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It was a desperate last attempt.
The Avengers were standing on a platform and there was no fighting anymore. They had lost and the only thing they could still do would be to flee. They would flee to a different earth and hopefully warn whoever would listen of the world-ending threat that was to come.
The threat that had ended their world.
“Hank! How long?” They heard Thor call out over the coms. “I will be overrun soon!”
“30 seconds!” Hank called out. The man was standing at the control panel and was pressing all sorts of buttons Steven had no idea what the purpose of was.
The com cracked and the line with Thor went dead. They all knew what that meant and silently grieved for their friend. They were holding their breath, knowing that whether they succeeded or not was now out of their hands. It would all come down if the force field would hold up long enough for the machine to charge.
Steven squeezed Nat’s hand.
“15 seconds, get ready!”
He saw all his team mates straighten up. They all knew the risks. It was possible that this could be the last time any of them saw each other. He could only hope that the last remaining Avengers would live.
“5 sec-” Hank was cut off by a massive crash. Steven cursed his enhanced hearing at that moment. Hank lay on the floor with multiple big gashes. Steven wanted nothing more than to help Hank, but he knew it would be futile and that it would only have him fail their mission before it even really began. The mission that so many had given their lives for to even make it possible in the first place.
Right before the Chatauri reached them, Steven’s world exploded into color.
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It felt like hours had passed when the feeling of being squeezed into a small tube and the overwhelming lightshow finally stopped.
Steven’s head was spinning and he was utterly nauseous. He felt the ground and twisted to what he hoped was his side to throw up.
He was heaving heavily when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He immediately lashed out. The figure stepped back with his hands raised. Steven blinked fast and realized that the person he’d just tried to hit was no one other than Colonel Rhodes.
That meant… that meant it worked. The Colonel he knew had died a few days ago. And now he was standing in front of him, with a gauntlet with a light in it pointed at him.
“Colonel-” Steven began as he moved to stand.
Colonel Rhodes cut him off before he could say anything else. “Don’t move.”
The Colonel says it with such venom that Steven freezes. What the hell? “Colonel, I don’t know who you think I am, but my name is Captain Steven Rogers. I’m from a different earth and we’re here to warn you.”
“We? Oh that’s great. Where is the rest of your merry band of terrorists?”
“Terrorists?” Steven asks befuddled. “Sir-” Steven moves again and the Colonel flexes his fingers which causes the gauntlet to make a soft whirring noise and the light glows brighter.
Steven is not sure if he wants to know what the gauntlet can do, despite his curiosity. Steven raises his hands and doesn’t move further. There was clearly something going on and he had no clue what. “Okay, okay. I’m not gonna move. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll stay right here.”
“You do that.”
Steven doesn’t know what the other him has done, but considering the Colonel called him a terrorist, it was probably nothing good.
They stay in that position in silence for a while when several agents in tactical gear appear and restrain him. He stays calm and asks them to take it easy because he’s still sick to his stomach and he hurt everywhere.
They dump him in a van and they’re off. Not too long later Steven is sitting in a isolation cell wondering if coming to this world had been a mistake. He quickly shakes that thought from his head though. Had they not done this his team would be dead. He tries not to think about how his team might still be dead. If he, with his enhanced body, was this bad off, chances were that his team mates were even worse off.
It’s hours later when Clint is brought in. Steven is on his feet in a second and is trying to get a good look at him. The other man looks horrible. He’s pale in a way Steven had never seen him before. He’s practically carried in and his hearing aids are missing. After they lock him in Clint looks around dazedly and disoriented.
‘You ok?’ Steven signs.
Clint nods his head gently. ‘Dizzy. Not injured.’
It makes him sigh in relief. ‘Others?’
Clint shakes his head. ‘Don’t know. Didn’t see them.’
The signing looks like it takes a lot out of him. ‘Rest.’ Steven signs. It seems to be a relatively normal prison except the fact that they’re the only ones here. He’d gotten lunch about an hour ago and it had even been scaled to his increased metabolism. It was about as safe as it could get in the current situation.
‘Safe?’ Clint signs, looking hopeful for the first time in weeks.
‘So far.’ It hardly mattered because the archer seemed unable to keep his eyes open any longer.
Hours passed and suddenly, without a warning, Colonel Rhodes returned and had him taken to an interrogation room. Clint wakes up when he’s taken out and immediately yells slurred, “Steven? Where are they taking you?”
