SPOILER: This is an angsty, sad, fic that almost made me cry while writing it. So if you have emotionally sensitive triggers, please go to and enter this spoiler code to check before reading: Gbal vf cerfhzrq qrnq sbe zbfg bs gur svp, ohg ur'f bayl Zneiry qrnq. Ur cbcf hc nyvir va gur ynfg fprar. Lnl.

Loosely based off this KM Prompt: . ?thread=44800591#t44800591

Based on the Steve/Tony fill that just updated where they're married but their secret alter egos are enemies and Tony doesn't figure it out until Captain America dies. I'd like the reverse of that fill, where Steve doesn't realize Tony is Iron Man until the super villain goes down in battle. Whether Steve is the one to take him down or not is up to you.

+ If Tony's not really dead
++ If S.H.I.E.L.D. knew the whole time
+++ If other super villains taunt Steve (Captain America) about it
++++ based on the fill's updates, Tony never wanted to be a bad guy to begin with
+++++ S.H.I.E.L.D won't help Steve get Tony back

The sun shone blood red in the smoky afternoon sky. From the high vantage point on the roof of Stark tower, Tony could see plumes of smoke from at least a dozen fires around the city. His HUD helpfully showed him even more.

"Well, this is a fine mess," Tony said, and Iron Man's computerized voice came out as a drawl. He turned to look at the Avenger's Tower a few blocks away - one of the few buildings which was not on fire. Gee. Why would that be? "What's the phrase? Good enough for government work?"

The two bird brothers from another mother scowled at Tony. Captain America's jaw did that clenchy thing it did when he was really pissed.

To be fair - and Tony was always fair, no matter what some in the League of Villains said - the Avengers did look the worse for wear. That's what three days of fighting an undying army of hulklings across the city would do to a trio of do-gooders. But the Avengers were no closer to saving the day. Meanwhile, the city was getting more... smashed.

Something had to be done, and Tony was a lot of things, but at least he did what needed doing.

Avengers and Villains stood in two separate groups, a strip of no man's land between them - but that was okay. For Tony's plan to work, they didn't have to function as one unit.

"How do we know we can trust them?" Falcon asked, loud enough to be heard by all.

Captain America glanced over at Tony's side of the roof.

"We don't," Cap replied, "but I'm not seeing much of a choice here."

"Hey bird boy, this is your side's mess," Tony said. "General Ross subcontracts for SHIELD. Those are his hulklings-"

"Using the Hulk's blood-" Cap blurted.

"That he took from force after he kidnapped Doctor Banner." Bruce was a known part-time Villain League member. Tony could use his name. "Blaming the victim, much, Captain?"

"This feels wrong," said Captain's other flunky. The archer who dressed in purple and black leather. Hawkguy? Hawkeye? Something like that. "Two weeks ago, Iron Man was trying to bomb Roxxon Oil. Now he's giving us an antidote?"

By Tony's side, the Winter Soldier shifted his weight from foot-to-foot. "Tell the complainer to shut up, or I will do it for him," the Winter Soldier muttered in Russian - incidentally, all he spoke, even though he understood English just fine. Tony couldn't see the Soldier's face under his muzzle-like mask and sunglasses, of course, but imagined he looked more murderous than usual.

Captain America gave the villains a quick, suspicious glance, "What did he just say?"

"That he's ready and raring to go." Tony's voice came out flat through the Iron Man armor.

The Winter Soldier snorted.

Captain America was big and wore a dumb flag motif, but he wasn't a fool. He clenched his jaw again. "You say the Villain League has the means to stop the hulklings, but only the three of you showed up? That's it?"

"We're a League," the Black Widow said from Tony's other side, "not an army. Iron Man sent out a call. We answered."

"Deadpool said he'd be around later," Tony added. He didn't miss Captain America's wince. Yeah, he felt the same way. Deadpool wasn't on anyone's side, per say. He just... was.

Tony didn't bother explaining motivations. This was Iron Man's city. Tony loved it, let himself be labeled a villain and lied to his husband on a daily basis in order to keep it safe. The Winter Soldier was always ready to pay back a pound of flesh for whatever SHIELD had done to him before he escaped to join the League. The Black Widow actually was a double-agent working with SHIELD to infiltrate the League - she was good, JARVIS was better- but Tony believed firmly in keeping your enemies closer, ect, ect. Whatever. She was there and ready to fight.

Cap said nothing, and Tony shrugged.

"Welp, I guess he doesn't want our help." Tony turned. "Gentleman. Lady."

"Wait." Cap looked like he was chewing nails. Then he stepped forward and extended a hand to shake. "You're right, the safety of the city comes first. Truce?"

