The Corrupt and the Pure; Chapter 1: The Knife
Story Info
Title: The Corrupt and the Pure
Author: Del Rion (delrion.mail (at) gmail.com)
Fandom: The Avengers & Captain America (MCU)
Timeline: post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Genre: Drama, action, hurt/comfort
Rating: MA / FRAO
Characters: Steve Rogers (Captain America), Tony Stark (Iron Man). Also: Bruce Banner (Hulk), James “Bucky” Barnes (Winter Soldier), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), J.A.R.V.I.S., James “Rhodey” Rhodes (War Machine), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Thor, Sam Wilson (Falcon)
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Summary: When the Steve Rogers from an alternate universe appears in the middle of the Avengers Tower, two worlds are about to collide: one where Captain America became the tool of HYDRA and fell into a relationship with the hero Iron Man - and one where Tony and Steve are tentatively getting along. The latter are forced to reconsider their relationship when the Commander kidnaps Tony to replace his dead lover.
Complete.
Written for: A story commissioned by Susanne (ChickenHax @ AO3 / starkred @ Tumblr).
Warnings: Rape/non-con, major character death (alternate universe), graphic canonical violence, M/M sexual content, language.
Disclaimer: Iron Man, Avengers, and Marvel Cinematic Universe, including characters and everything else, belong to Marvel, Marvel Studios, Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, Shane Black, Kenneth Branagh, Joe Johnston, Louis Leterrier, Alan Taylor, Anthony & Joe Russo, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and Universal Pictures. In short: I own nothing; this is pure fiction created to entertain likeminded fans for no profit whatsoever.
Beta: Mythra (mythras-fire)
About The Corrupt and the Pure: This story was pieced together from the things ChickenHax/starkred liked. It’s been a long, stubborn project to write, the outcome not exactly what the original intention was, but I feel it is the most honest interpretation of the premise I can offer.
Chapters and statuses: Below you see the writing process of the story’s chapters. If there is no text after the chapter’s title, then it is finished and checked. Possible updates shall be marked after the title.
Chapter 1: The Knife
Chapter 2: The Gem
Chapter 3: The Tower
Chapter 4: The Commander
Chapter 5: The Duel
Chapter 6: The Armor
Chapter 7: The Captive
Chapter 8: The Roster
Chapter 9: The Talk
Chapter 10: The Search
Chapter 11: The Sleep
Chapter 12: The Chip
Chapter 13: The Spike
Chapter 14: The Delay
Chapter 15: The Frustration
Chapter 16: The Temper
Chapter 17: The Balm
Chapter 18: The Bystander
Chapter 19: The Clue
Chapter 20: The Resistance
Chapter 21: The Trail
Chapter 22: The Clash
Chapter 23: The Rescue
Chapter 24: The Guilt
Chapter 25: The Homecoming
Chapter 26: The Clarification
Chapter 27: The Strategy
Chapter 28: The Fallback
Chapter 29: The Pursuit
Chapter 30: The Hit
Chapter 31: The Soldier
Chapter 32: The Rematch
Chapter 33: The Resolution
Chapter 34: The Wait
Chapter 35: The Plan
Chapter 36: The Warning
Chapter 37: The Bait
Chapter 38: The Ploy
Chapter 39: The Captain
Chapter 40: The Survivors
Chapter 41: The Comparison
Chapter 42: The Prospect
Chapter 43: The Trial
Chapter 44: The Mistake
Chapter 45: The Consensus
~ ~ ~
Chapter 1: The Knife
A motel outside Phoenix Deer Valley Airport,
Arizona
The headboard of the bed banged a steady rhythm against the thin wall. There were already dents in the plaster, and as if triggered by the crescendo of moans, one of the cheap picture frames dropped from the wall, crashing to the floor.
“Fuck, yes,” Tony hissed, legs shifting on his partner’s shoulders, squeezing his neck in a clear sign that he was close. “Fuck me like you mean it, Cap,” came the sharp order, and like he’d done for most of his life, Steve Rogers did as he was told.
His hips moved at the pace of the breaths forced out of Tony’s lungs, seeking his own release, leaving the other man moaning and twisting because their position didn’t allow him to touch his hard cock - something Tony had just discovered if his fingernails leaving half-moons on Steve’s hips were any indication.
“Come on,” Tony encouraged, his voice breaking down around a groan, his back arching.
