.

                “Ugh, yes. Stark Industries wants to have an Iron Man citing at the new arc reactor rectory launch, something about positive press and the Avengers being associated with helping the world instead of destroying it, á la S.H.I.E.L.D.’s demise. But it can wait, Steve- today is a you day.”

                “No, you should go,” he said, squeezing her hand reassuringly. “You don’t want to upset Pepper, besides, I’ll be fine here for a while.”

                Toni sighed, realizing that maybe Steve just wanted to be with himself for a while. Besides, Pepper was counting on her. Rising, she gave Steve’s hair one last affectionate ruffle and kissed him deeply on the lips.

                Then she walked away, leaving him alone on the bench, and tried not to look back.

STSTSTSTST

Steve ate alone in the museum café, surrounded by beautiful paintings and glass light sculptures and enough food before him to feet three people, but somehow it sad hollow and cold in his stomach.

                After that he drifted out of the café, wandering the halls of the museum with a listless expression on his face, practically blind to what he was seeing. People noticed him- he was Captain America, even without the shield- but somehow none of them dared to approach, seeing the old wounds clear on his face and recalling fleetingly what all of the articles and textbooks were saying nowadays. Steve Rogers is a veteran, he has scars. So they let him be, even the little girl who almost screamed on sight before her mother gently held her back with a hand on her arm.

                “Captain Rogers needs to be left alone, honey,” the young mother murmured as she knelt down eye-level to her daughter, watching Steve from the corner of her eye as he stared up at a massive splatter painting. “He has some thinking to do, and we don’t want to disturb him.”

                The girl nodded solemnly, all of her energy held in pursed lips, a serious expression for a child of her age. She allowed herself to be led away, but as they went, her Mary Jane’s smacking against the floor, she couldn’t help but look back at the lonely figure of America’s ghostlike dream, framed now against the massive sheet of a black and white charcoal picture of New York’s alleys. She wished she could tell him not to be so sad, but then her mother urged her on and Steve was left to anonymity.

                Steve didn’t have bad days often; in fact, they were finally becoming an anomaly instead of the norm, but he could feel some ethereal wind cutting through his jacket even though it was July and it made him shiver. Walking along the crowded streets mindlessly with his hands shoved into his pockets, Steve tried not to think about the WPA, or the war, or the multitudes of sketchbooks S.H.I.E.L.D. had recovered from storage after he woke up, saying that Peggy insisted all of his things be saved. They were seventy years old and the pages were fading yellow, the drawings ghosts from another lifetime, but they still sat by his bed instead of the new ones that were barely halfway full.

                Eventually he knew he didn’t want to go back to the tower, but he needed someplace quiet, so he turned off the street and wandered aimlessly through Central Park. The green was comforting, and in the pockets of silence he decided he would try to sketch for a little while, but it was inevitable that someone would recognize him. Several impromptu photoshoots later and an inspirational talk to a little boy and his sister, Steve was even more worn out than he had been before.

                It was getting dark and as he looked up at the hazy stars, shut out by the light of the city that never sleeps, Steve briefly considered going back to the museum. The curator had said he was welcome to stay past closing, but he had just thanked her and slipped out a few minutes before the doors were locked, sketchbook closed in his pocket.

                No, Toni would probably be wondering where he was, and it wasn’t as though he was actually going to draw anything good enough to bother keeping. The wind caught his sigh as he turned onto one of the paths and headed for the tower.

STSTSTSTSTST

Toni pretended that she was still asleep when she heard the door to the room slide open, emitting the soft glow of hallway light before Steve’s massive frame blocked it out. She was facing away from the door, slatted eyes staring blankly at the far wall as the sound of clothing dropping to the floor reached her ears, and the memory foam mattress dipped, sliding her backwards just a little on the bed.

                Steve’s breath was warm on her cheek when he leaned over her and gave her a soft kiss, lips brushing against her skin like feathers. As soon as he tried to lean away, however, Toni turned and wrapped her arms around his neck, kicking the covers away from her so that she could wrap both legs around his waist, hanging partially beneath him as he looked at her in shock. In the dark his hair was shadowed gold and his blue eyes were wide, staring down at the sudden extra weight as she laughed and kissed him again, this time deeper.

                “You ok?” she asked against his lips, an echo of her earlier query, and he shook his head as he gently lowered her so that her back was touching the bed again, shifting so he was holding himself up with his elbows on either side of her.

                “I will be,” he said. She slipped her legs off of him and shoved gently at his shoulders. Following her cue, he rolled off of her and let her wiggle on top of him, her arc reactor pressing against his body.

                “How about now?” she asked, kissing him over his heart. She could feel him shake with the weight of his muffled laughter and, significantly encouraged, moved farther up, tracing her hands along his arms as she trailed a line of kisses up his chest and past his collarbone, one at the base of his throat where she bit him lightly. 

                “I know, I know, you aren’t used to that kind of stuff yet,” she said, voice muffled against his skin. He practically melted into the bed when she nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, taking a deep breath; he smelled like Central Park and car exhaust, and that quiet, musty stillness that lingered around museums.

                “It’s fine,” he said, and she shivered involuntarily, back curling up as he let his fingers dance up her spine. She shoved her head into his chin to show her disapproval but he just laughed harder. She heard the tired sigh beneath his happy sound, and finished her kissing trail on both his cheeks.

                “Goodnight, Toni,” he said, arm growing heavy on her waist as she rolled off of him and shoved herself closer, their legs tangling beneath the sheets.

                “‘Night Steve,” she replied, letting her eyes fall closed only once his fluttered shut. Then she ran her hands along his face, fingers tracing the contours and lines, and she kissed his eyelids gently.

                He sighed deeper this time, and she knew he was asleep.

STSTSTSTSTSTST

When she woke up the next morning, the bed was empty, and she only knew that because she was cold. For a guy who got stuck in icy water for over half a century, Steve was surprisingly warm, radiating enough heat that Toni barely ever needed her covers at night. Due to her tendency to spread out across the whole bed she didn’t realize that there was more space than there should have been, just that there were goosebumps on her legs and there most definitely should not have been.

                “Steve?” she mumbled, turning over and pressing her face into the pillow to shut out the light streaming through the window. “Steve!”

                No answer.

                She let out a noise that sounded vaguely like a choking elephant and hauled herself up, pushing her wildly tangling dark hair out of her face and staring over at Steve’s side of the bed. It was empty, but on his pillow flipped open to a random cream white page, was his sketchbook.

                Toni dragged herself across the bed, sitting up on her knees and dragging the small moleskin towards her to better make out the dark lines making dashing marks across the page. It was a riot of drawings, doodles of the glass sculptures from MoMA, the fountain from the sculpture garden bubbling gently in the bottom corner of the page, a little girl wearing a Captain America dress holding her mother’s hand as they walked along the left-hand side of the page, upwards towards a cluster of sandwich rappers lying dejected by a Central Park trashcan. And in the middle of it all, slightly smudged but grinning brightly in front of the photography section of the museum.

                It had been showing off superheroes in modern art, and a few up-and-coming photographers had submitted pictures they’d taken from all around the country that had to do with superheroes like the Avengers and Spiderman. Toni had been particularly captured by the photos taken by Peter Parker, which had been candids of Spiderman lounging on a building’s edge with Starbucks, or Iron Man zipping across the New York skyline. He’d even done pictures of Avengers-themed graffiti, too, and called it “Gods Among Men.”