Tony wouldn't have taken his hand anyway, but before he could think of a comeback, the Winter Soldier stepped right in his path. Putting himself between Tony and the Captain.

The Winter Soldier spat to the side. "There will be no truce, Comrade, as long as you remain a dog for SHIELD."

"Um." Cap glanced at Tony. "What?"

"This isn't a truce, Cap," Tony said, glancing sidelong at the Soldier. Comrade? He'd have to ask about that, later. "Today we have the same enemy. That's all."

The Captain's fingers curled in. He nodded once, his hand dropping. For a weird moment, the expression on the uncovered portions of his face almost reminded Tony of Steve - how he wanted to make friends with everyone. How it hurt him every single time it didn't happen.

Tony ruthlessly pushed down a small spike of pity.

"I'm assuming you have a plan," Cap said.

Tony snorted. "Do we have a plan," he repeated in derision.

Black Widow pulled out a small box from... somewhere out of her catsuit, and flipped up the lid to reveal the antidote Bruce Banner himself had formulated. The actual Hulk was too powerful for it to do anything other than knock him out for a couple minutes. But it should return the knockoff hulklings back to normal.

"This needs to be injected directly," she said, and went on to describe what she knew of the plan. Of course there was more, but like hell Tony was going to tell an undercover SHIELD operative everything.

Tony carefully didn't look at the Winter Soldier. The Russian knew what he had to do, already. Half of it had been his idea.

The Falcon lodged another protest, and as Captain America turned away to deal with his lackey and order him to get the supplies they would need, Tony stepped back and cut his microphone to the outside. His plan was brilliant - they all were - but until the antidote took effect the hulklings were nearly indestructible. This was going to be dangerous.

JARVIS, bless his non-existent heart, knew exactly what Tony wanted before he said it.

"Shall I place a call to Steve, sir?"

Tony swallowed, glanced over to make sure no one was paying him attention, and turned away from both groups. Thank God for Iron Man's poker face. "Might as well. Audio only."

"Of course, sir."

The phone rang at least five times before he heard Steve's breathless, "Hello? Tony?"

"Hey, babe." He forced his own voice to be light, to not betray any of the nervousness he was feeling inside. So much could go wrong. Even if things went right, he didn't trust SHIELD not to turn on him the second the worst was over. Drag him down to one of their HYDRA-funded labs the SHIELD goons at the top pretended didn't exist. "Just wanted to check on you, make sure the kids aren't driving you into Shining levels of crazy. All work and no play makes Steve a dull boy."

"Tony." Steve's voice came out fond, exasperated, but mildly subdued, as if he was trying to keep his voice down. Maybe Tony had interrupted nap time at the school. Steve was a first grade teacher, and a lot of the time he couldn't answer the phone when Tony called - it being the middle of class. Tony had absolutely been barred from popping in at the school, on pain of sleeping in the guest room for a week. "I'm fine. The school's emergency shelter is well stocked and secure. We're fine. Just like when you called a couple hours ago."

"What can I say? I like hearing your voice. It's an addiction and I'm a junkie." Pause. "How are the kids?"

"Holding up. They're a little scared, but brave. It's the parents I'm worried about."

"Same here," Tony lied. As far as Steve knew, Tony was holed up in the Stark tower basement shelter while the city-wide hulkling emergency went down. "Well, employees, kids. Same difference, right?"

Steve laughed softly, and Tony felt his mouth curl into a smile. Some of the weight of exhaustion fell off his shoulders. This was why he did it. Why he didn't just abandon the city and make Iron Man global, why he didn't come out in the open with all the dirt on the SHIELD/HYDRA connection with the full weight and evidence he could bring forward as Tony Stark.

If he came out to the public as a businessman/superhero, Steve would become an instant target. Tony would hang up his suit before he let that happen.

"Tony," Steve's voice became serious. "There's... I just heard a news report - I think Captain America and his men are going to make a last push to drive the hulklings away. Things might get messy around the tower."

Really? Tony looked around. There wasn't a news helicopter in the sky. SHIELD must have leaked something.

"Steve I'm a businessman, not a fireman. I'm eating bon-bons, surrounded by bowing middle-management. I'm not leaving my hidey hole."

"Right," Steve said with another laugh. "Just be careful."

"You too." Steve's school was in the suburbs, out of the line of fire. Even if it was, Tony wasn't too worried. He'd hidden a couple of laser cannons in the nearby greenbelt to dissuade any hulklings from coming close.

"Maybe this will be over by evening." Tony knew it would be, one way or another. "I'll send Happy to pick you up. We'll have a date."

