A/N. Hello! This is a mish-mash of scenes we glimpsed from the newest trailer (and some not from the newest trailer) as well as speculation, character study, and exploration into the relationship between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. It's not much, but I wanted to write about it. The trailer got me excited :D Review if you're stoked for Avengers: Age of Ultron! I hope you enjoy :D

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. This was written for recreational purposes and I claim nothing. Not even the plot.

Mistakes

"I'm sick of watching people pay for our mistakes," Steve told Tony angrily. He was sick of it alright. Fed up. Tired of it. Frustrated. Disgusted by it. Steve had had enough.

Tony whirled on him. "We're all human, Steve! We make mistakes! We can't all be perfect like you!"

"When you will get that image of me out of your twisted mind?" Because it was twisted. What kind of person would create something like Ultron? Yes, Tony had made JARVIS and Steve liked JARVIS but he didn't trust it. While Steve had been de-sensitized to technology, it didn't mean he had to like it.

Tony attempted to shove his fist into the wall next to him. The others watched, tense and armed. Steve thought he himself was probably the calmest person in the room, which was ironic since he was the one in the thick of the fight.

"This is MY fault! Okay? Happy now? Stop rubbing fucking salt in my wounds!" Tony shouted.

Tony didn't understand. It wasn't just him that Steve was ashamed of. They'd all made mistakes, himself included. Steve hated all of it. It was his fault that Bucky was out there on a rampage, trying to find himself and leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. It was his fault that Hydra survived all these years. It was his fault that he hadn't seen any of this sooner.

Steve was trying to acknowledge all of their mistakes. He had started this conversation trying to come up with a motivational speech. They were stuck on Clint's farm and could use some motivation right now. But God damn Tony had to take everything personally.

"This is your fault and we have to fix it!" Steve shouted, fire boiling his blood. They'd made too many mistakes. It was their fault the world was like this in the first place. "You should have-"

"Shoulda, coulda, woulda, shut up!" Tony screamed, banging his palm against the table. Again and again. "Shut up! Shut up!" He looked up and glared daggers at Steve. "We can't change the past! You of all people know that!"

"Tony-"

"No! I don't need guilt trips by fucking Captain America to make me feel worse about myself!"

"I don't care how you feel about yourself!" Steve blared over the yelling. That might have been the biggest lie he'd ever told. But Tony wasn't one to be coddled and wouldn't accept it from him anyway. This was the only way to get to him. "You have to fix this," he stated, quieter but as if he were delivering a kill order. His voice was solemn yet impassive. "We... have to fix this." He looked around at all of them, making eye contact with each one. He took a deep breath. "No matter how this started, Ultron needs to be taken down. Permanently." He sent a glare to Tony, who shot one back. "We'll save the world," he said, but he didn't really believe it himself.


Destruction reigned. Buildings imploded. Towers crashed into each other, creating an intricate web of carnage and death. Fire and smoke permeated the air with such effectiveness that there was nowhere Steve could look without seeing it, near or far, small or big. The sky was big and blue, but it was dominated by the red tingeing Steve's vision.

He sprinted like a cheetah down the bridge as it crumbled, bit by bit, car by car, and fell to the ground hundreds of meters below. Everywhere around him, Steve saw technology failing people. Their getaway cars did them no good. The crushed metal trapped them. The cell phones called for help from people who couldn't come. The robots attacked, blasting everything in sight.

Steve had heard theories. Many, many theories. Robots taking over the world. Many people thought it would never happen.

But it was happening.

Steve needed to save whoever he could. The innocents. They didn't deserve to die. There would be no peace if there was no one left to live in it. Peace was unachievable. There would always be evil in this world, but there would also always be good. There had to be a balance. One couldn't dominate over the other for too long or the balance would tip in the other direction. Steve needed to be one of the few on the side of good. He needed to tip the scales.

With every starfish you toss back into the ocean, you save one life, which saves all of their offspring, which saves hundreds more.

