Fic: The Fall (WARNINGS FOR TRIGGERS AND SPOILERS OF BBC SHERLOCK
Title:: The Fall
Author: phoenixfawkes12
Summary: Posted a fill to a prompt on avengerkink. Tony meets up with a villian who threatens to kill all the Avengers unless Tony jumps off the building they're at. Steve's on his way with the others and gets a call from Tony who denounces himself as fraud and a fake to make it easier to forget him and jumps. Steve is devastated.
Pairings/Characters: Steve/Tony
Word Count: 2,062
A/N: TRIGGER WARNINGS for Suicide/Self-Harm, Major Character Death and SPOILERS for Series 2 of BBC Sherlock. Unbeta-ed so all errors are my own.
Tony pocketed his phone and made his way to the top of Stark Tower. He pushed the door open and stepped out onto the large, flat space overlooking midtown Manhattan. He wasn’t wearing the Iron Man suit per the very specific instructions that arrived via text message: Come to the roof alone. Leave the tin can at home. Ignore me, and your friends die. -ES. He had, at first, meant to do exactly that and ignore the message as a prank. Tony had much bigger things on his mind then some kid getting a hold of his phone number and making some joke messages. Lately, stories had been appearing from an “anonymous source” in the tabloids claiming that Anthony Stark was fake, a fraud, and that the Iron Man armor was just a clever bit of animatronics used to bolster the image of the playboy. Pepper had been in damage control ever since.
That was, until the first picture message arrived. It showed Steve traveling in the back of a yellow taxi. What made the image horribly, bone chillingly terrifying was that the image had been taken from a camera atop a sniper scope. In rapid succession more images arrived: Natasha and Clint in the gym at SHIELD headquarters, Bruce in his lab, Thor sitting on the couch eating pop-tarts, even Coulson in his office, filling in paperwork. All the Avengers and their handler were in the crosshairs of a team of snipers.
He causally walked out onto the rooftop. As he moved further from the door way, he could hear the faint strains of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man over the sounds of the traffic below. Leaning against the edge of the roof with his foot propped up on the ledge was a man that Tony hadn’t seen in years. Brown hair and eyes in a face that so closely mirrored a younger version of his father, it caused Tony’s throat to close up and panic dance in his chest. “Zeke?” he croaked, hating how terrified his own voice sound.
Ezekiel Stane turned away from the edge to face him. A smile crossed his face that did not reach his eyes. “Hiya, kiddo,” he said, smirking at the old greeting that his father Obadiah used to say to Tony. “Here we are, finally, all together now. You, me and our problem.”
“Our problem?” asked Tony.
“Yes, yes. Our final problem,” he held up the cell phone in his hand, still playing Black Sabbath. “I loved this song growing up. It’s about a man who saw the future, but was mocked by his peers. He grew so angry and despondent that he was being ignored, that no one believed what he’d seen, that he flew into a rage, and in doing so, caused the very destruction he’d been trying to save the world from. A self-fulfilling prophecy.” He clicked off the sound. “But now, it’s all about you. The Iron Man.”
Zeke sighed. “All my life, I’ve been looking for distractions. Numbers, equations, weapons, biotechnology. For a while, they helped to quite my mind. Then..then, Tony. Then you came along. The prodigal son. Returned to take back his empire. We’re alike, you and I.” Stane circled around Tony.
“I am nothing like you,” he spat.
“Yes, you are, Tony. We are both geniuses, men too smart for the common folk, the ordinary people. Both of us are grave disappointments to our fathers. Mine even tried to kill you,” he circled back around so he was eye to eye with the taller man. Zeke reached out and taped a finger against the ARC reactor that his father had torn from Tony’s chest. “He tried to burn the heart out of you, Stark. So you burned him back.”
“What do you want, Zeke? What do you need me to do to get you to call off your snipers?” Normally witty, snarky, even cruel jokes would be spewing forth from Tony’s mouth, yet now, his words failed him. All he could think was SteveSteveSteve.
Zeke tossed his head back and laughed. “This is just a courtesy call. I’ve already ruined your reputation and soon your company will follow.” Tony drew in a sharp breath.
“You’re the source in the newspapers.”
“I read it the papers, so it must be true,” Zeke smiled as he looked out over the city, “This is just the last stop; one final problem. Glad I was able to use the roof. Makes it so much more spectacular. Great place to do it.”
