Hi guys, so this is the second part of this two-shot! It's slightly longer than the first one because I need to wrap everything up nicely.

Note: I am in no way doing Steve!bashing here! I may not like Captain America, but neither do I hate him, he's just a character which I can't really relate to on the movie screen.

Again, this story is based off the trailer for CW, and is in no way related to the comics or my other stories. I only know the bare minimum of what the civil war was about, but I have written this entire fic based on my own imagination. Any similarities are just coincidences.

Hope you enjoy the story!

Disclaimer: Nothing here is owned by me, save the plot.

The days after their encounter with Ironman in the building passed quietly. They were underground, in a place where Hawkeye had sworn never to return to, but had reluctantly spoken up when they were looking for a place to crash. He had remained tight-lipped and even Scarlet Witch didn't dare to take a peek inside his mind. When they arrived at the place, they all looked around, water dripping off the walls, darkness encroaching the tunnels. Clint just strode forward and led them to another section of the underground base, walking past the equipment that lay abandoned, straight to the far end of the dimly lit area. He reached the back, where the generators were, and gestured to Wanda, "Help me move this over."

The girl blinked in surprise, then concentrated, her eyes glowing red with power as she moved the generator aside with a thought. Clint walked up towards the wall, then vanished.

The rest of them startled, with Steve calling out his name before Clint stuck his head back out – weird, because then it looked like his head was mounted on the wall – and frowned at them, telling them to come in. They looked at each other, bewildered, before Steve squared his shoulder and walked in, trying – and failing – not to flinch when he stepped past the wall. He didn't fail to draw the parallel with Harry Potter – yes, he caught up on his modern culture after Tony made him do so – but quickly stepped aside to let the others through. They came in after him, disbelieving looks on their faces

"How the hell did you find out about this man?" Sam asked, grinning slightly as he took in his surroundings.

Clint tensed, then forced himself to relax, "This was where Loki brought us to, fixed up those computers and machines out there but," he waved a hand at the room before them, "he took this place for himself. Weaved a spell," he estured to the wall they came through, "so that people wouldn't come in."

The rest of them looked confused, but Steve's eyes softened, resting a hand on Clint's shoulder, "Thank you Barton." To the rest of them, he said, "Let's rest up for a few hours then discuss about where we should go from here." They nodded, and ambled of to find a corner for themselves.

Clint muttered, "I'll take first watch," then pushed his way out, disappearing before Steve could call out to him.

The Captain just sighed and headed over to another corner, smiling slightly at Bucky's concerned look before settling down himself.

The first person to step into their new territory was Natasha.

They had been experiencing down time for nearly two weeks, with nobody chasing after them, and nobody able to find out where they were. So when the infamous Black Widow stepped into their hideout, she found herself at the end of several hostile glares. She spared them no second glance as she stood in the room, unheeding of the threats leveled against her. Whether it was out of confidence or trust that Steve wouldn't let his team hurt her unnecessarily, the Captain didn't know. He stood in front of her, his towering stature not diminishing her regal pose a slightest bit. He looked straight into her lime green eyes, trying not to show how unnerved he was by her stoic features. Her face was impassive, wiped clean of every emotion, her eyes hard as ice and just as cold. So unlike the woman who had called him and warned him to stay away –something that she didn't need to do.

"Why are you here Widow?"

If he weren't watching so closely, he would have missed the flicker in her eyes when he called her by her title instead of her name. She gazed at him for several seconds longer, not even sparing a glance for the other – arguably more lethal – members of his ragtag group, before dropping his world with four simple words.

"Tony Stark is dead." She said simply, as though she were discussing the weather.

Steve's world stopped. His shield slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground noisily. Behind her, Clint's eyes widened, disbelief written all over his face. Around them, the other members of their ragtag team all shifted uneasily, not knowing what to do with this newfound information.