                In Steve’s sketch she was obscuring the graffiti of the arc reactor that apparently decorated a subway tunnel, her hair pulled back in a messy bun because it was their day off and she hadn’t wanted to bother taming the wild mass. Even though it was in pencil, white and black and shades of grey, she looked absolutely alive, from the way her foot bent in the converse to the title of her head to catch her mouth half-open in a grin; she had been ridiculously proud to hear that people used good spray paint on her and her team.

                Toni’s breath caught in her throat as she ran a finger across the sketch, jaw tightening. She hadn’t even known he was watching her, let alone drawing- he wasn’t a photography kind of guy so she’d just sort of assumed he was sitting on a bench at the exit, not wanting to watch her spazz out over the Avengers having inspired vandalism.

                Unable to stop herself, Toni flipped the page back, wondering what other drawings he had done. She didn’t get out of bed for another twenty minutes.

                There were landscapes, of course- of New York then and now, of what she assumed was the war, the skyline at night. But then there were the people and even though Toni had glimpsed some of the nudes he’d done for his new drawing class she couldn’t comprehend how Steve could work such wonders with just a pencil.

                Peggy Carter, looking radiant both as a young SSR agent and an older woman, Bucky Barnes, who she recognized only because she’d grown up with her dad telling war stories, and because there was a small shrine to Captain America in the picture boxes in their basement. He looked nothing like he did today, with his long Winter Soldier hair and the metal arm, none of the cocky roguishness contained in Steve’s drawings. The other commandos were featured too, and then random strangers at the park or the subway or museums, random snatches of life caught in the curve of a wrist or the flash of a smile.

                Toni didn’t appreciate art, not the way Steve did, not the kind of art he did, but she did appreciate his fleeting smiles and the way their hands fit together, and his endless patience explaining the difference between watercolor and acrylic and shadowing techniques. She appreciated the way his eyes lit up when she padded into the kitchen with his sketchbook and leaned against his back with her forehead against his neck, moaning about how angry she was that he hadn’t told her he was so good because she would have bought him a studio months ago.

                “That’s excessive, Toni,” he said patiently, taking a sip of his orange juice because coffee no longer worked on him. Toni detached herself from him and went over to pour herself a giant mug of caffeine that even put Clint’s to shame, and his blood practically ran with the stuff. “And unnecessary.”

                “Who says that? I don’t,” Toni muttered. “I say Captain America needs a studio because he can’t keep shoving his creative genius into those little notebooks. I’m getting you a studio.”

                “Toni-”

                “Whose name is on this tower?”

                “The Avengers’,” he said, and she scowled at him.

                “Whose name was on this tower?”

                He pretended to think about it for a minute and Toni threw a napkin at him.

                “I’m getting you a studio and buying you new art stuff, and you’re going to help me redecorate the tower- Pepper says that there’s too much… ME, everywhere.”

                Steve pretended not to look very pointedly at the Art Deco Iron Man poster hanging on the dining room wall opposite them.

                “Fine,” he relented at last, but he was smiling good-naturedly as he swiped the sketchbook off the island and tucked it into his pocket. “But there’s something else I need to do, first.”

                “Oh yeah?” Toni glanced suspiciously at him over her coffee cup/soup bowl. “What comes before your girlfriend and the pursuit of tasteful decorating?”

                Steve’s smile was blinding.

                “My girlfriend.”

                Her eyebrows shot up in the air, and she pursed her lips at him. “Excuse me?”

                “I, uh,” suddenly he looked very nervous, setting his glass down and shooting her a glance with furrowed brows. “I was actually wondering if I could draw you.”

                “Do I need to call Bruce to check your eyes?” Toni asked just as Bruce shuffled, yawning, through the kitchen.

                “I’m not that kind of doctor,” he mumbled, sticking his head in the fridge and reemerging with a yogurt. Toni passed him a spoon as he padded out.

                “Hey, go to bed!” she called after him, even though the kitchen clock read 7:00a.m. Bruce stuck up a hand in acknowledgement before disappearing back into the elevator.

                “You’ve already drawn me, Steve,” she said, turning back to her- blushing? - boyfriend. It was a light flush, really, but it only made Toni more curious as to the nature of his request.

                “Just sketches,” he shook his head, swallowing tightly. “I want to be able to do it right, with charcoal- that’s my medium.”

                “Ok then, let’s go get some,” Toni said, setting down her drained cup and pulling out her phone, already planning which tower room to convert into Steve’s shiny new art studio, for all of his artsy needs. Her fingers were buzzing with the energy of a new project, and belatedly she wondered if Pepper would help- she was no good at organizing and it would have to look pretty for Steve-

                “It’s not… just that,” Steve said suddenly, drawing Toni’s gaze back up to him. “I don’t just want to draw you, like in the sketchbook. I’d like to… ah.”

                “Spit it out, boy scout,” Toni frowned, momentarily concerned.

                “I want to draw you like one of the models,” he said breathlessly, face held in an expression of shock and apprehension as though he teetered on the edge of a cliff, and one breath of wind in the wrong direction would send him plummeting down. It took Toni about five seconds to realize what he was talking about, before she had to bite her lip to keep herself from making more inappropriate naked people jokes.

                “T-the ones we use for the class,” he continued, and as he went on he sounded more confident. “If you’re alright with it.”

                “Is Captain America asking to draw me like one of his French girls?” Toni purred, but it came out less sensual and more excited. Steve took a moment to look confused. “Oh, I know what we’re watching for movie night tomorrow.”

                He nodded, as if accepting the fact that he’d missed a cue and would learn all about his humiliation tomorrow. For now, Toni strode forward and grabbed his arm, practically hauling him off his barstool.

                “Now come on, we’re going shopping!”

                “What?”

                “We have a studio to prepare, remember? If you’re drawing me, it’s going to be in style.”

STSTSTSTSTST

There was something strangely intimate about the way she took off her clothes, even though they were dirty and covered in oil and smudged from the garage, and she hadn’t showered in two days and her hair was a knotted mess. Toni reached up to pull out the messy bun, yanking irritably at the elastic band that got caught halfway down, leaving her hair swinging wildly in a sort of manic half-ponytail.

                “Wait, leave it,” Steve said, and when she turned he was staring critically at her hair. She huffed, but let it alone, and moved to stretch out on the long divan that Steve had hauled in from one of the hallways.

                “How do you want me?” she asked as she lounged, on her back but angled towards him with her legs crossed at the ankles, one hand propping her up by pressing into the side of her hair.

                “Angle a little more this way,” Steve said, glancing from her to the giant sketchbook balanced on his knee, one wrist poised with the long, thin black charcoal. It was almost as though he was seeing the picture already on the page, he just had to discover it, to trace her curling hair as it tumbled down her shoulders and her fingers as they curled against her head, the glow of her arc reactor against the pale skin of her body.

                She lifted herself up more, so that she was facing him head-on and her body gradually tapered off into an angle, her head still cocked against her hand and her ankles still crossed, but the posture more relaxed. Steve bit his lip, still studying, so Tony raised her chin just a bit. His smile was distant, his hand already reaching for the paper.

                “Perfect,” he breathed, and then fell silent, so she held her pose.

There were black lines traced across her skin where his fingers touched the page, charcoal marking her as though she were the drawing and he the page, her edges defined by his body as she sank back into the divan and watched him work with an expression of the utmost concentration. Almost an hour had gone by but Toni hadn’t yet felt the urge to move, she was too intent on studying his face, wondering if she could design a new hologram to mimic it the way he copied her in his sketchbook.

When he finally leaned back, hand falling slack against his side, he glanced up at her, a tired, shining light behind his eyes.

