Reading Never Bite the Hand that Feeds You before reading What Happened to the Others? is required.

Trigger Warnings: References to Torture.

"What happened to the others?"

It took several months for the question to finally present itself, coming from the quivering lips of a very tired, very beaten-down, very sick Steven Rogers. It came suddenly, given the circumstances, and Tony wasn't quite sure what to make of it at first. Confused, he stood with one hand on the Steve's back while the other froze halfway through the prisoner's hair.

"The Avengers, I mean." Steve leaned forward, tensing up as if he might heave again, but then he caught his breath and drooped against the toilet. "Hill… Fury… th-the team… what happened to everyone?"

"I know what you meant," the inventor snapped, and he savored the way Steve flinched underneath him. "I was thinking."

"Sorry." Steve kept his head down, his apology soft and half-muttered.

Tony said nothing and dove headfirst into his thoughts, pondering the progress he had made over the past several months and trying to decide whether or not sharing information was a good idea.

Things were going fairly well, given the fact that he was trying to break the will of the one and only Captain America. For the first six weeks, it had been non-stop torture for Steve, each torment designed to cut the man to his core. It started with the murder of his best friend and ended with him naked and bleeding, soaked and shivering, bruised and burned, black-eyed and bloody-toothed, curled up in a fetal position on the floor and begging, pleading, screaming for it to stop because he just couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm sorry, Tony! I'm s-sorry, just make it stop! Please, make it stop!"

For a few days, there was calm, and Steve was given time to recover. But Tony knew all too well how a reprieve from torture could make one forget the pain they felt in the moment of surrender. So, Tony started testing him. Steve wasn't kept under lock and key of any sort, and he could walk out of Stark Tower whenever he wanted. It was simply very foolhardy to do so.

"Now, Steven, I'm trusting you not to leave this tower. Understand?"

At first, Steve didn't understand at all, but after his first attempted escape, he started to get it. Tony was giving him a chance to prove himself, to prove he really was sorry and wasn't the backstabbing liar the billionaire remembered and despised.

The first time Steve tried to leave, he was beaten with a variety of fists and rods and clubs, which Tony thought was fairly lenient. Steve was, after all, no less a super soldier than he was before he broke. Then he tried again, and they took a razor to the soles of his feet to discourage running. The time after that, he was electrocuted until he seemed repentant enough to let off the table.

But bless his soul, he kept on trying.

Kept on fighting and screaming and cursing Tony's name until one day, one fateful day, when Tony was pushed just a little too far and reacted poorly. Which, in his defense, he was aware his behavior on that particular day was entirely uncalled for.

"Rhodey would be disgusted if he could see what you are today because of him."

Tony remembered nothing but red, a blind rage completely overtaking his senses and leaving him with a painfully absent conscience. He spat out orders, unsure of exactly what he was saying, and then he watched as Captain America was stripped, beaten, and doused repeatedly in freezing cold water before being shoved into a closet-sized freezer.

Steve screamed.

He screamed and pounded on the walls, scratching fervently at his skin where thin sheets of ice were starting to form. He clawed at his face, at his mouth and nose and eyes, trying desperately to keep the frost away.

Tony felt something twist inside of him, but rather than change the sentence, he simply walked away. He said he wanted to be called in an hour, and then he turned his back on the pleading, panicking, dissolving human being on the monitor.

Later, when Tony returned to see how Steve had fared, he realized he had gone too far. Successful though the treatment might have been, his brain could only process one thought as Steve sprang out of the freezer and cleaved onto him like a desperate child seeking shelter from the dark.

Afghanistan.

There was nothing but fear—pure, unadulterated terror in quantities Tony fully understood but couldn't begin to explain—and despair in the soldier's eyes. Steve wept and clutched onto Tony's suit, begging and bribing and bargaining, willing to do whatever it took to ensure he would never, ever, ever have to go through that ever again.

PTSD at its finest.