"That's not – that can't –" Steve stopped, sucking in a desperate breath, "That's not true." He snapped, his baby blue eyes flicking to his team and back to Natasha, chest tightening ever so slightly. "That's not true, I don't know what kind of sick game you're trying to play with us –"

"I'm not playing any game." Natasha interrupted, her eyes flashing dangerously. The only sign that she was even affected was the fact that she was locked up so tightly that no one could tell what she was thinking. She flicked poisonous green eyes to Bucky, then back to Steve. "Did you know that he went alone? He didn't tell anyone that he'd found you. Went explicitly against JARVIS' wishes and met the two of you. Alone." She repeated monotonously. Steve swallowed, not liking where this was heading.

"JARVIS showed us the feed from the suit before it cut off." She continued, driving the knife deeper into Steve's heart as he recalled the conversation he'd had with Tony. Natasha flicked her eyes towards Bucky again, this time fixing her stare on the ex-assassin. "Barnes ripped out his arc reactor and left him to die. Crushed it so that we couldn't even fix it. But that didn't matter anyway." She tilted her head back towards Steve, piercing with her gaze alone, "He went alone, and it was hours before anyone could even get to where he was. There wouldn't have been enough time to save him anyway."

Steve felt his throat constrict. He shook his head, feeling light-headed, there was no way that Tony was dead. He was Tony freaking Stark for goodness' sake, the man didn't just keel over and die unless he wanted to. Then Natasha's words filtered through. Steve turned slowly, searching out his best friend. Distantly, he heard Natasha say something about a funeral, but he couldn't be bothered anymore.

Bucky, who had remained stoic and unperturbed by the news that the Black Widow brought, shifted uneasily under the weight of his best friend's stare. He had only ever seen Steve looking so lost once, and that was when Steve had tried to drink his way into oblivion after Erksine died. The ex-assassin opened his mouth, but the Captain beat him to it.

"You told me that you knocked him out." Steve said lowly, the gears of his mind turning as he tried to shy away from the truth he had been presented with.

"Same difference," Bucky replied, frowning slightly, "The reactor powers the suit doesn't it? I just removed it –"

"You idiot!" Clint screeched, firing an arrow at Barnes who barely managed to dodge it. The action prompted Wanda and Sam to leap into action, the Falcon tackling Hawkeye, with Wanda standing in front of Bucky, her hands raised in defense.

Steve didn't move. He just stared at his friend, a bitter taste in his mouth. "You killed him." Steve said hollowly, "You killed –," his voice hitched, eyes scrunching up against the burning sensation behind his retinas. His eyes sought out Clint's almond ones, the other man's eyes wide in disbelief and grief.

Bucky pushed past Wanda and touched his friend's arm, shrinking back when Steve flinched away from him. The soldier swallowed, "Look, we're fighting a war, casualties happened alright? There was nothing we could have done –"

"Don't." Steve hissed, glaring at his childhood friend. Bucky was stunned into silence by the venom present in his friend's voice. "You didn't need to kill him." He said flatly.

"Of course I did!" Bucky snarled, tired of having to defend his actions, "He attacked you Steve, he could have killed you and he was our enemy!"

"No he wasn't!" Steve shouted back, "Tony was never our enemy, the people who tried to make us register ourselves were. The people who tried to hunt you down were. Not Tony."

Bucky stared disbelievingly, "He hunted us down too. Or did you forget that? He tracked us – tracked me, and he was going to bring me in, like they wanted –"

"Didn't you hear what Nat said?" Steve demanded, blue eyes flashing angrily, "Tony came to us alone, he wasn't even intending to bring any one of us in –"

"Oh," Bucky sneered, "And I suppose you trust the words of the infamous Black Widow? The one person's whose main specialty is wordplay?"

Steve stared back at him, "As a matter of fact, I do."

Bucky blinked in shock, then frowned, "Why? Even Hydra knew the games she played, how do you know that she isn't playing you now? Because she said so?"

"Because Nat wouldn't do that to us." Clint sneered, shaking off Sam's grip easily.

Bucky scowled at him, "Just because you worked with her before doesn't mean anything –"

"Yes it does." Steve interrupted, his eyes resting on the wall at the far corner. His gaze switched back to Bucky, "It matters, because you – none of you – knows how it feels. To be an Avenger." He gestured to Sam and Wanda, "You two trained under Nat and I, true, but you never fought outside of the training compound." He turned to Bucky, "You were an amnesiac assassin for most of the time you've spent awake, so you wouldn't know either."