“How is it?” she asked, daring to move her lips. He shook his head, looking reluctant to say- she could see his pride warring with his sense of humility. Toni snorted and shook her head, pulling herself up to go and stand behind him, peering over his shoulder at the drawing. 

Something stopped in her throat.

“I love it,” she breathed, because there weren’t any other words.

His eyes were blue and blue as they looked up at her, and his charcoal-black hand left lines on her fingers when he reached up to touch her but she didn’t care.

His voice was a whisper. “I love you.”

Chapter Text

Things couldn’t even stay peaceful long enough for Iron Man and Captain America to have a proper honeymoon. They got four days in Paris before the real Mandarin decided to show himself by attacking U.S. troops overseas and sending the President a direct address, and a monologue that went something like this:

                Blah blah blah I can’t believe you guys fell for that fake Mandarin blah blah America sucks blah he didn’t even have any cool powers but just wait until I show the world what I can do blah blah Avengers I’m coming for you blah you’ll be devastated like never before blah blah Toni Stark-

                And that was about the moment Toni tuned back in.

                “Oh yes,” the man on the screen purred, snakelike eyes roving back and forth as he paced in what appeared to be a thousand-year-old tent. “You’re listening now, aren’t you, Stark?”

                A picture of the sigil of the Ten Rings, black on red painted onto a large flag, flashed across the screen. Toni’s hands tightened compulsively at the image- it was one that had haunted her dreams too many times, and even now conjured images of bullets and screaming and terrorists who would use her to destroy the world.

                Never again, she gritted her teeth, but the “real” Mandarin, unaware of her brief lapse in concentration, drove on.

                “I remember when you were captured- it was all over the news. What a fuss you people make over your warmongers,” he smiled, and it made Toni’s stomach churn. “I’m afraid I owe you an apology for that- those peons who dared to use my symbol did not know the real power behind it. Rest assured I dealt with them severely. The precious few you left alive, that is. I could forgive your lapse into violence, as the Iron Man became a force for peacekeeping rather than devastation, but the incidents of several years ago have not gone unnoticed by me and I’m afraid I can rather have a hard time… letting go, shall we say.”

                He whirled around to change direction, long green and yellow robes swirling behind him, and Toni had a moment to think that he really didn’t look like Trevor at all, with his long black hair and high forehead and the almost too-narrow structure of his face. Regal and terrifying as an ancient warlord, on his hands were ten thick rings, one on each finger, and when he placed his hands together sparks passed between them.

                “This ‘fake Mandarin’ is the final straw, and has inspired me to act at last. It is past time for my plans to go into motion and for humankind to be saved from itself. You see, without order things like Aldrich Killian occur, things like the Chitauri invasion, like a force of unstable heroes banding together and calling each act of destruction ‘heroic.’ No power on this earth can stop me, but if the Avengers lay down their arms and each of the world governments surrenders to me, no more people need die than is necessary. America, for your crimes against humanity and for allowing an imbecil to use my name for acts of terrorism, let the world look to you first as an example. Join me, or each person who dies will be blood on your hands.”

                The Secretary of Defense stopped the video, freezing it on an image of the Mandarin’s expression; no, this was no fanatic. Toni shivered, and Steve squeezed her hand.

                All around the room the Avengers exchanged expressions, ranging from angry, to worried, to determined, before the Secretary of Defense stood and placed both palms on the table in front of him. He looked worn, even for a government official, and for a brief second Toni didn’t blame him- incurring Iron Man’s wrath for calling her home from her honeymoon early was bad enough, but when it was because of something like this?

                “This was streamed directly into the feeds of Air Force One at 2200 last night,” he said grimly. “And less than an hour later, a U.S. military base in the Middle East was destroyed, killing the majority of the men there and even parts of surrounding villages. We have no idea how he hacked our frequencies, or where the bomb came from, only that a threat has been given and we need a response team.”

                “‘Response team’, more like executioners,” Toni snorted, leaning back in her chair and trying to look unconcerned to hide the fact that she may have been on the verge of experiencing a mild to severe anxiety attack. “This guy wants to take over the world and he’s starting with us because, apparently, we slandered his good name. Just say it plainly.”

                The secretary sighed, but didn’t fight back.

                “Mrs. Stark is right. We don’t want him captured, we want him in the ground, and the Avengers are the only ones who can do that. The U.S. government is doing everything they can to locate him, but if this is anything like the false Mandarin attacks last year it won’t be long before he’s attacking us on our own soil and we cannot let that happen. Can we count on you to work with us?”

                Steve looked around at them, took stock, and sighed. Toni surreptitiously slipped her hand out of her chair and wound it around Steve’s waist, and she felt him lean into the contact slightly. He was a soldier, he killed, but sometimes it was still hard to hear the word “execution” and then know that potentially thousands of lives were at risk.

                “We weren’t there to stop the first Mandarin,” he said, crossing his arms. “But we’ll stop this one. It’s what we do, Mr. Secretary.”

                Avenge shit, Toni thought.

                On the screen, the Mandarin was still smiling.

STSTSTSTST

It took less than a month for the Mandarin to move his attacks to U.S. soil, a wave of devastating bombings that the Avengers were only able to police in the fallout. The media was up in arms about their inadequacy, and fourteen other world governments had already contacted them about the Mandarin’s demands of “first America, then the world.” The Avengers were the only thing between the Mandarin and his prize, because he had chosen to make it so.

The longer it went on, the more personal it got, until Toni couldn’t tell the difference between Antonia Stark-Rogers and Iron Man. She was driven- dangerously so, but didn’t see how much it was alarming Steve. 

                The Ten Rings kidnapped her and destroyed her life, and Killian’s fake Mandarin came after her home, the people she loved most, Pepper before the Avengers were there to help her. Nightmares did not begin to cover the scope of fucked-up that her life was because of things related to the Ten Rings and the name Mandarin and now this psycho warlord was dragging her and all of her baggage through the dirt because he wanted to rule the world and decided to make it personal.

                And Toni wouldn’t let it go.

                Not after Bruce tried to get her to meditate instead of making five new suits and accumulating multiple burn-wounds on her forearms because she hadn’t worn gloves.

                Not when Nat said she was worried about Toni’s state of mind and Barton hid all of her alcohol.

                Not when Thor offered to let her beat the shit out of him sparring- she almost said yes.

                Not when Steve-

                Her hand on the welder slipped and the flame arced out at her face, catching a stray curl on fire. She quickly threw a towel over her head to smother the flame, but when she cut off the torch and glanced in the table’s reflective surface she could see the hideously short, singed section of hair right near her cheek. Sweaty hands brushed back her hair and yanked it into a ponytail, dark eyes examining the potential loss of her curls.

                Twenty minutes later her hair was just barely longer than Barton’s and for once in her life she actually looked the part of a female engineer who made things go “boom.” When Steve asked about it later she said that long hair was a hassle when they had people to kill.

STSTSTSTSTSTST

Each attack was another blow to Toni, another wound beneath her skin because she knew it was her fault. She'd dealt with the fake Mandarin and now the real one was pinning every drop of innocent blood on her hands.

When they arrived at the latest bombing sight too late to save any of the thirty-five civilians caught in the blast radius, her voice when she told JARVIS to scan the area could have cut glass. Then she powered up the suit and shot away, rocketing into the sky before Steve could yell her name.

                Back at the tower he found her in her workshop, staring angrily at her wall of suits.

                “Please-”

                And everything bubbled over.