Steven can only mouth interrogation before he’s moved out of Clint’s sight and he hopes the archer understood.
He’s seated at a metal table that’s bolted to the floor on a metal chair that’s also bolted to the floor. The room is pure white, only interrupted by a large mirror which Steven suspects is one-way-glass. He wonders who is watching.
When his hands are cuffed to the table the guards leave the room and he’s alone with Colonel Rhodes. What he hadn’t noticed before was the strange metal contraption that wrapped around the Colonel’s legs.
The Colonel watches him with a cautious but curios look.
“So earlier we got an very interesting phone call.” The Colonel starts.
Steven arches an eyebrow.
“We got a phone call from Captain Steve Rogers, warning us that the man we captured today, was in fact not him.” The Colonel looks dispassionately at him. “Care to explain?”
Steven takes this information in and thinks for a second the best way he can put this. “Well, for one, my name is Captain Steven Rogers. Born July 4th 1915 in Brooklyn, New York.”
When he said 1915 there was a small shift in the Colonel’s stance, but that was the only time he reacted.
“Captain Steven Rogers?” The Colonel asks distrusting.
“Yes Sir. My team and I do not originate from this world. We sent ourselves here to warn you of the threat to come.”
“From a different world?”
Steven nods. “Yes Sir. The threat, it… it destroyed everything. There was no one left to save on our world, so we sent ourselves to this world, to warn you and hopefully prevent the catastrophe that destroyed our world.”
“I see.”
Steven knows that it’s hard to believe and he can’t blame Colonel Rhodes for not believing him. But hopefully there was someone that would listen.
“I know it’s hard… impossible to believe, but we truly did come here to warn you. Thanos is weeks away from invading your planet. He’s after the infinity stones, and if he gets them all, there is nothing you can do to stop him. He’ll destroy everything.”
Colonel Rhodes looks briefly at the glass and now Steven is certain that there is at least one person sitting behind the glass.
“You said we, are you referring to yourself and Clint Barton?”
Steven hesitates, but they had all agreed to put everything on the line. He had to tell the truth. “I came here with Clint Barton, Natalia Romanova and Sam Wilson.” Steven lets his guard down for a second, but he needs to know whether the others are safe. “Have the others been found yet? The trip was hell on me, I don’t know how bad off Natalia or Sam will be.”
“Tell me more about this threat.”
Steven sighs. It was a long shot, but he’d hoped that giving the information would have gotten him some trust. “It started April 7th. It began with just a few loose ships, some aliens dropping from the skies,” Steven shakes his head. They’d been so blind. “But they just kept coming. Bit by bit. Just enough to keep us busy.” It had been hard on all of them. There seemed to be an endless supply of the aliens and no end had been in sight. “Then when we were all exhausted, the rest came.”
“How much was the rest?”
Steven shakes his head. “Millions.”
He still remembered the absolute feeling of failure when cities fell across the globe, and he’d been too tired and injured to make a difference. They had all been. “It was a full scale invasion. They blitz attacked the main command centers across the world and in the aftermath everyone was scrambling because we had no idea what was going on. Then all communication was cut off. No internet, phones, not even radio. We were completely in the dark. By the time we were collected enough, there was almost nothing left.”
Steven sighs heavily, feeling the guilt weigh hard on him. Still, he continues. He has to tell this otherwise Hank and Thor had sacrificed themselves for nothing, “Doctor Hank Pym and Doctor Reed Richards combined their knowledge and used what was left of Doctor Jane Foster’s research to make a machine to send us here. It had something to do with bridges. I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Sam when you find him, the science talk went right over my head. Perhaps that he remembers more.” He admits with a sad smile.
The Colonel looks at the glass once more and without saying anything got up and left Steven sitting there.
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Rhodey steps out of the interrogation room and turns to Tony. “What do you think?”
Tony shakes his head. “Jane called me earlier. There were energy signatures that could actually back up this guy’s story.”
“He’s telling the truth?” Rhodey asks.
Tony nods, “At least about how they got here. Jane’s trying to track the others down using the energy signature. It can take a few hours.” He shifts.
“What?”
Tony hesitates a second before talking. “Thanos. I’ve heard that name before.”
Rhodey looks surprised. “Wait, really? When?”
“In my nightmares.” Tony mumbles. “After New York… I dreamt often of an army, from outer space. Millions of aliens, much more as we had already fought.”
