Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

So… it wasn’t his fault. It really wasn’t. He promises. No matter what Steve says, it wasn’t Tony’s fault he got his ass kidnapped. No matter what sort of aerial moves Tony was pulling out in fucking Antartica, of all places, it really isn’t his fault that he got hit by an EMP. A really strong one, too, given that the suit just… gave up. The good thing is he was at the bottom of his arc, at the closest point to the ground, running parallel to it. So no broken necks or long falls. The bad news? No one sees him go down.

The manual release hatches aren’t too hard to engage, since the system that operates them is mechanical, not electrical. Tony stumbles out of the suit and into the forever-dark of the antarctic fall. Immediately, he shivers and fights the urge to climb back inside. But, no, he can’t wait.

He feels along the thighs of the armor for the latches and pulls into his hands a pistol and a small black box. In the box is an extra earpiece.

“-ARK! I swear if you’re ignoring the co-”

“I’m here, I’m here. Shit. Ahh, looks like an EMP. I’m outside the suit and it’s fucking freezing and I have a gun on me and that’s about it so please hurry.”

“Location?”

“I don’t fucking know!”

“Language!”

“Get here, then lecture me. Jesus, it’s cold,” Tony mutters as he starts to look around. He’s caught between trying to cover his armor up to disguise it from any scavenger or just making a break for it.

Shit. Fuck it. Fuck it all. Tony starts running, uncomfortably aware that he is leaving some very clear tracks if anyone has a flashlight to see. He hears a roar, and against every ounce of his very tiny amount of self preservation, Tony drop dead sprints directly toward the noise.

“I’m headed towards the battle!” He yells into his comm as he reminds himself to keep the gun pointed downwards, held in both hands. No shaking. At any moment, he might have to fire the pistol

“Do not go towards the battle!” Steve yells. Someone on another channel grunts.

“I can’t not go towards the battle. I’m stranded here in the dark with dead suit and no fucking shoes and it is freezing. I can’t find anything else!” He crests another hill of snow, feet sinking, fingers and hands reddening and numbing. God, it’s cold.

“Tony, it’s too dangerous-” but it’s too late, because Tony’s finally reached the end of where he first went down, and made it to the top of another hill.

“God, really?” The Villain of the Week, whoever they may be, thought that releasing Abomination style monsters in order to protect their antarctic base was a good idea. There were five. Now there are seven.

“Just hang on, Tony,” Steve grunts into the line as Falcon drops him onto the monsters. One of them gets their head smashed in enough to fell them. And then it got back up.

“Call it. We need the Hulk,” Tony says.

“Negative. The hulk is not necessary.” Because there are civilians in the base. Supposedly.

“If I were, like, in working order maybe. Jarv. You there?”

“I am in a basic sense, sir.”

“Good. Signal the-”

“Iron-”

“Hulk.”

“Yes sir.” Just then, Tony refocuses on the Abomination style fucktards and realizes that… that thing that had hit Tony and sent him down is aimed at falcon.

“Falcon! You’re going down next!”

“Pulling out, Cap. Tony. I’m headed your way.” Tony’s starting to shiver so badly that he’s finding it hard to talk as Falcon pulls out of his dive and flies in a near horizontal arc, headed in Tony’s direction. Tony can see the exact moment the EMP hits. Falcon’s wings stop being a single, streamlined thing of beauty in flight, and start being metal in air. It’s then, as Falcon dips sharply and heads towards a face first death in the dark of Antarctica, that Tony realizes his mistake.

“Falc- Shit!” Tony curses and takes off running, trying to mime to Falcon the action of shifting; fuck the machinery, he needs to stay in the air until he can land properly.

“Steve! He needs to shift!”

“He can’t!”

“He knows where the damn release catches are!”

“Well we can’t reach him now!” Steve says over the comms just as Falcon manages to use those catches and abruptly regains altitude as the metal wings fall to the earth and his dark reddish brown flesh and blood wings take him higher.

“Falcon is okay. Repeat: Falcon is okay.” He’s also about the only thing that is okay, though. One of the wish-it-was-the-abominations (they’re up to eleven; seven felled, nine replacements) turns towards Falcon, whose comms were knocked out, and begins to charge.

“No. No!” Tony shouts as he takes off running, the cold making it hard to feel anything that isn’t his furiously thundering heart beat. With some effort, he raises the nose of his gun and shoots just as the thing gets close enough. Tony made weapons for years. Made and intimately knew weapons for years. It’s no surprise that he hits it dead in the meat of its eye.

It’s also no surprise when the monster and the two that wanted to follow it change directions and charge the man with nothing but a .45 and seven shots left. Tony shakes his head, aims, and fires. He doesn’t try the spare any of them pain.

The seventh bullet hits the other eye of the first monster, but he does not stop. Instead, he runs blind. Tony trips as he moves backwards, and the sixth shot misses, glancing off a jut of cartilaginous plating on the second monster’s shoulder. He moves farther away again, re-aims, and fires his fifth bullet. He hits the eye of the second monster.

