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The days were bright in Wakanda. Every day, all day, or so it seemed. Even when the fog lay heavily against the window panes that dominated every room of their hide out and made it feel like a giant greenhouse, the brightness always came through. It was never blinding, though. Always pleasant. Steve wondered it there was something about those windows that made them adjust to the light and made the brightness inside as easy on the eyes as possible.
It felt peaceful and it felt wrong. They were fine here. Safe. Cared for. They should be out there and fight the dangers of the world, keep people safe, but the people didn't want them to do that anymore. The people thought they were the danger they needed to be protected from. So they sat here, and enjoyed their delicious meals and their luxurious suits, and the giant windows that seemed to put the world at their feet as a consequence of the actions that had put there here.
Clint had asked aloud what exactly Steve's problem was the one time he had brought it up. It wasn't like they had done anything wrong. They weren't the bad guys here and they didn't deserve to suffer for what happened. Would Steve prefer them to go back to the Raft, he'd asked, and he'd sounded bitter. He had a family, a life that he was cut off from now. This was a prison for him. Exile was a punishment. Steve had left behind nothing.
Clint didn't say that, but the accusation had been right there in his eyes. Bucky was right here with them – frozen, out of reach, but here and safe – and everything else, Clint's eyes had said, couldn't matter to Steve all that much. Steve had wanted to remind him that they hadn't done this just for Bucky, they had done it because the accords were wrong and fighting against wrong was what they did, even if it cost them dearly; that was why they were called heroes. He'd thought about the way Tony's repulsors had glowed with undiminished power when Steve had brought the shield down, and had been aimed at his head; how he shouldn't by any rights have won that fight, or even survived it. He'd thought about the long nights he had spend staring out of those giant windows, watching the fog drift by, thinking of all the times in the past years he could have told Tony about Bucky and his parents. Tony would have been upset. They would have fought, probably, but by the time Tony and Bucky actually met, it would no longer have been so raw. Tony's anger would have been directed at Zemo, then, for trying to manipulate them this way, and not as Bucky whom he'd just seen drive his fist into his father's face until there was nothing left of it before strangling his mom.
He'd said, “This isn't us. Sitting here, waiting. We should be out there, fighting, doing our job.”
He missed his shield more than he would ever admit.
“This isn't forever,” Sam had said, with the conviction of a man who wouldn't accept anything else. “Something will come up and they will need us, and they'll all see how pointless the Accords are if they push away the only people who can help.”
Steve had thought how wrong it was to hope for disaster, disaster that would doubtlessly get people killed, to fix this mess they were in, even as he agreed.
“Or maybe Thor will come back before that and beat some sense into Stark,” Clint had added not without a hint of glee.
“Or the Hulk will, once we inform Banner,” Sam had suggested. (“No, absolutely not,” Natasha had said later, when she joined them in Wakanda. “You will not drag him into this. He and Tony are friends.”
So were Tony and I, Steve could have replied to that and hadn't, having not yet figured out if it was Tony's friendship that was worthless or his own.)
(Bucky alive and safe told him exactly what his friendship was worth. Maybe he just needed to give it to the right people.)
Eventually Clint brought up Wanda. “If we can get the drop on Stark, she could just get into his mind and make him see reason,” he'd suggested, and she'd looked at him like he'd slapped her. Got up, yelled a few words that neither of them understood, and left, to hide away in her room for days. The one attempt Steve made to talk to her had made it clear that she was mad, even at him. Maybe especially at him.
“We have done everything about this completely wrong,” Natasha had declared after her arrival, when it was still unclear if T'Challa would tolerate her in his country. When Sam tried to console her by pointing out that she had come around in the end, she'd snapped “It wasn't just talking about Tony and me!” Steven had spend a lot of time thinking about that. He didn't see how he could have acted any other way regarding the accords, and he didn't see how he could have given up Bucky, or even put him at risk by leaving his fate in the hands of anyone else, but he could have told Tony about his parents in advance, and maybe then they would have had a chance to talk and Steve could have made Tony see reason without Thor or the Hulk or mind control being involved in any way.