One of Steve’s arms curled beneath Tony’s body and lifted him slightly, and his angle deepened just a fraction.
Tony’s next groan was on the thin barrier between pain and pleasure, fingernails breaking skin.
Steve bit his teeth into Tony’s shoulder and came with a sharp rush of release, growling his pleasure into the other man’s skin like an animal diving in for the kill. It was good, tingling all the way up his spine and pulling at his gut before shooting out of his balls and through his cock, the sensation like nothing else. It was easy to see how men got addicted to it, walking through life with their hands wrapped around their dicks, looking for the next chance to get off.
Tony moaned and whimpered, sounding breathless.
Steve drove one last thrust into him, feeling the slickness of his cum, and then pulled back, knowing that the position was making it hard for Tony to breathe. Sure enough, he looked a little red in the face, breathing in a big gulp of air as his hand shot away from Steve’s hip and to his cock the second he could fit it in there.
“Yeah,” Steve growled, leaning in to watch after he released Tony’s legs from his shoulders. Tony’s chest was hot where he laid his forehead, eyes tracking the motion of his hand, smelling how close he was.
Tony grunted and came, hips twitching, body quivering even with Steve’s weight on it. His cum shot out of his cock like a bullet from the barrel of a gun, a splash of it hitting Steve’s chin.
Like always, Tony settled fast once he had come, lying boneless on the bed, a blissed out expression on his face. Steve sat up, wiping a hand across the mess on his face - sucked one finger in his mouth to taste.
Tony chuckled. “I love it when you do that.”
“Hmm,” Steve hummed and got up.
“Where are you going?” Tony asked, hand reaching for him and failing to catch him.
“Bathroom,” Steve replied. “I have to get ready.” He didn’t need to look at the clock to tell the time.
Tony sighed dramatically, but there was a note of true discontentment in the sound. “I have a counter-proposition,” he said.
Steve halted near the doorway of the bathroom, looking back at him; naked and sweaty he lay there on the bed, hair disheveled, the usually neat goatee showing the signs of their recent lovemaking. Steve could still feel the lingering burn it had caused on certain areas of his body - a reminder that would vanish all too fast due to the effects of the serum. The image, however, would last, and he drank his fill, knowing it could be a while before he had this again.
“I say you don’t get on that plane you’re supposed to be boarding soon,” Tony went on as if Steve’s lack of progress was a sign he wanted to hear his proposition. “You can stay here, with me,” he spoke, shifting one leg, dragging it along the messy sheets.
“I have a mission to get to,” Steve replied.
Tony looked at his face, meeting his eyes. “You know you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, right?”
Steve nodded slowly, then walked back to the bed and bent over, kissing the corner of Tony’s lips, feeling the beard, tasting the sweat. “I don’t know if that’s so… A few minutes ago you were telling me exactly what to do,” he murmured into his skin.
Tony chuckled. “Such sass. That’s why I love you.” He stretched and settled again, not showing surprise when Steve pulled back and headed again in the direction of the bathroom.
As Steve entered the painfully unnatural light of the tiny room, he looked at himself in the mirror. The marks of lips, teeth and nails were vanishing, leaving only the old, faded scars and cybernetic implants scattered across his skin, covering damages that the serum had been too slow to heal at the time. The right side of his face, as always, bore an ugly hand-shaped burn mark that was too resilient to heal, showing bone in places.
He could still recall the searing pain of the grip of the hand pressing desperately into his skin, the smell of flesh burning… It had been the first time he and Iron Man crossed paths, and he had gotten so very close to ending Tony’s life that day. Well, until Extremis kicked Tony’s survival mechanism to a whole other level and left Steve with a lasting mark to remember his first failed mission by.
They had fought many times since, and some of the damages to his body were leftovers from those altercations. Few people could deliver a punch like Tony did, for all his lack of formal training; guts and spirit were so much more important.
It was that spirit that had enthralled him in the end, wringing passion out of their clashes, and standing here, years later - after having heard Tony drop the word ‘love’ for the first time…
‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’
What did he want to do?
He looked at himself again, a distorted image of the man he had once been. Sometimes he could no longer picture that face, and whenever he began to recognize it in himself - the sneer of disdain and disappointment reverberating from his very core - the scientists at HYDRA made sure to wipe that from his mind.