He trips again as he scrabbles to get behind a snow bank. A half second to steady himself, and the fourth bullet goes into the fourth eye, the third to the fifth, second to sixth. Then Tony moves, the bullet in the chamber the only one he’s got. With the abominations running as blind as he is in the dark, he skirts the perimeter of the battle, only to trip on the hand of a dead monster.

With his knees in snow all melted and rotten with strange blood, Tony looks to his right, back towards the battle, and stares into wide open, gory eye sockets. The animal in him wants to take over; wants to pull him into his cat form where the fur will protect him and have him run far, far away. So far away, in fact, that nothing ever hurts him. But he can’t shift. Not with the light in his chest.

He pushes himself up, calves somehow even colder, and keeps moving. Distantly, he realizes he’s been hearing roars of a familiar timbre.

“Tony! Tony, are you there? We’ve got falcon, but we can’t see you.” Tony backs away from the eyeless monster. Logically, he’s well aware that Steve is the one who killed this creature. But the other three… god. His animal is pushing at his skin as he sinks onto a bank of disrupted snow.

“I… I’m here. Somewhere.” Widow must hear something in his voice, because her next words are softer.

“Describe it.”

“There’s a dead monster. God, it’s cold, guys.” Tony’s got his shoulders folded in, the arc reactor light hidden by his knees as he kneels down till he’s balanced on his calves and feet, head hanging lower.

He hears footsteps and reacts, bringing his gun up and turning around. One bullet in the chamber. One last shot. Then he’s dead. But he never takes the shot.

“It’s me, Tony. Just me,” Widow murmurs as she gets a little closer. Gently, she sets her hand down on the gun and pushes it down so that it’s aimed at the snow. She tries to get her coat off to give it to Tony, but at the idea of taking his hand off the last protection he has, he nearly loses his shit. Widow lets it go.

“Come on, love. We’ll get you to the jet and all warmed up. I think Hulk is worried. You know it’s always good when he worries because he sticks around long enough to give you hugs.” Tony loves it when the Hulk hugs him. It’s not something he told anyone; no one likes a needy Tony Stark. Some circles like Tony the Whore, others, Tony the Generous, but not one person in his entire life has ever appreciated Tony the Needy.

“He’ll just get mad,” Tony mumbles as the Widow gently guides him around huge banks of thrown up snow.

“Not at you,” Widow murmurs as she ushers Tony closer to where the Hulk stands, waiting. “Tony? Hulk would like to hug you now. He needs you to give me your gun. He’s going to be your protection.”

“I… I can’t.” Widow looks worried, not that Tony can see or register that.

“Why don’t you tell me about your gun?”

“It’s a .45. 8 shots. It’s all I have.”

“You have the Hulk.”

“Do I? There’s only one bullet left. It’s a hollow tip. Best I can make.”

“Metalman has Hulk. Metalman leave gun.”

“You don’t even have to hold it out. Just loosen your fingers.” And Tony does, enough for Widow to engage the safety and slide it out of his hands. Enough for Hulk to carefully gather him up and head towards the ship.

“Tinman safe.”

“I feel so floaty,” he murmurs, mouth moving and eyes on the middle distance. Hulk does not answer, but eventually, Tony rouses himself enough to get out of the flight suit and cuddle in his elastic briefs against the literal furnace of the Hulk, which is how the team finds them once a SHIELD unit moves in and dismisses those who had gone on to recover the hostages in the fortress.

“Where’s your suit, Stark?” Someone says.

“JARVIS?”

“I have forwarded the coordinates to you, Miss Romanov.”

“He okay?” someone else asks. Tony thinks it may be Clint.

“Tinman fine. Just tired. Time to sleep.”

At some point, Tony warms up enough to be seriously irritated, and Hulk transforms back into Bruce. Tony doesn't leave his side. He knows he should; knows that very few people want to be near him when he’s neither near death nor useful. But Bruce doesn’t move, and neither does Tony.

Evidently, they can’t find the suit, and they can’t delay. They leave without it.

…

Tony reckons he should have seen it before… should have guessed or confirmed or something. After all, why would you hit one dude- one guy- with a metal suit when there are two guys with metal suits and a communication system that could just as easily be taken out. Why wouldn’t you hit everyone? Unless of course, you only wanted one thing. And if that thing happens to be designed not to work if it isn’t one guy working on that thing, then it makes sense to go collect that guy.

Three weeks after the Antarctic fiasco, Tony Stark steps out for this little over-priced artisan coffee shop with lovely cupcakes and doesn’t return.

Chapter Text

The Avengers are used to Tony being absent for days and days- lab binges and SI work, mostly- and he shut everything down when he left, so Jarvis inferred that he meant to be gone for at least a little while, possibly a long while. It takes them a day to realize he’s gone.

A month to get him back home.

When Tony does come back, he’s skittish and scared of everything and he jumps at the slightest sound. A .45 identical to the one he keeps in his suit is always somewhere on his person, along with a switchblade. They let it happen.

Steve tries to get him to talk, but he won’t say what they did; won’t confirm what the marks on his body speak of. The writing’s on his skin, and it makes the team upset and so very sad to read it. Steve benches him. Tony is allowed to work from the background if he feels up to it, but they want him to heal.

