Uncompromising Principles

Disclaimer: Premise and characters belong to Marvel, I'm just playing with them.

Notes: I should be working on my "Blue Exorcist" stories but "Civil War" has hijacked my brain.

I found Steve's position relatable and sympathetic… and wrong. He's arguing that the Avengers don't need oversight while right in the middle of getting wrapped up in his personal crusade and dragging almost all of the other Avengers after him through sheer force of personality. At least Tony's learned to admit that he's not perfect and is acting like someone raised in a democracy (listening to what the majority of people want rather than decreeing that he knows best).

"You don't deserve that shield." Tony's voice was harsh, full of anger, full of pain.

He could have been talking about the shield as a symbol of the United States and the laws Steve was breaking. Even if Bucky was innocent of the bombing he was still a wanted man, helping him evade capture was still a crime.

But Steve knew that wasn't what Tony meant. In Germany it might have been about the Accords. At least it might have been about the laws for Tony back then, had it really only been hours ago? Steve had been out to save the world and hadn't been about to let the laws of a power-hungry, vengeful lunatic like Ross stand in his way. Only Tony had proven himself willing to ignore the Accords when the stakes were high enough but the threat had turned out to be a sham. The only stakes left now were personal ones.

Howard Stark had created the shield and now Steve was using it to defend the man who'd killed both Howard and his wife.

Steve liked to think that if Howard were here he'd recognize that Bucky wasn't at fault. That Bucky had been used, cruelly used. He wanted to believe Howard would agree that blaming Bucky for what Hydra had done to him would only be allowing them to claim yet another victim. Howard had known Bucky, he'd been Bucky's friend as much as Steve's. If he'd known what Hydra had done to Bucky, Steve was sure Howard would put the blame where it belonged, on Hydra. 'If it hadn't been sprung on him like that maybe Tony would have understood too,' Steve thought regretfully.

He glanced back. Tony had pulled himself part-way upright. His helmet gone, the chest plate of his armor shattered, the arc reactor dark.

Howard Stark had given Steve a weapon, and Steve had used it against Howard's son.

In Steve's opinion Tony owed his father a lot more respect than he gave. Howard had been a great man, he'd done so much to help the Allies during the war. At the same time, as much as Steve respected Howard, after getting know Tony he sometimes found himself wondering what sort of father Howard had been, wondering if he'd still have the same respect for Howard if he'd seen the man Tony knew. Still Howard was Tony's father, Tony was Howard's son. Steve had used the weapon Howard created to batter Howard's son into submission.

Steve let the shield drop.

Steve and Bucky staggered out of the compound into the bitterly cold Siberian air. "We have to move fast," Steve said. "Grab Zemo and go. FRIDAY would have sent out an S.O.S. the moment she lost contact with Tony, his team's on their way."

"Zemo is not a concern," a smooth, deep voice said.

The two super soldiers jerk around, instantly on high alert. The Black Panther held up a placating hand. "Be at peace. I am done with vengeance." His other hand was hauling the unconscious Helmut Zemo along after him. "I wish to offer you sanctuary."

"Why?" Bucky demanded suspiciously.

"Because you did not kill my father." T'Challa sighed softly, "I would have thrown away everything my father believed to hunt down a man who, in the end, was not even guilty. I wish to make amends for wronging you." He glanced down at Zemo, "I wish to prove that I am different, better than the one who caused this."

"The Accords are still wrong, even worse than I initially believed." Steve declared firmly. "If Ross had been allowed to have his way Bucky would have been locked up forever without a trial. Neither Buck nor your father would ever have had justice, the truth would have been buried. Wanda, Clint, Sam and Ant-Man are locked up in supervillain prison for helping me do what needed to be done. If you and Tony bring Zemo in it will look like the group that supported the Accords got results but that's not what happened. You're only here because the two of you broke the Accords yourself."

T'Challa looked pensive. "My actions only serve to illustrate the need for oversight. I may have fought on the side of those who supported the Accords but I fought with murder in my heart, not the rule of law. And yet, I believe my father would have been appalled to see how the Accords are being perverted in their implementation. I do not wish to see my actions here used to further Secretary Ross' agenda. What do you suggest as an alternative?"