Before Rhodey can ask any further, Tony’s phone beeps. It’s the blood results.
“It seems that this is indeed not Captain Jackass.” Tony comments.
“Really?”
Tony nods. “It shows a likeliness to Roger’s though. One most commonly seen in siblings.”
They look at each other for a bit, trying to process that information. Rhodey sneaks another look at the calm man in the other room, who had not protested being cuffed to a table, and wondered how he could have ever thought that the man was Steve Rogers.
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Clint was sitting in the interrogation room. When Steven was returned to his cell, they took him. From the calmness that Steven was giving off, Clint knew nothing bad was going to happen.
He silently went along with them and tried to follow the questions they asked. It had been a long time since he last had to make do without his hearing aids and he didn’t like it one bit. He had to leave them behind though since Hank had warned them that he didn’t know the possible effects that electronics might have on the travel, and the effects that the travel might have on electronics. He would not like to have his ears melt off, thank you.
It still sucked though, and reading lips was a lot of guesswork. It did help that Colonel Rhodes had always articulated well, apparently that was something universal. It did not however mean that he understood everything and had asked the Colonel to repeat himself multiple times.
Then came the sarcastic question. “Have you gone deaf or something?”
Clint blinked. “Yeah, like six years ago. Happens when a flash grenade goes off right next to your head.”
The Colonel looks startled and looks at the mirror before turning back to him. “Are you serious?”
“Well yeah.” Clint replies a little stunned. “I take it that this world’s Clint Barton didn’t lose his hearing?”
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Hours later it was confirmed that the damage to Barton #2 hearing had in fact happened 5 to 7 years prior.
There was no denying it anymore, they were not from this earth. Tony wanted to curse and wondered what he had done in a previous life to deserve having to deal with not just one team of Rogues, but now also the ones from another earth.
Considering they had not shown any violent behavior they were sent to the compound until the UN could decide what would happen.
Tony just begged that this Rogers would be a little more compromising than his counterpart.
Steven and Other-Clint sat in the living room of the compound. Tony was aware that they both wanted nothing more as to leave from the looks of it. Tony tried to remain calm, but it was a task that he was not sure that he would be able to maintain the entire time they were here. There was nothing more that he wanted to do as to leave the compound and never return.
But he couldn’t.
Rhodey had been sent to soothe feathers while Tony was stuck playing babysitter to the last people he ever wanted to see again.
Both men sat next to each other, hunched over their own Starkpad.
Tony rubbed his chest, wincing slightly at the pain in his chest.
He just hoped that this Rogers would not find a reason to ram his shield into his chest.
`````````````````````````````````
When Steven was told that he and Clint would be moved to, what multiple people had called ‘The Compound’ Steven had expected to be put in some type of barrack, or something of the like. What neither himself nor Clint had expected was to be put in a beautifully designed high-tech building with a lot of windows a few miles away from Manhattan. Calling this place ‘The Compound’ was a little insulting to the beautiful building, Steven found.
It was a lot more high-tech as anything he’d ever seen in his world. Not even Hank or the fantastic four had technology as advanced as this.
Clint had been equally amazed. Just when Steven thought it could not get anymore high-tech as it was, he asked Clint if he saw a computer somewhere so they could find out what the major differences between this world and their own was.
And then the ceiling answered them.
Her name was apparently Friday and she was an AI who controlled the building, which Steven thought was amazing. When told that Clint could not hear her, or at least, not hear her well, a television screen opened up and text appeared on it so that Clint could communicate with her as well. Which made Friday even cooler in Clint’s opinion.
She directed them to some tablets that lay on a salon table. The brand name of it was Stark Enterprises, which he’d never heard of.
When they began searching the internet, what they found was horrifying.
They saw their counterparts fight and rip up an airport, collapse a tunnel with civilians still in it, just plain commit murder and more. It was horrifying and Steven understood now why they had been treated the way they had.
Scratch that, they had been treated very fairly.
And all this to keep one man from being brought to justice… Steven couldn’t imagine what his counterpart was thinking. When Steven read what had happened to the other man, named James Barnes, he couldn’t help but feel like Steve’s entire plan had been wrong from the get go. This James probably would have been declared criminally insane and would have gotten help instead of being convicted to prison.
“Do you know a James Barnes?” Clint asked.
Steven thought deep for a moment. “Yeah, I think so. Pretty sure our sisters played together before my mom died. We might have worked together on the docks as well.” He mushed.
