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When the coast is clear, you leave your room and walk to the kitchen of the Avengers tower. Your footsteps are dead silent as you travel, like those of a cat.
Before you were you, before Steve found you, you were the Winter Soldier. You were a ruthless assassin with no real choice and no real thought, you were a murderer. HYDRA made you a murderer, you’re trying to correct your thought process more as you settle into life. It’s been trickier than you’d expected, learning to live and to live with yourself even after what they made you do. All those people, all those screams…
You’re still being hunted down by the US government, which is why you’ve been living with the Avengers of all people for about a year now. An elite team of heroes that’re kind enough to grant you a hiding place, a hidden room in the depths of the tower - where you wake up in your bed and spend the day trying to remember things before falling asleep again, and the cycle goes on and on.
Even with everyone’s hospitality, you try to stay out of the way. You’ll come out for dinner, more often nowadays, and chat with your friends. Friends, it feels weird calling then that. It feels weird having friends in general, like some weird VIP privilege you weren’t meant to have after everything went down. But here you are years later, talking with Natasha and Wanda and the other supers like you’re all one big happy family.
Albeit with some estranged members.
As the Winter Soldier, you killed Howard Stark and his wife. Consequently, you try to avoid their son around the tower, since you believe Tony shouldn’t have to deal with seeing your face. He shouldn’t have to put up with the girl that killed his family, hiding from the government and prancing around in his own home. Guilt is an insatiable sting to your heart, and it reintroduces itself whenever you catch a glimpse of the billionaire heading off for a mission or hear his voice lecturing one of his many robotic assistants.
He’s a good man, you know this from the fact that he lets you stay in the tower at all. Tony doesn’t call 100 percent of the shots around the place, but you wouldn’t blame him if he woke up one day and decided to kick you out. Even after so long, you don’t let yourself feel fully welcome. You never know what’ll happen tomorrow.
Deep in thought, you finally make it to the kitchen, with one of your hands opening up the refrigerator and plucking a soda from one of the shelves. It’s later into the night, your usual preferred time to come out of your room. Nobody’s around, there’s nobody to inconvenience.
At least, that’s what you assume as you twist off the lid and silently take a drink. But when you turn around and lean on the counter next to the fridge, your breath hitches when you look up from the bottle.
“Easy, tiger.” Tony’s monotone voice rings in your ears, your nervous eyes unable to look away from his for a moment before looking down apprehensively. “Sorry,” you manage a mumble, taking another swig of soda before contemplating what you’re meant to do.
Staying might rock the boat, if there’s even a boat to be rocked anymore, but leaving will probably drive him further away from you if that’s even possible. So you make the choice to keep your feet planted, your demeanor holding more anxiety than frustration as you watch him also grab a soda from the refrigerator through your peripherals. He saunters back to the other side of the island, takes a sip of his drink as he sits in one of the chairs across from the counter.
After a thick bout of silence, your head snaps up without a sound when Tony clears his throat. Once he looks up and meets your now alerted eyes, he starts to speak.
“Alright, I’ll bite the bullet. Listen, Elsa, I know you’re still scared of me.”
No response from you. Only a slight darken of your gaze as you try not to look away, try to fake confidence and prove the man wrong.
It doesn’t work, evident in his next string of words. “We’ve lived under the same roof for almost a year now and I think this is the longest we’ve ever talked. Well, not talking since you’re not really responding, but you get my point.”
You don’t break eye contact, only blinking, and you remain quiet with the exception of a despondent sigh. There’s no sure thought of what to say, whether you should apologize or let the lack of a reply say the same thing for you. It’s hard to tell if his words are even being said with sincerity or scorn, his voice never seems to fluctuate enough between emotions to tell.
Tony doesn’t seem to be as conflicted though, his voice cutting through the silence yet again. “Well then, you gonna keep silent treatmenting me or can we break bread?”
You raise an eyebrow at this, to which he resumes, “I know it’s an almost-year late but hey, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. So what say you, Winter Wonderland?”
