Chapter 23.

Tony was remarkably calm.

Steve suspected this was another dark part of his personality, finally surfacing. His cruelty, his menace. Everyone had a little bit of it inside of them, mostly tucked away, but the Whisperer had dragged all of his to the surface. Steve could only imagine what he was thinking.

He sat there, relaxed, elbows on the dinner table. The Avengers had assembled a makeshift interrogation room in one of the houses that was still standing, separating Tony from his suit, hopefully rendering him harmless.

"Who wants to talk to him first?" Bruce wondered, as they all hovered in the kitchen. His rampage in the empty neighborhood had ended abruptly ten minutes after it began.

Steve nodded to him.

"Me?" Bruce laughed. "It's not be a good idea to put me and Tony in a room together right now. You might not have noticed, but he's completely lost it."

"You two are close. Maybe you can snap him out of it."

"He's only been lucid with you," Bruce pointed out.

"Yeah, trying to kill me."

Bruce sighed. "Okay. Wish me luck, I guess."

He was only in there five minutes.

When he came back, he was shaking his head, "Nope. Not going back in there."

"What happened?" Clint asked.

Bruce laughed, "You know how Tony picks on everyone all the time? Well, apparently he was holding back all these years."

Nat taunted him, "Aww, did he hurt your feelings?"

Bruce ran a hand through his hair. He had been struggling to keep his composure lately.

"He asked for you, Steve," Bruce said.

Steve still had a limp from a bullet wound, and a few leftover pieces of fabric grinding into his back, but he put on a casual expression when he entered the dining room.

Tony watched him, dark eyes red around the rims – from lack of sleep, or progression of the shadows inside? His journey out over the ocean had lasted three days, and he had returned with an army. Steve wondered where he had gone, who he might have encountered along the way. Did he hurt anyone? Do anything sinister? Or was his focus too tight, too specific?

"What do you want from me, Cap?" Tony asked.

He sounded lucid, almost normal, but there was an underlying bite in his words. Tony could be vicious sometimes, even when not under the influence of an alien being.

"I want to help you."

"Bullshit."

"A being called the Whisperer attacked you. He did this to you. But you can come back from it."

"I don't want to." Tony rolled his eyes, sitting back in his chair. "God, you're so exhausting. Don't you ever get tired of being the hero? Let loose for once."

"What, like you?"

"Yeah, like me."

The changes in him were clear now, and though the outright rage had faded, Steve found this version of him more dangerous. Tony was not acting on emotion now. He was thinking, planning.

Paranoia, and then rage, and then calm cruelty, in that order.

"I'm finally free," Tony said. "All these years, you've been holding me back. I've been holding myself back. I was obsessed with what people thought, how they might get hurt. That was something I never thought about before I made my first suit of armor. Now I finally have that version of me back, and I'm not letting go."

"There are no versions of you. There's just you, the person you've become. You fought hard for that. Do you remember what you did in New York?"

A pinch of doubt entered Tony, but was quickly swallowed up.

"I'll let you in on a little secret, Cap. At the end of the day, no one sees the good you do. They just see the bad things you leave behind."

"So, what, you're saying we shouldn't even try?"

"I'm saying I don't care."

"You seem to care a lot about killing me. Why?"

"Because I hate you."

"No, you don't."

Tony ground his teeth, struggling. He was fighting it. The gray danced in his eyes, faded, and returned, cycling. Tony looked like he was in pain.

"I know you can beat this." Steve lowered his voice, trying to break through while he had Tony on the ropes. "You have to."

"I don't… have to do anything," Tony said, his hands gripping the edge of the table.

"Yeah, you do. You signed up to be a hero when you joined us. It's your job."

The moment ended, the gray faded. Tony smiled at him.

"Not anymore."

A projectile crashed into the room, soaring through both walls, and struck someone with a solid thud in the hallway. Tony leapt up from the table. Steve grabbed his shield, deflecting rubble as the house filled with the remaining suits.

Apparently naptime was over.

A suit went for Tony, opening up, and Steve grabbed him before he could don it. He slammed him against the nearest wall. "Call them off!"

"You're running on fumes, Cap," Tony said, unfazed by his threat.

Steve drew him forward and slammed him back. "Damnit, Tony, call them off! Snap out of it!"

A robotic hand closed around his arm, dragging him backward. Steve turned to fight it, but another suit appeared and caught his punch, and the two of them slammed him to the ground in unison. Steve grabbed one by the face and flipped it, striking the other one down with its sibling.

He knocked another empty suit away from Tony, working through the urge to help his team. He could hear them fighting, destroying the house, dodging bullets and lasers.

Steve slammed Tony against the wall again, again, again. "Come on! Wake up!"

The gray smoke returned to his eyes in full force, filling the irises, spilling into the whites.

Tony gasped, blinking, struggling.

Steve loosened his grip.

Tony was suddenly grabbing his forearms, like he was trying not to drown, "I'm not gonna stop."

"You can-"

"No. Listen to me. I can't stop. You have to kill me."

"I'm not doing that."

"I'm going to kill you, don't you get it?"

"No, you can fight this. I don't give up on my friends. It's a character flaw."

Tony laughed, a manic sound, "Just this once, Cap, you gotta let go."

"No. Not even once."

"If these are my last words, I want you to know you're a pain in the ass."

A suit slammed into Steve, knocking him away.

Steve lashed out, striking it in the chest so hard that it's shoulder plate fell off. Another appeared, grabbing Steve's arm, knocking his legs out from under him. The blows came fast and hard, one after another. Steve knocked the arm off of one, crushed the faceplate of another.

Soon, he was overwhelmed.