It's him. It's Steve. The raw, sharp urgency that surged through Tony's body fizzles out in an instant, replaced with...
What? Awkward silence? His own stupid face, blinking? He looks at Steve and – it's weird. It's so weird, and not just because he's one of the last people Tony saw, in the awful section of a timeline he calls "home", where they'd lost, and it was all Cap's fault, in every detail expounded and spat out from a mouth dry from grief – from guilt. Because the truth had been right there, in the space between Tony's words, written all over his sunken face. It was their fault. All of them. You said we'd do that together too.
It's weird, because of everything that came before, that Tony felt and suffered, and relived on dark nights. It's weird, because of everything that comes after – that Tony's had told to him, like a storybook. Like a parable. Someone will die for the world, but they won't be a god, or free of sin.
Tony swallows around a lump in his throat. Refocuses on Steve's wide eyes, as they shrink with his furrowed brow, as the line of his jaw tightens. He's learned to read Cap's microexpressions over the years, like deciphering the difference between shades of grey, stoic and subtle and guarded – annoying, just like everything else about him. But right now the words are painted on his face in neon, blinking red.
What is this?
Harder to tell, than it had been with Peter – the time between Tony's memories and someone else's. But if there's one thing he can recognize in Captain America, it's when he's seen a ghost.
Horse hooves clop on the pavement as a wagon rolls by. Tony inhales, shrugs, brushes his gloves down the front of his dusty apron. ]
Uh. Ferrous oxide, mostly. [ He squints up toward the sun, then turns to the lab's open doorway and strides toward it. ] You wanna get in the shade? Unless you're, like – looking to tan up for July on the charity pin-up calendar.
no subject
It's him. It's Steve. The raw, sharp urgency that surged through Tony's body fizzles out in an instant, replaced with...
What? Awkward silence? His own stupid face, blinking? He looks at Steve and – it's weird. It's so weird, and not just because he's one of the last people Tony saw, in the awful section of a timeline he calls "home", where they'd lost, and it was all Cap's fault, in every detail expounded and spat out from a mouth dry from grief – from guilt. Because the truth had been right there, in the space between Tony's words, written all over his sunken face. It was their fault. All of them. You said we'd do that together too.
It's weird, because of everything that came before, that Tony felt and suffered, and relived on dark nights. It's weird, because of everything that comes after – that Tony's had told to him, like a storybook. Like a parable. Someone will die for the world, but they won't be a god, or free of sin.
Tony swallows around a lump in his throat. Refocuses on Steve's wide eyes, as they shrink with his furrowed brow, as the line of his jaw tightens. He's learned to read Cap's microexpressions over the years, like deciphering the difference between shades of grey, stoic and subtle and guarded – annoying, just like everything else about him. But right now the words are painted on his face in neon, blinking red.
What is this?
Harder to tell, than it had been with Peter – the time between Tony's memories and someone else's. But if there's one thing he can recognize in Captain America, it's when he's seen a ghost.
Horse hooves clop on the pavement as a wagon rolls by. Tony inhales, shrugs, brushes his gloves down the front of his dusty apron. ]
Uh. Ferrous oxide, mostly. [ He squints up toward the sun, then turns to the lab's open doorway and strides toward it. ] You wanna get in the shade? Unless you're, like – looking to tan up for July on the charity pin-up calendar.