“Hmm.”
After that they fell back into silence until it became apparent that everything led back to something called ‘The Sokovia Accords’. It was apparently something to regulate the superhuman communities worldwide, lead by the United Nations.
“Friday?”
“Yes?”
“Would it be possible to read these Sokovia Accords?”
“I’ll have them uploaded to the tablets in seconds.”
“Thank you, Friday.”
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One day after Other-Clint and Steven were sent to the compound both Other-Sam and Natalia surrendered themselves to the police.
Its hours after that when they are released to the Compound.
“So what’s the deal here, why the anger at us?” Sam asks.
Clint, now with his hearing aids that had been provided for him, answered. “Honestly? Our counterparts seem completely delusional and kind of psychotic. They fucking killed police officers, in broad daylight, and then had the audacity to basically tell the world to fuck off.”
Natalie looks unamused at Clint, but when she sees Steven nodding she’s not so sure anymore that he’s joking. “That actually happened?”
Steven nods grimly. “And a whole lot more.” He looks over to the salon table where he and Clint had been systematically reading and dissecting the Accords. “We have a lot to discuss before the lawyers come tomorrow.”
Hours later Natalie is ready to rip her hair out. There had been a few breaks they had to take to let the stupidity of their counterparts sink in. She itched to put a bullet in Natasha Romanoff. The way this Natasha had betrayed those she had allied herself with was despicable.
Sam had to take a breather after reading about the accusations against the Scarlet Witch and the fact his counterpart and Steve Rogers had both argued and voted to have her committed to, not a prison cell, but the team.
And then came the accords.
Steve apparently had thought that the UN was a government, and with one google search Steven confirmed that in this world it was still the same as in their own world. With one simple google search Steven had debunked a massive part of Steve’s resistance to the Accords. Because ‘the safest hands were their own’. That was always a horrible way to lead.
It left Steven to wonder how this power hungry arrogant man had ever gotten to the rank of Captain in the army. When he wondered this out loud, Friday pleasantly informed him that Steve Rogers hadn’t even finished goddamned bootcamp. He hardly even counted as a private.
They came to the conclusion that this world was utterly insane.
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Tony was not a happy camper at the moment.
While he had managed to convince the Accords committee to let him pass babysitting duty to Friday, that had now been decided that Tony would be the one to have to ask them to sign the accords.
That was one thing he could do without.
He just hoped that this time he would not be almost beaten to death.
It came as a shock however when the others had apparently already done some research on their own. And that they were both willing and hopeful to be allowed to sign.
Tony is sure that if he hadn’t been a CEO for so long that his jaw would have dropped. “You’re serious?”
Steven looks up with a bright smile. “Of course! I know I can’t speak for the rest of my team, but this is amazing. It simultaneously gives us the jurisdiction needed to fight when shit hits the fan, and it protects enhanced civilians. I wish this was what we had in out world. The SHRA was a nightmare.”
The others nod sadly and Tony can’t help but ask what the SHRA was.
The story he hears is one of the worst nightmares he had about how the Accords could have gone had he not been able to pull as many strings as he had. Steven was right. From what Tony could tell, the SHRA was a nightmare.
“The Captain is right. We spoke about it yesterday and if there is a chance for us to sign and help with the preparations for Thanos, just tell us where we can help.” Romanova says.
She’s been laying the Russian accent on a little thicker as she had in her interview upon arrival, but it somehow put Tony a bit more at rest. While they looked almost identical to their counterparts, they all had started to distinguish themselves from the Rogues.
“So,” Clint begins with a smirk, “Where do we sign?”
“At the bottom?” Tony says when they all look expectantly at him.
Steven snorts. “Yeah, that’s not what he meant by that.”
At Tony’s confusion he elaborates, “I just thought, press conference?” The shark-like smile Steven wears when he says it as if it’s the most normal thing on the planet makes Tony get a smirk of his own.
Somehow, Tony thinks, that he and this Captain will get along just fine.
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Steve was just back from his run when he ran into his team who were gathered around the TV and were all watching silently in disbelief.
“What’s happening guys?” Steve asks but he doesn’t need and answer from them when he catches the sight on the TV. It’s them, except not. They’re the counterparts that had arrived not too long ago.
What they were doing out of a jail cell though, was beyond him. Until he caught sight of the banner.