Tony shook his head, the panic clawing up his throat again. “Do it..it..do…what?”
“That’s always been your problem, Tony. You always want it to be so cut and dry. Everything needs to be just as clever as the great Tony Stark,” he swept his arm out over the expanse of the urban jungle. “This is where you’re going to kill yourself. ‘Genius billionaire proven to be a fraud; takes own life.’ What a glorious headline that will be.”
“I don’t understand, Zeke!” Tony yelled.
“Let me make it perfectly clear. If you don’t jump, then my gunmen will fire, killing each and every one of your teammates. The only way to stop it, the only way to save them, is to chuck yourself off the edge of this building. Once you hit the bottom, they’ll be safe.” Stane smiled, all teeth and madness.
“You’re insane,” Tony whispered.
“Just getting that now?” Stane stepped up so they were mere inches apart, firmly inside Tony’s personal space. “So the question becomes: who does Tony Stark love the most: himself or his friends?”
Tony’s mind was moving a hundred miles an hour, looking at all the options, all the possibilities. Finally, he smiled. “There’s a safe word, a recall code, a failsafe. I can stop you. I don’t have to die and neither do they.”
Zeke’s smile faltered. “Leave it to you to see my loophole. Yes, I can call it all off. As long as I’m still alive, you can save them. Well,good luck with that,” he stepped back from Tony, pulled a handgun from his coat pocket, and shot himself in the temple. Tony reeled back, shock and horror slamming into him as Stane’s body hit the ground.
He paced back and forth, trying to run more scenarios in his head. They all lead to one conclusion. Swelling past the lump forming in his throat, Tony moved with slow, deliberate steps up onto the ledge of the building, his building, his legacy. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the familiar number. After a few rings, the call connected.
“Tony? Are you alright? I’m just pulling up to the Tower now,” Steve said as he climbed out of the taxi. He started to jog across the street, toward the entrance to Stark Tower.
Hearing his voice caused the pain in his chest to flair into a fire. “Stop right there, Steve. Please…go back the way you came.”
Steve stopped and turned, looking around for Tony. He finally looked up. “Oh, god. Tony? What…are you doing?”
His voice breaking, Tony started talking. “I can’t come to you, so it’s got to be like this. I owe you an apology,” he paused, cleared his throat. He needed Steve to believe, and believe absolutely, what came next. It would make his pain more bearable, give him someone to blame.“It’s true. It’s all true. I’m a fake, a fraud. I made it all up. Tony Stark..Iron Man…it’s a ruse. I played you, Steve. None of it was real.”
Steve was shaking his head before he even finished. “Why are you saying this?” He started walking again, “I’m coming up there.”
“No! Stay where you are! Please, will you do this for me? Keep your eyes focused on me. I’m saying it because it’s true, Steve. I lied.”
“The first time we meet. You knew all about me. Things no one knew,” Steve stopped moving again, fixing his eyes on the figure on the ledge.
“I hacked the databases and read your files. I made you believe the illusion. No one can be that clever, Steve.”
“You are, Tony,” Steve’s voice was steady.
Tears slide down his checks freely now. “I need you to tell everyone the truth. This phone call. It’s my note.”
“What?” Steve sounded confused. “What note?”
“That’s what people do, isn’t it? Leave a note?”
He could hear Steve’s breathing speed up, the realization setting in, “Leave a note, when Tony?”
So many things, so many words left unsaid, actions left undone, moments left unlived.
“Goodbye, Steve.” Before Steve could say more, Tony disconnected the phone call and tossed the cell behind him, hearing it crack on the pavement next to Zeke’s cooling corpse.
Taking one final breath, Tony Stark stepped off the ledge into freefall.
“TONY!” Steve screamed as the figure plummeted towards the concrete below. People were screaming, pointing as he fell all the way down to the sidewalk.
As he reached the spot where Tony hit, he tried pushing through the crowd. Finally reaching the center of the gathered masses, his knees buckled, forcing him to crawl the rest of the way to Tony. “Please, let me through, let me get to him, please, I need to get to him! He’s my…my…oh God no, please.” Steve wasn’t sure how long he knelt on the pavement with Tony’s blood staining his knees before two strong arms lifted him up.
