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avengers twilight!steve, on regrets, memories and tony stark. written post-avengers twilight #002. stevetony.

Steve has a lot of regrets. Tony—not the real one, the best friend he lost on the day he lost everything, but the one he keeps in his head, his mind’s best attempt at a ghost of the person he misses most—says that’s inevitable, living as long as Steve has.

C’mon, Cap, he says, smiling that way his Tony used to: eyes as bright as the future he was always talking about, everything in him shining. Or maybe that’s just how he looked to Steve, young enough back then to not yet have blinked the stars from his eyes. You live long enough, you run the risk of anything outweighing the good memories. His smile fades, not enough to disappear, but to become something smaller, quieter. Tinged with something requiring care. Do me a favour, handsome. Try not to let that happen to you.

Steve doesn’t like disappointing Tony Stark, not even the one dreamed up inside his head, but he thinks it might be too late on that front.

If someone asked for a list of regrets, he’d have to give that wry, hoarse laugh that makes him sound as old as he feels, and say, Nobody has time to listen to all that. If someone had asked Tony, he’d have a breathtakingly clever quip or an outpouring of guilt, depending on his mood, and who had asked. If it had been Steve, maybe both. Matt would have thought about it, long and hard, and disappeared to a confession booth. Peter – Jessica – Logan – Carol – all of them, he thinks, would have their own laundry list of hauntings, justified or otherwise.

That’s the name of the game, he thinks. You have to take the wins for what they are, but it doesn’t make the losses any lighter to bear. Steve’s posture isn’t what it used to be, even with the Defenders’ replicated super soldier serum in his veins, but his shoulders were shaking under the crushing weight of all his mistakes long before his age caught up to his body.

Janet isn’t here anymore to ask, but he doesn’t know what she’d say. It’s not that he thinks she has no regrets—even outside of the hero business, that’s a tall order for anyone—so much as that’s not how he remembers her. When he thinks of Janet van Dyne, he thinks of her deft fingers readjusting the lapel of the suit she designed and Tony cajoled him into; he thinks of her tinkling laugh almost being swallowed up by Thor’s booming one, the two of them bent double at the disgruntled expression Clint was shooting their way one golden night back when the world knew what heroes were meant to be; and he thinks of her clever, smiling mouth, and the way nobody could ever resist smiling right back. Steve had been no exception.

He misses it so fiercely it burns. Jan’s smile and Thor’s relentless steadiness and even Peter’s terrible jokes as he chased the Human Torch around the city. Carol’s quick fists and Jessica’s quick thinking and Natasha’s quick draw, and the time the three of them had a punch-up contest with the Thing that ended in an exasperated Tony footing the bill to the city and Johnny cackling as Sue dressed down Ben for his part in it. Luke’s laughter as he slung his arm over Danny’s shoulder and Jessica Jones taking photos of the two of them and Logan and Bobbi in the corner, trading tales of Hawkeye’s Greatest Hits: Indecent Exposure edition.

And Tony—always, always Tony. The press of him against Steve’s side, a reassuring line of heat, like, hey, you’re not alone anymore. You’re not cold anymore. You have a team. You have me. His tired eyes and easy smile and razor-sharp wit, even half-dead on his feet. The late nights where Steve coaxed him out of his lab with a hot drink and the promise of conversation, the early mornings where Steve would wear a worried frown and say, you should really sleep more, Tony, and Tony would grin at him and say, and give up these early mornings where you bring me coffee and those big blue eyes of yours? Never, and Steve would sigh, but there would be something fond tugging at the corner of his lips, and Tony would look all pleased with himself, animated in a way no caffeine fix could ever cause, and Steve would want—

Steve swallows.

You’re drifting, baby. It’s Jan’s voice, that classic combination of fond amusement and concern that Clint used to perk up at being addressed with and Tony used to call the van Dyne special, all those years ago. God, Steve misses them all. He aches with wanting. You’re drifting. Bring it back home, Steve. Start with the most important bit. Let’s take it from the top.

There isn’t a team to report to anymore. It is not a new fact, a new thought, but every time, it hits him like a concrete block to the ribs.

There isn’t a team to report to anymore, but Steve Rogers breathes in, and thinks about it anyway. Take it from the top. The most important things.

How the tables turn, Tony says. He’s the only one Steve keeps. All his other ghosts flit in and out of his head, coming and going like the tides, but Tony is the forever haunting. The only one his mind holds onto on a permanent basis. D’you remember, oh, all the way back near the start -- one time you asked me if it got exhausting, thinking so much.