It takes too long- days and weeks of being scared all the time, but eventually they figure out what will work. Slowly, ever so slowly, they coax him out to sit in the far corner of the living room where no one can sneak up on him. They revert back to the rules from the very beginning of their stay: don’t hand things to Tony. they do less “if you need to you can talk” and more “you look cold. Here goes a blanket.”

And the whole time Tony’s just thinking about how they shoved him into a tub full of cold water, laughing and asking each other whether or not Tony would die if they did that with a cracked reactor. And then they did crack the glass and they held him just barely above the water, just barely safe and now Tony’s afraid again, even though the reactor he’s got now is stronger and more stable and the last one was no slouch.

He begins to make inquiries, a suddenly-too-rational fear burning through everything until it’s satisfied.

“I’m getting the reactor removed,” He says over a dinner he can’t eat.

“Why?” Clint responds, eyes all intense.

“Because it’s a liability,” and because Tony swore up and down he couldn’t do anything they couldn’t do because the suit isn’t operational after an EMP of that magnitude, but they didn’t believe him. Made sure he knew how bad it was that they didn’t believe him. He’s on his way to being healed but his body, specifically his ass, still hurts without a cushion.

“Tony, don’t you think you should slow down?” Steve asks, and he thinks he’s got it all figured out. Knows it’s got something to do with AIM. It’s got everything to do with AIM. Everything to do with the fact that Tony was stuck out in bumfuck nowhere, a hostage, unable to shift with the arc reactor in his chest for the second time in his life.

“No, I don’t.”

“But this is the first we’re hearing of it,” Steve says, and he’s almost imploring, almost pressing Tony to stop. He doesn’t want to see the arc reactor gone, even if he doesn’t know why Tony won’t shift. The arc reactor is intrinsically Tony; losing it would surely upset the balance of the team.

“Yes, it is. And as someone who regularly has your back in life or death situations, I’m obligated to inform you that I will continue to be out of commision. Everything else can be done at my discretion.” Steve looks like he’s going to try and stop Tony, but the other man is already sauntering away. It’s an act. He thought Steve wanted him to be okay. Would get behind the decision to get actual pieces of shrapnel out of his chest. Maybe Steve just wants Tony to be his.

Tony doesn’t like it, and he really doesn’t like the bitter taste it leaves.

…

A week later, Tony gets his arc reactor removed and wonders if maybe Pepper would have stayed if he’d done it sooner. He spends about half an age on bedrest, just sleeping it off, his false sternum worked into his chest enough that it will shift with him. He’s excited, beyond the haze. Excited by the idea that he can shift again. So he takes the bedrest seriously (first time in his life, and isn’t that just hilarious?).

It takes a whole month for his doctor to give him an okay. Tony remembers, way back when, that he had been a lynx. Being the CEO of Stark Industries bulked up his shift. He can’t wait to be a lynx again. He wonders if maybe he would be bigger now. He’s Iron Man, head of R&D and he still owns a majority of the company. Said company is bigger and better and expanding every day.

He’s got to be huge. The day that Tony gets his doc’s approval, he takes off all his clothes and stands in his closet, mirrors reflecting him from every angle. He hates this place, his closet, with all it’s stupid mirrors. He hasn’t liked looking at his body since Afghanistan.

Maybe this will help correct that.

Tony closes his eyes, reaches deep within himself for the first time in years not to shove his shift back down, but to bring it out. To wrap it around him like a cloak… of spikes. Distantly, he remembers his doctor running through a list of possible symptoms literally as fast as she could because she’s been seeing Tony for years and she knows that the faster the better.

He remembers the doctor saying that, for people with replacement or substitute body parts- false sternums, transplanted organs, metal pins- the shift can be painful. The most painful thing imaginable to many. But Tony had been to hell and back, kicking and screaming on both trips. He had seen an angel and watched him die. Had found life just a hair's-breadth from death.

He heard the symptoms and thought it manageable. He was wrong.

He let out a scream and tries to keep his voice behind his teeth as his body shifts and shrinks and after a while he can’t help but let the screams out. He opens his eyes what feels like hours later, but is really only a moment. He stands up, looking for that long form, on the small side of the big cats, but one of that order all the same.

Instead he’s looking at a very small black cat, hardly larger than an ordinary kitten. He steps closer to the mirror, big feline eyes picking out minute details, nose picking up the scent of hundreds of days worth of cologne, dry cleaned cotton, wool, leather, shoe polish. The mirrors look too hard now.

He leaves the closet, the door he left open much heavier than he thought it would be. He hides in the arm of a large, comfy chair he keeps by the window. He wriggles his little body underneath the pillow and closes his eyes. One of the few differences in a genuine animal’s form and someone’s shift is that certain reactions carry over. Others are entirely animal.

That former category is how slow, salty tear tears spill down his tiny face.

…

Tony disappearing for days on end is not all that much of an issue. A full month and a half after his surgery, and he’s doing it again. It’s only been a day, and he has yet to enter into dangerous levels of Not To Be Found.

