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The backup systems come to life a few minutes later, but they are at 15% capacity. Tony doesn't do anything until he hears the buzz of the aircraft engine in the Siberian silence; until he knows they have safely left. Then he shoots a rocket towards the exit. His back resting against the wall, he watches debris rain down. 13% capacity. Good. He stumbles up, makes his way towards the centre of the base. Turns and fires another rocket. And then another.
All around him, it's snowing rubble.
***
It's T'Challa that notices weird heat signatures and they take a turn back, and all three of them stare through the cockpit window, at the clouds of dust and the explosions.
"Tony," Steve whispers in horror.
"He's going to be buried alive!"
"Did he run into a string of explosives? What is that?"
"No, it's the kind of firepower he routinely carries around," Steve says quietly. "Highness, can you get Bucky to safety? I need to go."
"He could have blown us both to hell," Bucky whispers. "With that."
"Yeah," says Steve. "He could have."
He shares a look with Bucky.
"I need to go," he repeats. "Can you get me over a patch of level ground nearby?"
"I'll come with." It's Bucky, and T'Challa is nodding too, but Steve shakes his head. "No, our trail is hot, and besides, we can't know how he'd react. You need to go."
"But you..."
"I'll be fine."
***
Falling through the air, and then snap, the parachute is open. And Steve can't, can't, can't abide the slowness, the floating. He'd been known to jump from bigger heights without a parachute, but he feels the weakness, the numbness, the shakiness in his body now; after this fight, he can almost feel his real age. He feels brittle.
If he hit the ground at full speed, he's not sure he'd be of much use to anyone afterwards. Yet, the slowness is killing him.
Perhaps he doesn't carry the Avengers' "A" on his shoulder any longer, but he's still got the audio equipment that comes with the suit. He turns his earpiece on, finds the usual radio frequency.
"Tony? Tony? Come on, Tony, please. Tony, are you reading me?"
No response. He can't know if the man can hear him or not. Hell, he can't even know if he'd ruined his equipment with his shield, when he slammed it down, again and again. He can't know if there's anyone left there, to hear.
Oh god, what have I done.
"Tony?"
He hits the ground, shakes the shoulder straps of. Starts off at a run, stumbles, has to break his fall with his hands. Gets back up. Then he's running again.
Everything hurts. He doesn't remember ever feeling this way. Every inch of muscle, every bone, everything, everything is a red field of pain.
He doesn't think he's ever had such a beating in his life.
The pain is grounding him.
"Tony? Please reply?"
There. Was that ragged breathing? Or just static. "Tony? I'm approaching the base from the east side. Please don't blow me up?"
No answer.
"It seems you've collapsed the entrance here," Steve continues his running commentary. If he shuts up, his throat will go into a spasm and he won't be able to speak ever again, he fears. "Yep, no way in on this side. Where exactly are you? Can you get out in the north? Because I can't see it well from here because of the terrain inclination, but it seems..."
"Go home, Rogers," comes a grumble from his earpiece and he almost collapses to the ground with relief. But no, he has to move, has to, always forward. "I don't need you."
"I'm checking the north side now," Steve informs his listener. He is slower than he'd like; he's running, but with a limp. He hates, hates, hates the snow, and breathing is freezing the inside of his lungs, and what is he going to do if he can't find an entrance now?
"I don't think the north side is going to be any good," Tony's voice says, and it's like a hand reaching inside Steve's chest and twisting, twisting.
He should have let Bucky come. He should have let the Black Panther come. What was he thinking?
What have I done?
"What have you done, Tony?" he says instead, and it's whiney, and it's too familiar, and he doesn't think it's okay to sound like that after everything that came to pass, but there you go.
"Screw you." Tony appears to be out of breath. And then: "I left a way out, you know. I wasn't trying to kill myself. Just venting."
"Way out through where?"
A sigh through his earpiece. "Er, north?"
"Oh." And: "You caused a small earthquake here, by the look of things. Everything seems to have collapsed."
"Never said I thought this through."
"Where can you come up closest to the surface, do you know? I'm going to try and dig you out?"
"Not sure, but wanna try the north entrance?"
"Okay."
They both sound weary. Weary but very matter-of-fact, very efficient. Two people used to working together, fighting together, overcoming difficulties together.
Steve wishes he had Hulk with him, as he lifts a large piece of concrete with iron bars hanging out of it like guts, and tosses it aside. Then the next. And the next.
The breathing through the earpiece is ragged and clipped and audible. A muttered expletive. A stifled yelp.
"Tony?" Steve hates the panicky squeak in his own voice.