Steve closed his eyes, "We fought each other, then fought beside each other, before any of you even came in, and we had already fought against our enemies time and time again. Hydra. Doom. Anything you can think of, we fought."

Clint picked up, "Nat won't play us, because before all this happened, we were once a team who fought the invasion of earth. Any Tony was one of us."

The room fell silent then, and looking at his friend's barely concealed grief, Bucky swallowed the words that threatened to spill from his tongue. Steve avoided all their eyes and picked up his shield, slinging it over his back as he stalked out. Clint sighed heavily, rubbing his face with his hands. He went back to his corner, climbing up to the rafters that Loki had built for him when they had crashed here so many years ago.

For a moment, Clint almost missed the crazy god. Because at least then, he knew who the real enemy was.

Steve trudged through the base, letting his feet take him deeper and deeper into the tunnels. Clint had said that this was meant to be a subway station, but the project was abandoned in favor of other newer prospects, though the tunnels had already been dug out. This meant that Steve was able to lose himself in the tunnels, his mind a jumbled mess of thoughts.

When he got tired of walking, he sat down, bringing his shield in front of him. He looked at the vibranium, the bright colors mocking him. Steve closed his eyes, wishing – for once – that Natasha was lying. That she was sent to play mind games with them, throwing them off their balance. But no, he had seen the flicker in her eyes, the way her lips were pressed tightly together, the way she repressed any and all emotion. He looked at his shield, recalling the way Tony had stolen it from his room time after time, until Steve relented and let the inventor tinker around with it. He made sure to remain in the lab with Tony though.

The genius had rolled his eyes then, smirking at his reluctance to leave his 'precious shield' alone and unprotected. Steve had rolled his eyes at him, but the genius just shrugged it off. True to his word, Tony did nothing but run tests on the shield, curious to understand how it could withstand a hit from Mjolnir – arguably one of, if not the strongest weapon in the world – and not dent in the slightest. The genius had muttered under his breath, bantering back and forth with JARVIS in between his scans and tests. Most of the jargon had flown over Steve's head, but Tony had explained it to him in terms that he could understand when the super soldier had asked.

Looking at the shield now, Steve tried to force back those memories, his chest tightening in guilt. He had never meant for all of this to happen, only wanted to protect Bucky and fight for what was right. Now, he only felt tired. This was the first real casualty in the civil war they were locked in. The only death that hit too close to home. The original Avengers were split up, not only between the two factions, but by physical proximity as well. Thor was stuck up in Asgard searching for answers to his vision, and Bruce was nowhere to be found. Steve knocked his head back against the wall, feeling his conviction drain out of him.

He knew that what he was fighting for was freedom, but at what cost? Bucky had killed Tony because Steve betrayed Tony's trust.

The super soldier laughed humorlessly, the thought crushing his heart. Tony had told him about the suit's weak point because he trusted Steve with the information. Trusted Steve not to take advantage of it. The blast that had sent Steve crashing into the walls were nothing short of an instinctive response.

And Bucky had made Tony pay for that.

Steve covered his face with his hands, trying to breathe through the overwhelming guiltangerfrustrationwhywhywhywhyWHY –

He retched. Steve choked on air, gasping for breath. This wasn't supposed to happen. Tony wasn't supposed to be dead. He'd thought Hydra infiltrating SHIELD was bad enough. That getting Bucky back made everything right again. A sob tore itself out from his throat. He was supposed to find Bucky, make him remember and introduce him to his friends – to Tony, because that's what friends did. And God, Tony was his friend. How could he have done this? He let his prejudice against the genius cloud his judgment. Tony had proven himself time and again to be trustworthy, despite his penchant for solo acts. He had shown to be loyal, self-sacrificing, a true hero in every sense of the word. How could Steve betray him like that?

He should've trusted the man, who'd dealt with politics all his life. Instead, he turned his back and ran away, too focused on saving the friend he thought he'd lost - couldn'tlosehimagainno – that he didn't realize how much he was hurting the ones who had stuck by him. He was the leader of the Avengers, but he tore them apart for his own selfishness, split them down the middle, and forced friends to turn against friends. He didn't regret saving Bucky – no he would never regret that – but he could have done it differently. The words he threw at Tony when Ultron first attacked came into his mind.