After three days, Natasha looks around. Usually, Tony’s come out for some sort of break, be it of the coffee or food or maybe even, as of late, the sleep variety. It’s dinner, and no one’s gone, for once, including Rhodey, which means everyone’s eating but Tony. Nowadays he won’t do more than coffee and those gross smoothie things.

“Who’s seen Tony?” Natasha asks. Rhodey’s been here for a few hours, and he knows the time vs. possibility of danger. At everyone’s “not me’s”, the colonel pushes his chair back, gathers his plate and another, and walks off. If Natasha bothered to ask where Tony was, that means she’s got a hunch.

“Jarvis? Where’s Tony?”

“Sir asked to be left alone.”

“Well Sir needs a really good reason to do that. He in the lab or the penthouse?” There is a pause.

“The Penthouse. The probability of severely injuring yourself and Sir’s feelings are extremely high if you laugh or treat him with any sort of condescension.”

“Duly noted.” the elevator carriage rises. As it nears the penthouse, Jarvis gives one more piece of advice.

“I suggest you check the chair, and move very carefully.” The doors open, and Jarvis falls silent. Rhodey wanders through the living room, his plates of pizza pasta salad left on a low table. A quick check of each of the chairs reveals that there is no Tony lurking in them.

Rhodey makes his way to the bedroom. There’s a chair in the far corner, between the dresser and the bed. It’s a dark wine red, and so comfy and big and soft that it’s actually Rhodey’s favorite chair in the whole Tower. In that chair is a matching little pillow, and a blanket neatly folded and laid out across the back of it.

“Tones? Come on, Tony. I brought you dinner.” Rhodey is creeping ever closer to the chair. He just barely touches the pillow with the tips of his finger, and lifts it up to reveal one of the smallest cats he’s ever seen. The cat is black, the fur all glossy with the exception of two trails down his face. Silvery fur criss-crosses his chest in a way Rhodey assumes mirrors his scars. Right now, he’s crouched low onto the seat, ears flat against his head, feet pulled into his body. He looks up, and in a normal cat, Rhodey would take that as fear. On Tony, it’s probably embarrassment and shame.

Rhodey gently takes what he assumes is Tony’s head in his hands, thumbs looking ridiculously large as they gently brush over fur, trailing back over his ears and down his neck, feeling out the musculature in his shoulders and back, and ending at the base of his tail. Rhodey begins again, rubbing gently at one cheek this time, feeling out an ear on the next. He scratches along the underside of his jaw, down the juncture of head and neck, and strokes broadly over his side. He does not know how long he kneels in front of the chair, but eventually, Tony’s muscles loosen, tiny body going lax and sliding to the side with the pressure, and his big, brown eyes close.

Rhodey carefully pushes Tony further into his other hand and lifts him up to tuck him against his chest. He moves out to the living room, sets Tony down in front of his plate, and then continues to eat. After a while, Tony begins to pick the pepperoni from the dish. First he goes slowly, then as fast as possible.

“Slow down, now,” Rhodey murmurs, running his hand down Tony’s back again. Tony only listens the tiniest bit.

“Why are you so sad?” Rhodey eventually asks. They’ve finished their food and Tony has been curled at the juncture of Rhodey’s thigh. Tony raises his head and rises, pads to the end of Rhodey’s knee, and jumps onto the edge of the table. He meows, pawing at a little half sphere. It’s his latest version for his holoscreens. Jarvis activates the computer, the screens already resized to his tiny, tiny paws. All that’s up right now is a keyboard and a screen.

I used to be a lynx.

“Yeah, but what’s wrong with this one?”

It hurts to change and I’m fucking tiny.

Rhodey reaches forward to run his fingers down Tony’s back again.

“Yeah, but you’re really cute. And it’s natural for cats to demand cuddles and everything else under the sun.” Tony twists his head to look at him, tail waving from side to side. Rhodey can tell Tony’s trying to figure out whether or not he’ll take those perks. He turns away from the computer, jumps onto Rhodey’s knee, then clambers up until he’s lying along Rhodey’s shoulder, paws against bare skin where his knit shirt ends.

...

It takes three days for Tony grow a pair. After the first few days learning how to cat, Tony got bored. No amount of bothering Rhodey could entertain him without him changing back, which he doesn’t want to do. He doesn’t think he’s ready for that part. In any case, it takes three days until Rhodey gets an urgent call and has to go back to work. He kneels down and runs his fingers over Tony’s fur.

“It’s not a month-long thing. It’s just a week. I’ll be right back.” Tony gets bored in, like, an hour. It takes him three hours of destroying a spare dish towel before he decides he’s going to have to get it over with.

He walks over and stands in front of an elevator. It opens on its own, and Tony pads in, sits down facing the door, and nervously licks a paw and slicks it back over his forehead.

“If it is any consolation, sir, you look quite handsome.” Tony flicks an ear in acknowledgement. The doors slide open to the common floor. Tony pads cautiously out, eyes tracking across the hallway. Empty. He walks down until he reaches the door to the kitchen. Steve is inside. Rhodey left him food, but he suddenly wants whatever is cooking now.