The Others signed the Sokovia Accords
Steve feels the air rush out of his lungs when he looks at the other Rogers who is being interviewed.
This can’t be good. Were they threatened into signing? The horrible wave of hatred towards Steve and the rest of his team had just started to die down for a bit, and now the fire was rekindled fully.
“So Captain Rogers, how did your team come to the fast conclusion to sign?” The reporter on the station asks.
“Well, by the time that we were offered, we were already knees deep in the Accord documents. We saw what happened to cause them to be created, and we all in unison decided that if signing would become an option, that we would all sign.” The other Rogers finishes with a charming smile.
“I see. What do you think of the individuals who refused to sign?”
“Well, there were a lot of enhanced who declined. Most of them retired or became teachers to help other enhanced to get a handle on their powers. But it think you mean a few specific individuals, am I correct?”
The reporter nods, I think we can all agree that the ‘Rogues’ are specifically on everyone’s minds since your arrival.”
“Understandable.”
“So what do you think of the Rogues actions?”
The other Rogers takes a deep breath and Steve is hoping that the other won’t completely wipe away his hard work to keep his freedom.
With one sentence he wipes away that hope. “I think their actions are despicable.”
Steve sucks in a breath of air in shock, while Sam lets out a quiet “Shit man.”
“They claim that they wish to protect the public. Yet when the public makes their concerns known, especially after such an incident as happened in Bucharest, that they wouldn’t listen. Not only did a lot of civilians get hurt or killed unnecessarily, they had no jurisdiction to be on the ‘mission’ they claimed to be on. Or even the jurisdiction to be in the country.”
“You motherfucker.” Clint spits full of hatred.
“They claim that ‘their hands are the safest’ followed by then killing multiple SWAT members who were trying to detain a man wanted on suspected terrorism that very same day, just because they had been friends over half a century ago. That not only proves the fact that in these circumstances they cannot remain subjective as they should, but it also shows a dangerous disregard for authority and the lives of other people.”
Before Steve can hear more Wanda breaks the TV. They stand in silence around the room not knowing what to say or do.
Nat looks him dead in the eye and declares, “We’re screwed.”
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Weeks later Tony is knees deep in the preparations for the upcoming battle but at the insistence of Natalia is in the dining hall actually eating.
He’s grumpy because she interrupted him, but about five minutes into dinner he can’t help but laugh when Natalia retells the story of Budapest. It somehow involved Other-Clint eating half a pie, getting strung upside-down from a building and petting a dog. When Other-Clint told him the story of Budapest he told an entirely different tale and the details so contradicting that Tony honestly can’t tell who’s telling the truth.
Tony then tells the story of one of his first kidnappings and how he had made a bomb out of toiletries and the paw of a table when the lights suddenly cut out.
“Friday?” Tony asked. When he received no answer they got into formation, Natalia and Other-Clint flanking Tony who was the only one in the group to not wear his armor. He had the watch-glove which he activated but it wouldn’t exactly stop a bullet.
Other-Clint readied a flashbang arrow and when he spotted movement he immediately fired.
Then the fight was on.
It was difficult for Tony to see what was happening and he could tell that the others were struggling as well. Their opponents subdued them and it took them a bit to realize what had just happened. It was then that the lights cut back on an Tony saw who had attacked them.
“Son of a fuck that was bright!” And Tony just wants to sink though the floor when he realizes who it was that said that.
Barton.
“Come here, let me see.” Comes and American accented Black Widow.
It was then that the lights cut back on.
Tony could deal with a lot, but seeing Steve standing over him had the breath just rush out of his lungs. He flexed in the handcuffs but he knew it was pointless.
“Tony was that really necessary?” Steve asks angrily. And considering Tony has a split lip and the Other-Clint has blood running down his face in a steady stream, Tony likes to think it was.
“It was.” Steven says.
When Steve turns his attention to Steven, he gets this ugly sneer on his face. “And why was that?”
The glare Steven sends back would be enough to spontaneously set Steven on fire. “Considering that two of my team members are injured, in a cowardly blitz-attack, I believe so.”
“You fired first!” Steve says as if that makes it okay somehow.
Steven snorts. “Yes, right after you broke into the Compound and possibly hurt Friday.”
“As if Friday can actually get hurt, it’s a program, not a person!” Steve exclaims angerly. “Besides, the Compound is our home, and Friday wouldn’t let us in!”
