"Tony, stop!" Steve pushed him far yelling "I'm not asking, I'm your commander and your order is to drop your ass down here" Steve screamed through the speakers and Iron Man flew faster to the giant-ish robot or whatever Steve still wasn't acquainted with any of it "Thor take him down before he kills himself" Steve told Thor, who made his hammer roll and crushed himself at Tony, both fell hard to the ground.
"What the hell, Rogers-" was all he heard before they crashed.
"Man of Iron down" Thor said and Steve fought the urge to face-palm.
"Thanks, Thor, I guess…"
-0-
"You're un-freaking-believable" Tony yelled at him as soon as he entered the helicarrier. Steve told the other agents to leave them alone with a move of his head "I had him under the robes!" Tony's eyes were shining with anger.
"No, you didn't!" Steve yelled louder, Captain America's voice on "what you had was a lame and risky shot"
"You're not my boss, you know. I was doing the best thing-
"No, what you were doing is trying to get yourself killed!-
"So what?!" Tony's words made him feel sick; exactly what he felt when Bruce told them he deliberately tried to kill himself. Tony's eyes were lost, he wasn't looking at Steve. Steve swallowed and looked up and down his face. He had seen this coming.
Tony straightened up and looked down, unable to bare Steve's deep blue eyes.
"Tony-
"Don't" he cut him off.
"I can't- I care about you" Steve said truly. Tony turned his back on him.
"I'm tired, Rogers, I've been hearing the same words for the past months. I don't need to hear them again" his voice was quiet, tired, of talking, for all Steve could feel Tony sounded tired of even breathing. The realization punched him in the gut.
"I wasn't planning on giving you any empty words, Tony" Steve said low in a whisper. The feeling quickly coming back to him.
"Just leave me alone…" he shot annoyed.
"You don't think I know how you feel? You don't think I know exactly what you feel, Tony?" Steve saw the back of his head moving, shaking it 'no'.
"It's different Steve; it's completely different-
"You're right, it is different, I made Peggy live in a world without me and now I'm alive to live in a world without her-
"It's different, Steve! You weren't there when she died, and her death wasn't your fault!" Tony wasn't still facing him.
"And for what I read Pepper's wasn't yours either" Steve saw a head shaking 'no' again. "How was she like?"
"No" he said quickly half turning his head to him "I don't wanna have this conversation" but Steve knew better, all he wanted was not to feel anything. All Tony wanted was to drink himself to death and find mercy in the sweet arms of alcohol, not that Steve understood how it worked.
There was a long pause in which Steve swallowed repeatedly and thought of hundreds of ways on how to start.
Tony was his friend, no matter how edgy they always acted around each other. Tony was one of his teammates, and he cared about him. Hell, Tony was probably the only person on earth who was as screwed up as he was, and he was going to make sure Tony stopped feeling like crap. One day at the time.
"She was… reckless" Steve said and his throat suddenly felt full. A tiny smile starting to show up while the memories of the first and last love affair Steve Rogers would always remember which name was written bright red: Peggy Carter.
Little people knew about the real story of those two. And with little people Steve meant he and she.
Relationships at war were always hard. And neither Steve nor Peggy needed that kind of attention drawn to them. So they had something secretly. Some stolen kiss and reassurance words that would make them dream of happy endings that Steve then learned were empty words of a couple of fools.
All Steve had left of Peggy was an old dirty picture; SHIELD files and the memory of his first time. His clumsy but perfect first time.
"Not everybody knows the real story of her; what she meant to me. She was so beautiful- I remember" Steve let out a dry laugh remembering the embarrassed look on Gilmore's face "I remember the first time I saw her, she was such a mystery, you know, I kept thinking 'what's a gal like her doing in the army?'" Steve placed himself next to Tony but didn't bother to look at him, he was hiding his own tears this time.
"And you know what? She saw me, I was invisible, a scrawny little kid no woman would've listened before, and she saw me- she listened. She was the exception-" Steve looked down this time and pressed his lower lip against his teeth "the exception to every rule I could've put myself. We were so different. I'm quiet and I take orders, she was brave and stubborn and she only listened to her heart. But in the end it worked, because all I can remember is being crazy about her and-" 70 years had passed; Steve had felt just one year go by, but it still hurt. He got the call from one of his friends at SHIELD saying Peggy had passed away for natural causes and Steve cried so much that night it reminded him of the night his mother died.
"And then I lost her" the silence that lingered was deafening, because that silence made Steve's regret and anger to himself creep all back. Pierce his brain until he couldn't hold it. Because he could've have it all. If there had been another way, maybe one way Steve never considered because he was a hard-head like that. But he made a choice, and he knew deep down that Peggy respected it, so, for her, he should at least do the same.
"You're right, I didn't know what you and Pepper had" Steve said after a while, his voice breaking because of the roller coaster of feelings "but that immense whole you have, that whole that you feel and even expect to eat you alive, that whole I have it too. And it doesn't matter what anyone says or how many time passes that whole will always remain there, intact. But you can have that whole filled with sadness and guilt, of all the things you didn't do or didn't say, or you can have it instead filled with good memories and life-lessons, experience" Steve was looking at him now, but Tony still looked at the big window in front of them. Stars lightening in the dark sky "I know that feeling of loneliness and regret and self-loathing and plain pain. Emptiness that fills your soul sometimes you can't even breath. And you wonder; 'how am I still I alive if I've felt my heart twist every second'. I know all of that, Tony" Steve talked low and quiet, lengthening Tony's name as he said it "and I know something more-" Steve waited to see if Tony was paying attention, he blinked twice and Steve knew that was his call "you'll make it through, you'll make it through one day, just like I did" Steve smiled a little to give Tony some encourage.
"No, I won't" Tony's voice was shattered, hoarse, and broken. Steve swallowed once more "I'm not like you, I won't make it, Steve-
"Yes, you will" Steve wanted to say he still had his friend Rhodey, or The Avengers, or him but Steve knew that wasn't enough.
"No I won't- I won't because it's not a whole what I have- there's nothing left of me, just one tiny little piece that- that breaks every single day because-" Tony's voice could barely be heard between the sobs, not loud, quiet, really really quiet. Steve only heard them because he knew them, those were the kind of sobs that came from the deepest places of your very soul. Tony took breath again, "because I don't know my social security number, because I can't talk to thirteen different people on the phone, because one of these days I might end up getting myself killed by rotten food and i-" Tony wiped the small tears coming from his eyes "I don't even know how to untie my shoes without her" Tony pressed his lips together and made a face, a small grin and Steve thought there might be some inside joke about that.
"Then- I'll show you how" was all Steve said and almost made Tony face him "I know I can't fill the whole Pepper left in many ways but you have a friend in me, Tony" Tony stared at him and Steve knew he was miserable. Like literally and really miserable. Steve placed a hand on his shoulder and nodded smiling.
"Why?" Tony wondered.
"Because I believe in you. And I know you don't see it now, but you'll make it" Steve gave him another big bright smile and Tony went back to look at the window.
For minutes they just stood there, fighting their own emotions, their own sad little world.
"Sad beautiful tragic love affair" Tony said after what seemed too long. Steve looked back at him "that's what Peggy used to call your story" and Steve smiled because his whole, as big as it was, was a part of him, and that part of him reminded him happiness too.
again another dream I had, this time it was about the very rumors of Pepper dying in IM3 becoming a fact in my head (D:)
Nothing more than just the similarities between Steve and Tony really...