A/N: I happened across an article recently titled, "The 6 Dumbest Things in Civil War that No One Is Talking About". It was a very self-righteous article—don't bother looking it up. Anyway, one of the "dumbest things" listed was the question, "How could Steve have known about Howard's death?"
Obviously, the writer had not seen Winter Soldier.
You Knew
It was like a bad dream. A terrible, sadistic, repeating dream, from which Steve Rogers had no hope of waking up.
Once again, he found himself trapped in a dingy warehouse, listening to the truth from the voice of a villain and forced to watch disaster unfold on a little square screen. Tony stood beside him, riveted with barely concealed horror and denial and not even trying to hide behind his armor's faceplate.
Zemo had ceased to talk, letting the footage speak its worst. It wasn't Zemo's voice that Steve heard anyway, but Zola's heavy accent—a garbled, distorted undertone echoing his words—as Steve watched the Starks' automobile crash into a tree. A motorcyclist swerved around the vehicle, metal arm flashing as he went in for the kill.
"Accidents...will happen."
The assassin pulled Howard Stark from the driver's seat, trapping the man on the ground even as Maria pleaded, "Howard...Howard..." without reply.
"Sergeant Barnes," murmured the bloodied Mr. Stark.
A metal arm punched him once, again, and again in the face, mercilessly ignoring Maria's cries.
"And when history did not cooperate..."
The assassin dropped Howard to the ground. Steve felt a lump grow in his throat as the figure circled the car, putting his arm through the passenger window.
Maria's helpless cries turned to soft choking.
The face of Bucky Barnes stared passively over the car roof.
"History was rewritten."
Bucky in the footage circled the car again and aimed a pistol at the camera that had witnessed this.
And all Steve saw was the newspaper Zola had shown him, stamped eerily with a watermark of HYDRA's motif. The headline's bold letters burned through his mind: "Howard Stark Killed in Tragic Accident."
Steve should have said something to Tony. He knew he should have. But the building had blown up just moments later, and he had to protect Natasha, and all he could think at the time had been I died for nothing, I died for nothing, I crashed the plane and killed myself for nothing...
God, he'd been so selfish.
Tony rounded on him with the light of a desperate man in his eyes. "Did you know?" he demanded.
"I didn't know it was him," Steve countered.
It was true enough. He hadn't known it was Bucky.
The next slide Zola had shown him was one of the Winter Soldier. Steve had suspected it.
His mind had immediately rejected the idea. And now look who paid for his ignorance.
"You knew." Tony looked betrayed and enraged and...hurt. "Why didn't you say something?"
"I didn't—I thought, maybe," Steve attempted—Tony rolled his eyes and turned away as if appalled—"If I didn't tell you, I might be saving you something."
Tony's lips twitched.
Now look who pays for this, Steve's mind murmured guiltily to itself.
And with a flash of red, Tony punched him.
A/N: Pain. Yay.
Leave a review if you want to be mad at Steve with me! Or, you know, if you liked the one-shot. That works too.