It was too late for that, now. Steve had expressed his regret to Tony already, in the letter he had send along with the phone. That was all he could do until that phone rang or circumstance would throw them together again, as he knew it would.
As he had known it would, with absolute certainty, until now.
Their living quarters came with TVs. Naturally. Large, modern, reminding Steve of the ones all over the Tower. He didn't use the one in his bedroom a lot. When he watched anything, it was with the others in their living room, and it was usually the news. Reports on disasters that they could have helped with, on crimes that maybe they could have prevented. On the Sokovia Accords and their consequences, the plans for the future, like training facilities for people who had powers and couldn't fully control them, the plans for people who wouldn't play along, like arrest and containment. Steve always wondered how much Tony had his hands in there, and how much he was just pulled along by the current. Did he have any influence left at all after Steve and Bucky got away and everyone was freed from the Raft? If so, did he make it better, or worse? What would all this be like without him?
Clint seemed fairly certain that without Tony, the whole thing would never have happened in the first place. The accords would have been put on the table, no one would have signed, and they would have gotten off the table. Natasha had called him naive. T'Challa had pointed out that if none of them had accepted them, there wouldn't have been a conflict between groups of the so-called superheroes. Instead, there would have been a conflict between the superheroes and the rest of the world.
Steve was reminded that T'challa had originally fought along with Tony, and that he had helped Steve and Bucky in the end didn't necessarily mean he had changed his mind completely regarding everything not directly related to them. He was aware that the new king of Wakanda had been born into a world of politics and maybe knew it better than Steve did. Steve still thought that neither he nor Natasha nor Tony were giving the people of the world enough credit. They would have found another way.
Except that was unlikely now, tending more and more towards impossible with each passing second as Steve stared at the TV screen along with everyone else.
They had been mentioned on the news a lot, lately. Superheroes on the run. Dangerous fugitives. There had been footage of destroyed infrastructure in Berlin and the airport of Leibzig-Halle, of civilians with bandages and splints sitting in hospital beds, as if that had all been their doing. Steve liked to give people the benefit of the doubt, but he would never approve of how the media could demonize a person or a group and get everyone to believe it.
Not much about Tony for a surprisingly long time. Steve had expected to see him in front of the cameras the day they arrived in Wakanda and had wondered what he would say, had hoped it would be in their favor, an admittance to having been wrong, but he hadn't shown. He hadn't shown after Steve had freed Clint, Sam, Wanda and Scott from the Raft, even when the media had speculated that this should have been all but impossible without inside help. There had been mention of him being back from Siberia, so Steve wasn't worried. He'd just been surprised, and, if he was honest with himself, disappointed.
Now, almost a week after his return to the Raft, Tony finally came out of hiding. He talked to the press. He looked put together and official. James Rhodes was standing behind him, wearing his War Machine armor with the helmet off, and despite them being on separate sides, Steve found himself relieved that he was up and running again, that apparently his fall hadn't been as bad as it had looked like. But his focus was on Tony, and so was the camera's. There were fading bruises on his face still, and he looked a little pale, like he didn't get enough sleep or had been sick. His posture, however, was all business, no different from any other press statement he had ever given, and Steve knew at once that the change of mind he had been hoping for was not going to be announced here.
Tony looked like nothing had happened, and that was wrong, it made Steve angry before Tony even began to speak.
When he spoke it wasn't about them. It was about the accords, about future developments they had planned, and the progress of the training program. Stuff that Ross could have said just as well, but it had to be Tony, Steve thought, even before he realized that, yes, it had to be Tony.
There was no mention of Steve and the others until one of the reporters asked, “What about Captain America? Is it true that he attacked you in Siberia?”
Tony looked straight at the person, his expression never changing. Steve held his breath. He could sense everyone else holding their breath as well. He could sense the absence of breathing.
“It is true that we fought,” Tony said smoothly. “That was not, however, due to Mr. Rogers attacking me. In fact, he was merely trying to protect his friend, Mr. James Barnes, better known as the Winter Soldier.”
There was a collective sigh of relief in the room, while all Steve thought was 'Mr. Rogers'.