"What good are we?" she yelled, kicking her helmet across the lab where it smacked against the wall and fell with a chorus of clattering. "We're supposed to be the World's. Mightiest. Heroes, and we can't stop a terrorist who wants to kill us and take over the world!"

"Toni-" Steve began, but his voice died in his throat when she whirled around and aimed her gauntlet at his chest. Even though it wasn't powered up the message was clear.

Toni felt a twinge of guilt at the hurt on Steve's face- he still had that kicked-puppy expression down, but this was worse, somehow. She still didn't lower the weapon.

"You can't pep-talk our way out of this one," she said, and each word was poison on her lips, her heart. "Just go."

Straightening, Steve nodded and turned. When his hand was on the lab door he angled back at her, profile silhouetted by the stark hall lights. He wasn't looking at her but she could feel the weight of his attention.

"I love you," he murmured, as if it was the most important thing he'd ever said, like she needed to be reminded and he had to be sure she knew. Then the door swung open, fell shut.

She was alone. She lowered the gauntlet and ran a hand through her boyish hair.

"I love you, too."

She was still using ACDC to blow her eardrums when the next Mandarin alert came.

STSTSTSTSTSTSTS

"I'm tired of the cat-and-mouse you sick bastard!" Toni yelled, fist clenching in the gauntlet as she stared at the screen and resisted the urge to blow it sky-high. On it the Mandarin smiled.

"Someone is growing frustrated," he said. "Have you had enough, Stark? Are you and your compatriots ready to surrender yet?"

"Never," she snarled, and a string of satisfaction curled in her chest as the smile was wiped from his face.

"Then each and every life extinguished in the next attack is your fault and yours alone. There is no one to blame but yourself."

"Keep telling yourself that, but at the end of the day you're pulling the trigger," Toni said, and it was the first time in the last four months that she'd believed it. "And I'm going to kill you for it. Not your bombs, not your minions, you."

"Is that a challenge, Mrs. Stark?" Mandarin asked, and there was something dangerous about the glint in his eyes that Toni should have seen. But there was red in her gaze and even Steve's hand on her arm couldn't make her snap out of it.

Her eyes narrowed. "It's a promise." Then she let her rage loose and fired at the screen with enough power that even after it was reduced to dust the wall around it was burning.

When she turned back to her teammates, they were staring at her, and Steve's face was pale.

"What?" she demanded, crossing her arms. "Don't tell me you enjoyed his monologing."

“No, but it was the first contact we’ve had with him since this whole thing started,” Steve said. “We could have used-”

“It’s done, okay!” Toni yelled, throwing her hands in the air. “I metaphorically just blew up his face and when we see him in person, I’m going to do it literally. Let’s go help some civilians- I’ll reimburse the store for shooting up their one remaining TV.”

Instead of a kicked look this time, Steve just nodded, straightening his shoulders and turning back to the wreckage. There were few people left to help, but the Avengers did what they could to clear the rubble and fly people to medical centers, and Toni analyzed the scene for any clues she could find as to how the Mandarin had done it. There weren’t even traces of extremis.

If her hair had still been long, that was the moment she would have started pulling it out.

STSTSTSTST

“You need to sleep,” Steve said.

                She turned up the music.

                “Toni, this isn’t going to catch him.

                “Running yourself into the ground doesn’t help anyone.

                “I miss you.

                “You’re scaring me.

                “JARVIS, cut music.”

                The silence that fell was deafening and much too loud for Toni’s fragile state of mind.

                “JARVIS, music.”

                “Ignore order.”

                “Um, follow order.”

                “It is in the best interest of Antonia Stark for you to not follow any of her commands at the moment.”

                “Understood, sir. Shall I fetch the other Avengers or is this a private intervention?”

                Toni kicked her chair around, balancing one arm on her workbench as she stared at Steve. She probably looked like hell. He looked perfect, as always.

                “Just give us a minute,” Steve said softly, and the AI’s blue light on the walls blinked out.

                “What?” Toni rasped, voice hoarse from disuse- or screaming, sleeping in the workshop wasn’t the best for keeping away nightmares. Steve stepped closed and into the florescent worklights, which illuminated him from head to toe in all his grey, ratty-pajama glory.

That was when Toni realized that he didn’t look perfect at all. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he was pale, and when he smiled it didn’t reach all of his features, not really. Something new in her chest started to protest at seeing him this way, wanted to turn around and bury herself in analyzing the bomb sights, coming up with new Mandarin-proof armor for each of the Avengers, find a way to cover the world and it keep it safe so she could have just a second to breathe.

                His hands were warm as he cupped her face, and there were tears glimmering on his eyelashes. How long had it been since he slept? He didn’t do well- nightmares, neither of them did. Not without-

                Toni swallowed and it was like a box of nails scoring down her throat.

                Not without each other.

                “Please come to bed,” he murmured against her lips, then kissed her softly. In a way that implied she was breakable but infinitely precious, and for once she didn’t mind. When she brought her hands up onto his arms she left black grease stains but he didn’t seem to care, either. He just kissed her again, and again, her lips and cheeks and eyes and forehead, pressing close until their chests were touching and his arms were wrapped around her.

                Toni buried her head against his shoulder to cover her dry, burning eyes. She breathed in the scent of him and it was like sleep.

                “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I just…”

                “I know,” he soothed, hand rubbing circles in her back. Her eyes were still dry.

                “I love you,” she said, and he didn’t say anything. When she looked up his gaze was riveted on her, a small, sad smile playing around his lips and all at once she was angry because Steve Rogers should never look that sad, should never be in pain dammit, the point was to keep those kinds of demons at bay.

                Their lips met with none of the tenderness Steve had shown, and Toni felt a spark of life in her for the first time in too long.

                “I love you,” she insisted against his lips and his neck and his hands, showering him with affection until he smiled for real and his arms were tight around her.

                “I know.”

                “I’d like to go to sleep now,” she sighed, their foreheads resting together and their eyes fluttering shut. Her hand cradled the back of his neck, other carding softly through his hair.

                “I know.”

                There were no nightmares of the Mandarin that night.

STSTSTSTST

The next morning he struck them at their home base, Avengers Tower, and New York was ravaged again.

                Black-clad men with the Ten Rings symbol flooded the streets as black transport planes descended, the Cult of the Mandarin sent in to neutralize the Avengers threat because they were the only thing standing in the way of the warlord and a cowering country on its last leg. With a flick of his hands the Mandarin brought statues to life, stone soldiers and metal lions and a giant, snarling bull reigning destruction at all corners of the area surrounding the tower.

                People ran and screamed and the air smelled like smoke. Toni didn’t believe in magic but there stood the Mandarin, untouched while the Avengers fought to keep people safe and he just smiled and that was the end for her. While Clint took off guys from the roof and the Hulk and Thor tore through them, Nat and Steve doing what they did best, Toni flew straight for the smug, homicidal maniac watching his good work.

STSTSTSTSTST

Out of the corner of her eye, Toni saw the team grow fuzzy and distant, the city and sounds of battle shut out until all she could hear were muffled blasts and see brightly moving spots of color beyond the Mandarin’s wall of energy. Something told her that going near it was a bad idea, but she still threw out a gauntlet and let loose a bolt at the supervillain, heat flooding her veins.

The warlord deflected it with a lazy flick of his hands, and when it hit the wall it sizzled before dying in a shower of blue sparks- nothing changed. Toni’s hand fell to her side, her eyes narrowing as she took in the Mandarin. Her chest was pounding and she could hear the blood roaring in her ears; she braced herself against the cracked stone for whatever was to come.

STSTSTSTST

“I don’t play well with others.”