Remember and forget, like a snake eating its own tail…
When he was with Tony, it was easier to remember. It was easier to accept himself, even when it made him painfully aware of how far he had strayed from the former glory of Captain America.
I’m not him, he told himself. That man died in a plane crash seventy years ago.
A familiar tale told in the history books. Only a few people knew how the story really ended - the grim sequel to the heroic tale of sacrifice.
He shook his head, turning to get in the shower. Time was running short before his plane was scheduled to depart, and he had to be on it. He had a mission, and he had already gained what he’d wanted from his tryst with Tony.
The shower stall was so small his shoulders kept brushing the walls, but it got the job done, washing the traces of their passion from his skin. A cleansing before the mission which he would have gladly made into a ritual, if only he could withstand Tony’s gaze on such a regular basis.
After all, Tony knew he was going out on a mission, and it was his duty as Iron Man to come and stop him.
There may be more scars the next time they see each other like this, but Steve was confident by now that he could not kill Tony even if he tried, and it was not for lack of trying. Tony, on the other hand, was yet to deliver the death blow, and Steve sensed it had very little to do with the idealism of heroes not killing anyone - not even the villains.
Tony had killed plenty in the past while wearing the armor. Either Steve was an exception - or too stubborn to die.
As he reached for the complementary bottle of bodywash, a sound reached his ears. His hands stopped, senses focusing to detect another disturbance. It was Tony, most likely moving around, but his gut told him otherwise and so he put down the soap and slowly stepped out of the stall, leaving the water on, careful not to make a sound.
Opening the door slowly to keep it from making noise, he moved towards the main room, body ready for action even in his naked, wet state. In his line of work, you got used to expecting anything, at any time, and when his nose detected the faint smell of burning linens, he took the last step out of the bathroom, eyes sweeping the small room.
He stiffened as his gaze made it to the bed and a scent of copper overtook the odor of smoke.
“Bucky -” His word caught in his throat as the other moved, drawing his favorite blade out of the back of Tony’s neck. A gush of blood followed, bright red against the sheets, and Bucky moved away, allowing Tony’s body to drop down.
The brown eyes were wide open, empty and lifeless. His neck was at an unnatural angle, and as seconds ticked by and Steve expected the bright colors of Extremis to rush to the surface of his skin, nothing happened.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Bucky told him. “Since the moment you two stopped trying to kill each other, they knew it was only a matter of time before he made you into a liability. By removing him from the picture, we won’t have to worry about that.” Bucky pushed his knife into the sheets, casually cleaning it of Tony’s blood. “You were starting to stray, Rogers,” he said, moving off the bed, standing up, sheathing the knife. “Your head filling with dangerous ideas.”
Steve had a hard time looking at Bucky and simultaneously staring at Tony, expecting him to jerk at any second, the wounds sealing themselves.
“He’s dead,” Bucky snapped. “I did what you haven’t been able to do, all these years. He’s not coming back from this one.”
Steve’s skin turned cold, his eyes finally meeting his best friend’s. Only, it wasn’t really Bucky but the Soldier, because Bucky would have never taken this from him. The Soldier, however, had no qualms about removing every obstacle in his way, and seeing as the two of them had been working missions for decades now, perhaps he had considered Tony an obstacle in both their ways.
In one small moment, he had erased the one person Steve had felt close to, with whom he wasn’t the Commander or an asset, but simply… Steve.
He hadn’t felt like a monster when he was with him.
“He was making you weak, unfocused,” Bucky went on, stepping closer. “HYDRA has no tolerance for those who stray from the path. I just saved your life.”
Steve lashed out, taking Bucky by the throat, a roar rising from his chest. He slammed him forward, all the way into the wall he had just been banging a hole into while fucking into Tony’s body, and the remaining pictures fell off their hooks as Bucky’s body hit the wall. “I loved him,” he hissed at Bucky, pressing into him, knowing that any second now, he would start fighting back. “I loved him and you took him from me.”
He might never have said it, but looking at Tony’s lifeless form, seeing his blood soak into the sheets, the feeling exploded all over him and it was worse than all he could remember, the ghost pain of losing his world, over and over - the shattered remnants of choosing to nose-dive the HYDRA plane into the ocean.
Bucky growled, his metal arm coming up, seizing the side of Steve’s face.
Steve yelled and drew back a few inches, then slammed forward again, this time taking them both through the wall and into the next room. People shouted and moved away, a woman screaming. Steve bore Bucky’s body down to the floor with his and pounded at him, trying to get past the metal arm blocking his blows.
