Chapter Text
The next two days after Tony's phone call passed by Steve Rogers in a daze.
Tony had rejected him... His soul mate had rejected him...
The thoughts and the memory of that phone call kept on repeating in his head in an endless loop.
He could not believe that his own soul mate had rejected him.
The heartsong was not doing anything to alleviate his troubles either. Instead of the chipper tune it had sung when he had first awoken from the ice, or the melancholic notes after the debacle in New York, it was now a litany of accusations and outright rejection.
A litany of incessant rejections that was continuously heard over and over again without pausing.
It was utter torture.
His team mates and fellow fugitives worried for him, but he hardly noticed.
On the third day, Steve began to think more constructively.
What was he going to do now?
What could he do?
Well, at least he could agree with himself that something had to be done about this. It wasn't right, after all. This whole thing wasn't natural; a soul mate was not supposed to reject their other half. Such a thing was simply unheard of!
Even when soul mates had previously wronged each other in some form or manner (which, although extremely rare, had been recorded in history before), those slights were always brushed aside because the love for the other half was too strong for such pettiness to come in-between. Love and forgiveness always prevailed.
Steve sighed deeply.
In the time that he had known Tony, the man had always been unpredictable. Though Tony and Steve had become friends after the alien invasion in New York, the man had never earned Steve's trust, because Steve had always thought of Tony as unreliable and sometimes even downright unstable. Well, his distrust had now proven to be well-founded. Here was the indisputable proof of Tony's unstableness: a rejection of their soul bond.
Steve gritted his teeth.
Something had to happen.
He was NOT going to allow Tony Stark destroy their soul bond.
Not after he had finally been given this chance after seventy years in the ice!
When Steve looked up from his pensive thoughts, the TV which had been running an episode of an old soap opera was suddenly interrupted by an urgent news report. There was a flicker of 'Breaking News' boldly splashed across the TV screen as Tony Stark, who looked tired but determined, made his way up to a podium.
Steve sat up straighter.
What was Tony doing?
Steve did not have to wait long to find out.
After a short opening comment, Tony dove right into the heart of the matter he wanted to make public:
"I'm here today to announce the official disbandment of the superhero team known as the Avengers."
What the hell was this!?
Steve's breath caught in his throat as he listened to Tony's announcement.
Was Tony really so spiteful has to destroy the Avengers after Steve had entrusted them to him to take care of?
Unaware of the thoughts running through the Captain's mind, Tony kept talking:
"Steven Grant Rogers, Samuel Thomas Wilson, Wanda Maximoff, Clinton Francis Barton, and Natalia Alianovna Romanoff are fugitives of the law who, due to their recent actions, can no longer rightly call themselves superheroes. As the current leader of the Avengers, I therefore oust them from the team. Of the remaining members... well, the Black Panther has never formally become an Avenger, Thor and the Hulk are MIA, Colonel Rhodes is still recovering from his injuries, and Vision wishes to retire. This leaves me as the sole active member, which... you can't call that much of a team, right?"
There was uncomfortable laughter from the audience at this remark, but Tony continued without pause:
"As Iron Man I will continue my work to protect the people on this planet with all the resources available to me, and Colonel Rhodes, known in public as War Machine, has agreed to join me as soon as his condition allows it. So, without further ado, I'd hereby like to introduce our superhero duo, which will henceforth be known under the banner as 'The Big Guns'."
The was a welcoming applause upon the announcement of the new superhero duo, but Tony had not yet finished his speech.
"I'm aware," he said, "that the break up of the Avengers invalidates the Sokovia Accords, and that this may worry the various countries which have signed these Accords. This is why I call for renewed negotiations between superheroes and the United Nations. We need regulations on superhero work to keep us superheroes accountable. We need new accords. What we don't need is to reenact World War Two by introducing discriminatory laws that require civilians with extraordinary mutations, enhancements, or the Inhuman gene to be registered, have fingerprints and DNA samples taken from them, or otherwise have invasive practices and legislation placed upon them that violate the universal human rights as stipulated by the UN. It is for this reason that I'd like to introduce two new frameworks. The first is the Anonymous Schooling Program for Super-powered People, or as I call it: A-SP2. This program allows super-powered civilians to learn to control their powers in a safe, controlled environment and ensure their proper integration into human society. The second framework I'd like to introduce is the Superhero Accords. The Superhero Accords will be the groundwork to regulate superhero duties, accountability, and—pay attention, Thaddeus Ross—superhero rights."
