Steve Rogers is not having a good day. He's just woken up from fourteen years of happiness to a world where the woman he loves (loved?) is a crying, depowered mess on the floor, where the man he loved (loves?) hates him and is completely willing to deny the world they just came out of, and where the daughter he knew (loved, loves, will always love) died as a baby. It's like coming out of the ice, but worse - because the War wasn't something he wanted to go back to. And, to top it all off, the entire world thinks he's dead. As far as bad days go, this one is one of the worst.
So when he finally leaves Wanda alone and comes down the stairs, the last thing he wants to deal with is Tony Stark, giving him an acusatory glare and demanding an answer to a question Steve isn't even aware he'd asked. All he really wants to do, at this point, is to go back to his cell in New York, where he should be, and try to process all that's happened. Tony can figure out what to tell the press about his "death" on his own time.
But Tony's question does demand a response. "A reason for what?" Steve asks, sure that his voice is displaying all of his bitterness.
"Give me a reason --" He steps toward Steve but stops at the bottom of the stairs. Picking up his communicator, he continues, " -- a reason not to call Maria Hill, right now, and say, 'False alarm, it was a security check, Steve's right here at our secure facility in Wundagore, so why don't you just get over here with a crew of cape-killers and take him in?'" He slams a hand on the bannister. "One reason!"
He finishes descending the stairs and stands two feet away from Tony. "I turned myself in, Tony. I don't go back on my word." He holds out his arms, as if acquiescing to invisible handcuffs. "Make the call."
"I've been told that on occasion, yes. But I don't see how it applies here."
Steve remains preternaturally calm in the face of Tony's raving.
"What else are you planning to do with me, exactly? Leave me here in Wudagore with Wanda, to wash your hands of everything you don't want to deal with? Or maybe you're just planning to put a bullet in me yourself, make things nice and tidy. Director Stark likes his loose ends tied up."
They're back to the status quo of the past few months, the trading of angry barbs that characterized all of their interaction during the civil war. It's almost impossible to believe that less than an hour ago they were dancing. But Steve does believe it. Which makes this whole conversation all the more frustrating.
"Christ, Steve, I don't want to put a bullet in you. I never wanted -- Look at this!"
He holds up the view screen on the communicator, which is playing the network news -- a crime scene in front of the Manhattan courthouse. A so-called expert is a side-window babbling about ballistics.
"Somebody wanted you dead. You've had the Red Skull after you for half a century; you've managed fine on your own. You're in custody and I'm off the grid for maybe half an hour, and this happens. You think I want this?"
Steve doesn't look at the screen. Watching people talk about him like he's dead isn't high on his list of things he wants to experience.
"I don't know what you want, Tony. I stopped being able to understand you when you started supporting the Registration Act. And now that you don't even seem keen on acknowledging the fact that we had a child that we're never going to see again, I can't say I understand you any better now. So what do you want?"
Tony's about to start yelling at Steve to let the damn registration thing go already, the battle's been lost and won. Tony has explained himself, and it's not his fault Steve refuses to listen.
But then the non sequitur in Steve's next statement takes him by surprise.
"A child?" he repeats. "What child? Are you sure that little butterfly freak didn't hit you in the head?"
Steve grits his teeth. "Sally. Sally was real, Tony. Say what you will about that world we were just in, she was real. She was..."
He pauses for a moment to gather his composure.
"That battle with Kang, at the apartment complex. She was really there. I found her dead body when we were searching for survivors. All Wanda did was spare her life. She wasn't some made-up entity. Sally was real, and we just killed her all over again, and you don't give a damn."
"Steve --" Tony steps toward him. He's actually sort of worried now about Steve's sanity.
"You're getting reality mixed up with a dream, you're --" Then he stops because the memories click together. He remembers finding Sally in that other world, and Steve's right -- that day really happened. Tony had been too caught up in the pursuit of Kang to ask after civilian casualties and it was only later that he had thought Steve was acting a little off. It was Wanda who had told Tony that there was a child. No further explanation was needed; they saw this shit all the time. Steve had seen even more of it in the war. But kids were always different.
"Shit, that really happened. I didn't realize --" Tony reaches out, instinctively, to touch the other man's shoulder. "Steve --"
"Don't." He's not sure he could handle physical contact with Tony right now, not when his feelings are so jumbled. It's bad enough that he keeps having to remove the word "husband" from his automatic mental designation for Tony.
"I knew." He didn't intend to tell Tony this, but he can't think of any other way to explain the enormity of what he's feeling. "My memories came back earlier than yours did. At the party, when I was dancing with Sally - I knew what I was going to have to do. I had to look her in the eyes and talk to her and hold her, knowing I was going to kill her. And right now, that's a lot more important to me than whether or not I'm supposedly dead. So take me back to New York, and make your excuses, and leave me in peace."