"And how are we gonna fight against that? Against a horde of aliens pouring from the sky?"

"Together."

"… We'll lose."

"Then we'll do that together too."

Steve allowed the tears to fall, the salty droplets squeezing their way out from tightly shut lids. He had told Tony that they would stay together – fight together, and then he turned around and opened a rift. The Captain curled into a ball, guilt and grief wracking his mind as he tried to process the loss of his friend.

In the end, the whole situation resolved itself with the help of one Pepper Potts. The CEO of Stark Industries had taken SHIELD and the government by storm, her fierce, no-nonsense attitude shooting down them down effortless. She traversed the political landmine with her head held high, a cold glint in her eyes that promised retribution to those who dared to oppose her. In the end, they worked out a truce – one that Pepper had proposed and which she had shot down any who tried to get their way around it. In the end, even the Council had to bow down to Pepper, and from the smug sheen in her eyes as she stepped out of the conference room, the woman knew it too.

Steve found himself in Stark Industries, where Pepper had disappeared into after the conference. He held himself warily as he walked past the SHIELD operatives, mindful of the fact that not a day ago, they were his enemies. But they didn't do anything against him, and Steve let himself relax in the lift. He told JARVIS to take him to wherever Pepper was, and winced at the frigid tone of the AI. The elevator ride was silent, and Steve took the time to mull over the thoughts in his head.

The lift doors opened to a silent floor, and Steve slowly walked across the expanse of the floor to the large set of wooden doors at the end. He took a deep breath, then knocked twice on the door.

"Pepper? Its Steve, can I talk to you for a minute?"

No answer came from within for a long while, making the captain think that he was wrong, and Pepper wasn't in after all.

"Come in."

Steve released a breath he didn't know he was holding, and opened the door.

Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries and closest confidante to Tony Stark sat at her desk, typing away rapidly on her desktop, paper strewn all over the place. Her office was immaculate – neat and tidy – save for the mess on the desk. It was such a stark contrast to the rest of her room that Steve's eyes were drawn to it almost immediately. The word 'Registration' jumped out when he drew near, and Steve forced himself to look away, his heart hammering in his chest.

"What can I do for you Mr. Rogers?" Pepper asked, her voice warm, with a smile on her face that didn't reach her eyes.

Steve swallowed, Pepper was a nice woman, but she could rival the Widow at times when she was scary. "I – I just wanted to thank you. What you've done… it really means a lot to the superhero community."

Pepper held his gaze steadily, her forest green eyes pinning Steve's sky blue ones. She broke their staring contest first, looking away as she swept up the pieces of paper into a stack.

"You don't need to thank me." She said, organizing her stack of papers into something less haphazard. "Tony would have done the same." She murmured, missing Steve's flinch at her offhand comment. "He was never one to listen to others," she said wistfully, looking down at the paper in her hands with a solemn look in her eyes, "he would never have agreed to a restriction, not when he enjoys the freedom that being Iron Man gives him." Her gaze swept back up to Steve, who felt his throat constrict at the look in her eyes. It wasn't accusing – no, he would rather have taken that instead – it was grief. Pure unadulterated grief. It was the look of someone who had hopes for the future but lost them all.

Steve couldn't take it anymore.

He stammered out an excuse that he didn't even catch and all but fled the room, leaving behind a woman so strong yet so broken, knowing it was all his fault.

He should've known that Tony wouldn't agree to the registration. He did know how much Tony disliked being controlled by others – the interactions the genius had with Fury were more than proof of that. But in the heat of the moment, Steve had allowed himself to doubt, and now he was facing the backlash of his actions.

He hurried back to his apartment – the one that Tony had criticized far too much about – and buried himself in his grief and guilt.

Right... Not sure if you guys hate me now, but I do hope you enjoyed the story. I couldn't decide how to write this chapter at first, so I made Tony into a martyr. I'm really sorry for that.

Nevertheless, please leave a review on your way out! I would very much like to hear what are your thoughts about this chapter/story. :)