do you know if you're ever going to write the ca:cw fix-it you mentioned? IT WOULD BE AMAZING.
Well, I started it! Who knows when I’ll have a free moment to freakin’ finish anything, though. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
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“But if someone had slowed him down, just slightly interrupted his course, maybe he could have gotten through that one nightmarish moment; maybe he would never get that close to it again.”
― Frederick Barthelme, Elroy Nights
"Hey, wanna see something cool?" Tony flashes him a little boy's grin, the lines at the corners of his eyes somehow more and less pronounced than when Ross had given them an ultimatum with all the subtlety of a heart attack in the middle of a backswing. It lifts something from Tony's shoulders, makes the hard line of them ease, makes him lean forward a little as if he's going to press right into Steve's space and seduce every secret Steve's ever had right out of his mouth. This is the fast-talking, public-made monstrosity that sneers about pilates and grins around "Capsicle" and "old timer." The practiced carelessness and picture show glitz would be unbearable on anyone else, but it's what he expects with Tony. Steve hasn't met the man that Nat and Colonel Rhodes are privileged to know.
Tony carries over a nondescript box that would be pristine if not for the dust lingering in the seam where it opens, and inside lie two pens that look older than either of them. "Pulled 'em from Dad's archives. Timely. FDR signed the Lend-Lease Bill with these in 1941, provided support to the Allies when they needed it the most."
Yes, huge quantities of America's war output have already gone overseas, and more is on the way! He remembers the newsreel. When they showed the Mosquito in all its shining, chrome glory, three guys in the second row began throwing their popcorn at the screen, whooping and hollering, "Kill those Krauts!" like there weren't as many innocent Germans as there were Allied soldiers. Like the Germans weren't even human.
He hadn't heard the rest of the reel. He'd been too busy getting his ass kicked behind the cinema. But after Project Rebirth, he saw firsthand what American assistance looked like.
"Some would say it brought our country closer to war," Steve says as he takes one of the pens out. It's hard to believe that something so fragile could finalize America's official entrance into the great game.
"Steve, if not for these, you wouldn't be here." Tony's not wrong. A pen like this probably signed off on the Super Soldier program, held between the fingers of someone who hadn't seen a day of combat. "I'm trying to—whaddyacallit—a… an olive branch. Is that what you call it?"
Steve may not have reached out for as many as he probably should have over the course of his life, but he's taken enough to know that this doesn't feel like one. In this world, where everyone knows best and everyone's a liar, nothing comes this easily. Everything is so hard-won here.
Not that he's helping matters any. Some gordian creature inside him purrs with glee when he brings up Pepper, deliberately drags out the awkward soldier asking about fondue when he suggests Tony might be a father; but it hisses, confused, wounded, when Tony begins enumerating his own failures, his mistakes. The suits, failing to find out about Hydra the first go 'round, Ultron.
"I don't mean to make things difficult," Steve says, and it feels like a lie. He might still be a shit-stirring punk in some ways, but he's never been purposefully mean. This century seems to pull the worst out of him. He kind of hates 21st century him. "If I see a situation pointing south, I can't ignore it. Sometimes I wish I could."
"Sometimes I wish I could punch you in your perfect teeth." It sounds so much like something Buck would've said while ducking under the blanket fort in Steve's living room before tackling him to make good on it, and Steve can't help but smile sheepishly in acknowledgement. "But I don't wanna see you gone. We need you, Cap. So far nothing's happened that can't be undone. Please, just… sign. We can make the last 24 hours legit. Barnes gets transferred to an American psych center instead of a Wakandan prison."
Steve closes his eyes against the image of Bucky—eyes lit with fear, dirty, alone, with that horrible metal thing pounding on the too-sterile walls of whatever basement dwelling T'Challa has beneath his fortress, pleading for mercy—and picks up the pen. Says something to Tony about safeguards, because that's what they need. To save. To guard. Or is it to be safe, be guarded? He can't throw his oldest friend back into a hole and call it justice, not when James Buchanan Barnes is innocent. But he can't rip the Winter Soldier from Bucky without real help. Signing the Accords and securing the best psychological help only Tony could buy might give Bucky some measure of peace—
But Tony hasn't met an agreement he couldn't punch a hole in, and a sudden burst of anger has Steve on his feet before Tony's even finished suggesting the internment of a goddamn kid.
"Give me an alternative!" Tony snaps, and it's a different kind of beast that rears up and bares its teeth at him. Steve once crossed paths with a dog on the streets of Berchtesgaden whose tendency to snap at even the possibility of a kind hand reaching out for it had been less wild than the look on Tony's face. He watches despair and desperation chase each other over Tony's mouth, claws pulling his lips back to bare picture star teeth in a rictus of anger, and then take their scuffle up to the pinch that has taken up residence between his eyes.
The person before him isn't the glib celebrity who always has the perfect answer for everything, but a man pulled in a million different directions—spokes in a pinwheel, spinning endlessly for the amusement of the wind.
This is him. This must be the Tony Stark that Pepper and Colonel Rhodes both know: the man who would rip out his own ribs and fashion them into some high-powered device to cut the wire. Steve caught a glimpse of him that day in New York just before he disappeared into a wormhole, carrying the ticking weight of his own ending, but the time between then and now has been measured in shawarma and killer robots, in thinly-veiled threats and warm handshakes, and he's beginning to suspect that no one knows everything there is to know about Tony Stark at all. Least of all him.
"There has to be—"
A sneer curls Tony's mouth. "—a better way? Thank god the all-American optimist is here to save the day. Do tell, Rogers."
Steve startles so hard that he hits his calf on a wayward chair . "Excuse me?"