Steven can tell the man is getting to a point where violence is a possibility. His team had spoken of the possibility of the Rogues showing up and had planned to keep the attention on them and away from Tony as long as possible. They had heard of what had happened at the airport and in Siberia, and the last thing any of them wanted was a repeat of that.
“Perhaps that’s because you’re no longer welcome.” Other-Clint jabs back.
“Of course we still are! This is our home!” Maximoff angerly exclaims.
Other-Clint snorts. “Yeah sure. And that’s why we’re here and you had fucked off to wherever you were.”
Steven throws Other-Clint a look telling him to stop antagonizing them further than necessary.
Natasha and Natalia had been having a stare-off since the lights had come back on but then Natalia decided to take over from Other-Clint. “I wonder,” She drawls in a thickly laid-on Russian accent, “How it is possible for a woman to fall so far to stab her own team in the back.”
It actually was enough for Natasha to flinch slightly. Natasha takes a breath and then reminds the team. “This it’s what we’re here for, Steve. They’re trying to stall us.”
“Right.” Steve nods and Steven mentally curses. He’d counted two minutes of stalling so far but it would take another few minutes before back-up would arrive. Until then they were on their own.
“You know, Private, if you’d actually had the brains to finish basic training you would have seen right through that.”
It succeeds in taking Steve’s attention away from Tony again, luckily. “What did you just say?”
“I do believe I called you an idiot. An undereducated moron who couldn’t even make it through bootcamp-” Steven is cut off when Steve punches him in the face.
Steve is however shocked when Steven just smiles an ugly smile with bloodied teeth. “You know, I heard you were a weak, but I never thought you would be this weak.” Steve punches him again. And then again. Steven twists his head to the side and spits some blood out. “Three punches and you still haven’t knocked me out? Boy what the fuck are you doing?”
“Steve!” Sam, calls out. “Man get off of him. He’s just trying to rile you up and keep you from the mission.”
Steve is breathing heavily and Steven can only think about how he’s going to get his attention back on himself. Steven’s seen this type of guy way to often. This type can’t win with words and so will have the last word with his fists.
So when Steve moves off of him, Steven sits up and calls out, “That’s a good boy.” And clicks his tongue twice with a smirk. He’s barely finished when the other man is on him again. And then it’s kind of chaos.
Clint and Other-Clint are yelling at each other, Natasha and Sam are trying to get Steve to stop punching Steven, Other-Sam is yelling nonsense to block out Sam’s attempts to reason with Steve and Natalia is screaming profanities in Russian. And that Maximoff woman seems to just completely loose it.
And that’s the scene the Defenders walk into when they arrive with a STRIKE team. In the end they all end up on the floor in handcuffs, mostly because they’re not sure who is who.
They’re all taken into individual custody save for Tony, Steven and Other-Clint. Steven because he was a good two inches taller than Steve and is thus easy to identify, and Other-Clint because the hearing aids are a pretty good tell on who is who.
The three of them are put on a plane to be moved towards a safe destination. Tony is shaking like a leaf and Steven sends Other-Clint a pleading look. He knows he looks bad, there is blood everywhere on his face and he’s currently holding one of his molars so it will be straight once it’s no longer moveable.
Tony’s been almost non-responsive the entire flight, only reacting when someone placed a blanket around his shoulders.
Steven and Other-Clint both know how awful it can be to be trapped in PTDS land.
When they land the doctors immediately move towards Steven. And Steven immediately sends them to Tony when he can make clear that he’s doing all right. His face is mostly healed up and his tooth is no longer in danger of falling out, and Tony needs the medical help more right now.
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Steven and Other-Clint have both given their statements and were now just aimlessly sitting around. There had been an update from Friday on Tony and he was thankfully doing good.
The man was an almost fifty-year-old with heart problems. If the invasion wasn’t an all hands on deck situation Steven would have wondered if having the man in the field was actually a good idea. Combine that with the man’s minefield of triggers and Steven had the outmost respect for the man to keep doing what he was doing. He’d seen soldiers completely fall apart because of fear, and he wanted Tony to know that getting triggered wasn’t something shameful, but just some shitty thing that happened.
Steven and Other-Clint had both fallen asleep on the uncomfortable chairs in a waiting room. And when Clint’s nightmares about their world woke him up, the only thing he did was calm him and tell him that this time things would be different.
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When they were eventually all back together in the Compound with the right Sam and Natalia, Tony was very skittish around them.