"Don't you dare. It's a warzone out there. Pepper would kill you."

Jarvis flashed a warning in his HUD - Falcon was returning with supplies: Syringes and dart guns to load the antidote.

"I gotta go," Steve said, with his great timing. As usual. "Kids are waking up."

"Okay," Tony said, reluctant to hang up. "Love ya."

"I love you, Tony," Steve said. The call disconnected.

With a sigh, Tony reconnected the outside microphone and then rejoined the group. Captain America was tucking some kind of communicator in his pocket, turning to talk to the approaching Falcon.

The Winter Soldier was staring impassively at Tony from behind his sunglasses. Tony didn't know what his problem was - probably nothing at all. The man had apparently been put through several involuntary lobotomies and electro-shock therapy while under SHIELD/HYDRA's tender care. He was a little strange.

"JARVIS, I'll need a full diagnostic on all armor defense systems before going into battle. This is going to be a long afternoon."

"Yes, sir."

OoOoO

The good news was the antidote worked. The bad news was that after injection there was a delay of ten or fifteen minutes, and the really bad news was that the hulklings went berserk before they shrunk back down to human size.

The extra, extra no good terrible news was that Tony's secret plan was also working. The Winter Soldier had scurried off under cover of mid-battle to find and release Bruce Banner while the Avengers were busy. So far, none of the heroes noticed he was missing.

Black Widow could be trusted to save her own skin, and so Tony was left alone to fight along side with the Avengers.

"Iron Man, dive!" Falcon barked in Tony's communicator.

It was a good thing Tony's reactions were quick. He cut the repulsers and lost altitude just as a hulkling sprang out of a nearby building to tackle him. It missed, falling back down to earth with a frustrated roar.

Falcon signaled he was going after it, and with a sweep of his wings, he dived. Tony paused to watch, a little impressed at the man's control despite himself. Meh. If he had to use his business persona to give weapons to SHIELD to keep them from getting suspicious, at least they were going to the right people.

"Two more hulklings have been hit with the antidote," Captain America reported tersely over the lines. "That's probably half of them, if my count is right."

"Just over half," Tony reported. No reason to get sloppy with the math. "Fifty-five percent."

He glanced down just in time to see Cap engage another hulkling with his shield. This section of downtown had become more or less deserted during the fighting - windows blown out and chunks of concrete littering the street.

Captain America threw his shield. It bounced off a chipped concrete wall, destroyed to the point where rebar stood out from it, and smacked the hulkling from behind, sending it into Cap's fist.

It staggered to the side. Cap grinned wolfishly and jumped up, injecting the thing right in its neck.

JARVIS flashed a warning, but Tony saw it too. "Cap!" he yelled as a heat signature told him there was a second hulkling lurking on the other side of a thick concrete wall, five stories up. Pushing against it. "Look out! That wall's coming down!"

The Captain looked around, but not up. Clearly not seeing the danger. Not trusting Tony's word enough to heed his warning.

Tony didn't think. He spilled air and, cursing, landed and threw Cap to the side and out of the way as the hulkling he'd injected scrabbled at his neck. The HUD screamed: The concrete wall was falling - several tons worth of rock reinforced with metal- and Tony would have gotten out of the way, but the hulkling Cap had injected gave another wild roar and tackled him, instead. They skidded to the ground. Tony fired his repulsers, blasting him away a second before the concrete wall with its bristling rebar spikes came crashing down.

Pressure. Blackness. Pain.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

He couldn't move. Terrible pressure surrounded him from all sides - he couldn't feel his feet, which was a bad sign - and what parts of him he could feel was a searing pain right through his middle and out his back.

The HUD flickered back to life, showing a breach to the integrity right at the armor's abdomen.

"No shit," Tony gasped. He could taste blood in his mouth, warm and metallic. "Medical scan, JARVIS. Tell me the bad news."

"Iron Man!" Some of the pressure eased from his chest. Tony blinked as a slab of concrete was lifted away. Then Captain America's dumb, patriotic face gaped down at him. "Are you with me, pal?"

Save the man's life, and suddenly they were pals. Great. "How bad?" Tony asked, in answer. Though he knew it was bad. Moving was... out of the question.

Captain America's eyes were grave. "I think it's gone right through."

It took everything Tony had to crane his neck up and look. He immediately wish he hadn't. His lower half was hidden under rubble, but a shaft of rebar had come down on him like a spike. The force had actually broken through the armor. He'd been impaled right through the middle "... Yeah," he breathed, leaning back.

"You saved my life," Cap said softly. Shocked.

