Re: Steve and Tony
There was a retort on the tip of Steve's tongue - a sharp and furious does everything you say have to be an insult - but he bit down on his cheek rather than give voice to it, because calling Stark on his petty digs wasn't going to get them anywhere, even if it might prove satisfying in the short-term. It probably wouldn't even manage that, since Steve had yet to come out of any of their verbal sparring matches feeling like he'd won a damn thing. Stark had the ability to rock him back on his heels in a way very few others did, and on top of that, he seemed to have a talent for bringing out the very worst in Steve, who still hadn't entirely forgiven himself for that dig about the man's parents.
Besides, it helped that Stark's very next words left Steve speechless. You're right was quite possibly the last thing he'd have expected to ever hear Stark say in his direction, and it had him feeling even more unbalanced than could be accomplished via provocation and offense alone. And maybe that was the reason he couldn't quite decipher what Stark was getting at, this business about picking a successor.
"So then what are you suggesting?" Steve asked, folding his arms across his chest and studying Stark intently. "That I buddy up to someone now, play nice for the cameras? That'll only make them a more obvious target to Stane; he'll make sure they never make it out of the arena." Of that. Steve had no doubt. Their death would be just as guaranteed as his own. It was going to be the job of those who were still here to build up public support, to rally them around a new figurehead. But Steve didn't believe it was as impossible as Stark was making it out to be. This was horrific timing, true, because kickstarting a revolution now meant rushing, and that was all too likely to end in tragedy. But that didn't mean that Panem's people didn't want a revolution, didn't mean they wouldn't support the person who promised them their uprising, someone who had been just as victimized by the Capitol as they had. And if there was one single thing that Steve had learned in the last year, it was that the majority of the Victors had been taken advantage of in ways that had never even occurred to Steve.
This could still work. Stark just clearly needed someone to remind him that the Districts weren't an acceptable sacrifice in their pursuit of ridding Panem of Stane. There would be losses, of that Steve was certain, but there was a difference between letting people make the choice themselves, walk forward apprised of the situation, their eyes wide open, versus throwing them to the wolves to further an agenda. And that was what Steve couldn't stomach.