Bucky twisted, wriggling out from beneath him, his right leg following and trying to kick Steve to the side.
Steve rolled with the motion, just out of reach of the kick, his shoulder slamming into a bed as he ran out of space. He got up to his feet at the same second Bucky did, and this time it was the other who charged him with a sharp yell, taking them both down on the bed that crashed beneath them, legs giving out, the sharp drop making little difference to them.
Bucky slammed his left fist down. Steve twisted to the side, feeling metal by his right ear, and then kicked up with his legs, sending Bucky forward and off the bed while he followed, rolling back over his shoulder and onto his feet, not bothering to turn but kicking back as he got his feet under him, catching Bucky full on the small of his back and sending him crashing forward into a closet. Wood cracked, Bucky’s left hand going through the closet door, and Steve turned and went after him - then got a torn-out piece of wood slammed in his face as Bucky yanked his arm out.
The wood shattered into tiny pieces, flying everywhere. Steve tried to catch his balance, lowered his stance, and then took Bucky’s weight head-on, fighting to stay upright as the other pummeled him like a pissed off bull.
Steve took a few punches to his midsection, feeling every impact on his unprotected skin, but it just fueled his rage and made him leave himself open for the next punch in favor of getting one arm around Bucky’s neck and twisting, forcing him to focus on keeping the upper hand and stop hitting him.
They twisted and turned for a moment, grappling for a winning hold. At one point Steve had Bucky on the floor, his back grinding into the splinters of the door, but every time Bucky got himself free he came at Steve again, fighting for the upper hand.
After all their years of fighting together, they were quite evenly matched, and Steve knew he was running out of time. As always, he looked at his surroundings, more adaptable than the Winter Soldier had ever been, and eventually he picked up a fallen lamp from the floor and smashed it in Bucky’s face, then attacked him while he was distracted, shoving him into the window covered by stained curtains.
Glass shattered and Steve gave one more push, feeling a sharp edge draw a long line into his shoulder and upper arm. Bucky fell through, metal fingers grasping at the edge but ultimately failing to stop the fall, his body crashing down three stories before hitting the pavement outside. The fall wasn’t nearly enough to kill him with Zola’s serum in his system, but it would take him a while to get to his feet and by then Steve would be gone.
He returned to his room through the hole in the wall, stopping short once he did, looking at the bed. Tony lay there, eyes still open, blood spread all over his upper body, seeping into the bedding. With stiff motions, Steve climbed onto the bed, carefully lifting him up by the shoulders. His fingers slid to the back of his neck, feeling across bloody skin, finding the entry wound of Bucky’s knife, leading up in a sharp angle.
Tony had never told him if Extremis had limits, but HYDRA had always believed so. Steve had never been able to discover it for himself - a fact for which he had been glad when his feelings for Tony became clear - but sitting there with his lover’s dead body in his arms, fingers digging into his torn flesh as if he could physically put him back together, he felt an ugly sense of failure.
He had not realized how much he looked forward to seeing Tony - had not taken the time to notice how much he needed him, and how far he was willing to go to keep him. Recruiting Tony to HYDRA had been an impossible concept, so the only real option left to them would have been for Steve to go rogue.
‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’
Steve grit his teeth, eyes burning. His fingers tightened and he felt bones shift where Bucky must have broken Tony’s neck.
Slowly he drew in a breath and made himself stand up, finding his clothes and getting dressed. It was a familiar process, one he knew by heart, and after he had holstered his weapons and finished the routine, he grasped his shield, bloody fingers leaving stains on the metal painted with black and gray.
He looked back at the bed, trying to envision his last glance at Tony, alive and fresh from their fucking, asking him to stay. His mind failed him, almost as if the memory had become corrupt, and all he could see was what lay before him now. It filled him with a depthless rage, growing, deepened by his feelings that had infected him like a festering wound, splintering the brainwashing HYDRA had subjected him to since they found him in the ice.
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to,” he said out loud, words clipped with emotion he could barely keep under control. His eyes bore into the sight of Tony, bloody, naked, and lifeless, taken from him so suddenly it felt like the shattered halves of a bone that kept grinding against one another. “I don’t want to live without you,” he concluded.
He had made up his mind, and all he needed to do was to accomplish the impossible.