“Come on, solider. You don’t need to be here for this,” He allowed Nick Fury to pull him up and lead him towards a waiting SHIELD car. Once inside, Steve’s grief and shock slammed into him and he allowed the gasping, wracking sobs to overwhelm him.
Three Days Later
All the newspapers in New York screamed headlines about the fake genius, the liar, the thief Tony Stark. Steve straightened his military dress uniform and headed downstairs to assemble with the remaining Avengers for the funeral of Tony Stark. It was a small, private service. Pepper looked broken and the only thing keeping her upright was the combined strength of Rhodey and Happy Hogun. As it came for Steve, as the team leader to delivery his eulogy, he walked with slow deliberate steps to the podium. His hand traveled over the closed casket, tracing the fine wood grain.
Finally he moved to the podium and looked out over the assembled group. The Avengers, SHIELD agents, friends and coworkers lined the pews. He took a steadying breath of air, and then another.
“Tony once told me that he wasn’t a hero. There were times I didn’t even think he was human, but let me tell you this, he was the best man, the most human man, the most human being that I have ever known, and no one will ever convince me that he told me a lie. And, so…there.” Steve stopped talking, his grief welling up anew in his throat, closing it off, tears running down his face. “I was so alone, and I owe him so much. I woke in a time not my own, so lost, so scared and this man became my anchor. Without him, I’m lost all over again. I never got the chance to tell him, but I loved him.”
Steve stepped away and knelt down next to the coffin. “So, please, Tony, please, just do one do more thing for me, just one more miracle. Don’t…be...dead. Just, don’t be, please will you do this for me? Just stop it, just stop this. Please.” Shaking, he rose and returned to his seat.
After the burial, the Avengers returned to Stark Mansion on 5th Avenue, as no one could bare to step inside the tower yet. As they turned up the front step, Steve heard Natasha growl something in Russian. Looking up, he saw the front of the house covered in yellow spray paint. Even this last memory of Tony could not remain unsullied. Getting closer, the painted words become clear and all the Avengers stopped to process what they were seeing.
I BELIEVE IN TONY STARK
Turning around in a circle, Steve say more words painted on the nearby buildings.
TONY STARK WAS IRON MAN
DON’T BELIEVE THE LIES
Steve smiled through his tears.
Author: phoenixfawkes12
Summary: Posted a fill to a prompt on avengerkink. Tony meets up with a villian who threatens to kill all the Avengers unless Tony jumps off the building they're at. Steve's on his way with the others and gets a call from Tony who denounces himself as fraud and a fake to make it easier to forget him and jumps. Steve is devastated.
Pairings/Characters: Steve/Tony
Word Count: 2,062
A/N: TRIGGER WARNINGS for Suicide/Self-Harm, Major Character Death and SPOILERS for Series 2 of BBC Sherlock. Unbeta-ed so all errors are my own.
Tony pocketed his phone and made his way to the top of Stark Tower. He pushed the door open and stepped out onto the large, flat space overlooking midtown Manhattan. He wasn’t wearing the Iron Man suit per the very specific instructions that arrived via text message: Come to the roof alone. Leave the tin can at home. Ignore me, and your friends die. -ES. He had, at first, meant to do exactly that and ignore the message as a prank. Tony had much bigger things on his mind then some kid getting a hold of his phone number and making some joke messages. Lately, stories had been appearing from an “anonymous source” in the tabloids claiming that Anthony Stark was fake, a fraud, and that the Iron Man armor was just a clever bit of animatronics used to bolster the image of the playboy. Pepper had been in damage control ever since.
That was, until the first picture message arrived. It showed Steve traveling in the back of a yellow taxi. What made the image horribly, bone chillingly terrifying was that the image had been taken from a camera atop a sniper scope. In rapid succession more images arrived: Natasha and Clint in the gym at SHIELD headquarters, Bruce in his lab, Thor sitting on the couch eating pop-tarts, even Coulson in his office, filling in paperwork. All the Avengers and their handler were in the crosshairs of a team of snipers.
He causally walked out onto the rooftop. As he moved further from the door way, he could hear the faint strains of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man over the sounds of the traffic below. Leaning against the edge of the roof with his foot propped up on the ledge was a man that Tony hadn’t seen in years. Brown hair and eyes in a face that so closely mirrored a younger version of his father, it caused Tony’s throat to close up and panic dance in his chest. “Zeke?” he croaked, hating how terrified his own voice sound.