Steve had been obedient after that, and if he started to look at the doors a little too longingly, the cameras would pick up on it and send out an automated reminder of what awaited another escape attempt. Then he would scurry away, shielding his eyes on either side so he couldn't possibly be accused of looking at any doors or windows.

No problems, at least none Tony was made aware of, until the present day arrived. Earlier that morning, Steve had suddenly bolted towards the fire escape, and when threats didn't work, the computers notified Tony. He arrived just in time to see Steve dive not through the window but into the bathroom. Confused but curious, Tony had followed him and found him clinging to the toilet and involuntarily rejecting everything he had consumed within the last twenty-four hours.

"T-Tony…"

Blinking, the billionaire brought himself back to reality just in time for Steve to drop his head and heave multiple times, none of them yielding a result. Tony rubbed a few, small circles on the soldier's back and coaxed him away from the porcelain throne.

"You've been dry heaving for about an hour now. If nothing has come up yet, nothing is going to come up." Tony slipped his hands beneath Steve's arms and started to pull him to his feet. "You need sleep. You can keep a trash can by the bed if it makes you feel better, but you can't sit in here anymore."

Steve slurred incoherent words and struggled to stay upright, leaning heavily on his captor and fighting to get one foot in front of the other without stumbling.

"You're a regular train wreck, you know that?" Tony sighed and leaned down, sweeping the super soldier off his feet and carrying him the remaining eight feet to the bed.

"Wh-when did—?" Steve looked at the floor with wary eyes—wary, sunken, red, bloodshot, bruised, swollen eyes. "You can lift me?"

Tony laughed, his tone a confusing mixture of bitterness and pride. "Well, I couldn't trust anyone else to have my back, and way back when, I learned a very important lesson about relying on my suits too much. I exercise regularly—weight-lifting and stuff—and I've taught myself a few different kinds of martial arts. I'm pretty good with a gun now, too."

Steve licked his lips and opened his mouth, a slew of questions hovering just behind his teeth, but then he was being enveloped in softness and warmth and every other concern he may have had seemed to vanish. "Mnn…"

Tony grabbed a spare blanket from the storage at the foot of the bed and flicked it over his prisoner. He pulled a chair up to the bed and took a seat, crossing one leg over the other and folding his hands atop his knees. "What happened to the others? Hmm… what did happen to the others?"

Steve looked at him, as attentive as he could be in his state, and tried to sniff away some of the drainage in his sinuses.

"Well, some of those are pretty quick and easy answers." Tony rubbed his goatee and considered where to begin. "I didn't do anything to Dr. Banner. I don't know where he is, and I haven't tried to hunt him down. He might have abandoned me, but I understand his reasoning, and I empathize with what he was going through at the time."

After all, if betrayal and loneliness and distrust were the emotions that spurred Tony's tyrannical reign, he couldn't say they weren't valid reasons for Bruce to run away from his problems. Even after everything the billionaire had accomplished, there were still some days when he wanted to up and run. He couldn't, of course. His problems were global, and if he tried to leave the planet…

"Thor was on Asgard when I planned my takeover, so all I had to do was figure out how to keep the Bifrost from accessing Earth. I got my hands on Jane Foster and picked her brain so I could understand how the Bifrost actually works. Then I got the Gatekeeper's attention, pretty much by yelling his name at the sky, and we struck up a deal of sorts. I would get rid of Jane once I figured out how to cut off the Bifrost, and Heimdall would tell Thor she died of natural causes. Asgard got to have its crown prince back full time, and I got to keep my head undented. Then, all I had to do was reverse-engineer the atmosphere to turn the Earth's exosphere into an anti-Bifrost. That's why the sky is always sort of reddish purple."

Steve swallowed and nodded his head slightly, pulling the blankets tighter around himself and sniffing again.

"Don't worry, it was quick. Bullet to the head—bang!"

Steve jumped, and Tony laughed, throwing his legs up onto the soldier's back and folding his arms behind his head.

