Chapter Text
“I have an equation,” Vision chimes in all of a sudden, cutting off Rhodey and Sam’s bickering that in Steve’s opinion had been going on for a little too long.
“Oh, this will clear it up,” Sam whines from behind him.
Everyone in the room turns to the… android(?) sitting on the couch next to Wanda.
Well, everyone except for his girlfriend, who just sits there on her chair on the other end of the table opposite him. Her eyes closed, her feet kicked up on the table and head tipped back with her chair balancing delicately on its hind legs. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she wasn’t even listening. But he does know better and he knows this isn’t the best sign for the things to come.
“In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensure rate,” Vision states.
“Are you saying it’s our fault?” He questions. The Accords still open in his hands, feeling the paper lightly brush his fingertips. He’s gonna have to fight his friends over a few pages of law, Steve laments. He’s hoping it won’t come down to that.
“I’m saying there may be a causality,” Vision counters. “Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict … breeds catastrophe. Oversight … oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.”
“Boom,” Rhodey exclaims.
“Tony,” Natasha calls out. The man in question is lying on the couch next to where she sits, with a hand over his face which he takes off when called upon. “You are being uncharacteristically non-hyper-verbal.” Then she turns to her left to look at his sister, “And so are you,” she accuses Y/n… who doesn’t make a single move to acknowledge her.
“It’s because they’ve already made up their minds,” Steve comments.
“Boy, you know us so well. She’s your girlfriend, but me? It’s cute,” Tony throws back, getting up. He winces as he does so, rubbing the back of his head. “Actually, I’m nursing an electromagnetic headache.” He walks to the kitchen and grabs a mug off the counter. With his back to the group, he says, “That’s what’s going on, Cap. It’s just pain. It’s discomfort.” He fiddles around in the sink with the french press. “Who’s putting coffee grounds in the disposal?” He chides, walking back to the kitchen island and facing them again. “Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?” Suffice it to say everyone in the room is aware of the fact that his annoyance isn’t over the coffee grounds at all.
He pulls out his phone and places it atop the basket in front of him.
When he taps it, the phone projects an image of a smiling young man. He looks down, then back up, and pretends to notice the picture for the first time. “Oh, that’s Charles Spencer, by the way. He’s a great kid. Computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA. Had a floor level gig at Intel planned for the fall,” Tony recites while pouring himself a cup of coffee. All the eyes in the room are fixed on him, he’s got their undivided attention… Except for Y/n. Her eyes are closed now, with her hands pulled behind her head. She looks more uninterested now than when the conversation first began. “But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. See the world. Maybe be of service,” Tony continues. “Charlie didn’t want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn’t go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where, Sokovia!” Tony’s fury—or maybe his guilt, Steve isn’t sure which one, but he knows it doesn’t matter—while not untamed, speaks leaps and bounds. It seeps into everyone in the room.
“He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won’t know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass,” Tony remarks. He looks frustrated now, and that? Yeah. Steve understands that. He takes a sip of his coffee and swallows a pill along with it. And then he takes a few steps forward. With his arms crossed in front of him, he faces them again. “There’s no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I’m game. If we can’t accept limitations, if we’re boundary-less, we’re no better than the bad guys.”
Steve gets it. He does.
But he does not agree.
“Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don’t give up,” Steve tries to reason.
“Who said we’re giving up?” Tony challenges.
“We are if we’re not taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blame,” Steve counters.
“I’m sorry. Steve,” Rhodey interrupts from his right. “That—that is dangerously arrogant. This is the United Nations we’re talking about. It’s not the World Security Council, it’s not SHIELD, it’s not HYDRA.”
He knows that. He knows that. “No, but it’s run by people with agendas, and agendas change,” Steve tries.
But Tony counters again, “That’s good.” He walks up to him. “That’s why I’m here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down and stopped manufacturing.”
“Tony, you chose to do that,” Steve argues. “If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don’t think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go, and they don’t let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own.”
“If we don’t do this now, it’s gonna be done to us later. That’s the fact. And that won’t be pretty.” Tony’s words are warning. And they’re heard loud and clear.
“You’re saying they’ll come for me,” Wanda surmises.