"Change the story," Steve said. "Tony caught up with Bucky and I, we ended up in another fight over the Accords. While we were busy tearing each other apart you caught the real bad guy. Zemo was responsible for the UN bombing, you…"

"Like Tony Stark, I learned that the doctor who was summoned to interrogate the Winter Soldier had been murdered over a week ago," said T'Challa. He shrugged, "I could have pursued the imposture's trail to this place. He confessed to the bombing."

"FRIDAY would have sent out a mayday for Tony, his team's coming for him. Waiting a few extra hours here won't hurt him," Steve decided. "We fought over the Accords, over whether or not Bucky should be detained. I disabled Tony's armor. Bucky and I fled, Tony couldn't have pursued us. There's plenty of physical evidence backing that up. It should be enough to protect Tony from Ross." He turned to T'Challa, "You arrived, captured Zemo and left. You didn't know Bucky and I were nearby, you didn't know Tony was here. There isn't any evidence to back that you didn't let us escape but…"

"But I am King of Wakanda. The US Secretary of State would find little support should he see fit to question my word," T'Challa stated. "I believe your story will hold."

"Would you mind extending that offer of sanctuary to a few others?" Steve asked.

Steve and Bucky leaned over a schematic of the Raft T'Challa had provided. "We won't manage it if Ironman opposes the escape," Bucky stated.

Steve sighed, "I don't want to fight Tony again. He always knew the Accords were going to cause problems but he still thought signing them would help." He gave Bucky a pained look, "We came of age fighting a war, Tony came of age running a business. Everything's a negotiation to him but we saw where appeasement got us against the Nazis. Still, when he came to Siberia I think Tony was starting to understand that we can't function under the Accords. Then he saw that video and- and everything went to hell."

"What do you expect? He'd just watch me murder his parents," Bucky said regretfully. He frowned, puzzled. "Why didn't you tell him before that?"

"I-" Steve started then trailed off.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I remember telling myself something about stirring up painful memories for no reason. Besides, I've long since learned not to talk to Tony about Howard Stark, our memories of him are just too different."

"That's not a reason Punk," Bucky said.

"It sounded like one then." Steve sighed, "I know I should have told him. If he'd had a chance to think it through… Tony's not a bad guy, aggravating yeah but underneath- Maybe if I'd told him, if he'd had time without you right there… He'd have understood it wasn't your fault. But every time I thought about telling Tony, I- Just thinking about it, about talking about it, I'd feel sick."

"You know what I did but you don't want to put faces on my victims."

"No!" Steve protested. "It wasn't you. It was Hydra, you're not to blame!"

"I do remember," Bucky said distantly. "I remember them all but Howard more than most. He wasn't you, wasn't enough to break me loose of the conditioning, but I knew who he was. I knew I was killing one of ours that night."

Steve cringed back, then his shoulders dropped. "I fucked up, not warning Tony."

"Yeah," Bucky agreed. "And if he wants a rematch we won't get anyone out of the Raft. Probably end up joining them. Terrain's not in our favor."

"It was bad enough, Zemo springing it on Tony like that," Steve said, "But knowing I could have warned him and I didn't... I've got to find a way to apologize."

They staked out the one of the facilities responsible for providing the Raft with supplies for a week waiting for their chance. When the freight plane took off they were stowed away in the wheel-wells. The flight was uncomfortable and colder than Steve would like, but they had scuba tanks to deal with the thin air and the rest of the problems associated with the lack of pressurization weren't a problem for the two super soldiers.

The moment before the plane touched down on the deck they dropped out and rolled. By the time the plane finished breaking they'd pried up a hatch and vanished into one of the maintenance chases that provided access to the massive hydraulics which raised and lowered the Raft. "Covert, remember that Punk," Bucky said. "The longer it take for them to notice us the better our odds of getting out of here."