"I'm fine," the other man groans; he's not very convincing.
Steve hurries, but, God, it's a lot to dig through, and he has to take care not to collapse more of the base on Tony in the process. If Wanda were here, she could lift the whole bunch of material, and it would float around her like a halo, like an aura, in a cloud of red.
If Clint were here, he could crawl into the air vent Steve has just uncovered and maybe manage to get down there, get to Tony, because Steve is to big to fit in, and he hates his body for it.
But there's no one else there. And as he tosses a boulder after boulder aside, he starts to lose hope.
"Are you okay?" he asks again, and he gets the feeling it's the tenth time he's said those same words already, and they are losing all meaning, but he needs to hear Tony grit an 'I'm fine' through his teeth.
"Hey," Tony says, his voice suddenly alive. "I think I can see daylight." And Steve hears his words, and not through the earpiece only.
***
Tony is caught by his gauntleted hand (thank god, not the left one), and is being pulled up, is being pulled so hard he thinks his arm will be torn from the socket (and wouldn't that just be poetic justice, he reflects); and he can feel the rubble shift around his midsection, pressing in on the armor, and for a moment he thinks he will be crushed right there, on the verge of salvation. And then he turns his repulsors on one last time, and his left boot is broken, but his right still has some firepower. And Steve shifts his feet and pulls with all his might, straining, straining, gritting his teeth. And Tony flies out like a cork from a bottle and lands straight into his arms, still clutching Steve's shield in his left.
And the next thing Tony knows, he is wrapped in those big arms, crushed to that big chest, armor and all. Steve is kneeling on the ground, holding Tony to his heart, rocking gently back and forth, dry-sobbing with exertion and everything else, right into Tony's hair.
And for a moment Tony allows himself to bury his face into that chest (oh god, the scorch marks, oh shit!), allows himself to close his eyes and be held. But then he grits his teeth and tries to get free (but he's too weak), and he whispers "You can let go now, buddy."
Steve doesn't. Still supporting Tony with his left arm, he sits back on his heels, pulls Tony's torso onto his lap in an awkward hold. Runs the fingers of his right hand through Tony's hair over and over again. Tony looks up into his face, and it's as if someone's stomped on his chest when he sees tears on Steve's cheeks, freezing before they have the time to roll all the way down.
"We're going to freeze to death here," is all Tony can croak out right then.
And they both try to stand up, awkwardly, leaning onto each other.
"My plane's over there," Steve says. "It's a longish way to go. Can you walk?" He makes an abortive gesture as if to carry Tony, but it's clear to both of them the effort is too much for him right now, and besides, Tony would never go with that.
"I think I sprained an ankle at some point," he says conversationally, leaning on Steve, who is leaning back, just a little, although he'd never ever admit it.
"Here, put your arm around my neck," Steve is saying, taking Tony by the hand, but-
"No, shit, aaaaaargh," Tony cries through his teeth. "Not the left. Oh, fuck me. The left's taken enough punishment already."
And somehow, slowly, painfully, they stumble towards Steve's aircraft.
"When you say your plane," Tony quips because it's better than whining (whining is okay when you're not really in pain), "you mean the plane that you stole, don't you."
"Exactly," Steve says serenely, because that's better than talking about things. "As I said, my plane."
"So where's your BFF? Or is that BF?"
"Tony, don't."
Tony shrugs. "It's probably for the best that I don't know." His everything hurts. He can't do this right now.
When they are aboard the plane, it gets awkward.
"You take the aircraft," Steve says, because it's painfully obvious they are not going in the same direction exactly.
"Right, and you are going to, what, limp 300 miles to the nearest goat pen?"
"Maybe you could give me a lift to an inhabited area? I call dibs on the parachute."
Tony sighs and buries his head into his palms. "You don't have a passport on you, do you? Even if you did, you are a fugitive from the law. You can't just stroll around Eurasia as you please. Do you have any idea what kind of shit you're in right now?"
Steve looks a little at a loss. "I... I can't let you take me in, if that's what you're thinking."
"I'm not going to take you in. I didn't come here to take you in. I told you that when I came."
"What, not even after..."
"No", Tony says firmly. "Not even after."
And Steve smiles at him, but Tony doesn't smile back, and Steve's face crumbles at that. Tony can't do this right now.
"Tony, I..." Steve's just shaking his head, momentarily lost for words; and Tony can't take care of him emotionally, not now that he'd been broken himself, and by the same person he's now supposed to comfort.
Even if that very person went and saved him from the shitter of his own making right afterwards.
God, we're so messed up.