“He is an internationally known terrorist,” the same reporter pointed out.
“Well, about that.” Tony said. “While it is true that Mr. Barnes has committed numerous crimes all over the world, it has been confirmed that his actions were the result of brain washing and mind control and that he was not in control of them. The conflict in Siberia was brought on by me learning about one of these things that affected me personally. I have had amble time to reflect on that since then and have to admit that I was overreacting, as Barnes cannot be held personally responsible for it. Not one of my proudest moments. Rogers was merely trying to protect his friend.”
Tony was aware that he had been wrong. He was willing to admit it. The relief Steve felt now was so great that he barely heard the next words spoken on TV.
“What did you learn?” one reporter asked, while another said at the same time, “So you're saying that Steve Rogers should be reinstated as Captain America, that he and his comrades are welcome to return to the Avengers?”
“On the contrary,” Tony replied. He didn't look at the reporter this time. He looked straight at the camera, at everyone watching through it. “The fact remains that Mr. Rogers is insistent on forming a sort of police force that is itself above the law – something history has proven to be a spectacularly bad idea, even without superpowers being involved. But that would be something we could have talked about, where we might have been able to find some sort of compromise.”
Clint snorted and Scott said something along the lines of “Can you believe this guy.” A reporter said, “All Cap has done in Berlin has been to protect his friend.”
“Exactly,” Tony confirmed. “And that is very admirable, from a certain point of view. I'm sure we'd all love to have friend who'd go that far for us. But that is also precisely the problem.”
Steve felt like Tony was looking directly at him, and only him. “The people going after Barnes had reason to believe he was a dangerous, superpowered killer. They weren't villains randomly hunting as innocent man for fun. The policemen going after Barnes were doing so with the certainty that they were risking their lives to protect the public from this individual they had every reason to think had murdered countless of people. For their trouble Captain America – a man who runs around dressed in the flag of our country and claims that he needs no supervision because he is always right – beat them up with his shield, threw them down stairs, and engaged them in a car chase that severely damaged the infrastructure of their city and endangered numerous civilians.”
“No one was killed,” the reporter pointed out.
“No, and I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that if either Rogers or Barnes had intended to kill, there would have been casualties. But the fact that there were none, even for lack of trying, is down to plain dumb luck. People got in the way of their car case, got thrown out of their vehicles onto the street and in the way of oncoming traffic. They had a tunnel collapsed on them. One of the police men who got kicked down a flight of stairs suffered permanent injuries that will probably leave him wheelchair bound for the rest of his life. Others suffered concussions, broken arms and ribs, one was hospitalized with a punctured lung that would have killed him had he not received help in time. That's not even mentioning the civilians that were injured, often badly, in the crash in the tunnel. Civilians who had nothing whatsoever to do with any of this. Children.”
If Steve had waited for any kind of emotional reaction from Stark, he didn't get it. The man's face was like a mask. He might as well have been wearing his armor.
“So, yes, Rogers was acting out of loyalty to his friend. Those police forces, well-meaning or not, had been ordered to shoot him, after all. Steve Rogers is a great friend to those he deems worthy, no doubt, and I respect that in him. But as Captain America he falls short. More than that, he negates the title and the role. In order to protect his friend, which is ultimately a very personal endeavor, he has endangered the same people he swore to protect, and he has left no doubt that he will do so again. Where Barnes is involved, Rogers has proved to be willing to do whatever it takes to keep him safe, including breaking the law and hurting lawmen as well as innocent bystanders. So no, this man cannot be Captain America anymore – not as long as Captain America is supposed to embody all the ideals we wish to find represented by our country. More than that: if you encounter Steve Rogers, in whatever role he may have chosen for himself now, keep in mind that he will go through you if he considers you a threat to his loved ones, whether you deserve it or not. That makes him highly unpredictable and highly dangerous. I do not wish any harm on him or on the ones who followed him out of the conviction that it was the right thing to do, but even so, as much as it pains me to say this, for the moment at least he has to be considered our enemy.”
There were murmurs all over. On TV. Not in this room. Everyone was silent. And for the first time, just before turning away, Stark allowed something like sadness to reflect on his face.