"Just worry about getting our ride home," Steve replied. Moving smoothly together the pair planted several shaped charges around redwood-sized piston cylinder. The timer on the charges read ten minutes. Bucky headed back for the hatch while Steve vaulted over the railing and dropped several floors deeper into the system of chases ringing the mechanism.

There were no floor-levels posted inside the chases, Steve estimated the depth to determine when he'd reached the floor where his Avengers were being held. For a second he paused, bracing himself in a doorjam. The bang of the charges going off echoed down the shaft, closely followed by a groan of tortured metal as the Raft slowly began to list as the piston they'd sabotaged hemorrhaged hydraulic fluid.

Alarms blared across the prison. Steve kicked out the door and ran for the cells.

The floor stabilized at a twenty degree tilt when the rod on the collapsing hydraulic bent and jammed in it's shaft. It would be months before the Raft could be lowered beneath the ocean surface again.

"Cap! About time you got here!" Clint exclaimed jumping off his cell bunk as Steve knocked a guard unconscious, slamming him against the wall next to the security panel. Steve took a moment to study the panel then opened the cell doors. Clint, Sam and Scott Lang quickly abandoned their cells.

Clint ducked into Wanda's cell and gave the straight-jacketed girl a hand up. While the archer worked on the buckles of the straight-jacket Steve joined them. He grabbed the power-restraining collar locked around Wanda's neck with both hands and ripped it apart. "Do you know where your equipment is?" he asked the others.

"Haven't seen our gear since Germany," Clint replied. "Don't know that I'd want it even if it was here, Stark's had his hands all over it, probably lousy with trackers."

Scott raised his hand, "For the record, I want my stuff back. Pym'll kill me if I lose that suit."

"We'll get it," Steve promised. "I'm not leaving something like that in Ross' hands."

"Or Stark's," Clint added.

"If Stark gets Pym's suit I'll kill myself before Hank finds me, it'll hurt less," Scott said.

Wanda used her powers to clear out a unit of guards who were blocking the stairwell. The five Avengers made quick progress toward the upper deck of the Raft.

On the deck they found Bucky holding off over a dozen men with a bow-staff. "Took you long enough," he said as the Avengers joined the fray. He jerked his chin toward the supply plane, "Who's our pilot?"

"Didn't you used to have two arms?" Scott asked. "What happened?"

"Stark," Bucky replied shortly.

"Goddamn traitor," Clint snarled as he raced passed Bucky, up the plane's ramp and threw himself in the pilot's seat. As he ran through the pre-flight the others continued holding off a growing contingent of the Raft's guards. "We're good to go, start piling in."

Sam and Scott were the first inside followed by Bucky. The plane started to roll, the hatch still open. Steve gave Wanda a nudge toward the door as he yanked the lid off a crate and hurtled it into the mass of guards. He waited another five seconds then turned and started running. He leapt into the plane just as it started picking up speed. A hail of bullets bounced off the hull then they were in the air, the Raft falling away beneath them.

"Looks like we're good," Sam declared once he'd checked the radar. "I've got nothing in the air closer than twenty minutes."

"No Ironman, your apology must have worked Punk," Bucky remarked.

"You apologized to that asshole? After everything he's done?" Clint demanded angrily.

"I owed it to him," Steve disagreed. "It had nothing to do with the Accords."

That garnered a curious look from Sam.

"I withheld information about his parents' murder," Steve explained glancing away.

"Murder? Didn't they die in some big car wreck?" Scott remarked. "I remember it was all over the news, kept interrupting my cartoons for weeks."

"What did you expect?" Sam remarked. "The Gulf War was still ongoing, Howard Stark was the founder, CEO and primary creative force behind Stark Industries, the U.S.'s primary munitions supplier, conspiracy theories abounded. But Scott's right, it was eventually declared an accident."

Steve glanced at Bucky then winced and glanced away.

"Oh hell. Him?" Sam exclaimed. "At least tell me you guys managed to deal with those other Winter Soldiers before Stark went ballistic. I mean he did help you, right? Please tell me he didn't play me."

