You might know me from tumblr or AO3. I write fics, mainly stevetony, lately some doomtony as well.
ficlet: hope
Yesterday I posted a fic for @Ranoutofrun's awesome art for Cap-IM TRB. That fic was hopeful. Then I spent the whole night thinking about how a sad version of the illustrated scene would've worked out.
Hickmanvengers, stevetony, 800 words and char death: in other words, what you could expect from me.
(also posted on my tumblr here)
Contrary to what he knows Tony believes, Steve Rogers is not stupid.
Tony might be a genius, but Steve knows him. He knows how Tony operates—or at least, he does when he’s not blinded by unfounded trust. Steve’s learnt that lesson now though.
Tony’s not a friend. He’s an enemy. To him, and to the world.
With SHIELD’s not inconsiderable power behind him, Steve tracks everything of Tony’s that he can find: old Stark Industries laboratories and warehouses, Tony’s many houses, old buildings that were never legally Tony’s but Pepper’s.
Everything Tony’s ever touched, Steve finds, and then he sets SHIELD scientists on it, because Tony’s still right, of course; Steve can’t actually see through him and break his encryptions, Steve’s an old man in the future who should’ve stayed in the ice—
But he’s an old man who was once given all the passwords to Tony’s life.
(Sometimes someone asks: Commander Rogers, but the incursions, why are we focusing on finding Tony Stark—and Steve hates it, but the answer is because he still believes Tony holds the answers.
To many, many questions, and most of them: what have I ever done to you so that you’d hurt me so, Tony?)
Finally, Steve has a tracking device and he feeds it the armour override codes and sees a weak signal; follows it alone. Nothing good has ever come of meeting Tony with other people.
(Not that anything good has come of meeting him alone, either).
He ends up in Necropolis, and he’s had teams go through it before, of course he had—it’s the most obvious place, which makes it a good place to hide—but there was nothing there. Either Tony’s newly moved here, or managed to hide—either way, Steve will find him now. He will make Tony answer for his sins, even if it’s the last thing he does.
It’s quite fitting that the world is ending now, Steve thinks, gripping his cane as he walks into the narrow corridors. Going on with the memory of Tony’s betrayal behind him seems impossible—but then, Steve reminds himself he’s here to stop it. To save the world. Because he’s not like Tony: he is still a hero. He helps people, not stabs them in the back.
Steve wants to hit something—Tony—and makes himself breathe and goes on.
Necropolis is almost suffocating, bringing memories fresh to the mind, arguments, Infinity Gems, Tony smiling at him and Tony telling Strange to wipe Steve’s mind.
He thinks that if he was stronger, if he wasn’t so old and frail, he’d break the cane.
He walks on. He refuses to let Tony break him.
(Tony already has.)
There aren’t any traps, or if there are, they only set off silent alarms. Steve doesn’t really care. Tony can’t run anymore.
Everything looks the same as he remembers it, no armouries or secret labs, and he frowns as he looks into the room on the way. What if Tony fooled him again?
No.
Steve walks into the next room and stops dead in his tracks. His heart is beating wildly and he can’t breathe and he feels like the walls are crumbling around him.
There’s a glass cage in the centre of the otherwise empty room, and inside it is a prone figure, a man in a broken silver armour lying on his side. There’s blood on the glass wall next to him, and on the ground; he looks malnourished and tortured.
Steve swallows, tries to push the unwanted worry away, because the man might have too long hair and beard and be too pale, but Steve will always recognize Tony, even if he wasn’t wearing his armour still.
Steve almost runs the last metres, hits the cage with his cane—not just an old man’s support, but also a weapon—and as the glass shatters, Steve pushes forward to kneel next to Tony.
“Stark,” he hears himself say, his own voice foreign to his ears.
Tony stirs, opens bloodshot eyes. “I’m dying already,” he whispers. “You don’t have to show me him to torture me more.”
Steve wants to shake him, but Tony’s obviously hurt, and he—he—after everything he’s said and thought, Steve doesn’t want to make it worse.
“Stark,” he repeats, because he can’t bring himself to say Tony. “It’s me. Not a hallucination.”
Tony lets out a dry laugh. “Is it,” he says. “I’m not sure it matters anymore.”
“Let me—”
“Sorry, Steve,” Tony says. “Someone did your job for you.”
Steve grabs his shoulder tight and the armour cracks under his touch. “Don’t say that.”
Tony’s silent. His eyelids are dropping. Steve’s more scared than he’s ever been in his life.
“I did love you,” Tony whispers, and figures he can still stab Steve straight in the heart while almost unconscious. “Maybe that was the problem.”
Steve refuses to get in any discussion with him now. There are more important things. “There’s—there’s hope. Tony.”
Tony’s eyes shot open, blue terrifyingly vivid for a moment. “There was never any hope, Steve,” he says.
“No—”
Tony’s eyes close again. Steve shakes him, and yells, screams and cries—but Tony doesn’t move again.
Steve’s fingers find his pulse point, and he doesn’t feel anything, anything at all.
(This is how the world ends, he thinks, and doesn’t leave Necropolis for a long time.)




The man might have too long hair and beard and be too pale, but Steve will always recognize Tony, even if he wasn’t wearing his armour still. DEAD DEAD DEAD I AM SO DEAD RIGHT NOW.
This is how the world ends, he thinks The world is ending but also Steve's world has ended because Tony's no longer in it (cue ugly crying sounds).
LOOOOL I should have known this little ficlet would pierce by heart. I remember your other amazing fic "Love and Trust" and then the sheer evil of its scenario LMAO
First of all, dying!Tony and whump!Tony is my absolute favourite and I love this. Steve's inner monologuing about how much he hates Tony, how he's DIFFERENT, and that all fades away when Tony is at the brink of death and he TALKS ABOUT HOPE.
I LOVE THAT SWEET RELEASE OF DEATH™