“Sometimes you can either be a good soldier, a good hero – or you can be a good friend. You can't always be both. Steve Rogers has made his choice. I hope for him that it was worth it.”
Afterward, there was silence. For maybe ten seconds. Until Scott bust out, “What an asshole!”
Everyone had plenty to say after that. Or maybe it was just Scott, Clint, and Sam. T'Challa also spoke, but it was lacking the anger. Wanda said nothing, just listened, looking pale and young. Steve didn't see notice Natasha at all until he had left the room, needing to be alone, needing room to breathe.
She came to him after a minute. That was all he got. A minute. Tony had afforded himself almost two weeks.
Still it was Steve who spoke first. “He just painted a giant target on our backs,” he said, and was surprised by how lost he sounded. “I don't understand. I wouldn't have been able to free Sam and the others if he hadn't helped. Did he do that just to pin one more thing on me?”
“If you really believe he'd do that, why did you send him the phone?” she asked, infuriatingly calmly.
Steve didn't even wonder how she knew about that. “So he has a chance to reach me. One day the world will need us. Tony will need a way to let me know.”
Natasha shook her head. “That's bullshit, and you know it. Do you believe for one second that Tony doesn't know where we are? If he needs us, he'll contact T'Challa.”
Steve's hand slipped into his pocket, where the phone always was. Natasha noticed, no doubt, but she didn't comment on it.
“I need to hold open a door,” Steve said.
“Steve, that door is closed.”
“Yes,” he replied, bitterly. “Stark just closed it.”
“No. We did. We all did. You choosing not to trust him with Bucky's safety was you handing in the divorce papers. This speech just now was him publicly signing them.”
“We're not married.”
“No? Because I don't see you this worked up about anyone else. I don't see anyone else so worked up about him. Not the same way you are.”
“Well, what do you want to hear, here? We were close. He was my friend. Then he hunted us down like criminals.”
“According to the law, that was what we are.”
“We were also his friends! He should have given us the benefit of doubt.”
“Didn't he come to you when he learned about Zemo?” Natasha waved him off when he opened his mouth to reply. “He let you free your friends because he didn't want them to suffer. I betrayed him and he didn't have me arrested.”
“And yet here you are, a fugitive like us.”
“I made that choice. I left. And yes, we fought. We said hurtful things to each other. It didn't erupt in violence. I came to you because I wanted to, not because I had to.”
Steve took a deep breath. In. Out. “You don't look very shocked about his press conference.”
“I know Tony,” she replied. “Maybe, I now think, best of all of us. I wrote SHIELD's initial evaluation, remember?”
“The one where you judged him to be self-destructive, narcissistic, and selfish.”
“Yes, that one, too. That was the one he was supposed to read.”
It was also the one Steve had read when he'd tried to get an idea of who he would be dealing with. “You were pushing his buttons,” he realized.
“We were. We were pushing him to do better, to be the man we needed him to be.”
“So you manipulated him.”
“Yes. That's how I entered his life, with lies and manipulation. Encouraging him on his self-destructive path so he'd be in the place we needed him to be in when SHIELD entered the picture. That's what we do. It's not something that makes you a good person, but it needs to be done.”
“Wow,” Steve said. “And you can just say it, like that, like it doesn't matter, to me? It's hardly surprising you were on Stark's side at first. Justifying every evil as being for some greater good.”
Her gaze turned cool, yet she remained calm. Steve realized he had wanted to hurt her, and that she didn't deserve it. He was ashamed, and disappointed that his words hadn't touched her.
“To you?” she asked, her voice different. “You heard what Tony said just now, but I don't think the words have reached you yet, Captain. He sounds like an asshole, but I'm not here to console you. I'm here to point out that he could have said worse, and it probably means something that he hasn't. Yes, you fight for freedom and justice – as long as Barnes isn't involved. Yes, you protect the innocent – as long as Barnes isn't involved. Yes, you serve the good of the people – as long as the people agree with you.”
Steve almost winced. Maybe he his words had touched her after all.