Good thing he already had a plan forming in his mind.
to be continued…
Title: The Corrupt and the Pure
Author: Del Rion (delrion.mail (at) gmail.com)
Fandom: The Avengers & Captain America (MCU)
Timeline: post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Genre: Drama, action, hurt/comfort
Rating: MA / FRAO
Characters: Steve Rogers (Captain America), Tony Stark (Iron Man). Also: Bruce Banner (Hulk), James “Bucky” Barnes (Winter Soldier), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), J.A.R.V.I.S., James “Rhodey” Rhodes (War Machine), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Thor, Sam Wilson (Falcon)
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Summary: When the Steve Rogers from an alternate universe appears in the middle of the Avengers Tower, two worlds are about to collide: one where Captain America became the tool of HYDRA and fell into a relationship with the hero Iron Man - and one where Tony and Steve are tentatively getting along. The latter are forced to reconsider their relationship when the Commander kidnaps Tony to replace his dead lover.
Complete.
Written for: A story commissioned by Susanne (ChickenHax @ AO3 / starkred @ Tumblr).
Warnings: Rape/non-con, major character death (alternate universe), graphic canonical violence, M/M sexual content, language.
Disclaimer: Iron Man, Avengers, and Marvel Cinematic Universe, including characters and everything else, belong to Marvel, Marvel Studios, Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, Shane Black, Kenneth Branagh, Joe Johnston, Louis Leterrier, Alan Taylor, Anthony & Joe Russo, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and Universal Pictures. In short: I own nothing; this is pure fiction created to entertain likeminded fans for no profit whatsoever.
Beta: Mythra (mythras-fire)
About The Corrupt and the Pure: This story was pieced together from the things ChickenHax/starkred liked. It’s been a long, stubborn project to write, the outcome not exactly what the original intention was, but I feel it is the most honest interpretation of the premise I can offer.
Chapters and statuses: Below you see the writing process of the story’s chapters. If there is no text after the chapter’s title, then it is finished and checked. Possible updates shall be marked after the title.
Chapter 1: The Knife
Chapter 2: The Gem
Chapter 3: The Tower
Chapter 4: The Commander
Chapter 5: The Duel
Chapter 6: The Armor
Chapter 7: The Captive
Chapter 8: The Roster
Chapter 9: The Talk
Chapter 10: The Search
Chapter 11: The Sleep
Chapter 12: The Chip
Chapter 13: The Spike
Chapter 14: The Delay
Chapter 15: The Frustration
Chapter 16: The Temper
Chapter 17: The Balm
Chapter 18: The Bystander
Chapter 19: The Clue
Chapter 20: The Resistance
Chapter 21: The Trail
Chapter 22: The Clash
Chapter 23: The Rescue
Chapter 24: The Guilt
Chapter 25: The Homecoming
Chapter 26: The Clarification
Chapter 27: The Strategy
Chapter 28: The Fallback
Chapter 29: The Pursuit
Chapter 30: The Hit
Chapter 31: The Soldier
Chapter 32: The Rematch
Chapter 33: The Resolution
Chapter 34: The Wait
Chapter 35: The Plan
Chapter 36: The Warning
Chapter 37: The Bait
Chapter 38: The Ploy
Chapter 39: The Captain
Chapter 40: The Survivors
Chapter 41: The Comparison
Chapter 42: The Prospect
Chapter 43: The Trial
Chapter 44: The Mistake
Chapter 45: The Consensus
~ ~ ~
Chapter 1: The Knife
A motel outside Phoenix Deer Valley Airport,
Arizona
The headboard of the bed banged a steady rhythm against the thin wall. There were already dents in the plaster, and as if triggered by the crescendo of moans, one of the cheap picture frames dropped from the wall, crashing to the floor.
“Fuck, yes,” Tony hissed, legs shifting on his partner’s shoulders, squeezing his neck in a clear sign that he was close. “Fuck me like you mean it, Cap,” came the sharp order, and like he’d done for most of his life, Steve Rogers did as he was told.
His hips moved at the pace of the breaths forced out of Tony’s lungs, seeking his own release, leaving the other man moaning and twisting because their position didn’t allow him to touch his hard cock - something Tony had just discovered if his fingernails leaving half-moons on Steve’s hips were any indication.
“Come on,” Tony encouraged, his voice breaking down around a groan, his back arching.
