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Steve was reacting.
That was all he’d been doing since this whole mess began.
His reaction to finding out the Winter Soldier killed Howard and Maria Stark was to keep it to himself.
His reaction to the Sokovia Accords was to stand firmly behind his beliefs.
His reaction to Tony trying to kill Bucky was to use equal force.
So, when he slammed his shield down on Tony’s chest plate, a part of him wanted to kill Tony.
The hollow clang felt anticlimactic.
Tony’s eyes widened in disbelief and fear.
Before Steve could say something, say anything, he was thrown backwards by a blue flash of light.
He slammed into a concrete wall and saw something from his past life.
A galaxy of shifting colors—
The same one Steve saw when Red Skull grabbed the Tesseract.
A burning sound mingled with screams pulled his eyes back to Tony.
Red embers snaked their way up Tony’s exposed neck, leaving ash in their wake.
Tony’s body was caving in on itself, scorched into nothing as a galaxy danced above him.
Silence filled Steve’s senses.
He carefully stood up. His hands were trembling and his heart was racing, but he had to see—He had to see what had happened to his friend.
Tony was gone.
All that was left was an empty suit and the smell of burning flesh.