Ezekiel Stane turned away from the edge to face him. A smile crossed his face that did not reach his eyes. “Hiya, kiddo,” he said, smirking at the old greeting that his father Obadiah used to say to Tony. “Here we are, finally, all together now. You, me and our problem.”
“Our problem?” asked Tony.
“Yes, yes. Our final problem,” he held up the cell phone in his hand, still playing Black Sabbath. “I loved this song growing up. It’s about a man who saw the future, but was mocked by his peers. He grew so angry and despondent that he was being ignored, that no one believed what he’d seen, that he flew into a rage, and in doing so, caused the very destruction he’d been trying to save the world from. A self-fulfilling prophecy.” He clicked off the sound. “But now, it’s all about you. The Iron Man.”
Zeke sighed. “All my life, I’ve been looking for distractions. Numbers, equations, weapons, biotechnology. For a while, they helped to quite my mind. Then..then, Tony. Then you came along. The prodigal son. Returned to take back his empire. We’re alike, you and I.” Stane circled around Tony.
“I am nothing like you,” he spat.
“Yes, you are, Tony. We are both geniuses, men too smart for the common folk, the ordinary people. Both of us are grave disappointments to our fathers. Mine even tried to kill you,” he circled back around so he was eye to eye with the taller man. Zeke reached out and taped a finger against the ARC reactor that his father had torn from Tony’s chest. “He tried to burn the heart out of you, Stark. So you burned him back.”
“What do you want, Zeke? What do you need me to do to get you to call off your snipers?” Normally witty, snarky, even cruel jokes would be spewing forth from Tony’s mouth, yet now, his words failed him. All he could think was SteveSteveSteve.
Zeke tossed his head back and laughed. “This is just a courtesy call. I’ve already ruined your reputation and soon your company will follow.” Tony drew in a sharp breath.
“You’re the source in the newspapers.”
“I read it the papers, so it must be true,” Zeke smiled as he looked out over the city, “This is just the last stop; one final problem. Glad I was able to use the roof. Makes it so much more spectacular. Great place to do it.”
Tony shook his head, the panic clawing up his throat again. “Do it..it..do…what?”
“That’s always been your problem, Tony. You always want it to be so cut and dry. Everything needs to be just as clever as the great Tony Stark,” he swept his arm out over the expanse of the urban jungle. “This is where you’re going to kill yourself. ‘Genius billionaire proven to be a fraud; takes own life.’ What a glorious headline that will be.”
“I don’t understand, Zeke!” Tony yelled.
“Let me make it perfectly clear. If you don’t jump, then my gunmen will fire, killing each and every one of your teammates. The only way to stop it, the only way to save them, is to chuck yourself off the edge of this building. Once you hit the bottom, they’ll be safe.” Stane smiled, all teeth and madness.
“You’re insane,” Tony whispered.
“Just getting that now?” Stane stepped up so they were mere inches apart, firmly inside Tony’s personal space. “So the question becomes: who does Tony Stark love the most: himself or his friends?”
Tony’s mind was moving a hundred miles an hour, looking at all the options, all the possibilities. Finally, he smiled. “There’s a safe word, a recall code, a failsafe. I can stop you. I don’t have to die and neither do they.”
Zeke’s smile faltered. “Leave it to you to see my loophole. Yes, I can call it all off. As long as I’m still alive, you can save them. Well,good luck with that,” he stepped back from Tony, pulled a handgun from his coat pocket, and shot himself in the temple. Tony reeled back, shock and horror slamming into him as Stane’s body hit the ground.
He paced back and forth, trying to run more scenarios in his head. They all lead to one conclusion. Swelling past the lump forming in his throat, Tony moved with slow, deliberate steps up onto the ledge of the building, his building, his legacy. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the familiar number. After a few rings, the call connected.
“Tony? Are you alright? I’m just pulling up to the Tower now,” Steve said as he climbed out of the taxi. He started to jog across the street, toward the entrance to Stark Tower.
Hearing his voice caused the pain in his chest to flair into a fire. “Stop right there, Steve. Please…go back the way you came.”
Steve stopped and turned, looking around for Tony. He finally looked up. “Oh, god. Tony? What…are you doing?”