Her gauntlet was ripped from her, nearly dislocating her fingers as the Mandarin tore through it like it was paper and flung it aside. She ducked and aimed a shot at his stomach but he was too fast, and his knee in her gut cracked the metal Iron Man plating. It, too, clattered onto the stone.

“Textbook… narcissist? I agree.”

The helmet down, JARVIS voice in her ears growing faint and strained the Mandarin had both hands on either side of it and her toes barely touched the ground every time she lashed out he was like smoke-

                “Armor integrity compromised,” JARVIS said.

                “No shit!” she yelled. The wind that whipped around the Mandarin’s robes chilled her exposed stomach and hands, bit at her neck as the helmet rose higher. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain of the suit being forcibly removed- she wouldn’t give up.

                There was a sharp cracking sound and she was plunged into darkness.

                “JARVIS?” she panted. “Buddy?”

                And blinding light.

                “You’re nothing but a science experiment, Rogers. Everything that’s special about you came out of a bottle.”

                The Mandarin smiled triumphantly as he tossed her helmet back and forth in his hands before letting it, too, drop to the ground.

                “How ingenuous,” he said, stepping forward. Toni desperately tried to activate her thrusters, but without the gauntlets there was no way for her to steer. They clicked and whirred pitifully and didn’t start. She stumbled backwards. “Building a suit to compensate for your fragile body.”

                An explosion of red to her right told her that Thor was trying to break the wall with Mjolnir, but even his mighty hammer did nothing.

                “But I’m afraid even you aren’t genius enough to stop me,” he hissed. With a savage yank of his hands, thrown into the air behind him, the rest of Toni’s armor came flying off.

                “Take off the suit, what are you?”

                Toni didn’t have a snappy comeback this time. Collapsing on the concrete with the force of having part of her being ripped from her, she could feel the blood welling up on her palms and the weakness in her knees. Her flight suit was in tatters around her upper body, the bright sun bouncing off the walls of his force field caused her to wince and blink.

                “Had enough yet, Iron Man?” the Mandarin roared. Toni felt his magic zipping through her bones, rattling and humming painfully as a force other than her own will dragged her to her feet. And higher.

                Three feet off the ground and the Mandarin’s invisible hands were squeezing the life from her, something constricting across her chest as he gloated in front of her.

"I think not. I think there is still a lesson for us to learn…” he gestured with one hand around him, to the blurred cityscape beyond, the muffled noise of the battle and the occasional scream.

“That the only way you’ll rule the world is to burn it?” Toni spat, and the pressure in her chest tightened until her eyes watered. The Mandarin’s eyes darkened thunderously, the smile wiped from his face.

“Oh no, Stark. The way to the world is over the corpses of its heroes.” His voice boomed, low and growling and it scared Toni more than she would ever admit to anyone, and suddenly she was unutterably cold.

“I think I shall start with yours. Let us see how well you fare without your heart," the Mandarin stretched out one hand. His clawed fingers curled inward in a reaching gesture and all ten rings on his gave out a single, blinding burst of light. Something dark shimmered through the air causing the barrier between Toni and the rest of the team to run green briefly, before becoming as clear as rain down a sheet of glass.

The Mandarin’s hand hovered over the glowing blue spot on Toni's chest before he yanked back viciously, and with three inches of air between them the arc reactor was ripped from her chest.

Dimly, distantly beyond herself, Toni heard a noise louder than explosions and her own cry of agony, but she couldn’t place it and it send shivers down her spine. The arc reactor floated into the Mandarin's hand, flickering blue before he crushed it. Toni's entire body jerked convulsively, her eyes rolling back in her head, fingers twitching as she seized. It felt like lightning had lanced through her, her very being on fire and pierced to the core.

When Toni came back to herself she couldn’t stop shivering, and would have curled around herself had she not still been held into the air by the Mandarin’s invisible, pressing magic. There was a wickedly grim look on his face, knife-slash mouth curling up as he let the mangled arc reactor fall to the ground.

As it plummeted so did Toni, body slamming into the concrete with a sickening crunch that echoed through her bones. She felt hollow and weak in the worst of ways.

Cheek scraping across the rubble as she collapsed in on herself, Toni squeezed her eyes shut and tried to ignore the ice creeping through her body, the heavy weight on her chest even though the Mandarin’s hands were limp at his sides, rings dull in the sunlight.

"Hours to go," Mandarin mused, and Toni felt a dull ache in her side where he nudged her with his foot. "I think I'll speed up the process, yes?"

She felt it before it happened, the convulsion, body straining upward as her nails scrabbled against the concrete for purchase. "That is the feeling of shrapnel racing to your heart at an accelerated rate, digging into your flesh..."

“Look, souvenirs.”

Toni could not see past the blinding light in her eyes and the screaming pain in her chest like something lit a match under her heart and was slow-roasting it while the rest of her was doused with ice water.

There was a strained noise from above- not her own.

And then nothing.

STSTSTSTSTST

Apparently, she was not even worth sticking around to watch die.

                The Mandarin was gone, the shields around her dropped and Toni could finally hear the dying echoes of the battle, see the fire and rubble and overturned cars; there were bodies in the street, one of them was so small-

                “TONI!”

                She knew that voice, she knew it, like she knew JARVIS and Pepper and Rhodey but infinitely more intimately. There was only her body now, and forcing it to move.

                Her wrists would not comply when she tried to rise. They buckled as soon as she dared to lift herself and it knocked the weak breath from her, leaving her once again curled on the ground wracked with pain, with fire, with cold, with weakness.

                “Lucky for me, the golden goose had time to lay one last golden egg.”

                She should have learned, stupid, but the Mandarin said he sped it up and Toni could feel it.

                No time.

                “Steve,” she rasped, struggling to lift her head for a better view of the red, white and blue advancing, a black, darting shadow trailing defensively behind him.

                She wondered if she looked anything like the Toni Stark he had married, with her ragged short hair- it had gotten caught in her power tools one too many times, and Steve had never complained even though she knew he loved her curls- and pale skin probably covered in blood. She could feel the black rivers bulging against her skin like they had when Obadiah first took the reactor; when she’d seen herself reflected in the lab she had thought for a moment she died, because she looked more ghost than flesh and blood.

                “S-Steve,” she said, stumbling over the name past a choked sob because her heart leapt and even though it hurt she couldn’t tell herself to tone it down, not for one second while he was near her. But her traitorous body still wouldn’t move, wouldn’t do anything but twitch a hand in his direction and if this was really how she went, wounded and crippled in the dirt, alone-

                Oh.

                His arms were warm, warm as he gathered her and pulled her upper body gently into his lap, so her head rested on his knees. It was like a jolt of life had been sent through her; she could feel the energy humming in his serum-enhanced body and with gritted teeth, chest stuttering to keep in air, lifted a hand.

                It was shaking badly, and when it moved away from his face she’d left blood trails on his cheeks. She let it fall back into her lap.

                Stupid.

                Toni Stark, ruining things on her deathbed.

There was no substitute for an arc reactor, no car battery that was compatible with the circuitry in her chest or hospital nearby that could operate fast enough to remove the shrapnel that hadn’t been a problem in years. There was only the metal in her chest speeding through her and the last minutes of her life spent in Steve’s arms.

ohGod.

She saw the look on his face through a haze of pain, knew he was coming to the same conclusion as his bright blue eyes zeroed in on the hole in her chest. Again she willed herself to move, and she reached up to grip his arm with what little strength she had left.

She remembered his smile too vividly to let him look like this now.