Tony slips inside and skirts the edge of the room. He needs to figure out how to get up on the counter. He walks under the table, scrabbles up onto a chair, then on the back of that chair. He takes a moment to balance, then leaps as far as he can. He lands half on, half off the counter, hauls himself up, and walks along to the plate of bacon Steve had been making.

The super-soldier looks at him curiously.

“How did you get in here?” he asks, reaching out to pet. Tony ducks his head and tries to get to the bacon. He doesn’t get very far; Steve stops him.

“Woah, little guy. That’s not cat food.” Tony out and out scratches him, a snarl on his face. He will get the fucking bacon. “That’s not fair,” the super soldier says with a frown. This time, he lifts the bacon clear away. Tony crouches and hisses, fur standing on end. He’s a cat. It’s meat. He should totally get it.

“Whose cat is that?” says a new voice- Clint. Everything is so much bigger now.Tony turns and looks at him.

“I don’t know. He just wants bacon.” Clint walks up and extends a finger. Tony sniffs. Clint smells like leather and whatever oil he uses on his weapons, plus something dark and musky- cologne and his natural scent.

“So? He’s like two inches tall. Give the fuck some bacon.” Tony elects not to bite him for the “fuck” comment. Instead, he eat two pieces of bacon, then runs up Clint’s arm to perch on his shoulder, looking out at Steven and Sam, who had entered the kitchen without Tony knowing. He smells like machinery. Steven smells like the gym and paper. Clint tries to pet Tony, but at a hiss, he just leaves him be, perched on his makeshift throne.

…

As the days slide by and Rhodey comes and goes, Tony starts to enjoy being a cat. 

He just hopes the team doesn’t make the connection.

Chapter Text

The team, of course, does make the connection. Rhodey comes back, and suddenly, Tony is layed out all supine across his shoulders, riding around like the king he is. Clint is sliding a small plate of broken up bacon across the table to where Rhodey is eating and then stops.

“Tony?” The expression on the cat’s face is too human. It’s something like alarm mixed with dread.

“Oh, my god. How did I not guess that? No wonder you didn’t like to be petted. Thank god nothing weird happened,” Clint says with a smile and a laugh. He pushes the little plate further towards the pair. After a frozen moment, during which Rhodey fervently prayed that Tony’s claws would retract, not get deeper, Tony rises gracefully, jumps onto the table, and lowers his head.

Rhodey mouths a thank you for not cracking a joke at Tony’s size at Clint when Tony isn’t paying attention. Clint doesn’t acknowledge him because of the way the cat is facing, but Rhodey knows he saw. Clint might be an asshole, but he’s actually one of Tony’s favorite assholes, and it would suck to see the rift between them, especially since Tony’s still having a hard time with the SHIELD fallout and, by extension, Steve.

Especially since SOMEONE keeps insisting that he’s not doing a good enough job taking care of himself. Tony had snapped at Steve not to double his damn workload, then, and that’s the last they talked about it or anything else.

Tony tells Pepper himself, who insists on coming over. She’s the first person to get Tony to purr, other than Rhodey.

The next person figure it out is Bruce, who seemed to figure it out way too easily. His expertise had been called upon in India, and he’d left the day Rhodey did and didn’t return for a month. By then Tony’s cover is pretty solid. He and Pepper worked it out.

He and Rhodey would do pretty much all the SI stuff that don't require public appearances, Rhodey helping Tony with some of the less cat-friendly tasks, while Tony himself is supposedly having chest issues and took himself to some healing resort thing in the Alps to rectify it. Truth be told, Tony didn’t expect them to be this understanding about his unwillingness to shift back.

Either way, Bruce walks in, sees this scrawny-ass cat curled up on Tony’s bed with this giant bear, transforms into his own animal- the biggest gorilla Tony’s ever seen (seriously, the dude looks like King Kong), and wraps himself around both of them, where they proceed to have the greatest nap in the history of naps.

When it’s time to search out food (and more bacon. Always more bacon), Bruce scoops the tiny cat up into one big paw and allows him to settle on the largest shoulder Tony’s ridden on to date. Bruce is so warm that Tony’s eyes sliide down to slits, even though he’s fully awake, and he begins to purr.

He purrs while Rhodey shifts up out of his grizzly bear form, he purrs while Bruce begins to pad on his almost human hands and feet to the elevator, and he purrs all the way into the kitchen under Rhodey’s watchful gaze. Bruce paws open the fridge and begins to proad at things with one giant finger. He pulls out the bag of apples, while Rhodey lips past him to find the bacon.

While Rhodey stays to cook the meat, Bruce heads to a part of the common floor Tony’s never been in. the room is large, walls rounded in that peculiar way that Tony likes his rooms to be. Around three edges of the room, there are about three and a half feet of bare, cream colored floor, with shelves to hold extra blankets placed high enough off the ground that no one will hit their heads. The rest of the floor is dropped four foot down and thickly padded, with blankets and pillows piled up in certain areas, other covered in nothing but a sheet. The wall to Tony’s right is outfitted with a loft area, since half of the Tower’s inhabitants are skittish and may not like lying in the middle of the floor.

