All characters belong to Disney, Marvel, and most importantly, to their creators: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and dozens of other immensely talented individuals.

2. Steve Rogers & Tony Stark: Kings & Pawns

"Indulge me, please."

Tony Stark rarely played chess. As a matter of fact, he could count on one hand the number of individuals he had ever played, and on one finger the number of individuals who had beaten him. He had, before the age of eleven, defeated two grandmasters and his father. The individual who had defeated him had been a renowned geneticist, and in exchange Tony had made some upgrades to the man's frankly primitive wheelchair design.

Yet here he was, sat with a board in front of him, requesting a game from the most unlikely of opponents.

"I never learned how to play, Tony."

Steve Rogers couldn't recall ever seeing a chess board in person. In his first life, the poverty of those early years meant it was a luxury he would never be able to afford. And the later years were too preoccupied by war to leave him time for games. In his second life, those years had been similarly preoccupied.

He sat down opposite Tony, the two of them divided only by the board and the table upon which the board sat. They were in the Avengers Compound, as they had been for weeks, and tomorrow they would embark upon the most dangerous and fantastical mission of their lives: to travel through time, to acquire the six infinity stones, and to reverse the most devastating act in the history of creation.

For Steve, chess was not an item on the agenda.

"Tip your king," Tony said, gesturing to the piece in question. "Tip it, go on."

Steve acquiesced, tipping the white king piece gently.

"I win," declared Tony, spreading his arms in mock victory. "You're not very good at this."

Steve leaned back in his seat, smiling gently. His eyes drifted to Tony's hair, and not for the first time he observed the increasing grey. The same grey was present in his distinctive facial hair. While certainly not old, Tony was not the young man Steve had met years earlier; while vital and dynamic, he did not possess the same vitality and dynamism he once had. Tony was a husband and a father now. Once, Steve recalled, Tony had told him that "we are not soldiers!"

Tomorrow, Tony would go to war. He would leave his wife and daughter, and go with them to war. Steve wished he didn't have to. But he wouldn't try to talk him out of it. Because the Avengers needed Tony. The universe needed him.

"Captain, you're staring." Tony quipped.

Steve's smile broadened, and he shook his head gently.

"You've changed a lot, but not at all," he responded.

"I think we both have, Steve."

The super soldier nodded quietly. Meanwhile, Tony leaned forward in his chair and picked up his own king piece, fiddling with it absent-mindedly. Looking at Steve, he was struck by how little Captain America had changed physically. While he and others aged, Steve remained pristine, as though carved from marble. Eternal and inflexible. The man out of time, for whom time could be about to run out. Then again, time could be about to run out for all of them.

He remembered his own words from a recording he had composed just hours earlier.

"Part of the journey is the end."

The end was coming. Tony could feel it in his bones.

While Steve gazed into the distance, his mind adrift, Tony spoke the words he had intended to deliver for days.

"I want to talk to you about Barnes."

Steve's sparkling blue eyes met his immediately. A mind adrift became a mind focussed, and suddenly Tony felt a palpable tension in the room. It wasn't difficult. He had, after all, invited the tension.

The futurist had hypothesised this conversation for weeks, months, and years. Almost every day since Siberia, in fact. The words exchanged had been different, the resolutions had been varied, and the relationship between Captain America and Iron Man, between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, had never quite been the same. But hypothesis' were just that: hypothetical.

This was reality, and Tony knew the tension he had invited was either about to be diffused or detonated.

As Steve leaned forward, his posture stiff, Tony noticed the slightest hint of green in his blue eyes, and recalled how Helmut Zemo had recalled the same thing all those years ago. On the day his friendship with Steve was changed irrevocably.

"Alright," answered Steve, gripping the arms of his chair tightly. "I certainly owe you that much."

"He killed my Mom." Tony stated bluntly, his voice hollow as he echoed his own words from years before. "He… he killed my Mom."

Their table and chairs were placed strategically close to a roaring fire, and for a few moments the only thing that could be heard were the smouldering embers crackling pleasantly. The heat of the fire was wasted, though, as Tony's words eradicated any warmth in the room.

"Tony…" Steve began, before pausing again. "Tony, I am so sorry. That I didn't tell you. That I told myself I was sparing you when was I was actually doing was being a coward."

While he spoke, Steve watched as Tony fiddled with his own king piece, looking at it resolutely as he twirled it between finger and thumb. His eyes were haunted. Sensing that no response was yet forthcoming, Steve continued.

"It's not my place to apologise for Bucky, and I won't. What he… what happened to your Mother and Father was a tragedy. But what happened to him was also a tragedy. He had his life stolen from him, Tony. He's not responsible. HYDRA was responsible. And now HYDRA is gone."

"You've made a choice to risk everything to save this world. No, to save this universe. And if… when we succeed, that means we'll have saved Bucky. When that happens, Bucky will have a choice to make about what he does with his life. We all will. But whatever happens, he was and is my friend. And whatever happens, I hope… so are you."

Slowly and methodically, Tony placed the king back in its rightful place on the board, leaned back in his chair, and stared Steve dead in the eye. Those eyes, mostly blue and somewhat green, were tired. The way a man who had lost many friends in many different wars and battles would be tired.

"I've thought about this a lot," Tony began carefully. "About him, and about you. About Mom and Dad, and… especially about that day."

"I told you that you didn't deserve the shield, but I like to think I made amends for that by giving you it back. Morgan was heartbroken, by the way."

Smiling, Steve thought of the little girl he had met only briefly, and how she had apparently used his shield as a sled. He enjoyed knowing that for someone it was not only a tool of power and war.

"But Bucky… you know what, let's call him Lt. Barnes, 'Bucky' just feels ridiculous to me," Tony continued, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair relentlessly. "I don't know Lt. Barnes, all I know is The Winter Soldier and what he did."

The last was said with some bite, and Steve's reaction was that of a wounded puppy.

"Tony…"

"But maybe The Winter Soldier and Lt. Barnes aren't one and the same," Tony asserted, reaching out to grab another chess piece. "Maybe Lt. Barnes was just a pawn."

He shook the piece, a pawn, in his clenched fist.

"That's exactly what he was." Steve replied sadly. "And he's suffered for it. Bucky suffered, Tony."

"I could make him suffer more," snarled Tony in a vindictive tone, watching as Steve's wounded expression intensified.

But then Tony looked at the pawn again, took a deep breath, and put the piece back on the board gently. "But maybe he's suffered enough."

"Maybe we all have. And suffering… it's not what I want for myself or for you. I feel like I've spent most of my life suffering one way or another. Most of the time it was brought on by myself. Sometimes, suffering found me even when I tried to be better."

"But now I've got Pepper, and I've got Morgan. I've got people I need to protect. So let's save the world. Let's save Barnes. Let's save Peter, and Fury. Let's save all of them."

He stood up suddenly, as though infused with a burst of energy, and Steve mirrored his actions. Tony reached out a hand. One final act of solidarity and resolution.

"Together," Tony concluded.

Steve clasped Tony's hand in his, and they shook.

"Together." he agreed.