He also was getting angry. Here she was, openly admitting to manipulating people, friends, and then throwing something like that at him. As if he weren't the one who had been stabbed in the back by someone he'd trusted.
“The thing with Bucky and the accords are different matters,” was all he said, though, when he had fought down the flush of fury.
“Are they?” she asked coolly.
Were they? Steve was no longer sure they were. The things he had done for his oldest friend certainly hadn't helped his stance against the accords and their reputation with the United Nations.
When he'd woken from the ice, he had thought the UN was one of the signs that the world was finally on the right track.
Until they turned against you, a voice whispered in his mind.
“Why are you here?” he asked again. “You helped us escape. Now you defend Stark to me. Maybe you should have stayed.”
“I'm pretty sure I should have,” she agreed. “It's not about you or Tony, Steve. This is not an either – or scenario. Fighting with him doesn't mean I hated you, or wanted you hurt. Neither did he, by the way. He wanted to bring you in before Ross send those who would shoot to kill, but I'm sure you know that already.”
Steve had not. She gave him no chance to say so.
“Seeing both his point and yours means I could have mediated, since both of you were too blinded by your personal grievances to get together and find a solution to this matter.”
“There could be no solution that's satisfying to both sides here. I'd never compromise where our civil rights are concerned. That's called selling out.”
“It's called being an adult,” Natasha sapped, finally losing her cool, if only for a moment. “And that's why I'm here: because I let Tony drive me away. Because we both acted like children. When I let you go he thought I had been playing him from the beginning. And that hurt me, even though I should be above such feelings, so I lashed out, right back at him. I was out of the country by the time I realized how much of an idiot I had been.”
“You've proven yourself over and over. He should have trusted you more.” And here he was, forced to defend her.
“Perhaps. But he's proven himself as well, and yet you immediately assumed the worst of him.” She paused, as if to give Steve a chance to think about that. “Knowing him like I do, I'm now sure that he was deliberately trying to push me away, to see if I would leave. He was testing me, because people in his life tend to betray him or leave the moment the inconveniences of being his friend outweigh the advantages. It was a challenge.”
“He didn't have to be an asshole about it.”
“No, but isn't in great that he was? We can all feel better about ourselves that way.”
“Now you make it sound like he was some sort of martyr who did it on purpose.”
“I don't actually think he did, not consciously. But he definitely did it to get a specific reaction from me, and I gave it to him, like a fool.” Her face twisted, like she was in pain. “Like a fool,” she repeated. “I'm supposed to be better than that. In control, provoking reactions rather than giving them. That's why Fury wanted me on the team.”
“You're allowed to be human,” Steve reminded her, and tried to ignore the implication of manipulation.
“I am. But I shouldn't be, for the role I have chosen for myself. Nor can you be all the time, as Captain America.”
Steve disagreed. Captain America was all about humanity, about being the best person he could be, not about being a set of stiff rules. But he let her continue without interrupting this time. “Tony, he was not in it for a specific objective beyond saving the world. He was nobody's symbol. He is now, because by default he's become the Superhero everyone will turn to, both civilian and politician, the one to bridge the gab, but until now he was the most human of us all, and we all made it clear how annoying we found that. I am familiar with his history, from the time he was born. His relationship with his father, who only ever pointed out Tony's shortcomings yet would never stop talking about how great you where. His inability to fit in in his youth, the pressure he had to deal with all his life – everyone expecting him to be the best at anything and solve every problem while also making it clear that no one thought he'd live up to those expectations. Never mind the numerous betrayals and the fact that even his closest friends always jump to the worst possible conclusion. The man has issues, basically.”
“Tony's got issues, alright. That doesn't mean anyone has to put up with them when he's being a bastard.”
“No. And I'm not saying they excuse his behavior. But they explain it, and no one cared to even ask.” She sighed, looking tired now. Steve wondered if she had ever before been this honest. “I knew about them, of course. We exploited them, Fury and I. I'm not proud of it, but back then, he wasn't a friend, just another target, and with the way he acted in public, I didn't feel particularly bad about doing that to him.”
“What about now?”