"Zemo played all of us," Steve said shortly. "He killed the Winter Soldiers at the bunker, it was never really about them, just us." He glanced at Wanda and sighed. "Zemo's family died in Sokovia."

"Fuck," Clint swore. "So it was all for nothing. I can't go home and it was all for nothing."

King T'Challa's sister escorted the fugitive Avengers, fresh from their prison-break, to an isolated wing of the palace. A gentle breeze wafted through the lounge carrying with it the smells of the jungle while providing relief from the subtropical heat. "I will not countermand my brother's offer of sanctuary," she said. "But please do not leave this area. We expect his return tomorrow. Then your position may be clarified."

"Friendly girl," Clint remarked once they were alone.

"Wakanda was one of the primary drivers behind the Accords," Sam pointed out. "Us being here could cost the King quite a lot of political clout."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the group. Bucky withdrew from the group to stare out one of the large, open windows. Wanda and Scott looked around their new surroundings curiously.

"Did you hear anything about how Rhodes is doing?" Sam asked Steve. "The guards at the Raft refused to give us any updates on the team."

"Rhodes?" Steve looked confused.

Sam's shoulders slumped. "Friendly fire back in Germany. Vision tried to knock out my power, I dodged and he hit War Machine. With my wings I could have glided down safely but Rhodes- Stark and I tried to catch him but there wasn't time. He hit hard. I don't even know if he's alive."

"I didn't know," Steve said quietly.

"Hey, we've got a TV," Scott announced.

Steve, Sam and Clint glared at him and Scott wilted. "Not the best way to get news I grant but it's something isn't? The jailbreak'll be all over the news. I mean I can't imagine there's anything bigger going on in the world. So they'll talk about how we got caught. That might lead into a story about, um, War Machine's condition."

Scott turned on the TV and started flipping channels. A picture of Tony Stark appeared. "Ugh- should have known he'd dominate all the stories," Clint said bitterly.

From the model of the armor the picture was a few years old, Tony had the helmet off and his 'genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist' grin on, he looked like he was on top of the world. Scott reached out to try another channel then froze as the picture was replaced. In the new picture, Tony was slumped against a concrete wall, his face covered in blood. The armor's chestplate shattered, the arc reactor dark. "In addition to charges of obstructing justice, vigilantism, aiding and abetting a fugitive, Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America, has also been charged with the murder of Anthony Edward Stark, Ironman."

"Tony was okay," Steve protested as he drew unwillingly closer to the television. "A little banged up- I disabled the armor! He hasn't needed the arc reactor in years!"

"Maybe someone trying to frame you?" Sam offered, unable to tear his eyes off the screen.

"This is some sort of sick stunt!" Clint exclaimed angrily. "Tony's too much of jerk to die."

"Looks pretty real to me," Scott mumbled.

"...Full autopsy reports are pending, but preliminary findings indicate that the cause of death was asphyxiation following the collapse of both lungs..."

"Collapsed lungs?" Steve whispered. His eyes met Clint's, "That would have felt like-"

"-Drowning," Clint finished. "God, this is messed up."

"I have to turn myself in," Steve said, his voice shaky.

"What!" several of the others exclaimed.

"You didn't know. You didn't mean to," Scott protested.

"I broke his ribs. I hit him with my shield, Howard's shield, until his chest plate caved in. I walked away and he died. I don't think Tony gives a damn about what I meant to do, I killed him."

"He deserved it!" Wanda exclaimed.

"No, he didn't," Steve said sternly. "Wanda, I know you've got reasons for hating Tony, but it wasn't his fault your parents were killed… Any more than it was Bucky's fault that Tony's parents were murdered.

"When we met I told Tony he wasn't a hero because he wasn't willing to die for his team… He proved me wrong later that day but, but when I said that he said that he hoped he'd think to cut the wire. I didn't get it, not then. But while we were waiting for the chance to get you guys back I finally had the time to sit down and think about why Tony would support the Accords. He isn't, wasn't a soldier, he always had the hardest time accepting the collateral damage, he always blamed himself that he hadn't been able to think of a better way.