He locked himself in the lab in the basement and came out when no-one else was to be seen. Natalia was stress baking and Sam was systematically cleaning everything. Even though there was a very nice young lad who came to clean the compound. And Clint was, well, somewhere. Probably in the ventilation shaft or something.
He knew it was his team’s way of trying to deal with what had happened, and while it was nice to have freshly made lava-cakes, Steven preferred seeing his team at ease. It was rather odd how fast the other man had grown on his team, but then again, Tony seemed to be impossibly fast at everything.
So when Tony just one day showed back up in the living room, no one commented.
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It was only a few days after Tony resurfaced that the alarms went off.
Thanos had arrived.
Hours later Steven and his team were fighting an army from space with all the new upgrades to their suits. Steven could not have been happier for the upgrades since he’d been hit twice already and he could tell that the second shot would have ripped through his old suit as if it were made of paper.
The New York sanctuary was getting wrecked but they could not fail. He wouldn’t fail again.
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When Steven watched Tony lift the gauntlet with all the stones in it, his stomach sank.
When Tony lifted the gauntlet and snapped, Steven couldn’t breathe. A split second later he was thrown off his feet with a blinding light temporary blinding him. When Steven could see again, Thanos’ army was fading away into dust in front of his eyes.
They had won.
But where was Tony?
Steven looked around and saw the man laying against a piece of wall. He got to his feet and ran over as fast as he could. “Tony!”
Steven held his cheek in his hand and the other man was still breathing. “Friday! Send the jet to us, now!” He let go of his comm and got the confirmation that there was help on the way. Tony’s shoulder was bleeding and below that…
The smell of burnt flesh was something that Steven had hoped to never smell again. Tony’s entire arm was just a mess of burnt flesh. He heard the wheezing breaths and Tony then opened his eyes. “Tony! Tony can you hear me? Hey!” He kept Tony’s head from moving and he locked eyes with him. “You’re going to be okay. Alright? Help is on the way, just hang on.”
Steven ripped some of his under-suit and held it to Tony’s shoulder in a hope to stop the bleeding. “All right, eyes on me soldier.” Steven had seen men survive injuries they probably shouldn’t have before, and he could only hope that Tony would be one of them.
When Tony’s eyes rolled back into his head that hope went right out the window.
“Tony?!” Steven laid him on his back and ordered Friday to open up the chest area of the armor. When Steven confirmed that Tony wasn’t breathing anymore, he began chest compressions and winced as he felt already weak ribs give in as he pressed down. 30 presses, 2 times breathing, 30 presses…
He had no idea how long he’d been doing CPR but he only stopped when the medics came. One other medic was talking to him, but he had apparently been a little close to the blast since he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The only thing he could hear was his own blood rushing through his veins.
When he saw Natalia, Sam and Clint they immediately checked each other out. They were all dusty and Clint was limping slightly but for the most part seemed okay. Clint signed to him that they were all okay and everyone had checked in save for him and Tony.
They all stood there for a second watching Tony get loaded onto a stretcher and be taken to the jet.
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Steven had just finished getting his ears checked and Clint had gotten his ankle in a cast -it was apparently broken- and they were sitting in a boring waiting room at the hospital for an update on Tony. He had been ordered by the Colonel to go to the hospital and stay there. Colonel Rhodes obviously wanted to himself, but he was helping clean up the area and look for civilians who had not been able to evacuate the areas. And now Steven and Clint, who were the only ones besides Tony to be injured in a way that would hinder them from helping, were just… sitting.
It was always an insane contrast for Steven. To go from fighting one second to sitting still for hours on end in a chair.
There was nothing they could do for now besides wait.
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It was many hours later that they were woken up by a nurse. Seeing as they were treating Ironman and having Captain America and Hawkeye in the waiting room, it was no surprise they could tell Steven and Clint were the ones waiting for him.
But both the nurse and doctor were smiling.
Tony lived.
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Okay so most of him had survived.
Seeing Tony laying in that hospital bed with only one arm was horrible in many ways, but Steven knew that he had been very lucky that he’d survived at all.
It had taken a few weeks before Tony was stable enough to be moved home, but he got there. ‘
Weeks after returning home Stark industries revolutionized the prosthetics industry and his arm was now, of course, red and gold.
The sight made Steven laugh happily and Tony used that red and gold arm to pull him into a kiss long over-due.