The cold and bitter wind whipped around outside the Siberian Hydra base, the loud noises of two supers battling to the death echoed chillingly through the air.

"This isn't going to change what happened!"

"I don't care, he killed my mom."

With that the fight had started, and it seemed almost unending despite the fact they had only been fighting a short time. A swing here, a blow with his shield there, Steve could tell that he was losing ground; not that he had any desire to hurt his friend, but he was determined to protect Bucky at all costs.

Even if it meant destroying his friendship with Tony Stark.

"He's my friend."

"So was I."

Pain that wasn't physical tore through his chest, he never wanted it to turn out this way. Tony had become a good friend since he had woken up in this strange time, and to see everything they had built come down in shattered pieces tore at his heart.

Still he fought on, to protect the friend, the brother, that he had lost seventy years ago. He would keep fighting for what he believed was right, no matter what.

Suddenly he was picked up and slammed against against the concrete pillar, pain shot through his body despite the super soldier serum that flooded his veins, it wasn't enough to protect him from the pain.

"Stand down, final warning."

Bracing himself against the ground he slowly moved to his feet, weakly forcing his body into a fighting position. Memories flooded his mind of a time that didn't seem so long ago when he'd been in this situation in an alleyway, only then it had been a bully he had been fighting, one of his friends didn't stand before him then.

Still, he couldn't help but say through panted breaths, "I could do this all day."

It was difficult when what was right felt so wrong, the weight in his chest felt enough to choke him entirely. The two of them couldn't continue like this, someone was going to get killed and Steve Rogers knew that that was far too much for either of them to bare, no matter the circumstances behind it. If he accidentally killed Tony it would destroy him, and if the situation were reversed and Tony accidentally killed him, or worse, purposely did? He felt sure that Tony would regret it for the rest of his life once the rage drained out of his system.

Tony lifted his hand to aim his repulsor at his face and Steve cringed, turning his head slightly. The dull ache in his chest growing, breathing was becoming harder both figuratively and literally.

As he glanced downward he noticed Bucky reaching for Tony's leg and froze for a moment. No, this needed to end and Bucky couldn't continue to be involved as injured as he was. Steve had to do something distracting, and fast.

Quickly he waved his hand and cried frantically, "Tony, stop! We don't need to do this!" Allowing the pain and slight bitterness of the situation to slip into his voice wasn't hard to do, it came effortlessly. He noticed Bucky grow still and slip back into his laying position, and prayed to God that he would get his hint and stay put.

"It's too late for talking, Cap," Tony hissed. "Actually, you should have done some talking, you know, when you found out my parents had been murdered? Yeah, that would have been nice to know before now."

"I should have told you, I'm sorry," Steve offered feebly, allowing breaths to heave out of him at the slight repreave. He glanced over at Bucky, who laid still and un-moving, seemingly haven slipped back into unconsciousness, and was silently thankful for small favors.

"You're sorry? You should have told me?" Tony swore loudly, shaking his head, "of course you should have told me!"

"Language," Steve murmured weakly, trying his best to break the thick, heavy tension in the air.

Freezing, Tony stared at Steve in disbelief. "Now you're joking at a time like this? Wow, Steve, classy. Is that how they were in the forties?"

"I'm just trying to-"

"I know what you're trying to do, you're trying to distract me enough to save your own skin, and the skin of that murdering monster you call a friend. Don't try to play me, Rogers! It's clear whatever friendship we had didn't mean a lot to you, don't pour salt on a wound by throwing around our inside jokes while we're beating the crap out of each other!" Tony Stark, or rather, Iron Man, stalked forward, aiming his repulsor squarely at Steve's chest.

"Tony, that isn't true," Steve tried.

"Sure it isn't."

The blast thrust him backwards and he landed on his back, grimacing deeply as Iron Man loomed over him, stooping down over him and drawing his metal wrapped hand back. The first blow almost surprised Steve, but somehow he knew it shouldn't have.

Then another one fell, and another, and another, his vision began to blur and he could feel blood streaming down his face as he began to gasp. Stars danced infront of his eyes as the unceasing blows fell, and his head began to pound from the abuse.

"Tony.."