"Here's what we're going to do," Tony says decisively. "I have a copter somewhere nearby, or so I hope. Hill's at the wheel. I'm going to call her, if you don't mind-"
"What, Maria's here?"
"I had to trust someone. I left Vision with Rhodey."
"Okay," Steve says, closing his eyes for a moment. "Maria's okay. I think."
"And then we get her to come here, and I take this craft, and you take my copter, because it's got a cloaking device, and you go in an undisclosed direction. I'm not going to know where, because that's saf..."
"I'm going to Wakanda. The Panther gave us sanctuary."
Tony sometimes really wants to kick him in the face.
"Didn't you hear what I just said?", he grits through his teeth, but Steve just shrugs defiantly. It's killing Tony a little, looking at him right now. And yet, and yet...
He came back. He came back for him. He came back.
Not that Steve would leave anyone in a frozen wasteland, probably not even a villain – of course Captain fucking America wouldn't – but still... He came back. For Tony. And maybe that's a tiny little seed of redemption, in Tony's eyes.
"Tony, did you start shooting rockets so that I'd have to come back?" It's almost as if Steve's reading his mind.
"Please don't make me look more pathetic than I already do. And no, I didn't."
"Because that would have been a better option."
"Rogers, I wasn't trying kill myself. I told you. I got angry." It's only half a lie.
And Steve's looking at him, all soft eyes and lips full of sadness, and Tony can't, he can't, not right now, so he looks away.
Steve doesn't seem to care about what Tony can or can't, though.
"I'm so sorry, Tony," he says; in the background, the engine is humming softly, soothingly. They turned it on for warmth, and now all Tony can think of is how the old tears on Steve's face are probably thawing right now Jesus Christ, that man.
Tony is sleepy. The sudden warmth and the stillness make him want to doze off and escape everything. "Don't, Steve. I'm serious."
"But..."
"Don't."
"I didn't mean for it to turn out this way," Steve goes on relentlessly, and Tony wants to crawl away.
"Don't."
"It kept spiraling out of control, and one bad decision led to another, and I didn't know what to do, Tony, I didn't..."
"Don't."
"I so didn't want to hurt you."
"Don't."
"Okay," Steve says quietly. "Okay, then."
And Tony goes to the radio equipment and calls Maria Hill.
***
"I'll wait outside," Steve says, his throat constricting, and steps out, because it's obvious Tony doesn't want him there.
A minute. Two.
Tony appears at the door. "Don't be an idiot, you'll freeze to death. Come in."
And Steve is about to refuse, because no one is as stubborn as Steve Rogers (nor, Peggy would say, as melodramatic as Steve Rogers). But then he looks at Tony, and the way he is leaning against the aircraft, barely holding himself up.
"How much capacity?" Steve asks, and suddenly he's so pissed at Stark he could strangle him.
"Sorry, what?" Tony says.
"The suit. How much capacity, Tony?"
"I'm not going to... What do you think I'm going to do? Why?"
"Because what if I didn't come back, you idiot, that's why! How much?"
Tony makes a grimace.
"Right now? 2%."
"I hate you!"
"Come on. Come inside."
Tony looks ready to faint with exertion. His face is smeared with blood.
"I guess we'd better get you out of that armor ASAP," Steve says grudgingly and although Tony scowls at him, the blonde helps him get inside and sits him down and patiently finds all the little clasps in the armor.
What's killing him is what Tony's got on underneath: not his undersuit, just a pair of jeans and a leather jacket. He was in such hurry to come that he didn't even stop to change.
"So, how come it's Hill, not Natasha, flying your helicopter?" Steve asks, just to say something, since Tony is being uncharacteristically silent and pliant and Steve is wondering if the man is going into shock.
"Natasha's gone," Tony says glumly. "Your royal Maecenas ratted her out – what she did for you. So she went into hiding to avoid consequences."
"Ratted her out?" What were you going to do to her, Steve thinks, and Tony looks at him, and the question must be so obvious on Steve's face, because Tony looks away and shakes his head a little.
"To Ross. Not to me." His voice is too tired to be bitter.
"Tony, that's not what I..."
"For the last time, Steve, don't bullshit me. I see right through you."
"Well, how am I supposed to know?" Steve looks at him, at his big, fierce, gut-wrenching eyes that are drilling holes in Steve's heart. And he wonders how he can have so many mixed emotions towards someone whom he never really understood, never could quite decipher. There are layers and layers to Tony, and as soon as Steve thinks he knows him, he turns and does something unexpected and incomprehensible. "How come?" he says.
"What, that I warned Nat to go?"
"I didn't know you warned her to go."
"Well, I did."
"Well, I know that now. But that's not what I meant."