"Now, let's see… Falcon was pretty easy to shoot down, and I didn't have a bone to pick with him, so that was a quickie, too. Gotta love heat-seeking artillery. Scott Lang was compliant enough once I explained his daughter was under constant surveillance and would be shot dead if he tried anything. I drop by every now and then to remind him. Wanda was a little more difficult, but despite her powers, all you really have to do is surprise her. I distracted her, and one of my boys emptied a magazine in her back. Vision didn't take too well to that, but in the end, he's just a computer. I created a reactor-powered EMP before I even put Wanda in danger, and then it was just a matter of shutting him down with it and then dismantling the body." Tony sighed, squinting at the ceiling as he struggled to recall the entirety of the list. "Oh, T'Challa. Wakanda has always been a pretty anti-social country, so they didn't do a whole lot to try and stop my attacks on the rest of the world. When I felt I had done enough to show I was serious, I confronted Prince Kitty and demanded Bucky be released to me."

Steve stiffened underneath Tony's feet, and the sheer agony that flooded through the puffy eyes painted a cruel smirk on the corner of the villain's mouth.

"It took him all of ten seconds to decide to give me what I wanted once I promised to leave Wakanda out of my attacks. Sucks, doesn't it? Thinking you can trust someone to protect something important to you, only to find out you don't rank very high on their list of priorities at all."

Steve didn't respond, keeping his jaw clenched tightly as a glassy film began to form over his eyes. Tony was used to that response by now, especially when Bucky was the topic of conversation, and it didn't bother him in the least. Maybe it should have. Maybe he should have demanded more.

"Anyway, Wakanda is still a functioning country, and we trade with each other sometimes. If it makes you feel any better, he never approaches me. He just does what he's told when I approach him. Destroying the world tends to give you that kind of power." Tony chuckled to himself, leaning back in his chair consulting his mental lists again. "Hill worked for me, so she was easy to corner and shoot at point blank range. Even the best agents go down if you have enough men. Fury was impossible to find, but I knew if I continued to wreak havoc, he would stick his nose in eventually, which he did. Oh, you'll like this. Coulson wasn't actually dead. It was all a cover-up, and he was actually acting as Director in Fury's stead. How do I know that? Because I took down S.H.I.E.L.D., so of course I had to kill the Director, meaning I had to kill Coulson. And, as it turned out, that was the move that finally pulled Fury out from under his rock. Everything worked out really well, actually."

Steve stared at him, blue irises darkened with a frantic mixture of anger and grief and despair. It looked like he didn't know what to think about what he was hearing, as if his emotions were so warped and damaged by his own sentence that he wasn't sure how to feel about the deaths of his ex-comrades.

Poor Stevie.

"Mm, I think that's all the minor people. 'Course, that leaves Clint and Natasha and yourself. Clint was easy enough, once I tracked him down. Stuck his family in a line-up and told him he had two choices: shoot his wife and leave with his kids or shoot his kids and leave with his wife. A mother will always take the bullet for her children, and Clint knew she would never forgive him for choosing her over them, so he shot her. Then, after a bit of gloating, I shot him and stored his kids in the basement."

Steve swallowed thickly and closed his eyes, shaking his head ever-so-slightly.

"Natasha, well… she was a real pain to find, and even when I did, I couldn't really get what I wanted. I tried torturing her at first, trying to get her to apologize, but after a while, I realized that wasn't going to work. I poisoned her, tied her to a chair in the middle of a room of monitors, and played Clint and Laura's executions on a loop until she died. Then I just had to broadcast to the world that I had Bucky and wait for you to come crawling to my door, which you did, and after a hefty beat down, the boys captured you and badabing, badaboom, here we are."

Steve wet his lips and opened his mouth, timid but curious, fingers prodding the soft blanket nervously. "… Pepper?"

Tony's face must have given away the tenderness of that particular wound, because Steve immediately flinched and put an arm over his head. Tony didn't hit him, though. It was a valid question, and the only thing Tony was interested in beating out of his captive was any signs or symptoms of betrayal.