One of Steve’s arms curled beneath Tony’s body and lifted him slightly, and his angle deepened just a fraction.
Tony’s next groan was on the thin barrier between pain and pleasure, fingernails breaking skin.
Steve bit his teeth into Tony’s shoulder and came with a sharp rush of release, growling his pleasure into the other man’s skin like an animal diving in for the kill. It was good, tingling all the way up his spine and pulling at his gut before shooting out of his balls and through his cock, the sensation like nothing else. It was easy to see how men got addicted to it, walking through life with their hands wrapped around their dicks, looking for the next chance to get off.
Tony moaned and whimpered, sounding breathless.
Steve drove one last thrust into him, feeling the slickness of his cum, and then pulled back, knowing that the position was making it hard for Tony to breathe. Sure enough, he looked a little red in the face, breathing in a big gulp of air as his hand shot away from Steve’s hip and to his cock the second he could fit it in there.
“Yeah,” Steve growled, leaning in to watch after he released Tony’s legs from his shoulders. Tony’s chest was hot where he laid his forehead, eyes tracking the motion of his hand, smelling how close he was.
Tony grunted and came, hips twitching, body quivering even with Steve’s weight on it. His cum shot out of his cock like a bullet from the barrel of a gun, a splash of it hitting Steve’s chin.
Like always, Tony settled fast once he had come, lying boneless on the bed, a blissed out expression on his face. Steve sat up, wiping a hand across the mess on his face - sucked one finger in his mouth to taste.
Tony chuckled. “I love it when you do that.”
“Hmm,” Steve hummed and got up.
“Where are you going?” Tony asked, hand reaching for him and failing to catch him.
“Bathroom,” Steve replied. “I have to get ready.” He didn’t need to look at the clock to tell the time.
Tony sighed dramatically, but there was a note of true discontentment in the sound. “I have a counter-proposition,” he said.
Steve halted near the doorway of the bathroom, looking back at him; naked and sweaty he lay there on the bed, hair disheveled, the usually neat goatee showing the signs of their recent lovemaking. Steve could still feel the lingering burn it had caused on certain areas of his body - a reminder that would vanish all too fast due to the effects of the serum. The image, however, would last, and he drank his fill, knowing it could be a while before he had this again.
“I say you don’t get on that plane you’re supposed to be boarding soon,” Tony went on as if Steve’s lack of progress was a sign he wanted to hear his proposition. “You can stay here, with me,” he spoke, shifting one leg, dragging it along the messy sheets.
“I have a mission to get to,” Steve replied.
Tony looked at his face, meeting his eyes. “You know you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, right?”
Steve nodded slowly, then walked back to the bed and bent over, kissing the corner of Tony’s lips, feeling the beard, tasting the sweat. “I don’t know if that’s so… A few minutes ago you were telling me exactly what to do,” he murmured into his skin.
Tony chuckled. “Such sass. That’s why I love you.” He stretched and settled again, not showing surprise when Steve pulled back and headed again in the direction of the bathroom.
As Steve entered the painfully unnatural light of the tiny room, he looked at himself in the mirror. The marks of lips, teeth and nails were vanishing, leaving only the old, faded scars and cybernetic implants scattered across his skin, covering damages that the serum had been too slow to heal at the time. The right side of his face, as always, bore an ugly hand-shaped burn mark that was too resilient to heal, showing bone in places.
He could still recall the searing pain of the grip of the hand pressing desperately into his skin, the smell of flesh burning… It had been the first time he and Iron Man crossed paths, and he had gotten so very close to ending Tony’s life that day. Well, until Extremis kicked Tony’s survival mechanism to a whole other level and left Steve with a lasting mark to remember his first failed mission by.
They had fought many times since, and some of the damages to his body were leftovers from those altercations. Few people could deliver a punch like Tony did, for all his lack of formal training; guts and spirit were so much more important.
It was that spirit that had enthralled him in the end, wringing passion out of their clashes, and standing here, years later - after having heard Tony drop the word ‘love’ for the first time…
‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’
What did he want to do?
He looked at himself again, a distorted image of the man he had once been. Sometimes he could no longer picture that face, and whenever he began to recognize it in himself - the sneer of disdain and disappointment reverberating from his very core - the scientists at HYDRA made sure to wipe that from his mind.
Remember and forget, like a snake eating its own tail…
When he was with Tony, it was easier to remember. It was easier to accept himself, even when it made him painfully aware of how far he had strayed from the former glory of Captain America.