 “Don’t…” she coughed, words choked by a stream of red that steamed against Steve’s cheek, and she found herself momentarily distracted by the new, bright red, something inappropriate firing in her brain.

“Ha,” she murmured weakly. “Red, white, and blue, get it? Because your eyes and the-”

“Toni.”

Toni didn’t recognize this voice, this Steve- this unhappy, devastated person who looked like he had never laughed a day in his life. It was like a knife was being twisted in his gut and she could hear it in the way he said her name, like it was ugly and twisted and the most important fucking thing in the universe.

There were tears in her throat demanding to be spent both for tragedy’s sake and the amount of agony her body was undergoing, but she couldn’t let them fall. Not even now.

“You’re right,” she swallowed painfully, mouth a grim line on her face. “Sorry. Haven’t got that much time to waste, I guess.”

                “I have to protect the most important thing to me. And that’s you.”

 “Just don’t- don’t let Pepper go,” she said even though her lips were red with blood and she could read Steve like an open book, knew that he wanted to yell at her for talking, for wasting precious energy, to bury his face against her hair and tell her she didn’t have to talk like she was already gone even though they both knew the truth. Her hopeful soldier boy.

Her Captain.

One of them always got the short end of the stick when it came to time, and it looked like it wasn’t him after all.

“It’s good to see you home, Miss. I calculated your chances of survival at 4.3%.”

“And JARVIS gets lonely, so just…. Let him do his thing. Make him feel useful.”

Steve Steve Steve

Why was she still talking when all she wanted to do was say his name, kiss him again, let him tell her that everything would be ok?

Right, because Toni Stark was a realist.

Pepper would have said it was because she cared too much to spend her last minutes with Steve and not make sure everyone else would be ok, that her team wouldn’t let grief rip them apart the way her parents’ death almost destroyed hers because she couldn’t be responsible for destroying such a good thing, they had to be stronger than that-

The sound that tore from her lips and cut off her train of thought was not human. Ragged and broken and bloody, it clawed its way up her throat and shook her as it went, and Toni knew her nails were biting into Steve’s skin, could feel the shrapnel moving further as her chest heaved. Tears finally broke past her eyes, seeping out from the corners to drip down the sides of her face and everything was fuzzy she was dying and it hurt like a motherfucker-

Wasn’t it supposed to be like falling asleep?

Steve. Steve had done this once before, the dying thing.             

Except not really. And there were no cryochambers that could save her. She’d calculated her chances as soon as the arc reactor left her chest and come up each time with a big, gaping zero.

“Steve,” she gasped, searching desperately for his face, his eyes, unable to find them through the red haze of tears she was bleeding out inside but dimly, vaguely, was so thankful that he couldn’t see it.

“Toni, I’m here,” he said, leaning down, his arms tightening around her. His presence was a balm even though it did zero things for her failing body. She could almost imagine that they were back in Paris on the honeymoon, her dress exchanged for skimpy lingerie that had lit Steve up like a Christmas tree. That was still the highlight of the trip for Toni, not the Eiffel Tower or the sex or eating cheesecake for breakfast.

“I’m here, I’m right here. Toni-”

“I’m scared,” she whimpered, pressing a hand convulsively over her empty chest, nails scoring through the skin because it hurt and there was nothing else for a desperate body to do. “Steve I’m scared-”

“Shhh, don’t be,” he said. “I’ve got you. You’re gonna be fine.” The red-haired shadow over his shoulder was looming closer. Toni was glad Steve wouldn’t be completely alone.

“Liar.” The word was a sigh, the most tired thing she’d ever said. But it only lasted for a moment. Soon she was twitching again, burning in her skin as blood dripped from between her lips and her fingers scrabbled for purchase anywhere but herself, like a drowning person beneath the water aching for air but unable to do anything but open and close their mouth until they inhaled searing saltwater-

Steve’s hand caught hers and squeezed.

Toni’s eyes screwed shut, but a strangled sob broke past her gritted teeth.

“You keep Bruce from running away, got it?” she ordered, even though the effort of speaking without screaming tripled the agony. “He needs people, even if he doesn’t- gah, d-doesn’t know it. And N-Natasha-”

The assassin nodded and leaned closer, still not touching.

“S-save me a seat at you and birdbrain’s wedding.”

painfireridwoundIamdyingIamdyingdon’tbealonepleasedearGoddon’tletmebealoneriptearclawAGONY

“I can’t… I-I-” her throat bulged as she tried to breathe, to keep her heart pumping to stop herself from dying in his arms because that was unforgivable even for her, an A-class life-ruined.

“Stay with me, Toni,” Steve urged, cradling her in his arms as he rose to his feet and staggered a few steps towards the other Avengers, who Toni could spy past her blurred vision. She felt like she was flying. “Come no, I can’t lose my best girl.”

There was heat on her cheeks, brief, dotting flares of warmth that tasted like salt when they dripped into her mouth. She wanted to wipe away his tears and tell him it would be alright, wanted to do anything to keep that sad expression away from him.

Old heart, please don’t cry.

“Steve, I…”

Her last breath tasted like salt, and ice.

STSTSTSTST

"Steve, I…" Toni's voice was a hoarse whisper that ended in a choked gasp, but when he looked down she was chillingly silent. Her mouth was open in a silent scream or maybe a plea, sightless eyes glazed over and staring up at the traitorously blue sky.

Steve felt something rear its head deep in his chest, something ugly and twisted and wrong that wanted to claw its way out and wreak havoc on the world on the people before him. It was like he was someone else, but as soon as Natasha touched his arm that person was gone. Replaced by a weak man who was small and trembling who sank under the weight of the woman he loved, knees cracking against the pavement. Natasha gently slid Toni's eyes closed, and Steve noticed the tear tracks on her face.

"No..." His back hunched over, forehead touching hers and feeling the warmth seeping from it just like it had left her lively eyes. They still glowed in his mind with the spark that had made her so gorgeous, burning like a star against everything she touched.

She was cold and unyielding as rock beneath him.

"Toni, don't... Don't go," he begged, breath hot on her lifeless face. "I can't do this without you."

Water hot and salty coursed down his cheeks, dampening Toni's hair, running across her lips and closed eyes.

There was a drawing in his room done in charcoal, black lines on pale paper like her dark veins on corpse-white skin, and in it she was looking just beyond him with a coy smile that somehow seemed perfectly at peace on a face covered in grease-stains and framed by tangled long hair. There was a picture of a woman that he-

The preserved hour of that time was suddenly all he could think of, past the rising smoke and the sirens and the shadows his teammates cast over them as they, too, were marked by grief.

“I love it,” she had murmured, naked body bending over his shoulder, breath hot on his cheeks.

I-

STSTSTSTST

Fallen Hero: Iron Man Dead, Captain America Missing

by Jaaron Whittier

September 21^st, 2016.

                Like November 22^nd and 9/11 is it a date that will forever live in infamy in the mindset of the American people, for on that day less than a week ago the Avengers lost a friend, the world lost a protector, and a man lost the love of his life.

                Toni Stark, former CEO of Stark Industries, a genius and pioneer of the 21^st Century in both weapons technology and medical advancements, is dead. And she died as a true hero would; protecting those who could not protect themselves.

Six months ago when the terrorist calling himself the Mandarin- the real one, this time- contacted the American government demanding world surrender, starting with the U.S.A., the Avengers formed a line and said hell no. They continued to say it as they fought tirelessly to keep the American people out of harm’s way as the Mandarin released strike after strike onto U.S. soil, until at last he brought the fight to them. In a battle that would ultimately leave five dead and countless others wounded, among the casualty list was the second-in-command herself, put there for daring to face the Mandarin head-on. It was Natasha Romanoff who finally made the kill shot, reportedly finding a blind shot in the Mandarin’s defense, and the dismantling of his terrorist organization has already begun, headed by the U.S. government with the help of NATO and the U.N.