“We would protect you,” Vision reassures her.
“Maybe Tony’s right,” Natasha speaks up. And that throws Steve for a spin. And by the surprised look on Tony’s face, it does the same to him. “If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer. If we take it off—”
Sam cuts her off, “Aren’t you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?”
“I’m just… I’m reading the terrain,” Her eyes are fixed on Steve. There’s a plea in them that he wishes he couldn’t read as well as does. “We have made… some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back.”
“Focus up,” Tony cuts in, leaning on the head of the couch. “I’m sorry, did I just mishear you or did you agree with me?”
“Oh, I want to take it back now,” Natasha says.
“No, no, no. You can’t retract it,” Tony states with a hint of a smile in his voice. “Thank you. Unprecedented. Okay, case closed—I win!” he rejoices. “Ask the judge. Am I right, Your Honor?” He asks rhetorically, with a swift glance at Y/n.
“No,” Y/n says evenly. It’s the first word she’s said since Ross left the building… and it’s to disagree with Tony.
Yeah, not a good sign for the things to come.
“See, I win—Wait, what?!” Tony looks like someone just told him the Earth is flat.
Finally, her eyes open. She sits up, hands clasped together with elbows resting on her knees. Looking at Tony with nothing but sheer determination, she states, “I’m not signing that thing.”
“What?” Tony sounds like he never even thought her not agreeing with him was a possibility.
He forgets her past sometimes, Steve thinks. He forgets what got her into this. Steve can’t lie, he does that too from time to time. Her laughs sometimes sound so sweet, he forgets the anguish she’s hiding behind them.
He’s a shit boyfriend sometimes.
“I’m not signing that fucking thing,” she reiterates.
“What?” Tony’s a broken record.
And yeah. Steve gets it. Everyone in the room seems stunned at the revelation that there is in fact such a thing that Y/n wouldn’t do for her little brother. It’s throwing everyone off their game. He knows everyone’s off their game because of the question Rhodey asks next.
“So what, you’ll retire?” Rhodey sounds as confused as Steve feels.
Y/n, though, just shrugs. “Yeah… I—I guess I will.” Nonchalance evident in every word. Steve can’t tell if it’s an act.
“You do realize when they say retire, it doesn’t mean retire, right?” Rhodey throws back.
Y/n smiles then, and Steve knows they’re all screwed. “See, this is gonna be hilarious, cause I’m gonna tell you that I wasn’t born yesterday. So yeah, I know what they mean. Don’t worry about me, kid.”
Kid.
The word makes Rhodey flinch like she decked him physically.
And just like that every single person in the room knows that none of them are safe. If Rhodey’s getting verbally punched, no one is off limits.
“You—You don’t think we need oversight?” Tony begins, gathering up his wits that were spread across the floor. “You don’t think that we need something to keep us in check?”
“No. I never said that.” There is an ease in her tone that unsettles Steve to no end.
“Then what are you saying?” Wanda asks, curious.
“I’m saying that you can cut me down, piece by piece, take me apart till your heart’s content, but I’d sooner be a jester in Kanye West’s private study than sign that fucking document,” she states with finality.
There is a beat and then—
“The things we’ve done, the people we’ve hurt… someone needs to be held responsible for it, and it has to be us. Because if we don’t own up to it now, how will we live with ourselves?” Tony pleads, and now, Steve can see his guilt laid bare. He can see the dark circles under Tony’s eyes and his thinner frame. He can see his friends struggle written all over his face and he realizes he isn’t just a shit boyfriend but just as shit a friend sometimes.
“Do it then,” Y/n tells him, nothing but challenge in her tone. “Do it. Take responsibility for your actions… You know? Like, Ultron.” Holy shit. The words stun everyone in the room. “Do whatever it takes, but don’t drag me into it.” Tony looks at her then. He looks like he just got sucker punched, and honestly, Steve can’t blame him. “Don’t look at me like that,” she says with irritation. “I didn’t do any of this. I never even wanted to be a part of the Avengers Initiative,” she says the words with so much venom, the name feels like an insult thrown at them in full force. “I already paid my dues two times over, but if you need me to take a fall, I will. I’ll quit, happily.”