I’m not him, he told himself. That man died in a plane crash seventy years ago.
A familiar tale told in the history books. Only a few people knew how the story really ended - the grim sequel to the heroic tale of sacrifice.
He shook his head, turning to get in the shower. Time was running short before his plane was scheduled to depart, and he had to be on it. He had a mission, and he had already gained what he’d wanted from his tryst with Tony.
The shower stall was so small his shoulders kept brushing the walls, but it got the job done, washing the traces of their passion from his skin. A cleansing before the mission which he would have gladly made into a ritual, if only he could withstand Tony’s gaze on such a regular basis.
After all, Tony knew he was going out on a mission, and it was his duty as Iron Man to come and stop him.
There may be more scars the next time they see each other like this, but Steve was confident by now that he could not kill Tony even if he tried, and it was not for lack of trying. Tony, on the other hand, was yet to deliver the death blow, and Steve sensed it had very little to do with the idealism of heroes not killing anyone - not even the villains.
Tony had killed plenty in the past while wearing the armor. Either Steve was an exception - or too stubborn to die.
As he reached for the complementary bottle of bodywash, a sound reached his ears. His hands stopped, senses focusing to detect another disturbance. It was Tony, most likely moving around, but his gut told him otherwise and so he put down the soap and slowly stepped out of the stall, leaving the water on, careful not to make a sound.
Opening the door slowly to keep it from making noise, he moved towards the main room, body ready for action even in his naked, wet state. In his line of work, you got used to expecting anything, at any time, and when his nose detected the faint smell of burning linens, he took the last step out of the bathroom, eyes sweeping the small room.
He stiffened as his gaze made it to the bed and a scent of copper overtook the odor of smoke.
“Bucky -” His word caught in his throat as the other moved, drawing his favorite blade out of the back of Tony’s neck. A gush of blood followed, bright red against the sheets, and Bucky moved away, allowing Tony’s body to drop down.
The brown eyes were wide open, empty and lifeless. His neck was at an unnatural angle, and as seconds ticked by and Steve expected the bright colors of Extremis to rush to the surface of his skin, nothing happened.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Bucky told him. “Since the moment you two stopped trying to kill each other, they knew it was only a matter of time before he made you into a liability. By removing him from the picture, we won’t have to worry about that.” Bucky pushed his knife into the sheets, casually cleaning it of Tony’s blood. “You were starting to stray, Rogers,” he said, moving off the bed, standing up, sheathing the knife. “Your head filling with dangerous ideas.”
Steve had a hard time looking at Bucky and simultaneously staring at Tony, expecting him to jerk at any second, the wounds sealing themselves.
“He’s dead,” Bucky snapped. “I did what you haven’t been able to do, all these years. He’s not coming back from this one.”
Steve’s skin turned cold, his eyes finally meeting his best friend’s. Only, it wasn’t really Bucky but the Soldier, because Bucky would have never taken this from him. The Soldier, however, had no qualms about removing every obstacle in his way, and seeing as the two of them had been working missions for decades now, perhaps he had considered Tony an obstacle in both their ways.
In one small moment, he had erased the one person Steve had felt close to, with whom he wasn’t the Commander or an asset, but simply… Steve.
He hadn’t felt like a monster when he was with him.
“He was making you weak, unfocused,” Bucky went on, stepping closer. “HYDRA has no tolerance for those who stray from the path. I just saved your life.”
Steve lashed out, taking Bucky by the throat, a roar rising from his chest. He slammed him forward, all the way into the wall he had just been banging a hole into while fucking into Tony’s body, and the remaining pictures fell off their hooks as Bucky’s body hit the wall. “I loved him,” he hissed at Bucky, pressing into him, knowing that any second now, he would start fighting back. “I loved him and you took him from me.”
He might never have said it, but looking at Tony’s lifeless form, seeing his blood soak into the sheets, the feeling exploded all over him and it was worse than all he could remember, the ghost pain of losing his world, over and over - the shattered remnants of choosing to nose-dive the HYDRA plane into the ocean.
Bucky growled, his metal arm coming up, seizing the side of Steve’s face.
Steve yelled and drew back a few inches, then slammed forward again, this time taking them both through the wall and into the next room. People shouted and moved away, a woman screaming. Steve bore Bucky’s body down to the floor with his and pounded at him, trying to get past the metal arm blocking his blows.