The blows kept coming, and Steve could feel the world spinning as he tried futilely to push Iron Man off.

"Tony, please."

The weak plea gave Tony Stark pause as he glared down through the suit at the man who would dare defend his mothers murderer. He watched blood drip down Captain America's face and jerked the Captain's helmet off to get a better look at the damage he'd already done.

The bruising along the side of his face was substantial, and Tony gave a dry snort, seeing Rogers in such a state. He knew he himself also had sustained quite a few injuries, despite the armor the suit offered, he might look just as bad.

However seeing the injuries fully didn't make him want to stop, if anything else the rage in his gut made him want to continue to beat Rogers until he felt sure that the man felt the same amount of physical pain that he did mental. He wanted to tear into him, to leave him bleeding out onto the concrete and let him watch while he killed Barnes, forget taking him into custody now, he wanted him dead.

There was no way he wasn't justified in his actions, Steve Rogers had betrayed him and abandoned him for a murderer, been the cause of Rhodey's serious injury, and there was no excuse for that. Whatever friendship that had been left after the ordeal with the Accords was decimated now, destroyed, shattered, dust in the wind.

Yet there was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that if he did what he wanted to do, he would regret it for the rest of his life. He would never be able to stop himself from seeing his friend, no, ex-friend, in his dreams; haunting him, and questioning how Tony could take his life in cold blood.

Because Captain America was a lot of things in Tony's eyes; a bad friend, a traitor, but despite it all, he wasn't a bad man, and how could he ever live with himself if he killed someone as defenseless as Rogers looked at this moment in time? Without his shield, the man didn't stand a chance against him.

It almost didn't stop him. As Steve weakly lifted a hand to try and push Tony's grip away from him, Tony hit Steve again, harder this time, causing his hand to fall away and a loud grunt of pain to escape his lips.

"Stop moving Captain, you're staying right here until someone shows up to take you to the Raft, where you belong."

"Okay, Tony, okay," Steve breathed, "you win."

Defeat that Tony never thought he would hear was thick in the mans voice, it was an odd sound to hear from the star-spangled man with a plan, the one who never seemed to give up no matter what the circumstances.

Maybe this was destroying him as much as it was Tony? No, surely that couldn't be true, not after everything else.

"But let Bucky go."

The words caused Tony's softening heart to harden instantly, of course that's what this was about, that's what it was always about.

"Of course that's what this is about, it always is, isn't it, Rogers? I'm not going to let Bucky go," Tony growled, fury dripping in his tone, "I should kill him before they get here, it'd be really easy to claim self defense."

Steve's breath hitched painfully and he stared at Tony, wide eyed. "No, don't do that, I'm begging you. Let him go, I'll go quietly, but Tony, you don't know what they might do to him after everything."

"They'll lock him away, just like they're going to lock you away," Tony growled, "preferrably forever, hopefully you both rot in that prison."

"Hydra brainwashed him, it wasn't his fault, it isn't fair," Steve insisted, and Tony just grew angrier listening to his petition for his friend. "Don't do this."

"Don't tell me what to do, Rogers," Tony turned on his heel, feeling the rage bubbling back up into his chest as he stared down at the Winter Soldier. The man looked pathetic, with his one arm missing and the rest of his body badly injured.

Images of the video he'd watched less than thirty minutes before flashed across his mind, reigniting every feeling in his gut and making him feel physically sick. How was it fair that this man was still alive and his mother wasn't? That was the real injustice in this situation.

Powering up a repulsor and aiming it at the Winter Soldier's skull, Tony determined with himself that it was the right thing to do, eliminate the man who had killed so many people and the planet would likely even thank him for it.

However, Steve Rogers wouldn't. He forced himself onto his feet and moved up to the Iron Man suit from behind. At first he was unsure of his course of action, his shield laid near by and he felt sure he could grab it, but he was too tired and in too much pain for anymore fighting with his friend.

Instead he moved around Tony and dropped down on top of his friend and brother, shielding him from Tony's weapon as best as he was allowed, willing to take the blast for his friend.

Tony's hand lunged forward and he grabbed the back of Steve's uniform, flinging him to the side effortlessly with the strength of the suit. "Back off, Rogers!"