"You seem to have all the answers, so why don't you share with the class. Tell me what to do." Tony throws out an arm, a deranged gameshow girl showing off the grand prize. "I'm listening."
"Tony—"
"No, I'm all ears. Tell me what I'm supposed to do to appease 118 countries and the officious prick out there with the itchy trigger finger." A trembling finger points to where General Thaddeus Ross is pacing and shouting at his phone, gesturing wildly. "You know how many times he's called me in the last month? I've met some stage five clingers in my day, but he and his Washington buddies take the fucking cake. They're banging on my door for her, Steve. They want to throw that poor kid in front of a tribunal, like their governments haven't signed off on so much worse, caused so much more destruction. And I can't keep throwing Ross off the scent for much longer."
Steve glances at the edges of this glass prison, lungs cramping with envy for the people milling about outside, and it takes him a second to realize that they're not sucking the air out of the room. He's just stopped breathing.
"I didn't—" know.
Exhaling, Tony spins away from him and starts wearing a track in the floor, back and forth, raking his hands through his hair, which comes out of its gel hold like flowers pushing up through cracks in the sidewalk. "They want to rip Barnes apart until there's nothing left except the roadmap to a better, more obedient killer."
"No, they want to—"
"What, help him? Come on." Tony laughs, and it sounds like the whirr of a portal opening. "These are the same people who took alien tech and tried to copy it, and it wasn't so they could build faster planes."
Steve swallows. "Then why would we—"
"Because we have to give them something while we work on kicking out something better. The Accords are shit, Rogers, but it'll tie them up in so much bureaucracy that we'll have time to do it right. They're not going to implement this shit immediately. It has to be voted on. It has to be publicized. It has to be brought before a hundred governments and amended a thousand times over. The UN isn't a governing body; they can't do shit to us and Ross knows it, and by the time he finishes jumping through hoops, we'll be there waiting with-with—fucking, I don't know, an Avengers charter."
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I need to rec this series, because I am obsessed with it.
Part 1: après nous le déluge
Summary: Steve and Bucky break, mend, and try to find their place in the world without the mantles of Captain America or the Winter Soldier. AU, post Civil War.
Part 2: i need a forest fire
Summary: In which Tony Stark makes a reckless decision, becomes a wanted fugitive, goes on the run with the former Winter Soldier, and learns how to forgive. For his part, Bucky Barnes is just trying to hold himself together. AU, post-Civil War. (sequel of sorts to après nous le déluge, but can be read alone)
I don’t know if tomorrowsrain is on tumblr - if you are, you’re awesome and I love your writing and I hope you write 8 million more Steve/Bucky stories, but also this is an awesome Tony & Bucky, Tony & Steve reconciliation story.
In response to the next chapter of NATWWAL, I think Scott's chapter was relatively low-key and didn't induce extreme levels of heartbreak because Scott and Tony didn't know each other so there was no aspect of familial betrayal. Perhaps you can amp up the levels of ‘it’s personal’ with someone Tony trusted more, and then alternate chapters with people on “the outside” if that makes sense. Or you could build it up by having each chapter be with someone he had a more complex relationship with.
Yeah. Scott’s chapter was relatively drama-free because he and Tony had no history prior to the airport brawl. The next chapter is Natasha’s, and it’s going to be a little more... tense. :)
inspired by your post about listening to your inner voice - Lilo woke up in the middle of the night, the only thing she could remember about her dream was someone was crying. So many tears. She tried to get back to sleep but there was a little voice saying 'get up, you gotta get up now'. So she poked Stitch and they snuck out the backdoor and into the night. Stitch perked up and headed into the forest. Lilo wasn't surprised when they found a man, sitting up against a tree. (1/2)
(2/2) The man was tired & dirty, a backpack on his lap. He was sitting against a tree & looked at them both with sad eyes. It was a warm night & the man’s face was dry but Lilo knew this was who had been crying in her dream. ‘You shouldn’t stay out here, mister. Come on, I’ll make you a peanut butter sandwich.’ she said. He shook his head, 'It’s not safe, asking strangers into your house.’ Lilo shrugged, 'You’re not that scary’ Stitch giggled. The man shook his head & followed them back.
Nani could deal with fuzzy blue near-indestructible aliens.
Like Stitch was the best guardian angel a sister could ask for - especially when one’s little sister was something of a Trouble Magnet. Also, Stitch knew how to bake a mean chocolate cake and he’d curl up next to Nani, sometimes, when it was late and she was watching something on the TV and he’d rumble contentedly when she petted him.
But somehow, Nani felt she should be drawing the line at WWII veterans turned super soldier who also happened to be a terribly traumatized POW dealing with the aftereffects of brainwashing and was an ex-assassin into the bargain.
Yeah. Fine. She had a solid crush on James Buchanan Barnes when she was in high school. Of course she’d recognize him.
Barnes hunched in on himself at their kitchen table, with half an eaten PBJ sandwich in one grubby hand.
“I don’t want to bring any trouble to you folks. I’ll just be on my way,” Barnes mumbled.
“NO!” Lilo protested.
“You. Hurting. Need to get better first,” Stitch advised sagely.
“Aren’t you supposed to bark instead of talk?” Barnes said dryly. He was dealing with the fuzzy, blue and alien-ness rather well, all things considered.
Stitch grinned. “MEESA ALLA KREESHNA!!!”
Nani sighed. “Wash your hands, Sergeant Barnes. And you’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you need to.”
He blinked.
“YAY!” Lilo cheered.
It took a couple of days for one blonde, shield-wielding Avenger to show up at their door, along with his very good-looking buddy with the fancy wings. Apparently, Lilo and Nani could prove Barnes’ innocence in a Certain Terrorist Incident that just recently took place.
Stitch totally enjoyed hanging out with Avengers though.