Bucky twisted, wriggling out from beneath him, his right leg following and trying to kick Steve to the side.
Steve rolled with the motion, just out of reach of the kick, his shoulder slamming into a bed as he ran out of space. He got up to his feet at the same second Bucky did, and this time it was the other who charged him with a sharp yell, taking them both down on the bed that crashed beneath them, legs giving out, the sharp drop making little difference to them.
Bucky slammed his left fist down. Steve twisted to the side, feeling metal by his right ear, and then kicked up with his legs, sending Bucky forward and off the bed while he followed, rolling back over his shoulder and onto his feet, not bothering to turn but kicking back as he got his feet under him, catching Bucky full on the small of his back and sending him crashing forward into a closet. Wood cracked, Bucky’s left hand going through the closet door, and Steve turned and went after him - then got a torn-out piece of wood slammed in his face as Bucky yanked his arm out.
The wood shattered into tiny pieces, flying everywhere. Steve tried to catch his balance, lowered his stance, and then took Bucky’s weight head-on, fighting to stay upright as the other pummeled him like a pissed off bull.
Steve took a few punches to his midsection, feeling every impact on his unprotected skin, but it just fueled his rage and made him leave himself open for the next punch in favor of getting one arm around Bucky’s neck and twisting, forcing him to focus on keeping the upper hand and stop hitting him.
They twisted and turned for a moment, grappling for a winning hold. At one point Steve had Bucky on the floor, his back grinding into the splinters of the door, but every time Bucky got himself free he came at Steve again, fighting for the upper hand.
After all their years of fighting together, they were quite evenly matched, and Steve knew he was running out of time. As always, he looked at his surroundings, more adaptable than the Winter Soldier had ever been, and eventually he picked up a fallen lamp from the floor and smashed it in Bucky’s face, then attacked him while he was distracted, shoving him into the window covered by stained curtains.
Glass shattered and Steve gave one more push, feeling a sharp edge draw a long line into his shoulder and upper arm. Bucky fell through, metal fingers grasping at the edge but ultimately failing to stop the fall, his body crashing down three stories before hitting the pavement outside. The fall wasn’t nearly enough to kill him with Zola’s serum in his system, but it would take him a while to get to his feet and by then Steve would be gone.
He returned to his room through the hole in the wall, stopping short once he did, looking at the bed. Tony lay there, eyes still open, blood spread all over his upper body, seeping into the bedding. With stiff motions, Steve climbed onto the bed, carefully lifting him up by the shoulders. His fingers slid to the back of his neck, feeling across bloody skin, finding the entry wound of Bucky’s knife, leading up in a sharp angle.
Tony had never told him if Extremis had limits, but HYDRA had always believed so. Steve had never been able to discover it for himself - a fact for which he had been glad when his feelings for Tony became clear - but sitting there with his lover’s dead body in his arms, fingers digging into his torn flesh as if he could physically put him back together, he felt an ugly sense of failure.
He had not realized how much he looked forward to seeing Tony - had not taken the time to notice how much he needed him, and how far he was willing to go to keep him. Recruiting Tony to HYDRA had been an impossible concept, so the only real option left to them would have been for Steve to go rogue.
‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’
Steve grit his teeth, eyes burning. His fingers tightened and he felt bones shift where Bucky must have broken Tony’s neck.
Slowly he drew in a breath and made himself stand up, finding his clothes and getting dressed. It was a familiar process, one he knew by heart, and after he had holstered his weapons and finished the routine, he grasped his shield, bloody fingers leaving stains on the metal painted with black and gray.
He looked back at the bed, trying to envision his last glance at Tony, alive and fresh from their fucking, asking him to stay. His mind failed him, almost as if the memory had become corrupt, and all he could see was what lay before him now. It filled him with a depthless rage, growing, deepened by his feelings that had infected him like a festering wound, splintering the brainwashing HYDRA had subjected him to since they found him in the ice.
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to,” he said out loud, words clipped with emotion he could barely keep under control. His eyes bore into the sight of Tony, bloody, naked, and lifeless, taken from him so suddenly it felt like the shattered halves of a bone that kept grinding against one another. “I don’t want to live without you,” he concluded.
He had made up his mind, and all he needed to do was to accomplish the impossible.
Good thing he already had a plan forming in his mind.
to be continued…