That disgusting, accursed betrayal.

"Pepper… well, uh, she moved. Changed her job, of course, became a CEO in a really great company. I, uh, I can't remember what they sold, but—okay, it was clean energy, and that… stung." Tony realized he was rambling and tried to shut himself up, running his hands through his hair and massaging his scalp. "I took down all major companies in my takeover. I told you that, right? I think I did. If I didn't, the corporate monster was one of three pillars I deemed necessary to destroy if I wanted full control of the planet. Pepper's company was no exception, and when the dust settled…"

Steve blinked, listening intently, waiting for the story to resolve.

"Well, I don't remember exactly what the death toll was that day. I'm sure I got a report on it, but you know, I never read reports. Jarvis used to—never mind." Shaking his head, the billionaire waved it off and tried to push forward. "After we took down the company, I…"

"Tony?" Steve gently prodded the man, his voice hardly above a whisper. "Did she die?"

Tony met the soldier's eyes, staring deep into the cerulean rings for any sign of deceit or malice. He went past that cloudless, summer sky to the black holes within. Because there was darkness there. Tony had learned that lesson the hard way, and he didn't intend to make the same mistake twice.

But there was nothing. No, not nothing. There was something, but it wasn't dangerous. It was sincere and wholesome, dampened by the reality of who Tony was but there all the same, as if the eyes couldn't help themselves. Because despite everything, Steve was a very simple man, and he couldn't look at someone in pain and not have some of that kindness, some of that caring nature go into his eyes.

Then how could you do what you did to me? Tony curled his hands into fists and considered the man lying prone before him. How can you still care, how can you still genuinely care, when you did that to me? It made him want to punch out a wall.

Because he didn't understand how he could be the cruel one when Steve could look into the eyes of a man he betrayed and make him want to trust again.

"…Tony? I-I'm sorry, I—"

"It doesn't matter." Tony left the bedside and marched through the doorway, grabbing one of his scientists by the arm and gesturing to the room he had just left. "Keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't get dehydrated, and keep him alive."

"Yes, sir."

Tony let the man go and kept on walking, storming into the elevator and riding it all the way to the top floor, still in a huff when he arrived. He half-walked, half-ran through the living room, down the hall, and into his workshop.

He made an immediate right turn once he was through the doors, and with a few kicks and shoves, the lone filing cabinet stowed away in the corner surrendered its bottom drawer.

Pepper.

Tony's hands cautiously lowered into the metal box, shaking slightly, and with a tenderness reserved only for the thinnest and weakest of computer chips, he lifted a manila envelope from the dusty junk pile.

Feeling numb, the inventor walked away from the corner, his feet carrying his body to a nearby chair and parking him in front of it. He turned slowly and dropped onto the seat, hands still quivering, eyes somewhat glazed and vacant as he stared at the stamp on the front.

Fingers danced across the paper, turning the object in his hands carefully, until he was staring at the unbroken seal. His thumb slid along the underside of the flap, and for the hundredth time, he tried to get himself to tear it open.

But he couldn't.

Maybe it was because, despite all of his theatrics, he still cared too much. Maybe it was the exact opposite, and he was afraid she would be the thing to make him care again. Most likely, he was too afraid to face what he had done—or rather, what he might have done.

"I don't know, Steve…" Tony spoke to the air, eyes burning as the image of his own hands began to blur. "I don't know if I killed her… and I'm too much of a coward to find out."

Ivan startled, clutching his clipboard against his chest and staring at the ceiling with a shadow of fear in his eyes. "What was that?"

"You must be new." Weston, the head scientist, chuckled and pointed in the general direction of the ruckus which had startled his new subordinate. "Mr. Stark does that sometimes. Just let him wreck everything in sight, keep your head down, and take him a scotch when it's all over."

Ivan wet his lips and nodded nervously. "Uh—yeah, sure. Sounds good."

"Now, Mr. Stark wants you to work in the biomechanics division. I'll take you down to the lab…"