“Just like that?” Sam asks. “You’ll throw in the towel?”
“Remind me again, when was the last time any of you saw me pleading, begging, screaming from the top of a building about how badly I wanted to be a superhero?” She deadpans.
“What happens the next time an alien army comes knocking at our door?” Tony challenges, making her way over to her. “The next time the world needs us, what are you gonna do? Use those frequent flyer miles you’ve been saving up and kick back and relax down in Aruba?” He mocks her, arms flying up in rage.
She stands up then. She moves slowly, almost intimidatingly. But when she stands, she stands tall and unmoving. Using all the menace that her all black ensemble of sleeveless turtleneck with a cropped waistcoat and straight leg dress pants provides her, she cocks her head. “Have you read that thing?” She asks Tony, with a nod over to the document in Steve’s hand. “Read what’s in it?” She questions. “Have you? Or do you just not care as long as it satiates your guilt?”
“Are you insinuating something?” Tony asks. And Steve swears he’s never seen the two siblings look so antagonistic towards each other. Frankly he thought he’d be dead before this day ever came to pass.
“No,” she denies easily. “I’m not insinuating something, I’m saying it. I’m saying that you don’t care enough to know what’s in it. Because if you did, you’d know I’d never sign the damn thing.”
“Or maybe I just thought you cared enough about the people we hurt to do this much,” Tony throws back. “Maybe I’ve been looking up to you for so damn long I forgot how fucking selfish you can be.”
Tony’s furious. The anger radiates off of him in successive waves, never stopping, never pausing. His anger seems bigger than him, it seems to consume him along with everything around him. Everything except for her. She stands there in front of him, a stark contrast of her brother. She’s rigid and calm. Too calm for it to be anything but an act. He can tell she’s angry too and her anger is chilling. It’s cold enough that Steve’s got goosebumps all over. Tony, though, his anger is hot and rabid. Steve’s spent so damn long noticing their similarities that this difference between them disorients him to no end.
“Yes, that tends to happen when you put people on a pedestal,” she dismisses him callously. “Can we get back to the point now?”
“Sure, why not?” Tony bites back. “Let’s focus on how you’re too much of a coward to take accountability for your actions.”
Her jaw clenches.
Tony being Tony knows exactly what shots to take when it comes to her.
“You think this is what accountability looks like?” She challenges.
“I think you wouldn’t know what accountability looked like if I hit you in the face with it.”
Yeah, this isn’t gonna end well. “Guys,” Steve tries.
But he’s already way too late. Cause Y/n is smirking now.
“The Accords do nothing more for accountability than dictate where the Avengers go next,” she tells him. Taking slow, measured steps towards Steve, she continues, “That might help you sleep at night, but I assure you the reprieve will be short-lived.” She snatches the Accords from Steve’s hands and begins going through it herself. “Eventually you’re gonna realize it’s just precautionary… and has nothing whatsoever to do with protection.”
“So what if it is precautionary? Why is that so damn bad, huh? It’s better than what we have now—unchallenged power. It’s a fucking step in the right direction—it’s something,” Tony reasons.
She looks up then, her hands still fiddling with the pages, “Do you even understand how superheroes work? We’re narcissists, all of us.” She throws the document onto the table with a loud thud. Despite the sound, no one looks away from her. Not for a second. She’s commanding their attention. Steve would be proud of her if it didn’t scare him so damn much. “The only way to get into this business is to believe that you know better. You think that you are better at helping people, at saving them, at deciding what’s wrong and what isn’t. You think you are better at protecting people than the countless institutions set up over ages dedicated solely to this purpose. You favor your judgement over everyone else’s. That’s how you become a superhero.” Her words hang heavy in the silence.
But she doesn’t give them enough time to recuperate before she’s back at it again. “So tell me, Tony, do you think these pesky pieces of paper can stop us… stop you?” She asks, pointing at the Accords. “Could the Accords have stopped you from creating Ultron? Or could it have stopped you from attacking the Ten Rings back in Gulmeria, to avenge Yinsen?” That seems to touch a nerve. Tony’s jaw clenches, just like hers had, only moments ago. But when he doesn’t respond, she takes his silence as the answer it is. Smirking mirthlessly, “So, if it couldn’t have stopped you then, what’ll fucking stop you now? What will stop you in case you need to be stopped?”