"Please!" Steve begged desperately, trying to scramble up as quickly as he could to get back to his friend. "Tony! Please!"

"No!"

The repulsor went off and Steve's heart jumped into his throat as he leaped forward, desperate to put himself in between the blast and his friend, but he was too slow.

The Winter Soldier was hurled across the room and past the pillars into bitter cold snow below.

"Bucky!" Steve tried to follow, but Tony Stark's iron grip grabbed onto him from behind and prevented him. Memories of Bucky falling from the train so many years ago danced through Steve's mind and he felt ill as he fell to his knees. "Tony, he..!"

"Let him rot," Tony said coldly, "the blast probably killed him anyway."

Agony ripped through Steve's chest as he sat there in defeat yet again. It seemed he was doomed to be so close, just close enough to save Bucky, but so far away.

He had been so close, he had done so much to save him, but it was never enough. He'd fallen from the train, he'd ran away after Hydra had destroyed his mind, and now he'd fallen from the building to the snow below, eerily similar to the first time that Steve had lost him but entirely different all at the same time.

Steve couldn't even bring himself to blame Tony, despite the fact that he wanted to yell and scream and blame him. He wanted to demand a 'why', but he already knew the answer to the question, his heart just didn't want to accept it. It was easier to paint people out to be the bad guy than to accept there was more to the situation than that. Tony deserved to feel the way he was feeling, and even Steve knew that.

Slowly he lowered his head to his hands, deep, quivering breaths escaped him as he tried to hold back his tears.

Tony watched the man as his shoulders heaved, but he couldn't bring himself to feel guilty. Easily he lifted the man from his sitting positon, twisting his arms behind his back, and began leading him out the other way, pushing him roughly and noting that he didn't seem to be resisting at all.

He'd managed to destroy Captain America, well, good. Captain America had done a number on him and one way or the other, one of them was destined to end up this way, defeated and broken.

Silence filled the air between the two, no more words came out of Cap and it was almost unsettling. The rage, the emotion, slowly started to drain out of Tony and he just felt tired, tired and raw. The pain of the day seemed to grow numb and all he wanted was to hand Cap over to the authorities and be done with today, to go to sleep and forget that it had ever happened.

However to forget would mean that he would wake up tomorrow hoping that everything was how it had been, that the team wasn't destroyed, that his friendship with Steve hadn't been worth so little.

"Tony?" Steve's quiet voice startled him out of his musings as they made their way out of the facility, he looked up and the super soldier was tiredly looking back at him, pain both mental and physical etching every line of his face. "I really am sorry."

The words sent ripples of shock down Tony's spine, Roger's friend was likely dead and he was still apologizing for his actions? This was a level of defeat that he never thought he would see out of Captain America, ever, and he wasn't sure what to do with it.

As Tony let a deep sigh pass his lips, he got the strange feeling that after everything this wasn't over yet, and it was only going to get harder from here.

Authors Note:

Well hello people of somewhere that is probably earth, how's it going? I figured I would address the people with an authors note!

This is the first fanfiction I've written in many a year, and I gotta say I'm kind of excited about it. I started this story just for fun and decided I would post it, because why not? It's not beta'd, so forgive any grammatical or punctuation errors that happen to be present, I do the best I can!

So to say a few things; I'm basing this solely off of what I know of the MCU, I know nothing about the comics and this won't be adherent to them any more or any less than the movies are.

Also while I absolutely love movies, I have to say I am by no means an expert and I'm still picking stuff up as I go! There are a few movies I haven't seen, so if there are any errors due to that I apologize in advance.

In case it wasn't obvious, this is an AU, so it won't follow the story line pass the point of Civil War. Kind of a 'what if it had happened a different way,' outlook.

One last thing, I'm not really great at writing characters that aren't my own, which is why I don't write fanfiction very often and this is the first I've actually posted on this account; so I also apologize for the slight OOCness that will probably be present, but I also don't care. ;)

Anyway! Just an upfront little authors note, I'm not sure exactly how long this fic is going to be as it started out as me just having fun, and I'm not entirely sure where it's going to go, but I suppose we'll see! I have a few ideas!

Until next time!