You can’t help a faint and brief smile, your voice quiet but inquisitive as you finally respond. “What’s the bread in this equation, the half empty sodas?”
“Notice how you said half empty, still plenty of ‘bread’ to break.”
You hum in acknowledgment, shared understanding, as you look back down at the bottle in your hand before looking back up at him. “Can I come over there?”
“…are you asking me if you can sit in a chair in your kitchen?”
“Not my kitchen, it was yours first-“ you start to defend before he interjects.
“Hey, I know we give you the Harry Potter ‘cupboard under the stairs’ special to keep the feds out of your hair, but this place is yours as much as it is mine. Do what you want. You know, when the SWAT team isn’t in the other room.”
At that, you huff amusedly as you walk over to the other side of the island with less hesitation. You sit in the chair next to his with a couple feet between you, still tense but definitely less than before. You look away after a moment, eyes trained to the polished table in front of you before you eventually speak up.
“You asked me if I remembered them, when we fought.”
Silence. Stiff, reminiscent silence.
“And I told you I remembered all of them.” you murmur, staring holes into your soda before setting it down on the table like it’s a trophy you don’t think you’ve earned. “I meant it. I see someone everytime I close my eyes.”
You don’t see Tony looking at you with an unusual sympathy, like he’s seeing you for the first time. Without the black smeared around your eyes, the mask over your mouth, any of your gear. Just you, trying to talk to him. Just you, trying.
“Who do you see the most?” he can’t help but ask, watching your eyes glass over at the question. But your tears don’t yet fall, your still composed voice is just above a whisper when you answer.
“Your parents.”
A different variant of quiet blankets the two of you, something softer and more vulnerable. Tony doesn’t know what to say to that, but he doesn’t get to say a thing before he hears the guilt that coats your next words.
“I’m sorry, Stark,” you say, working to keep the tears in and momentarily winning. “for everything.”
“Don’t be,” he responds, a gentleness in his tone that you never thought you could hear from him. But you can’t let the deflection settle, can’t let yourself off the hook - even if you weren’t ever meant to be on it.
“No, I… I need to be,” you counter, knowing any movement of your head will trigger crying and keeping yourself still. “You don’t have to be cordial with me. I know what I’ve taken from you.”
Tony persists with unbridled strength, in the face of your regret for what you couldn’t even control. He starts to wish he’d had this conversation with you so much sooner.
“No, don’t- no. You didn’t take them from me, you were a puppet with a gun. Sure, it took me longer than it should’ve to see that, but I mean it. You didn’t. You-”
“Stark, please-“
“Hey, don’t interrupt. I was gonna sa- can you look at me?”
Your heart stops at the instruction, spoken with good intention but still hard to follow. You can’t move, scared you’ll start to cry, but it’s obvious Tony won’t start up again until he has your visual attention. So you try to shove it down and lift your head, immediately dragging a hand over your face when tears slip down both eyes before turning to face him. His eyes are kind, but his voice is still sharp as usual.
“I was gonna say you’re not to blame for what happened. Y/N, I haven’t blamed you for what happened to my parents since a few months after we fought.”
That breaks a fragment of the dam, eyes widening and watering again as you question his statement incredulously. “You haven’t?”
He smirks with a shake of his head. “I haven’t. It’s why you’re here, it’s why I didn’t kick you to the curb when Secretary Ross wanted you turned in. Why would I hand you back to people that could be linked to your abusers?”
“Because I killed your-“
“Stop. You didn’t. Have I said that already? I think I said that already.”
“You… you did, but-“
“But nothing. I’m the one with the dead parents, I call the shots. And I say you didn’t, so you’re gonna listen to me, capishe?”
A pause before you unenthusiastically surrender. “Uh-huh.”
“Good call. Now to address the second of many elephants in the room - have you spent this whole time thinking I flip a coin everyday to decide whether or not you’re booted from the tower? Have you never been absolutely certain that this is your home?”