Steve skidded to a stop and grabbed one of the cars by the bumper. There was a family of five screaming and bleeding inside, the metal twisted and dented so that they couldn't get out. The road fell away faster than Steve's heart could beat and he dragged the car backward. Maybe he could throw it through that building window-

The bridge broke beneath the car and he gripped it tighter. For one second, he held the entire contraption in the air as the ground shook. With a horrifying screech, the bumper ripped off and the family fell to their deaths, their last thoughts that Captain America had failed them.

Steve screamed and slammed the bumper down after them. He didn't have time to watch. He spun on his heel and bolted back down the way he came. No one still in their cars would survive this. He had failed to save them.

All of them.


"Isn't that why we fight? So we can end the fight and go home?"

Steve stopped what he was doing and stood up, back ramrod straight. "Every time someone tries to stop a war before it starts, innocent people die." That shut Tony up for about one second. "Every time."

Tony was silent a little longer before returning to work. He still disagreed. Steve could see it in every clench of the inventor's muscles as he slammed the ax into the wood.

"Stark.

WHAM!

"Stark!"

WHAM!

"Tony!" Steve barked.

The ax missed and lodged into the trunk of the tree. "What?"

There was a pause where Steve wasn't sure what to say. "Every war has an end."


Steve really wanted a drink. He couldn't remember wanting one more than he did right then. Not just any drink. He wanted Dum Dum's beloved bourbon and he wanted it to work. He wanted to get drunk, would probably be a better way to say it.

That might be the only thing he and Tony had in common at the moment.

Tony was arrogant, conceited, over-confident, reckless, stubborn, possessive, rebellious, and one of the most selfless men Steve had ever met. It was confusing to the soldier at first, how people could blur the lines between good and evil so much more than they used to. How Natasha was good and bad. How Tony was good and bad. How he himself was good and bad.

Steve couldn't really blame Tony. He understood why the inventor had created Ultron. He really did. The man had good intentions, but the road to Hell was paved with those same ones. Steve wanted to pull Tony in the other direction, but the man was so set on punishing himself that he was dragging others down with him. It was very tempting to let Tony go.

It was hard not to blame him for what happened. It was Tony's fault, case and point. How could you not be mad at someone who was responsible for the lives of thousands of people being lost at the hands of Ultron? How could you forgive that?

Possibly the same way you forgive your brainwashed best friend after he tried to kill you multiple times and continued to kill when that you weren't there anymore. You just... do.

Steve wasn't quite there yet. He hadn't forgiven Tony and he wasn't sure if or when he would, but he knew that he couldn't time travel backward. If he could go back in the ice and travel backward, Steve would do it. To prevent all this. The destruction. The death. The doomed feeling everyone had. He would give everything to save someone else. Tony included.

Steve was still incredibly mad at him, but he was too damn tired to fight with him. They disagreed on everything but that aside, Steve actually liked Tony. The mechanic was someone who had made mistakes and would spend the rest of his life making up for them. They were all like that. In that sense, Steve and Tony were the same.

The two of them had gradually become almost-friends over the years. The other Avengers claimed rather confidently that the two of them acted like bickering brothers, which they both vehemently denied.

Steve had only ever had one brother and he could never be replaced.

But Steve did have to admit, at some point and very grudgingly, that Tony was someone he cared about. As such, Steve didn't want to fight with him anymore. With everyone going on, he didn't have the energy. He sank onto the hood of one of Tony's Audi's and propped one knee up, clasping his hands around it.

He felt drained, almost like he was ninety pounds in every sense of the word except the literal one. He wanted Ultron gone and everything to be over. He wanted to find Bucky and cure him and have that be it. Life was never that easy. Life was too cruel to be that easy and no matter how much faith Steve had in God, the world would always be a cruel, cruel place.

Tony's hand was twitching uncontrollably as he stood across from Steve, the sunlight making his dark hair turn almost bright yellow. Steve figured the man was going into alcohol withdrawal. Or just wanted something to do with his hands.