"In the war, I was ground, front lines or pushing into Axis territory. On the battlefield there was nothing left to destroy but the enemy, bombs, earlier battles had already taken everything else. You'd see the remains of what had been peaceful towns before the war got there and feel regret, maybe, if someone wasn't shooting at you. But we'd seen the what the Blitz had done to London, winning the war in Europe meant keeping our home safe from that.

"It wasn't until after I woke up here that I started fighting in our cities, with our civilians around. We do our best but we can't save everyone, still I could tell myself that more people would have died if we hadn't been there and accept that it was true: If we hadn't been in Lagos, if we'd allowed Rumlow to get away with a biological weapon how many would have died? Wanda, if you hadn't been there, if you'd let the blast go off at street level, how many more people would have been hurt? You minimized casualties getting him in the air, but you couldn't save everyone. That's just the way things are.

"We debrief and talk about about what we could have done better after every battle, it's important to learn for next time. But I can be at peace as long as I can say we made things better by being there. I think Tony couldn't forgive himself the ones that we failed, I didn't understand that. It's not realistic to think that we can save everyone and it's not right it give a bunch of people with who knows what as an agenda the right to punish us for not being able to meet an impossible standard, but I think Tony really did believe we ought to be perfect. Maybe it was because of what made him become Ironman, or because he was arrogant enough to think that he should have been smart enough to think of a way to save everyone. I don't know.

"I didn't get it. When Tony said he hoped he'd think to cut the wire. I thought he was being flippant. Well he was but I think he also believed it. Believed that he should be able to think of a way to keep anyone from having to die. That there was something wrong, that he'd, we'd failed in some way if we couldn't manage that. I've always accepted that I'm not perfect, always accepted that I'd done the best I could. Yes, sometimes people die when we go into battle but I don't let myself obsess about it. It would paralyze me, then how many more would die because I was trying to save everyone instead of focusing on the ones I could save?

"But this? For the first time I get where Tony was coming from. There had to have been another way, a better way. Tony believed that signing the Accords would help. He was a good man, doing what he believed was right. I still believe the Accords will tie our hands, that they'll allow people to die who shouldn't. But if I can't disagree with my friend without… Oh my God, Tony died feeling like he was drowning."

The echo of the super soldiers' footsteps faded in the distance.

Tony grimaced and started the undignified process of struggling to free himself from his deactivated armor. Without power the suit was so much dead weight, it was taking all his merely mortal strength just to get upright. Moving sent shocks of pain throughout his chest. 'Ribs as shattered as the armor over 'em.'

He thumbed a switch on the inside of his gauntlets and they peeled back, leaving his hands exposed to the bitter Siberian air. Then he reached for the locking mechanism. Without power there wasn't enough give in the armor's arm to reach the switch from his current position. With a grunt of effort Tony shoved himself backward. The armor tilted precariously then fell. Something shifted painfully in Tony's chest, his skin crawled at the wrongness of feeling his ribs move. He reached for the lock again.

A much sharper pain tore through his chest. The agony got worse with every breath. Flashes of memory. Were they cutting his chest open again? There was no air, he couldn't breath.

Tony tasted sand and oil-slicked water. He couldn't breath!

'There's no water. Not Afghanistan. Just gotta-' He couldn't breath!

The restraining weight of the dead armor morphed into bruising hands. He could feel the wires attaching him to the battery trailing over his chest. "Give me the Jericho!" Then they were forcing him back into the water.

Had he ever left the cave? Were the last six years real? Ironman, the Avengers, had any of it even happened or was his escape just a hallucination?

For a brief second he broke the surface, Tony's gaze lit on the abandoned shield, the stars and stripes scared by their battle. The pain in his chest was agonizing, the shrapnel, the presence of electromagnet shoved in where ribs should be. Then they forced him under again. He fought to get his head above water but it was no use. He couldn't hold out any more, he gasped for air. Instead of water, pain rushed in spiralling higher and higher until blackness took him.

"He's my friend."

"So was I."