When Steve moves away, Tony instinctively steps closer. He places his hand on one shoulder and attempts to pull Steve toward him.
It's an instinct, and suddenly, he's not sure what instinct it's from, or which life. He just knows that kissing Steve right now would feel perfectly natural.
"Listen to what yourself. You sound like --" He bites his lip to keep from smiling. "Steven, with that overactive complex you've got going, you sound like me. Maybe something --" And now he laughs a little, he can't help himself " --you picked up in ten years of marriage."
Steve feels Tony drawing him closer, as if for a kiss, and he almost gives into the urge to let him. It would be so easy to fall into that again, to pretend that the other world is still there and that this is the same man (man, male, and why doesn't that feel as strange as it should?) that he loved there.
But Tony's laughter shakes that idea from his mind. Steve steps back again, shaking the hand off his shoulder. His back is nearly to Wanda's wall, at this point.
Getting the hint from Steve's body language, Tony backs up and spreads his hands. "Not a joke. But. It's not -- what you're saying doesn't make any sense. You didn't kill anyone. I remember Sally, too, but -- she didn't exist. Not like you're thinking. That child died, and it was sad, but she died years ago. The person you and I met in that -- that dream, all right? -- something that Wanda did tapped into. She probably stood in for all the people you couldn't save. She --"
Suddenly he remembers that he's had this conversation before, that Wanda's last attempt at changing the world had produced very similar consequences for Peter Parker. Tony remembers that, and it's the first time he's thought of Peter in months without a stab of anger and a sense of betrayal. He tries to remember what he said to the boy, then
"She's someone who should have existed." He says, "The universe sucks that way sometimes."
It occurs to Steve, for the first time, that Tony is genuinely trying to be nice about this. He's really trying to be comforting. He's failing, of course - nothing he could say could really placate Steve's guilt, and the tactics Tony is choosing are mediocre at best in the first place - but the fact that he's trying means a lot. Maybe this experience, however awful it was for everyone involved, can actually have a positive consequence. Maybe Steve can actually repair his friendship with Tony, after all. Not that there aren't still a million things dividing them, but that burning anger isn't in either of their eyes, right now, and that has to count for something.
But that still doesn't make this any easier.
"At least I tried to save all those other people," Steve says, quietly. He's been thinking about this - about the fact that every person he's failed to save could have grown to be a wonderful person, just like Sally - and though the idea isn't helping his guilt any, he knows there's a major difference.
"I didn't try to save Sally. I could have left that universe the way it was, and I didn't. And whether it was out of duty or necessity or any other supposedly noble reason, I still let her disappear. That's going to be on my conscience for the rest of my life."
"She's as real to me as anyone I've ever known," he continues. "And maybe you can pretend it was all fantasy, but I... I just can't." He sighs, running a hand through his hair.
Steve's utter refusal to use logic is infinitely frustrating. As many other worlds and warped realities as they've seen, together and apart, he doesn't understand why Steve can't let go of this one. But, obviously, at least right now, he can't.
"If she's real to you, I can't argue with that," Tony answers. "But if you're going to go with that reasoning, you have to follow it through. That world wasn't going to last. If you and Jean hadn't been willing to help Layla out, she would have found someone else. She might have done it herself. As for Jean, I think it's pretty likely the Phoenix power was destabilizing from the time we got there. Wanda could never have sustained that illusion; more likely, we would have had a Phoenix-go-Boom scenario on our hands. . .and those never end well. So --"
Tony stares hard into Steve's intense blue eyes. "Tell me, Mr. Rogers. Are you really willing to throw your life away, in this reality -- which, you know, is the only one we have left -- are you willing to throw that away over something that wasn't your fault that you never actually did?"
So when he finally leaves Wanda alone and comes down the stairs, the last thing he wants to deal with is Tony Stark, giving him an acusatory glare and demanding an answer to a question Steve isn't even aware he'd asked. All he really wants to do, at this point, is to go back to his cell in New York, where he should be, and try to process all that's happened. Tony can figure out what to tell the press about his "death" on his own time.
But Tony's question does demand a response. "A reason for what?" Steve asks, sure that his voice is displaying all of his bitterness.
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He finishes descending the stairs and stands two feet away from Tony. "I turned myself in, Tony. I don't go back on my word." He holds out his arms, as if acquiescing to invisible handcuffs. "Make the call."
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"Are you an idiot?"
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Steve remains preternaturally calm in the face of Tony's raving.
"What else are you planning to do with me, exactly? Leave me here in Wudagore with Wanda, to wash your hands of everything you don't want to deal with? Or maybe you're just planning to put a bullet in me yourself, make things nice and tidy. Director Stark likes his loose ends tied up."