Steve remembers. Steve has never forgotten anything Tony Stark gave him, be it physical or a vow or just the smallest memory that wasn’t intended as a secret but became one in Steve’s desperate hands. The world has taken so much from him, from all of them, ever since H-day. He can’t talk about Tony, because what if the world takes that from him too?

How the tables turn, Tony says again, soft in that way most people didn’t believe Tony Stark could be. Steve knew, though. Steve’s always known. You look exhausted, Steve. Don’t let it be so big. Just -- right now, right at this moment. What’s the call, Cap?

That was what Tony had said that day, Steve remembers. The world was on fire, and about to become a whole lot colder, and they didn’t know that, didn’t know anything about what was to come, just that this was it, this was the moment, this was the do or die, and Tony had stood at his shoulder, the armour a familiar comfort against Steve’s side, and asked, What’s the call, Cap?

An itemised list of all of Steve Rogers’ regrets would take too long, and a ranked list of all time would be impossible to decide upon when Steve has such a long memory and even longer history.

So, in its stead, Steve thinks, he’ll give Tony the right now.

STEVE ROGERS’ TOP THREE REGRETS RIGHT AT THIS VERY MOMENT, 0142HRS, DEC 31 20XX, COUNTING DOWN:

3. Rosa. He’d deserved the slap. He’d deserved a lot of things, really. He’d had good years with Rosa; years of her no-nonsense love, of her careful hands, of the way she looked at him in the quiet of the night with all the warmth their little home could hold, like she still saw something worth believing in him. Maybe she did. He thinks she probably did. His wife was a lot of things, most of them good, but above all else, she was never a liar.

He’s sorry he blew up her life. He’s sorrier about that than the fact he blew up their life together, but that’s always the way it goes with him, isn’t it? There’s nothing he’s felt he had to keep more than the shield. It’s not that they matter less to him—God help him, but it’s not about the love. There’s never been a lack of love—but to his bones, to his core, he’s always been the guy who wants to stand up and help. If the fight needs to be had, he’s going to stand there, fists up, no matter who he is, no matter how old he is. No matter how super he is.

He knew that about himself a long time ago. Maybe if he’d stopped pretending that had changed, Rosa wouldn’t be stuck here now.

2. It’s a little one, in the scheme of things, but it also feels more important than almost anything else at this moment. He wishes he’d touched Matt, that last time they saw each other. Gone are the days where Steve would clasp his friends by the hand, something lost to time and loneliness and gradually brittled bones, but he wishes desperately that he’d clasped his hand to Matt’s shoulder one last time. Just a moment. Just enough for some phantom warmth on his palms, a tangible ghost of Daredevil, not just something dreamed up by his mind in the moments when losing almost everyone he’s ever trusted is insurmountable.

1. He doesn’t know where to begin with this one. H-day. The way it went down. Peter bleeding out in front of him. James Stark growing up without his parents, the best of them both twisted into something Steve can’t look at directly without feeling hopeless, helpless. Clint’s arrow snapped in half, a crater where the Thing should be. His last sight of Reed Richards, stretching further than he’d ever seen before as he reached out desperately towards his wife. Tony’s voice in his ear: what’s the call, Cap?

And that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? His biggest regret. This one, he suspects wouldn’t change even if it was an all-time list. Tony Stark, the vibrant, blaring truth of him. Something Steve misses so desperately that when the world forced him to live without him, he made up a version of him to keep in his head forever.

It’s more similar to #2 than he thought. He has so many regrets, and so many of them are about Tony Stark—about that day, about missing people, about loving people and losing them because of the fight, whether they were lost in the fight or he left them behind to join it—but more than anything, he thinks he misses the feeling of Tony’s hand in his, pulling him in close, arm going around Steve’s shoulder to draw him into a hug.

I’m not half as good at anything as I am when I’m doing it next to you, Tony says, years ago, so far away from this moment that it might as well have been another world, and Steve, old and jaded and lonely and tired and missing the person he loves best so fiercely it aches in his lungs, thinks, You and me both, Tony. You and me both.

You and me. You and me. You and me.

(When the dossier falls open in front of him, with a blueprint of a tank and photos of him—photos of Tony, and even Tony in pieces makes Steve ache with something he thought had long been buried—spill out, let’s get it from the world’s smartest man, Tony Stark echoing in his ears—

Steve, for a moment, wants to throw up.

Then his jaw sets.

All right, Tony, he thinks. He doesn’t know if he’s addressing the ghost in his head, or the one in the tank, or some nebulous third thing, a Hail Mary thrown to the universe, some last passage of faith he thought he’d forgotten. What’s the call? You and me. That’s the call. I’m getting you out of there.

I’m bringing you home.)

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