For the first time since its completion, Tony enters the nesting room. Bruce begins to throw things around- arranging the pillows and what not the way he wants them to be. Then he relaxes with Tony curled on one arm, his other periodically shoving whole apples into his mouth. Rhodey enters with two strips of crumbled up bacon, a plate of raw stuff, and a plate of raw, diced steak. As he settles down to eat, Clint flies in, looking distressed. Half of his feathers are ruffled, some of them bloody, wings sensitive from them getting fucked up. He must have gotten back from a mission.

Tony leaps down from Bruce’s arm, picks up a bacon bit, and begins to climb the steps to meet his friend. He sets the food down in front of Clint where the bird has just landed in the loft. Behind him, Rhodey shifts down and settles in to watch. Tony can hear him lick up the ocasional cube of steak with a tongue so long that Tony has made a lot of anal jokes about it. Like, way too many. Clint eyes Tony where the little cat stands in front of him, then pecks up the bacon bit.

Tony waits until it look like Clint is calm before padding forward and pressing nose to beak. Then, he begins the slow, careful process of putting to rights Clint’s busted feathers. It’s been years since he had the opportunity to groom anyone- no one wants a shift-less fuck- but it comes back to him. He makes sure to purr the whole time, making slow circles around the bird, nudging under his wings to get at the pin feathers, and applying his claws as carefully as he can.

When the bird is a bit happier and beginning to doze off, Tony sits at the edge of the loft to keep watch so that he actually will sleep. That is how he notices when Rhodey curls up with Bruce, and sees when Natasha, a huge Komodo dragon, crawls up into the loft to curl around Clint (the bird hardly stirs). Still, Tony keeps watch, though he can hardly do anything.

A lion, large and formidable, pads into the room. Briefly, Tony wonders if maybe Steve is proud of the fact that his fucking balls swing like they aren’t sensitive. Steve curls up on his own, knowing that he’s neither welcome to join the two superspies in the loft nor would Bruce take kindly to having to readjust. Steve looks kind of lonely, until a huge falcon flaps into the room and settles onto his golden shoulder.

Tony settles on his pillow at the edge of the loft. Something in his tiny chest is immensely satisfied at seeing everyone in the tower (minus Pepper, but it’s always minus Pepper) settled in and relaxed. He doesn’t even mind that the rest of his bacon bits have gone cold. Not if this is the feeling he cains from ignoring the plate.

Chapter Text

At just under two months Tony grows a pair and Rhodey and he go check into a hotel for the night. In the bathroom, he shifts back in spectacularly painful fashion, takes a shower, and gets a massage from the greatest masseuse ever (and that’s got nothing to do with, like, Tony not trusting anyone else).

By the end of the night, Tony’s just a short pile of human, mind drifting in and out of awareness. Rhodey’s hands are literally the best. Eventually though, at about one in the morning, he wipes the excess oil away and caps the bottle, shuts off the lamps, and slides under the covers. Tony tucks in close to his side like they did when they were teenagers.

The next day, Tony strides back into the tower like he did not just spend the majority of the last two months being a cat. The little “accidental camera ambushing” that went down played off perfectly, and Tony’s actually pretty satisfied with himself. Now that he’s done the shift and come back out of it, it feels like that’s something that he could maybe learn to do more often. For better stress relief or some shit. But only in, like, really dire circumstances.

His good mood tanks when he’s sees Pepper, all stressed and worried, sitting on the couch in the main living room on his floor. They spend all day catching him up (not being present for nearly two months has it drawbacks), but at the end of the night, when Pepper is ready to go, she still seems stressed.

They’re standing together, and the elevator doors just opened. Behind them, on the coffee table sits the remains of their dinner. In a bit, Tony was thinking about going to the lab. Instead he catches the off-white sleeve of her skirt-suit.

“Pep. Stay. Shift. We can chill on the couch or we can go down to the Nest.”

“I shouldn’t,” she says with a shake of her head. Her braid-bun thing wags with the movement of her skull.

“Yeah, well, I have been as productive as I can be while being half a foot tall at the ear. And I was all like “yeah, Pep, let’s totally sit down and schedule a lot of meetings” and this will be one of the times where I make them, provided things that are not out of my control do not interrupt. The press is taken care of, the Tower is in working order, and the only mission we’ve had was Clint and Natasha and they came back like three weeks ago. I haven’t almost died and I’ve been sleeping regularly and Rhodey’s been around lately to help me stay balanced and you’re still worried.”

“I might not shift all that often, but I still recognize this. Spend the night with me. It’ll be like we did from that one time in Vienna.”

“You were high as hell in Vienna after the meetings.”

“Yeah but as far as I can remember the most I did involving you was let you do the concealer for that photoshoot and sit with you during your shift. Let’s go back to Vienna on the one night I was not trying to get laid,” Tony says with a charming smile. It’s not even his Press Smile. It’s his “I’m worried and emotionally constipated so I’m totally just going to act charming” smile.

