"Living for Eternity"
It was no secret among the Avengers that Steve Rogers could draw. It was an initial surprise at first, all those years ago, when following his first few ventures with the new team of superheroes he came back to Avengers' mansion with an artist's sketchbook and an assortment of charcoals and paints and pencils. Outside of the suit it was something Steve loved to do, and it was not uncommon to find the odd lost sketch still lying out or forgotten in a stack of papers. They were often a mix of landscapes and studies of people—if any of the team sat still long enough it was usually guaranteed they had a page or more in Steve's sketches. Hank sitting in his lab, a look of thoughtful concentration on his face as he looked at his latest specimen; Jan sitting on the edge of the couch laughing at something said; Tony, holding a glass of wine as he leaned against the kitchen counter.
(There were the other drawings, too, the ones the team never brought up if they accidentally stumbled upon them. The sketches of darkness and explosions and nightmares remembered twenty years after they happened. Jan would never forget the moment she saw a sketch depicting a dead boy lying in a WWII battlefield that had fallen underneath a desk.)
He would draw movie scenes, famous pop culture creatures and moments. One of Tony's personal favorites had a been a rather large colored charcoal rendering of Star Trek's Doomsday Machine, complete with a small, beaten up starship Constellation. Steve was fascinated with possibilities, for new opportunities to learn more, and to see this new world he had woken up in and drawing helped him do that.
(It helped him cope.)
It was therapeutic in away, better than it was to work out, for him when things became a little too overwhelming or upsetting. Growing up it had always been art Steve had turned to; he would draw to make his mother smile if she was tired, or simply amuse himself with his own little doodles. It helped him come to terms with what he had witnessed both as a soldier fighting on the front lines and as an Avenger. Fighting as a superhero was hard and it could be messy. He painted out his nightmares and fears and lingering resentments and felt just a little better after he did.
Tony, being Tony, noticed his drawing habits first. It led to watching a lot of old sci-fi films and television shows (Twilight Zone quickly became one of Steve's favorites) just so he could see what would be brought to life in Steve's sketchpads next. But the years went by, and times changed, and the sketches became few and far between until finally Steve stopped drawing completely. The sketchbooks disappeared and the team (newer now, not as familiar with Captain America's artistry) never knew what he'd done with them.
Then there came the late evening when Tony entered the open living room of Avengers' Tower and Steve had a Civil War movie playing. Or not playing, but paused at a specific moment. Steve himself was seated hunched over the coffee table in front of the television, focused on a project. When Tony stole a glance he saw Steve was using colored charcoal to sketch out the scene in the film—a dark star-lit sky shot through with dancing waves of the aurora berralilis.
"What's the film?" It wasn't one he recognized and he thought he remembered all of his films.
Steve didn't even look up, finishing blending a swipe of light green and pale yellow together. His fingers were stained a mix of blue and black, hastily rubbed off by an old rag that sat dangling over his knee. "Gods and Generals," he answered vaguely. "Civil War film."
"Ah." Tony had never really had any interest in the era of America's Civil War, although Steve had watched several such themed movies and miniseries talking about it throughout the years. "So what's happening then?" It had to be a pretty heavy moment if Steve was affected enough to draw it, especially after all these years of not picking up a pencil.
Steve picked up a stick of deep blue and ran it along the smooth curve of the yellow and green he had just mixed together. He rarely blinked when he was drawing, Tony remembered suddenly; it had been disconcerting the first few times Tony had noticed that, but it was true. When utterly concentrated in his drawing Steve barely blinked his eyes and never realized he didn't unless someone mentioned it. "Battle of Chancellorsville. Northern Lights have just appeared over the battlefield. Lee thought it was a sign from God that the South would win the war."
"Interesting." Tony supposed it was interesting, but he didn't really get what was so deep about it.
Steve picked up on that. He looked up. "It's not interesting. This scene—it's over a field, Tony. Men are lying below it freezing and dying. It's—haunting, in a way, because you just have this beautiful array of light in the sky over this blood-soaked battlefield."
Juxtaposition. That was it. Explained like that Tony looked at the drawing a little closer, following the strokes of dancing blue and green. The sparkle of a star or two was hidden cleverly away behind it, hinting at the vastness of space even farther above. Steve had always added emotion to whatever he was drawing, and it still baffled Tony as to how you could add emotion to an inanimate thing. But Steve always managed to do it.
"I see," he said quietly after a moment.
And he did.
0000000
Tony stumbled, quite by accident, across that old drawing several years later following the end of the Registration Act and its final, horrific consequence. Steve's death was still a disbelief to him, he couldn't quite register the fact that one of his oldest friends was actually gone. Gone and dead and the last thing Steve ever said to him was that damning accusation 'was it worth it?' And Tony knew it wasn't worth it, not now, not with Steve dead, but he didn't know how to deal with this, didn't want to deal with this.
He rummaged through old cabinet drawers, full of forgotten papers and information he had never converted into data looking for anything to distract him from the deep aching in his chest, and his hand had brushed a crisp page that left the tips of his fingers blackened. Frowning, taken aback, Tony reached through the stack and carefully pulled it from its place—and froze, seeing the wide expanse of northern lights dancing across the sky again. The paper had brittled with age and the colors were faded but its beauty was still undimmed, and Tony felt his breath catch in his throat.
Damn it, it hurt. His eyes were burning but he didn't want to cry, because if he started he wouldn't ever stop and he didn't want to take the chance of smearing the drawing with his tears. The paper was shuddering but he couldn't look away.
How had he never really appreciated the beauty of art before? His houses and buildings had always been decorated with the most lavish of paintings and latest artworks but he had never truly looked at them and cared. He was too busy, or too caught up in work, to take the time.
Why had he never said anything to Steve about it? He'd known for years that his friend loved art but looking back he had never truly had a discussion about why he did.
Steve had tried to explain it once, a very long time ago.
'It's living. It's leaving a bit of ourselves behind. Our thoughts, our loves, our likes and dislikes. An artist can live through paper long after they're gone, Tony.'
Now he was gone. His art was gone as well. That amazing ability to convey such emotion in only a few simple strokes would never grace a piece of paper again, slipped away in a mess of gunshots and blood on courthouse steps.
'It's haunting in a way, because you have this beautiful array of light over this blood-soaked battlefield.'
If this was life's sense of irony, Tony Stark thought bitterly to himself, as he continued to look at the drawing, then he wished art had never existed at all.