"I didn't mean it at the expense of mine."

And the moment he said it aloud, he knew it was true. He wasn't walking away from this. Oh God, Steve...

"Should I pull it free?" Cap asked, gesturing to the rebar.

"No, that'll make me... bleed out quicker. Leave it."

Captain America seemed like he didn't know what to say. He looked young at that moment, impossibly young. Tony felt the weird urge to comfort him, which was... just no.

"Cap," he said, his mind racing ahead. He could use the Captain's guilt, needed to use it to protect Steve. "I need a favor."

"What?"

"After this is all over, SHEILD's gonna crack open the suit, see who I am." Tony took a shuddering breath. "I have a husband."

The Captain blinked. "You have a husband."

Tony felt a twinge of annoyance. "I don't have time for your period-authentic homophobia," he snapped. Cap started to flush, started to deny it, probably was about to say he had lots of gay friends. (Yeah right.) But Tony cut him off. "He didn't know about... He's good. He's innocent. He doesn't know anything about Iron Man, I swear it. Cap," he drew in a breath. "I saved your life, here... Just make sure SHIELD doesn't get their hands on him."

Cap's frown deepened. "If he truly doesn't know, then SHIELD wouldn't prosecute-"

"Whatever," Tony said bitterly, not wanting to hear it. The Captain had to be blind if he didn't see the dark underbelly of SHIELD. And if the displays on his vitals were to be believed, Tony didn't have much time left. He didn't want to spend it on Captain Fucking America. "Get out of here. Save the day."

Cap rose, but he looked conflicted. A hulkling roared in the distance. "Iron Man - thank you."

"Yeah," he gasped as a sparkling, tingly pain shivered up his spine. "Anytime."

"I'll do what I can for your husband. You have my word."

It was ridiculous, he shouldn't trust the word of a SHIELD minion, but the steady, determined look in the Captain's eyes made Tony feel marginally better. He tilted his head in a slight nod.

Hefting his shield, Cap left.

JARVIS's voice was gentle. "Shall I put in a call to Steve, sir?"

What am I supposed to tell him? Tony thought wildly, I'm Iron Man and I'm dying. Love ya, babe. Bye? But he could taste blood in his mouth, and the scans showed him that he was hemorrhaging internally. Time to put up or shut up. He cracked a sad smile. "Might as well."

The phone rang and rang, then went into voicemail.

Tony firmly squashed a jolt of anxiety. Steve was probably hunkered down with the kids - maybe was in the middle of calming a hysterical child. And maybe... maybe this was for the best.

"Steve," he said after the friendly voice message prompted him to leave a message. A hundred - a thousand things popped into his head, but all Tony could manage was, "I'm sorry, I won't be making our date. I..." A wave of dizziness made him close his eyes. They burned with tears. "I always hated this sort of thing, in romance movies. Our life was kind of a romance movie, you know? I was just hoping for more of a happy ending than The Notebook, but I..." He was getting off track. Focus Stark.

"The last four years have been the happiest I've ever been," Tony blurted into the silence. "I didn't deserve that sort of happiness, not after the whole merchant of death thing. If the world was fair, if karma existed, I should have been miserable. But you... you made it impossible. God, Steve, I wanted to grow old with you."

It was hard to keep his eyes open, so Tony let them fall shut, thinking of his husband's face. "I shouldn't have been ridiculously, gloriously, dancing in the rain happy, but you did it. Being with you..."

He knew the science behind death - he'd gone through a morbid teenage phase just like every other rebel without a cause - knew he was bleeding out, that his synapses and oxygen starved neurons were firing wildly, flooding his system with dopamine and all the other feel good-hormones. Tony knew he wasn't really in the memory his mind brought up: the night Tony proposed.

But he was suddenly there, on one knee, holding out a box and a ring, watching as Steve's beautiful eyes lit up. "When you said yes," Tony said and his voice had a little bit of a slur even he could hear, "I thought this is it - maybe it's downhill from here. But it always went uphill with you... and when we danced..."

Steve always loved to dance. And Tony was there, surrounded in Steve's arms. A place without fear and pain. "I was safe," he told the Steve in his memories, whispering it into his ear, "and happy." He leaned in, touching Steve's cheek. His own hand felt so heavy he could barely lift it, even in his own mind. "I... love you, Steve."

He took a single, shuddering breath. The bright points of pain were very far away now, and he couldn't even feel the cooling wetness on his cheeks. "I wish..." he murmured, and let out a last breath.

A minute later the voicemail box said that his recording had reached the limit and asked if Tony would like to rerecord the message. There was no answer.