Bruce leaned against the wall of the roof to Steve's left, unsure whether or not he should be there. Ever since this whole mess started, Steve and Tony couldn't be in the same room without tearing each other apart. Bruce was most often the mediator, as was the case right now, but it seemed he wasn't needed.

A not uncomfortable silence fell over them as they watched the sun set.

"There's no way we all get through this," Tony blurted.

Steve looked up. He had enough war experience to be so inclined to think that was true. He was willing to be one of those that didn't make it so long as others could live. He would do it a million times over.

That was one of the things Tony was most afraid of.

Steve tried to lighten the mood. "I'm got no plans tomorrow night."

Bruce huffed out a laugh.


Steve launched the shield at him as hard and as fast as he could. The vibranium pierced the metallic armour and lodged itself into the shoulder. Had the villain been human, his arm might have been severed off. As he was not, Ultron grabbed the shield and tossed it aside like it was nothing.

There went America's symbol for hope. It was a good thing they weren't in America.

Ultron stepped forward as if his dangling arm didn't even hurt. Which it didn't. How do you stop something that doesn't feel pain? How do you deter them? Convince them otherwise? Their intelligence was artificial. Steve knew Ultron had to have a weakness. Everything had a weakness.

As he watched Ultron leap for him, Steve had no idea what that weakness was.


Ultron had defeated him. Multiple times. Over the past several days, Steve and Ultron had gone head to head over and over again. Each time, the A.I. was more powerful. Each time, Steve was left with bruises no one else had been able to give him.

But Steve was more stubborn than a mule. Bucky could attest to that. With every fall, Steve got back up and pushed on. He fought the silver one and lost. The witch had used his affinity for civilians against him, crushing him beneath a car. Ultron had jabbed his throat into a metal railing.

But Steve wasn't done. He would not be done until his dead body was a pile of ash. He would get back up because someone needed him. Someone would always need Captain America. Steve was willing to be him so long as he was needed.

So he got back up every time and he fought. It was a never ending, vicious cycle but none of that mattered. Every war has an end. This would all be over soon, whether they won or lost, it would be over. Steve could not wait for that day. He just hoped they won.

Even if he wasn't needed to lead his team, Steve knew that Tony needed him. Tony was spiralling downward faster than Steve had hit the ice and Tony was quickly killing himself with guilt. Steve wasn't exaggerating.

Tony was fiery and he lashed out at anyone who got to close. The others wished Pepper were here, but no one knew what had become of her since the age of Ultron started. Tony hadn't seen her in weeks and it was tearing him up inside.

Steve, of all people, was left to try and sew him back together.

Through their bickering and their constant fighting, Tony found life. He found a distraction. He picked at Steve's wounds and he tore them off and he poked his fingers inside bullet holes Steve thought had closed long ago.

Steve let him.

Tony needed this and so Steve egged him on. Fought with him. Kept him on his game until such time as Ultron was defeated. They could make amends later.

Except Steve wasn't sure they ever would.

Both of their scars ran deep and they were reopening each other's. Steve was trying really hard to forgive Tony for everything he'd done and everything he'd said. It wasn't working.

Steve toyed with the idea of removing Iron Man from the Avengers.

Tony was unstable and unpredictable and unhappy. That combination made him very dangerous to his teammates, to the world, and to himself.

Steve didn't have the heart. Not now.

With the way Tony was going, Steve might have to force his heart to shrink so that he could kick Tony off. Not that the billionaire would listen. Then Steve would be angry at Tony-

"Is that the best you can do?" Thor roared, pointing his hammer at the floating Ultron.

Steve sliced off the head of one of the final robots and approached Thor, angrier at him than Tony right now. Provoking the enemy was never a good idea. The thunder god should know this by now.

Ultron chuckled and raised a hand.

Hundreds upon hundreds of armours flooded the street, heading for them.

Beaten, battered, and bruised, Steve shot Thor a glare that could kill. "You had to ask."


Steve and Tony would never see eye to eye. But there was one thing on which they could agree: Ultron needed to be stopped. They needed to atone for their mistakes. Together, they could do that.

They hoped.