“Come on. Consider it an order from the Brain Behind the Curtain,” Tony tries again. That’s another name given to him by the press that had run a little too rampant until Tony embarrassed a reporter and ended up saying that his is not the only brain that keeps this company afloat. Pepper smiles a bit.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll shift.” Tony finds a hanger that he thinks should hold all the hangy bits of her outfit and waits for her to shift down in the bathroom. When she’s done, he carefully puts her clothes up (no wrinkles. The CEO of Stark Industries and former paramour of Tony himself is liable to get bombarded by cameras or maybe just be in a sneaky shot at any time).

Then he lets the giant, white anaconda wrap around and around and around like this one hipster scarf he saw on Pinterest. Like they always do whenever Pep needs to shift, Tony just carries on as usual. His arms are free enough for him to go down to pull out raw steaks from the freezer and only just thaws them out, and the two go and sit on the comfiest chair in the living room while Pepper eats them whole. He absently rubs her head just the way she likes it as he works on designs for Stark Industries, along with a problem he’s been experiencing with the boot repulsors.

The next morning, Tony sees Pepper to her car, his CEO looking much more relaxed than before. He kisses her cheek.

…

The next time they talk, Tony tells her he won’t make any of the board meetings and he’s so sorry but Tony was experimenting with the scepter from when the Chitauri attacked and he accidentally made an evil baby and now his evil baby killed his most advanced baby and they’ll talk later, okay?

And by the time Pepper makes it back to Tony, he’s just sitting on his disgusting and disgustingly comfortable lab couch, staring off into the distance, face as ashen and unresponsive as it was the day after he killed Obie.

“Tony?” She says as she picks her way around tools scattered across the scratched concrete floor. She’s worried now, heart beating hard in her chest. Maybe… maybe he took something. Tony hasn’t touched anything but alcohol for years, but maybe he just… did something one more time.

“I killed them, Pep.”

“What?”

“Sokovia. You didn’t see the news?”

“I did… and I saw the relief efforts.” Tony bolts up out of his seat and begins pacing, kicking aside things Pepper tried not to disturb.

“I DID THAT!”

“Tony, calm down-”

“THERE ARE PEOPLE DEAD BECAUSE OF ME; THERE’S A WHOLE COUNTRY GRIEVING BECAUSE OF ME. THERE’S A WHOLE CITY DESOLATED BECAUSE OF ME!” He yells as he paces and occasionally spins around like the next bullet that hits him will come from the laser printer.

“Tony, we all make mistakes,” she says, hating how she doesn’t know how to bring him down when he gets up like this. There’s only been a few times, really, that she’s found herself so damn… useless. Tony spins back around and stalks up to her. Pepper notices, for the first time, how his flight suit must have been all he’s had on for days.

“Did your mistakes kill a city?” Pepper doesn’t want to answer, but-

“No.”

“Okay then. Go away, Pepper. I’ll just make it worse.”

“Tony, you shouldn’t be alone right now. I can call Rh-”

“FRIDAY, activate Protocol: Lockout, level twelve,” Tony says, voice emotionless, and maybe that’s more scary than his yelling earlier. There is something cathartic about yelling, after all. This- this emotionless, business-only shell of Tony Stark- this is much worse.

“Miss Potts, please proceed to the entrance,” FRIDAY says, voice sweeter and just as unflinching as JARVIS’ was. But JARVIS is dead, and Pepper has never met Tony’s new AI. Maybe before, she could have pleaded with the old AI to not do this, but this isn’t the old AI, and Tony’s head is not on right.

“Tony-”

“Get out. Now. Send me the paperwork.” FRIDAY directs the bots to start pushing her back towards the door of the lab, and, though they make apologetic beeps, they also do not stop.

“Tony, I’ll be back,” she says. She’s got to call Rhodey or something- anything. Maybe she can talk to the others; they’ll keep him from doing whatever it is he’s about to do, right?

“Don’t bother.” The pneumatic doors shut in her face, the clear walls of the lab now white. Protocol: Lockdown is in full effect.

Chapter Text

The Avengers Roster consists of: Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Thor Odinson, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, and Tony Stark. Pepper hopes and prays this little fact is enough to get these people to act.

“Mr. Rogers?” Pepper asks from where she stands in the doorway to the common room. Rogers looks up.

“Miss Potts? What is it?”

“There’s something wrong with Tony,” Pepper says as she steps out of the elevator and into the common room. She feels agitated and useless, and her shift is pushing at her skin as though it’s grown to small.

“What’s wrong with Tony?” A black man that Pepper’s never seen before asks. He, for whatever reason, looks across the room at where a thin girl with a washed out expression is pretending not to notice the proceedings.

“He’s activated Protocol: Lockout, Level twelve.”

“...What Level are you, Miss Potts?” Steve asks as he sets down his mug. He’s sitting on the couch next to Wanda, who has become more and more interested, though she still pretends as though her nose is in a book.