With no word from the Avengers as to the incident, autopsy reports were made public; Toni Stark died after the destruction of her arc reactor, a death which many experts say could have taken up to ten minutes. Long enough to say goodbye to those she cared about most, and witnesses say that the Iron Man spent her last moments lying in the arms of Avengers leader and her husband, Steve Rogers.

Today the world mourns with the Avengers, and although the ceremony is private and being held at an undisclosed location, Toni Stark is to be laid to rest later today in the ground by her parents’ graves. A public statement was released from the Stark Industries PR team, led by former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill thanking the public for their support in these hard times, and politely asking for news outlets to keep their distance during a period of mourning, but other than that the Avengers have been conspicuously absent. Even, rumor has it, Captain America, who has not been seen in public since the attack.

To Captain America, wherever you are, know that every heart and soul in America goes out to you. That you are not alone, and that Toni Stark has died, forever and irrefutably, a hero. A hero who will be missed.

STSTSTSTSTSTS

There was a letter signed “With deepest condolences, Jessica Saunders, President of the United States of America.”

                There was a voicemail completely filled with desperate pleas and soft murmurs from Natasha, and Sam and even Clint, although the number of those was in the single digits.

                Bruce sent him a prayer mat from India and some candles that smelled like Toni’s shampoo, and a picture of the two of them after Steve went bowling for the first time in the present, Toni hanging off his arm doubled over laughing because even with the serum Steve’s aim was terrible the first few shots.

                Bucky stayed, even when Steve didn’t want him to, and always when he did. Still, that didn’t mean he was always there and Steve was alone a startlingly uncomfortable amount of the time. After the first few weeks when it became apparent that even the world didn’t stop for Toni Stark, the Avengers were called into action again and Bucky had answered the call.

                Steve hadn’t.

                Months passed and eventually Sam stopped calling, and Natasha stopped sending him text alerts with dates and times and the name of the Supervillain Of The Week. Even Bruce came out of seclusion to join the fight, but he still sent Steve the occasional picture. He couldn’t have known that they were one of the only things that really helped.

                He didn’t sleep.

                It wasn’t the kind of insomnia he’d had after being woken up in the present- after seventy years of sleep thrown over him like a tidal wave all at once he had been filled with too much energy to ever stop moving, had too many ghosts on his heels to dare pausing for even an instant to rest, lest they catch him and remind him of all he had lost. Now there was only one and she smelled like pomegranates and it reminded Steve of a story Natasha had told him, of a girl kidnapped to the underworld and forced to stay because she ate the fruit of the dead. From that moment on she had been forced to stay in the underworld for half of the year, with her new husband, and for the other half she was free to roam the upper earth.

                The ghost leaned against his desk and frowned at him, and told him to get his head out of his ass and stop thinking about ancient myths. Captain America couldn’t afford to live half-in and half-out, it wasn’t his way.

                What about Steve Roges’ way? he wanted to ask.

                She laughed, or rather, her mouth moved and no sound came out, but she pointed to the flash of silver on his ring finger and the message was clear.

                Who is Steve Rogers?

                An artist who hadn’t touched a pencil or brush in months.

                A soldier who had abandoned his troops.

                A widower.

                A coward.

STSTSTSTST

The ghost still smelled like her pomegranate shampoo and her fingers were soft around his waist. When she wasn’t curled around him she was sitting at his desk, running over the art supplies gathering dust and filling the walls with project ideas that Steve didn’t have the faintest idea how to build even though she kept looking at him like he should know.

                On the 181^st day, she found the picture.

                Bucky called that morning to tell Steve that there was a crisis in Peru, and he wouldn’t be back for a few days so remember to eat, please, you can’t die on me now, punk, and I’ll be home soon. Steve ate, but he couldn’t remember what- when did he remember anything, these days? Details were unimportant.

                The soldier in him screamed.

                The was-husband slammed the door in the soldier’s face and continued to ignore food except as an unfortunate means of continuing to breath.

                And turned to find her sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room, wearing her singed “science clothes” and staring at the charcoal portrait leaning along the back wall of the room, partially concealed by a bookshelf. The closer Steve got the heavier he felt, until he was made of lead and standing in front of the portrait with half of the ghost’s living face staring at him through vibrant black eyes. Her breath on his neck was subtle and warm, her long hair hanging against his skin. She smiled when he pulled the picture out to reveal the expanse of her naked, inviting body, posing elegantly and almost lazily across an old studio couch. When he hung it on the wall she kissed his cheek.

                The place stayed warm for hours after.

STSTSTSTSTST

Bucky came home and Steve’s tiny apartment walls were covered in drawings. Doodles on the bills, full-sized canvases splattered with paint, charcoals and pastels and chalk and pencil, a myriad of mediums on pale surfaces and Steve’s hands covered in the rainbow of expression where he lay slumped over his desk, fast asleep.

                After draping a blanket across Steve’s back and contemplating carrying him to bed- it wouldn’t be the first time in recent months, with Bucky as the anchor and Steve as the one drifting away into his own mind- Bucky carefully took in the new decorations. Toni’s face was everywhere, in a hundred different styles, and a pang of loss went through him. Although the grief had dulled to a pounding ache in the back of his throat, Bucky knew none of them would ever be the same, and if they hadn’t had each other to lean on then their lives would have taken significantly darker turns. As it was, they each found ways of coping, and Steve was the last to find his way out of a labyrinth of anguish. For too long Bucky had feared that he never would, even though the thought of failure kept him awake at night. Steve had brought him back from seventy years of Hydra torture, and Toni had given him a place to call home afterwards; if Captain America was lost forever, it was his job to get him back.

                Always, always.

                “Punk.”

                “Jerk.”

                It was when he realized that they were not all of Toni that he felt hope flare, briefly and defiantly, in his chest. He took out his phone and dialed Sam’s number.

STSTSTSTST

Return of Captain America

By Jaaron Whittier

When Captain America vanished all those months ago-

STSTSTST

The ghost smiled when Steve took the shield with shaking, pulled on the mask without squeezing his eyes shut. Shared Nat’s dark chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds and enjoyed the burst of sweet bitterness that flowed down his throat.

                She was with him when he dropped from the quinjet into a fray of doombots, when he and Bucky fought side-by-side and he covered Clint’s six while the archer went for the control panel on the main bot. Even though her blasters did nothing they warmed the air as they brushed past his cheeks, and when he dared to falter she was behind him, beside him, urging him on because when had he ever quit?

                “I can do this all day.”

                They ordered takeout to the tower afterwards- Chinese- and Steve remembered.

                “Say it,” Natasha said, bumping shoulders with him as she folded up on the couch, a container of lo-mein in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in another. Across from them Clint was digging in with a fork, and Bucky was surreptitiously stealing bites of Bruce’s to-fu pork.

                The silver ring was heavy on his hand but the ghost was next to him carding her fingers through his hair, and he could feel the cool metal of her matching ring slide across his skin. When she rested her head against his shoulder he sighed and it was like the curtain lifted and he could see beyond the realm of the dead. Looking over, he saw Toni’s outline barely there against the white fabric of the couch, but still she was smiling, smiling.

                Oh my heart, she murmured, how sad you’ve been.

                Natasha’s look was suddenly very knowing.