Unbelievable!
As if the Sokovian Accords weren't enough... as if breaking the Avengers apart, slandering the names of his former team members, and now disbanding them altogether wasn't enough... now Tony wants to add even more red tape!
Steve watched Tony's speech with growing disbelief and anger.
"Having worked in a superhero team before, I know from personal experience, that superheroes, like all people, have individual wants and needs; I find it thus impossible to fit all superheroes under the exact same rules. For this reason, I envision the Superhero Accords as a basis on which individual superhero contracts can be formed in the future; for each superhero an individual contract that will address the personal concerns of said superhero."
An approving murmur rustled through the crowd at the announcement of the two new frameworks. Tony raised a hand to recall the public's attention.
"The two frameworks are still in preliminary stages," he said, then, cocking his head, added with a studied flippancy; "also, judging by the sudden outburst of anger, it seems that Captain Asshole is yet again rejecting things out of hand before knowing what they're about. Anyway, in honor of the late-King of Wakanda, who was a prominent supporter of the Sokovian Accords, I'd like to invite King T'Challa to be a part in developing the A-SP2 and Superhero Accords frameworks before they'll be presented to the UN for negotiations. That's all."
When the speech ended, the TV returned to dramatic scene of a delicate dame crying beside her terminally ill husband's bed, leaving Steve to contemplate how Tony could so coolly brush aside the displeasure he heard in Steve's heartsong for him, while Steve was literally tortured by the rejection he felt from Tony.
There had to be something wrong with Tony!
Steve stopped his mulling thoughts when he stumbled upon a epiphany.
Of course! There was something wrong with Tony!
Steve had known something was wrong with his soul mate since New York, when the song had first drastically changed. That was when Tony... had fought aliens... and fell out of the sky...
Thinking quick on his feet, Steve thought of all the other things that he knew had happened to Tony and how that had affected the heartsong.
It has been erratic and melancholic since New York. Then there was this outburst that happened some time ago that coincided with... one of Tony's homes being destroyed... I saw this on the news; that was the Mandarin. Again, a spike while we were on that mission... right before the Hulk ran rampage in Johannesburg; he must have been scared of what an uncontrollable monster like Hulk could do. Then a big dip not long after we defeated Ultron; probably regret for his hand in creating that monster. There was this flip-flop while I was attending Peggy's funeral; he must have been worrying about the Accords. Small continuous spikes just before Bucky and I were apprehended in Bucharest... when Zemo had messed with Bucky and broken free the Winter Soldier... right until that big one in Leipzig; when War Machine fell out of the sky there. Then lastly... that big outburst followed by those two hours of silence... Siberia; he'd seen that video of the Winter Soldier and his parents.
The spikes and dips in the heartsong coincided with those events. In-between the song held a strange amalgam of emotions dominated by overtones of fear, anger, and sadness.
Without a doubt, Steve suddenly realized, Tony was suffering from PTSD.
This must be the reason why he's behaving so irrationally, Steve thought.
His mind wandered back to his conversation with Bucky right before his friend was put back on ice.
"I know you're worried about him, punk," Bucky had said.
Steve had sighed in defeat. "Something is very, very wrong, Bucky. The song was gone. It was gone for two hours. I don't know what to do..."
"Find him," his friend had told him. "Find him and help him. You can do it, Steve. Even if the odds are stacked against you, you always bulldoze through them, so I believe in you."
Even though it had seemed pointless, finding his own soul mate between all the millions and millions of souls, he had promised Bucky then and there that he would find his one.
Well, he had found Tony. Now he had to help the man.
I have to fix him so he can see reason, Steve thought, forgetting in that moment his previous conviction that humans aren't robots and can't be simply fixed of their problems.
He packed his bags and left Wakanda.
He did not know it yet, but his help was unwanted.
While Steve had set his mind on mending the soul bond, Tony was already doing everything he could to find a way to destroy it.