Tony doesn't ask him what he meant and Steve hates that, hates the man is closing up, it's as if Steve has less and less access to him, it's as if he just keeps saying wronger and wronger things to him.
Instead Tony asks him to go check the radio signals and explains about the old school spy stuff Natasha might be using to send a message, perhaps, and tells Steve how to look for it. Steve indeed finds an encoded message, being replayed endlessly. "Tony, you're an asshat. Get over yourself. But since I know you'll be worried, here: I'm fine. I'll be in touch. Be safe."
At that, Tony smiles again – it's as if it spreads over his face against his will, like wildfire.
"Did you two not part on good terms?" Steve asks, curious.
Tony shakes his head, but he's still smiling. "We'll be okay. I think."
"And us?" Steve asks before he can stop himself, because he has to know, he has to. And he crouches in front of Tony, who is sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, all spent.
And Tony shrugs wearily. "I really don't know, Steve." And then: "Steve?"
"Hm?"
"I'm sorry I beat you up."
"You didn't beat me up, I beat you up. And I'm so sorry too, Tony, I..."
"Who are you kidding? I so beat you up! Besides, there were two of you against one of me, and I still beat you up, so."
"Yeah, that's not how it works. I won in the end. You know I did."
"Only because I was pulling my punches. Because you saw what I did to that base and you know what I could have..."
"Yeah," Steve interrupts again, "we're not talking about blowing each other up, Jesus, Tony, we're talking about who beat each other up, so..."
"Who beat each other up, not who beat each other. And just look at you, Rogers, you can barely stand, and you're supposed to have the superhealing and all the things."
Steve gazes at Tony, who's suddenly looking alive again, the trace of his usual spark back in his eyes. And Steve doesn't know if it's warranted, but he feels a smirk tug at the corner of his lips, and he can't do anything about it.
"Are we really having this argument?" Steve says. "Right after we practically tried to kill each other?"
Tony regards him for a moment, and then he actually smiles back. "I think it's kind of neat," he says, "that we can have this argument. Even after we practically tried to kill each other."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"Steve?"
"Hm?"
"If you expect me to apologize for today, I'm not sure I can. After everything." Steve just nods, but Tony talks on. "Because it's fucked up, and I'm all numb now, and exhausted, and I think I may fall asleep while we're talking... But it is fucked up. And underneath I'm so angry I could hit you all over again. But, Steve, I do feel like shit about... about... the people who got hurt in the process. If that changes anything for you."
And he doesn't rightly know how, but Steve is carding his fingers through Tony's hair again, and Tony is letting him. And Steve is still crouching in front of Tony, and now he leans slightly forward, and rests his forehead against Tony's, and Tony just closes his eyes.
"It's my fault," Steve says, "I should have..."
"I'd say we both had a hand in this," Tony says quietly. "But that doesn't make me any less angry. Because, see, I thought you trusted me."
"I... do," says Steve with hesitation.
"Now."
"Well, yeah, now."
"What if now's too late?"
Their eyes are very close together, and they are gazing at each other intensely, forcefully, and it's like there's an electric current between them. And on an impulse (because his impulse control's never been quite stellar) Steve leans in and lets his lips brush against Tony's for a moment, as if asking a question, and Tony's just looking at him, stock-still.
"What are you doing?" the man whispers. "Why now?"
"Tony, I..."
"You made your choice, for fucks sake. So go, be with him. What's this now?"
And Tony's repeating the word 'now', and the 'too late' is ringing in Steve's head, and he doesn't know what to do, but he does know what he feels. He does now. And yes, most probably too late.
"It's not like that," he whispers. "With Bucky. It's just... He's my best pal from childhood and then from the war. I just wanted to protect him. For a little bit, Tony. He's been through hell. I know you don't understand..."
"I do understand."
"Now."
"Yes, now. Now that you've told me, now that I found out. Now, yes."
"Tony, I should have..."
"No use for that. Now."
"Yeah. I know. But I know what I feel."
"I don't know what I feel."
But it doesn't sound not hopeful, to Steve.
***
Tony's head is reeling, his thoughts are whirlwind, his emotions a kaleidoscope. And he hasn't had the time to process anything, and the pictures just come and go, come and go, and good god, his mom, his poor mom...
But Steve is there, so close, so safe (he shouldn't feel safe with him, but somehow he does). So instead of getting into any of it – about Steve, about secrets, about anything – he pats the floor beside him, and Steve sits down, and then he moves close, closer, and puts an arm around Tony's shoulders. And Tony knows it's probably not a good idea, but it feels so good to have Steve by your side. (Tony doesn't want to get into it in more detail than that.)
