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Rules of Catharsis
Mar. 8th, 2026 09:12 pmUniverse: MCU
Pairing: Pepper Potts & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Morgan Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (implied)
Rating: G
Word Count: 266
Summary: Contrition alone could neither save nor damn him. Only the wronged held that power. But Tony was gone, unable to answer him, and Steve wondered who else could grant him the reprieve that came through absolution or castigation.
Notes: Inspired by the following prompt for Lights on Park Ave round 63:
"Now I’m going to tell you everything. I must get it off my chest. I’ve already told an angel in heaven, now I have to tell an angel on earth, too. You’re my angel on earth. You’ll listen to me, judge me, and forgive me… What I need is for someone higher than myself to forgive me." — The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
On AO3
One day, Steve knew, he would have to tell her. That was when he would get the answer he sought.
Tony couldn't give it to him and neither could Pepper.
"It's my fault as much as it's yours," she had said when he went to her, and Steve had wanted to shout at her that she was wrong. Had wanted to shout at her to shout at him, to demand that she pass judgment on him, to hate him, instead of smiling at him sadly like she understood.
"If I didn't go to Tony with our plan," he had said desperately.
"If I didn't tell Tony to go ahead with his plan," she had replied.
He wanted to be hurt, wanted to be hurt by her—because only she could hurt him the way he needed to be hurt, because that hurt would be the only thing that made sense in a world that no longer made any sense—but she refused.
"I can't give you what you're looking for," she had said, and Steve had wondered who could, then, when the answer came to them, more alive than the resurrected world they had made, more alone than the dead world they had left behind, and the question changed from who to when.
One day, he would tell Morgan "We did this for you," and he would tell her everything. He would lay his fault, his failings, at her feet; he would kneel in front of her.
He would wait for her sword to swing down, pardon or punishment, for what they had done to her.