They're back to the status quo of the past few months, the trading of angry barbs that characterized all of their interaction during the civil war. It's almost impossible to believe that less than an hour ago they were dancing. But Steve does believe it. Which makes this whole conversation all the more frustrating.
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He holds up the view screen on the communicator, which is playing the network news -- a crime scene in front of the Manhattan courthouse. A so-called expert is a side-window babbling about ballistics.
"Somebody wanted you dead. You've had the Red Skull after you for half a century; you've managed fine on your own. You're in custody and I'm off the grid for maybe half an hour, and this happens. You think I want this?"
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"I don't know what you want, Tony. I stopped being able to understand you when you started supporting the Registration Act. And now that you don't even seem keen on acknowledging the fact that we had a child that we're never going to see again, I can't say I understand you any better now. So what do you want?"
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But then the non sequitur in Steve's next statement takes him by surprise.
"A child?" he repeats. "What child? Are you sure that little butterfly freak didn't hit you in the head?"
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He pauses for a moment to gather his composure.
"That battle with Kang, at the apartment complex. She was really there. I found her dead body when we were searching for survivors. All Wanda did was spare her life. She wasn't some made-up entity. Sally was real, and we just killed her all over again, and you don't give a damn."
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"You're getting reality mixed up with a dream, you're --" Then he stops because the memories click together. He remembers finding Sally in that other world, and Steve's right -- that day really happened. Tony had been too caught up in the pursuit of Kang to ask after civilian casualties and it was only later that he had thought Steve was acting a little off. It was Wanda who had told Tony that there was a child. No further explanation was needed; they saw this shit all the time. Steve had seen even more of it in the war. But kids were always different.
"Shit, that really happened. I didn't realize --" Tony reaches out, instinctively, to touch the other man's shoulder. "Steve --"
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"Don't." He's not sure he could handle physical contact with Tony right now, not when his feelings are so jumbled. It's bad enough that he keeps having to remove the word "husband" from his automatic mental designation for Tony.
"I knew." He didn't intend to tell Tony this, but he can't think of any other way to explain the enormity of what he's feeling. "My memories came back earlier than yours did. At the party, when I was dancing with Sally - I knew what I was going to have to do. I had to look her in the eyes and talk to her and hold her, knowing I was going to kill her. And right now, that's a lot more important to me than whether or not I'm supposedly dead. So take me back to New York, and make your excuses, and leave me in peace."
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It's an instinct, and suddenly, he's not sure what instinct it's from, or which life. He just knows that kissing Steve right now would feel perfectly natural.
"Listen to what yourself. You sound like --" He bites his lip to keep from smiling. "Steven, with that overactive complex you've got going, you sound like me. Maybe something --" And now he laughs a little, he can't help himself " --you picked up in ten years of marriage."
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But Tony's laughter shakes that idea from his mind. Steve steps back again, shaking the hand off his shoulder. His back is nearly to Wanda's wall, at this point.
"Everything's a joke for you, isn't it?"
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Suddenly he remembers that he's had this conversation before, that Wanda's last attempt at changing the world had produced very similar consequences for Peter Parker. Tony remembers that, and it's the first time he's thought of Peter in months without a stab of anger and a sense of betrayal. He tries to remember what he said to the boy, then
"She's someone who should have existed." He says, "The universe sucks that way sometimes."
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But that still doesn't make this any easier.
"At least I tried to save all those other people," Steve says, quietly. He's been thinking about this - about the fact that every person he's failed to save could have grown to be a wonderful person, just like Sally - and though the idea isn't helping his guilt any, he knows there's a major difference.
"I didn't try to save Sally. I could have left that universe the way it was, and I didn't. And whether it was out of duty or necessity or any other supposedly noble reason, I still let her disappear. That's going to be on my conscience for the rest of my life."
"She's as real to me as anyone I've ever known," he continues. "And maybe you can pretend it was all fantasy, but I... I just can't." He sighs, running a hand through his hair.
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"If she's real to you, I can't argue with that," Tony answers. "But if you're going to go with that reasoning, you have to follow it through. That world wasn't going to last. If you and Jean hadn't been willing to help Layla out, she would have found someone else. She might have done it herself. As for Jean, I think it's pretty likely the Phoenix power was destabilizing from the time we got there. Wanda could never have sustained that illusion; more likely, we would have had a Phoenix-go-Boom scenario on our hands. . .and those never end well. So --"
Tony stares hard into Steve's intense blue eyes. "Tell me, Mr. Rogers. Are you really willing to throw your life away, in this reality -- which, you know, is the only one we have left -- are you willing to throw that away over something that wasn't your fault that you never actually did?"
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