His voice breaking, Tony started talking. “I can’t come to you, so it’s got to be like this. I owe you an apology,” he paused, cleared his throat. He needed Steve to believe, and believe absolutely, what came next. It would make his pain more bearable, give him someone to blame.“It’s true. It’s all true. I’m a fake, a fraud. I made it all up. Tony Stark..Iron Man…it’s a ruse. I played you, Steve. None of it was real.”
Steve was shaking his head before he even finished. “Why are you saying this?” He started walking again, “I’m coming up there.”
“No! Stay where you are! Please, will you do this for me? Keep your eyes focused on me. I’m saying it because it’s true, Steve. I lied.”
“The first time we meet. You knew all about me. Things no one knew,” Steve stopped moving again, fixing his eyes on the figure on the ledge.
“I hacked the databases and read your files. I made you believe the illusion. No one can be that clever, Steve.”
“You are, Tony,” Steve’s voice was steady.
Tears slide down his checks freely now. “I need you to tell everyone the truth. This phone call. It’s my note.”
“What?” Steve sounded confused. “What note?”
“That’s what people do, isn’t it? Leave a note?”
He could hear Steve’s breathing speed up, the realization setting in, “Leave a note, when Tony?”
So many things, so many words left unsaid, actions left undone, moments left unlived.
“Goodbye, Steve.” Before Steve could say more, Tony disconnected the phone call and tossed the cell behind him, hearing it crack on the pavement next to Zeke’s cooling corpse.
Taking one final breath, Tony Stark stepped off the ledge into freefall.
“TONY!” Steve screamed as the figure plummeted towards the concrete below. People were screaming, pointing as he fell all the way down to the sidewalk.
As he reached the spot where Tony hit, he tried pushing through the crowd. Finally reaching the center of the gathered masses, his knees buckled, forcing him to crawl the rest of the way to Tony. “Please, let me through, let me get to him, please, I need to get to him! He’s my…my…oh God no, please.” Steve wasn’t sure how long he knelt on the pavement with Tony’s blood staining his knees before two strong arms lifted him up.
“Come on, solider. You don’t need to be here for this,” He allowed Nick Fury to pull him up and lead him towards a waiting SHIELD car. Once inside, Steve’s grief and shock slammed into him and he allowed the gasping, wracking sobs to overwhelm him.
Three Days Later
All the newspapers in New York screamed headlines about the fake genius, the liar, the thief Tony Stark. Steve straightened his military dress uniform and headed downstairs to assemble with the remaining Avengers for the funeral of Tony Stark. It was a small, private service. Pepper looked broken and the only thing keeping her upright was the combined strength of Rhodey and Happy Hogun. As it came for Steve, as the team leader to delivery his eulogy, he walked with slow deliberate steps to the podium. His hand traveled over the closed casket, tracing the fine wood grain.
Finally he moved to the podium and looked out over the assembled group. The Avengers, SHIELD agents, friends and coworkers lined the pews. He took a steadying breath of air, and then another.
“Tony once told me that he wasn’t a hero. There were times I didn’t even think he was human, but let me tell you this, he was the best man, the most human man, the most human being that I have ever known, and no one will ever convince me that he told me a lie. And, so…there.” Steve stopped talking, his grief welling up anew in his throat, closing it off, tears running down his face. “I was so alone, and I owe him so much. I woke in a time not my own, so lost, so scared and this man became my anchor. Without him, I’m lost all over again. I never got the chance to tell him, but I loved him.”
Steve stepped away and knelt down next to the coffin. “So, please, Tony, please, just do one do more thing for me, just one more miracle. Don’t…be...dead. Just, don’t be, please will you do this for me? Just stop it, just stop this. Please.” Shaking, he rose and returned to his seat.
After the burial, the Avengers returned to Stark Mansion on 5th Avenue, as no one could bare to step inside the tower yet. As they turned up the front step, Steve heard Natasha growl something in Russian. Looking up, he saw the front of the house covered in yellow spray paint. Even this last memory of Tony could not remain unsullied. Getting closer, the painted words become clear and all the Avengers stopped to process what they were seeing.
I BELIEVE IN TONY STARK
Turning around in a circle, Steve say more words painted on the nearby buildings.
TONY STARK WAS IRON MAN
DON’T BELIEVE THE LIES
Steve smiled through his tears.