“You will!” Tony exclaims, loud. Exhaling audibly, trying to calm himself down. “The Accords make it clear, make it official. The Avengers were formed to protect people, irrespective of the threat. Push comes to shove, we will stop whoever needs to be stopped.”
“You think so, do you?” She counters, smirk still plastered on. Tony stands firm. She takes that for the answer that is as well. “Hmm,” humming to herself, she begins taking looming steps back towards him as she says, “So when the next time someone fucks with my head and I lose all control, who decides I can’t be saved anymore?” She faces Tony head on. “And when you do, which one of you is gonna stand in front of me and put a fucking bullet through my head?”
The question startles Tony, it startles everyone.
Steve suddenly realizes that no one except the Stark siblings has spoken for a while. He can practically hear the silence now. It’s eerie. It makes him stand up.
“Y/n—” He tries.
“Is it gonna be him?” She asks Tony while nodding over to him. “My boyfriend.” And the words cut deep. She’s always been good at this, assessing the opponent and knowing where to strike. It’s years of training, he presumes.
That or she just knows them too damn well.
“I think this is getting out of hand, we need to take a breath—” Natasha chimes in but gets cut off too.
“Or will it be her? My best friend.” There’s a chill in Y/n’s tone, enough to make Natasha recoil. Y/n’s eyes never move away from Tony as she continues, “Or will it be you, brother mine?” She cocks her brow, but Tony remains silent. She turns to the room then, “Any volunteers?”
She’s met with silence once again.
Clicking her tongue, she adds, “There might come a time where one of us needs to be stopped… The Accords don’t state how to stop us, because no one knows how to stop us. We need a failsafe, and the Accords are just not gonna cut it.”
And maybe she’s right. Steve hadn’t really considered it this way. He doesn’t think about his friends ‘going to the Dark Side’ (as Y/n would call it) very often. Maybe that’s why he was so surprised to find Bucky under that mask. Either way, it’s not something he likes to ponder over. He’s always trusted his team, completely and utterly. To think that he might have to put one of them down is just—Yeah, he’d rather not think about it.
“Maybe you’re right,” Tony concedes reluctantly. “Maybe you’re absolutely right.” He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “Or maybe…” he looks at her again. “Maybe you’re just afraid of what the Accords mean for you. Maybe you’re so fucking afriad of what you went through with HYDRA that you will dismiss any possibility of oversight just to save your skin.”
After everything he’s heard so far, he didn’t really think anything could break Y/n’s composure. But dear God, was he wrong.
“You bet your lilly-white ass I will!” She yells. “I got into this shit because of you, asshole! I did it for you! But this is too fucking far.” She seethes. “I’m not signing away my freedom to a fucking insitution. I will not be controlled again!”
“I won’t let them!” Tony fights back.
“Then don’t make me do this, Tony!”
“We need this, Y/n!” He begs, desperation clear in his voice.
“No! You need this!” She’s panting now. Steve’s never seen her so agitated before. She looks like a caged animal, cornered, afraid. He wants to rush over and wrap her up in his arms. But she won’t still, she’s fidgeting, pacing a bit as she says, “There’s a lot of things I’m willing to co-pilot for you, Tony… But your guilt trip isn’t one of them.”
Tony falters.
He falters visibly, stumbling back a bit. He looks shattered, speechless with his mouth agape.
But before anyone else can make a move, both Steve and Y/n’s phone chime softly. When he pulls it out of his pocket, the words he reads make it hard for him to breathe.
‘She’s gone. In her sleep.’
A part of him breaks off. It was an injured part of him, he’d been carrying it around ever since he woke up from the ice, but now it falls off. It falls to the floor, limp on the ground. Another part of him that he has to abandon.
“Doll,” he calls out to Y/n, knowing she’d wanna know. When their eyes meet, he knows his eyes reflect the pain of the part of him that broke off because instantly Y/n face morphs into something akin to concern. “We have to go.”