And he closes his eyes, just for a moment, resting his head on Steve's shoulder, and Steve leans his head against Tony's, and the calmness and the stillness are bliss.
"You mustn't fall asleep, I think," Steve says. "Shock and all that." And he's right, but the siren song of a nap is so beguiling.
"Okay," Tony says. "Okay. Talk to me, then."
"What do you want to talk about?"
"I don't know." A beat. "Steve, what do you actually believe in?"
"What, like religiously."
"No, not religiously, geez, Rogers. Politically. The Accords and stuff. What we butted heads about. What are your beliefs? Tell me. Because I thought I knew, but now I think I don't."
"Liberty."
"Pfft," Tony says. "An empty word."
"Tony, are you trying to pick a fight with me on purpose?"
"No. Maybe. A little. Okay, liberty. What's that, then, to you? The freedom of choice?"
"Yes. Of course. And now you are going to talk about the people and democracy, aren't you? Christ. You're just going to run around me in circles, aren't you. I'm too tired to argue with you. And..." Steve suddenly sounds a little sad, a little lost, and Tony promptly starts feeling like shit (more like shit, actually, if that's even possible). "I don't even know any more, Tony. I don't know what I believe."
"Well, maybe you should think about that."
"When I figure it out, I'll let you know."
"Do that."
Some time goes by, and his lids feel like glue.
"Tony?"
"Hm."
"What's the first thing you're going to do when you get back home?"
Tony hears the poorly covered undercurrent of longing in Steve's voice as he says home, and a part of Tony gloats a bit, because you deserved this, you asshole and the other part of him just aches so much he can barely breathe. Because this is the end. A beginning of something else, maybe, but an ending of something in their lives that had been so good.
He shrugs, trying for levity.
"Oh, you know. Order me some Chinese. Watch a movie with Rhodey." (Because Rhodey has to be okay, he has to, all the other possibilities are unthinkable) "And then, you know, replace all the locks in case any of you bastards think to come back." And he hears the keen bitterness in his own voice, and tries to soften it with a smile (because he's still resting his head on Steve's shoulder, and it feels so good, and he didn't really intend to be unkind right now, it's just a stupid joke that hit too close to home).
Then something dawns on Tony and he sits up abruptly. "Shit. Locks! Oh, shit!"
"What? What?"
He turns to Steve, looks at him urgently. "I almost forgot to tell you! They are in the Raft. They are being held in the Raft, Steve!"
"What. Who?"
"Clint. Sam. That Lang kid. Christ, they put Wanda in a straight jacket, shit, Steve!"
"Tony, how could you..."
Tony bristles. "You have to stop thinking every fucked up thing that happens is my fault!"
"Well, you brought them in, you signed the Accords." Steve is back to angry now. Oh, stellar.
Tony pulls his knees up, rests his forehead against them. "That's not legal, according to the Accords, by the way," he informs him. "The UN would never ratify it, are you crazy."
"No?"
"No. Of course not. Ross got them there on suspicion of terrorism."
"Terrorism?"
Tony shrugs. "He can pretty much keep them detained indefinitely, without trial. Well, I'm not sure about Wanda, she's not a citizen, I'd have to check. But..."
"Tony, what do we do?"
"I could sic my legal team on Ross, but that would take time. Steve... I'm going to be heavily on the radar, but..."
"I can spring them out. Do you think I can spring them out? I can spring them out!"
Tony nods, and explains of a charmingly, delightfully simple method of communication, the one he'd developed with Maria and Natasha. It's a gmail account they all three have a password to. They never use it to send external emails. They leave messages for each other as drafts. There is never any traffic, nothing that would set off the filters looking for specific words.
Steve is wondering how come he doesn't know of all the methods of communication Tony has developed with Nat. And Tony shrugs, and says the two of them evidently don't tell each other everything, but some secrets are more dangerous than others.
And Steve nods and takes it, and Tony feels like shit again.
"I'll send you the floor plans that way, then, okay?"
"Thanks, Tony."
"Fuck you, Rogers, they're still my friends too!"
And although it's awkward, Steve puts an arm around him again, and Tony doesn't protest. It's soothing, it really is. And they both need it.
That's how they stay, waiting for Maria Hill to come, to bring the helicopter for Steve, to go fly Tony to Rhodey's side. And some time before she arrives, there's one more thing Tony needs to say.
"Steve?"
"Hm?"
"Thanks for coming back for me. I really didn't think you'd do that, back there."
"You're welcome. You idiot."
A beat.
"Tony?"
"What?"
"I'll always do that."