                “Come on, Steve,” she urged, poking him lightly with her chopsticks.

                Come on, Captain my captain.

                “I’m back,” Steve said, glancing away from Toni’s fading image on the couch and into Nat’s depthless green eyes. She was smiling softly, and that was when Steve realized that everyone in the room was looking at him.

                “Welcome back, Cap,” Sam said softly.

                Welcome home.

Chapter Text

The closer Steve got the more he could see of her hunched figure on the ground, and he read the pain in the way she tried to rise as clearly as his own. Toni was curled around herself on the ground, one leg bent at an angle that made Steve’s stomach churn while the wind played with the ragged edges of her shirt, which had been reduced to tatters.

Veins like black rivers stood out against her wrists and temples, chalky skin a stark contrast to her short dark hair, was matted with blood and debris. All around her were shards of the armor the Mandarin had torn off of her, pieces of her life, her protection.

When she saw him her eyes lit up but they looked distant, and when she tried to reach out a hand to him her lips stumbled over his name.

"Toni!" Steve yelled, pulling her into his lap as soon as he was next to her, one hand cradling her head. Her arc reactor's crushed remains were beside them, and Steve felt the unconquerable urge to bend it back into shape and slam it into Toni's chest, see that zap of blue light in her eyes as she breathed evenly again.

"Steve!" she gasped, eyes wide. They focused on him and her shaking hands reached up to touch his cheeks, leaving blood trails behind.

Over and over again Steve heard the crunch of the arc reactor in the Mandarin’s hand and Toni’s scream of pain, the shriek that nearly drove him to madness. Now there was a hole in her chest where her heart should have been, metal sides of the cavity winking at him tauntingly from beneath the frayed edges of Toni’s shirt.

There was no substitute for an arc reactor, no car battery that was compatible with the circuitry in her chest or hospital nearby that could operate fast enough to remove the shrapnel that hadn’t been a problem in years. There was only the metal in her chest speeding through her and the last minutes of her life spent in Steve’s arms.

She was dying ohGod.

Toni was dying.

Her hands were clammy and cold as they gripped his arms, the strain clear on her features.

“Don’t…” she coughed, words choked by a stream of red that steamed against Steve’s cheek, and her eyes focused on the fresh blood curiously.

“Ha,” she murmured weakly. “Red, white, and blue, get it? Because your eyes and the-”

“Toni.” Steve thought he hadn’t sounded like that in his entire life, because when Bucky died he was screaming too much for words and when he woke up to find Peggy gone all of his grief had been spent in tortured silence. But this, now? This thing that was forcing him to watch her die slowly was twisting his voice until it wasn’t his anymore and he didn’t recognize how it trembled or strained to the point of breaking.

“You’re right,” she swallowed painfully, mouth a grim line on her face. “Sorry. Haven’t got that much time to waste, I guess.”

She was so small in his arms, how was that possible? Toni Stark looking fragile?

“Just don’t- don’t let Pepper go,” she said even though her lips were red with blood and Steve wanted to yell at her for talking, for wasting precious energy, wanting to bury his face against her hair and tell her she didn’t have to talk like she was already gone even though they both knew the truth. It was shining in Tony’s dark eyes the minute she saw Steve. “And JARVIS gets lonely, so just…. Let him do his thing. Make him feel useful.”

“OK.” How was his voice so steady suddenly?

He felt the convulsion more than he heard the ragged scream that tore from Toni’s throat. Beneath him she shook uncontrollably, nails biting into his skin and chest heaving as the shrapnel moved further. Tears poured from her eyes, seeping out from the corners to drip down the sides of her face and Steve knew from her glazed expression that they were tears of pain.

“Steve,” she gasped, eyes searching desperately for his but even though he was right above her it was like she couldn’t see anything. He wondered distantly how close the shrapnel was to her heart, how much longer until it pierced and she bled out inside.

“Toni, I’m here,” he said, leaning down, arms tightening around her. “I’m here, I’m right here. Toni-”

“I’m scared,” she whimpered, pressing a hand over her empty chest and clawing as if her arc reactor would reappear if she dug deep enough. “Steve I’m afraid-“

“Shhhh, don’t be,” he said, pushing the lie past his teeth even though it burned his tongue like poison. “I’ve got you. You’re gonna be fine.”

“Liar.”

Then she was twitching again, burning in her skin as blood dripped from between her lips and fingers scrabbled for purchase anywhere to anchor herself-

Steve caught her hand in his own and squeezed, trying to keep down the panic building inside him, screaming forth from the chasm breaking open his chest.

Toni’s eyes screwed shut against the pain, but a strangled sob broke past her gritted teeth.

“You keep Bruce from running away, got it?” she panted even though the effort of speaking without screaming must have only tripled the pain. “He needs people, even if he doesn’t- gah, d-doesn’t know i-it. And N-Natasha-“

Steve had almost forgotten the other Avenger was there, but the assassin just nodded and leaned over Steve’s shoulder.            

“S-save me a seat at you and birdbrain’s wedding.”

Steve didn’t look to see Natasha’s expression- he was too riveted by the sudden, searing burst of panic that tore across Toni’s features. How long had it been? She couldn’t be fading so soon- not… not her.

Not Toni who was so bombastic and quirky and at times, frighteningly alive. Compared to Toni, sometimes Steve felt like he was stuck in black and white and yet here she was, reduced to shades of herself, paler than the charcoal picture of her on his wall.

"I can't... I-I-" her throat bulged as she tried to breathe, to keep her heart pumping to stop herself from dying in his arms. She was being ripped apart inside and every millimeter the shrapnel traveled was something else torn and bleeding another tear until her heart was shredded- ohGoddon’tleavemeplease-

"Stay with me, Toni," Steve urged, cradling her in his arms as he rose to his feet and staggered a few steps towards the other Avengers, who were scattered among the ruins of the city and Mandarin's army. "Come on, I can't lose my best girl."

Maybe if he could just move, just run then somewhere there had to be help-

"Steve, I…" Toni's voice was a hoarse whisper that ended in a choked gasp, but when he looked down she was chillingly silent. Her mouth was open in a silent scream or maybe a plea, sightless eyes glazed over and staring up at the traitorously blue sky.

Steve felt something rear its head deep in his chest, something ugly and twisted and wrong that wanted to claw its way out and wreak havoc on the world on the people before him. It was like he was someone else, but as soon as Natasha touched his arm that person was gone. Replaced by a weak man who was small and trembling who sank under the weight of the woman he loved, knees cracking against the pavement. Natasha gently slid Toni's eyes closed, and Steve noticed the tear tracks on her face.

"No..." His back hunched over, forehead touching hers and feeling the warmth seeping from it just like it had left her lively eyes. They still glowed in his mind with the spark that had made her so gorgeous, burning like a star against everything she touched.

She was cold and unyielding as rock beneath him.

"Toni, don't... Don't go," he begged, breath hot on her lifeless face. "I can't do this without you."

Water hot and salty coursed down his cheeks, dampening Toni's hair, running across her lips and closed eyes.

There was a drawing in his room done in charcoal, black lines on pale paper like her dark veins on corpse-white skin, and in it she was looking just beyond him with a coy smile that somehow seemed perfectly at peace on a face covered in grease-stains and framed by tangled long hair. There was a picture of a woman that he-

The preserved hour of that time was suddenly all he could think of, past the rising smoke and the sirens and the shadows his teammates cast over them as they, too, were marked by grief.

“I love it,” she had murmured, naked body bending over his shoulder, breath hot on his cheeks.

I-