You hesitate before answering. “I guess not.”
“You know that’s not how it works, right? If it was, Steve would’ve been out of here a looong time ago. But I digress,” Tony remarks, focused on your face. You’re still unsmiling, but he sees you start to brighten at his unwavering tendency to jest.
“In no instance would I hand you an eviction notice without a good reason- uh-uh, close your mouth right now. Don’t start with the parent thing, we’ve been over that. Not a good reason, and until a good reason shows up - like if you go Hulk-level apeshit on the entire building cause of a bad dream - you’re fine. You’re safe.”
The relief in your teary eyes at that last simple word is not lost on him, the emotion in your face so easy to see as he continues to look at you. He murmurs a question after yet another brief silence. “You don’t hear that enough, do you? That you’re safe.”
A slow and shaky breath leaves you, through your nose and out your mouth, as you try and put together words to respond. Nothing comes to mind, so you opt for no answer as you regretfully look back down.
“You’re safe, Y/N. They can’t get you here, you know that.”
At that, a teary and disbelieving laugh falls out of your mouth as your hand swipes at your wet face again. “I should be saying that to you,” you reply with a sniffle and a disbelieving shake of your head, “telling you you’re safe around me. I’m not worth all this trouble, Stark.”
“Don’t- okay, first, stop calling me that. It’s Tony. And second, don’t give me that. I know I’m safe around you, it’s not like you’re fresh out of Murderer Workshop - maybe I would’ve needed to hear that a year ago but I don’t need it now. You got help, you got better.”
“I know I did, but-“ You cut yourself off as you feel more tears rising to the surface, that knot in your throat tightening up before you collect yourself enough to keep talking. “I know I did, but it doesn’t erase the bad shit I’ve done. Or just the bad shit HYDRA’s done vicariously through me, but it’s me either way. Tony…”
He was already listening, but at the sound of his name, he zeroes in. And what you say next pains him, you’re barely able to get the words out before you’re quietly crying again.
“Tony, why don’t you hate me? How can you even look at me?”
He doesn’t even know how to vocally respond to this, simply leaving his chair after a few lengthy seconds and closing the small gap between you two with an unexpectedly natural feeling hug. Tony never seemed like a hugger, between his invulnerability and his overall personality, but this feels familiar in a way. Like he’s a friend, someone that trusts you. He’s so soft.
But you don’t verbalize any of the thoughts you’re having in this moment, sinking into his frame as his arms wrap around you and feeling the dam break completely. A quiet sob falls out of your mouth as your arms encircle his in return - you never realized how touch starved you are, how much you deny touch as a whole. You never feel like you deserve it.
“Listen to me,” Tony orders, tone a perfect balance of force and care, “You are not what they made you. I couldn’t see that when we fought, and I should’ve known better. I’m late, really late, but I get it now. I get it, it’s why I can’t let you blame yourself for what happened. It’s why I don’t hate you.”
A beat before he adds, “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all this sooner.”
Silence falls over you two, besides your quiet and slowly steadying breaths; it’s less tense, free. You let yourself be held, having no more energy to push away his apologies and insist you should be apologizing instead. The warmth of a body against yours had been such a lost art until now, and you can’t help but revel in it for a few more seconds.
But eventually, you peel yourself away from him when you’re collected enough. Both your arms fall back to your sides and you watch him sit back down in his chair.
”You know, I really thought tonight was gonna be a regular night,” you tell him after a lighthearted scoff. This earns a short snicker from Tony before he replies, “I think your first mistake was expecting a ‘regular night’ in the big superhero dormitory at all.”
You laugh at that, a real laugh, before you wipe your face one last time to rid any stray tears. Then you proceed to test the waters, grabbing your bottle off the table before holding it out with a tiny but hopeful smile.
“Friends?”
Tony eyes the glass in your hand, still halfway filled with soda, before grabbing his own bottle and smiling despite himself as he knowingly clinks it against yours.
“Friends.”