“Do I feel bad about the past? No. Things change. Relationships evolve. I regret the shadow of mistrust it cast over our friendship, but I'm not ashamed of the work I did for SHIELD. I would feel bad if I did it now.”
“So Tony thinking you did hurt you.”
“It did, but it's also understandable, from his point of view. At least that's what I'm telling myself right now. I allowed myself to settle into the bond we all shared, that's what made me vulnerable. It doesn't even matter, because this is not about me. It's about you. About you and Tony and the fact that you have lied to him for years rather than trust him with an unpleasant truth about a friend who was safely out of his reach at the time.”
Now Steve did wince. He wondered how she knew about that. T'Challa, probably. They seemed to have put their differences behind them.
(He didn't point out, as he could have, that she hadn't told Tony either. It hadn't been her secret to tell.)
“Like me, Tony allowed himself to feel as part of a group that shared a bond. What you told him is that he wasn't worth your trust or your friendship. That you took him for granted like everyone else, letting him do everything he could to be deserving of your respect without offering anything in return.”
“That's not true,” Steve protested. Did Tony really think that? How could he?
The thought made him feel sick.
“I'm not saying it is. Or maybe you just didn't notice. It doesn't matter,” she said when he wanted to protest. It was her who had mentioned that he cared too much, wasn't it? “What matters is what Tony thinks. We're not sitting here, having this discussion, because of the accords or any kind of political disagreement. This is all about hurt feelings and twisted perspectives. I hurt him, he hurt me, I hurt him back. You betrayed him, and he gave up on you. This – him, me, you – it's like a squabble among children, but the consequences are far greater than that, and we'll all have to live with them.”
“Because we're fugitives from the law and the UN are instating laws that are screwing over people like us,” Steve agreed.
“Yes. And because the relationships we are ruining here can't be fixed. At least you and Tony. He'll try to keep the fallout of our actions as light as possible should we ever come into open conflict with him and the laws he stands for again. He'll keep our location secret and do his best to keep us safe and to convince the world of Bucky's innocence. But he's not going to believe your friendship is mutual ever again.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
“I'm saying you should get rid of that phone. He's not going to call.”
And with that she left. And Steve was alone, as he had wanted to be, but now he felt alone, felt the distance to the life he had lived and loved, and, yes, to Tony and the friendship he refused to believe was over.
He pulled the phone out of his pocked. Considered throwing it through that giant window in front of him into the fog. Considered calling Tony with the number he had memorized long ago. To clear things up. To hear what Tony had to say about his press conference, about calling Steve an enemy, someone to be afraid of. To ask him what he thought of him now, or thought Steve thought; find out if Natasha was right. To assure him that Steve would always be his friend, that Tony fighting against him was so bad because of how much he meant to him. That he respected, even, how Tony stood for what he believed was right even if he didn't agree. It took courage and strength to do that even when all your friends turned away from you, even when people you trusted threw airplanes at you and felt it was justified. It was a kind of strength that Steve would much rather have on his side than be something he had to fight.
But he would have to. He'd never back down and compromise on this matter, and neither, he realized, would Tony. He couldn't. Things had developed to a point where Tony changing his mind would cause more damage than it would fix. Maybe that was what Natasha had meant when she talked about consequences. Tony and his stubborn conviction that he was right had gotten them into a situation they could no longer escape.
So Steve and his friends were effectively exiled from their country, cut off from their families if they had any. Tony, meanwhile, had to deal with people he evidently hated, bend in all directions to keep them satisfied, to keep things from getting worse, with little to no support from his friends (except for Rhodes, at least Tony still had Rhodes, and Steve was almost glad), trying to please a public that wanted to believe he was the bad guy. Steve had noticed the general angle of the questions asked by the reporters. (America wanted to believe in him still. The country he stood for felt he was right, so who was Tony to tell them he didn't deserve his uniform, his name?)
Steve wondered how long Tony could keep up this game until the pressure tore him apart. And how long it would be until word reached Steve when it did.
He looked at the phone in his hand. Flipped it open. There were no missed calls.
Steve dropped it back into his pocket and thought of Brooklyn.
5 June 2016