“Ten,” Pepper says. She’s never seen a Lockout that included her. As the CEO of Tony’s company and his buffer between himself and the rest of the world, the vast majority of Tony’s lockouts have always been for reasons that she would trump, just by virtue of being herself. But-

“He said something about hurting me. Is this about Ultron?” Steve nods.

“Someone needs to get in there before he does something he’ll regret. Where’s Doctor Banner?”

“...Gone,” Steve says after a moment. The black man from earlier, who’s seated near Wanda now, reaches out and just barely touches her arm, as though stopping her from doing something dumb.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“Hulk is gone. He disappeared after Sokovia, and we haven’t seen him since.”

“Why would he leave?”

“He Hulked out in Sokovia, and it spooked him so badly he left.” Pepper looks at the black man and the thin girl on the couch, at Steve and how carefully he’s phrasing his words, and she thinks there’s something else going on.

“Clint?”

“Retired; he went home to his family.”

“Rhodey?”

“Called away by the airforce.”

“You?” Steve hesitates. It’s a tiny thing- a fraction of a second long, but Pepper is a businesswoman; deals have lived and died on a fraction of a second.

“You don’t want to,” She answers for him. She says it so softly, her voice like silk. Steve can’t even deny it. Pepper looks at the girl, who is looking oddly triumphant, at the man, who is getting more and more uncomfortable.

“Mr. Rogers, if I am correct: There is a man, several dozen floors below us, who is about to have a breakdown, and you are just going to sit there and… let it happen.”

“Miss Potts, have you seen the destruction in Sokovia?” Pepper’s lips thin. So that’s what it is. It isn’t Tony, it’s self-righteousness.

“Yes. I have. It’s quite tragic; I know, because I’ve been looking at the numbers and reports and things of that nature. You know what is also quite tragic? The innocent lives lost when you dumped files containing the names of SHIELD agents’ families, friends, associates; you know, people who never even knew who that one person worked for.” Pepper takes a step forward, further away from the elevator, towards Steve.

“You know what else is quite tragic? Tony’s tendency to take more on his shoulders than what he actually should, and other’s tendency of letting him. You may think him a monster, Captain, but you are hardly any better.” Pepper spins on her heal and, in an abrupt ninety degree turn, exits the living room, looking for the other one. What was his name?

“Vision? Are you there?” A being with a red face and a muted green body and metal highlights phased out of the wall a few yards ahead of her.

“Miss Potts, I presume?” Pepper nods.

“I have a request for you.”

Ten minutes later, the two are at the door to the lab. Pepper tries not to shift in her apprehension.

“Wait!” Steve says as he steps out of the elevator too.

“What?”

“You… you were right. I can’t leave a man like Tony to his own devices.” He looks so remorseful that Pepper believes him. They stand there, just the two of them, while Vision phases through the walls. It’s dead silent in the entryway for five minutes. Ten. Fifteen.

An entire hour passes before the doors open up, and Vision walks out with a tiny black cat curled in his arms. The ride up to the penthouse is just as silent as Steve tries not to notice the crusted fur on Tony’s cheeks. It’s just as silent as he and Pepper take turns sliding into the bathroom to take off their clothes and shift down.

It looks like it’s going to be okay, though, because at the end of the day Tony is curled up against Steve’s Lion shift, the white anaconda wrapping around them both. Vision tries to leave, but a mrow keeps him from going. Vision steps into the bathroom, looks in the mirror, and tries to think about shifting. Tries to think about the mechanics of it, of the way skin and bones meld and adjust and-

Vision opens his eyes and realizes that he can see the bathroom cupboards much better than he did before.

“Oh.” but it comes out as whoo . Vision flutters his brand new wings and realizes that he is now a massive snowy owl. Birds can’t smile, but Vision does. After taking a good moment (ten minutes) to examine his new form, he hops off the counter and nudges the bathroom door with his head before taking his place in the pile of cuddling shifters.

…

As the weeks slide by, Tony is starting to feel disconnected. The Vision is more or less invested in figuring out how many animals he can transform into (hint: it’s a lot and Tony is so proud even if he is also very sad), and all he really sees is Steve.

Tony is sitting in his lab, watching the air and not knowing what he’s doing. His email dings again, and he glances at the holoscreen. It’s another progress update; Sokovia is repairing nicely. Hah. Nicely. Funny.

The lab door opens, and Tony doesn’t really hear the voice of Steve Rogers, even though he knows he should.

“Tony,” the other man says. He says it a little louder and reaches out to shake his shoulder. Tony just flinches away.

“Go away.”

“You need to sleep,” Steve says as he tilts one side of his plate upwards, “and eat, too. Come on. You’ve been down here for days. Have you even slept?”

“Behind me. To my right.” Steve looks where directed and can see a couch that must be twenty years old, at least. Steve can’t help but smile a bit. It seems like all the money in the world doesn’t save a man from having that one piece of too old furniture.

“In a real bed?”

“Piss off.”

“Tony. Ultron… Ultron was a mistake. A huge mistake, yes, but a mistake nonetheless. You can’t fix things by being exhausted, which opens you up to even more mistakes.” Tony snorts, finally turning away from his holograms to face him fully. He looks haunted.

“Ultron… was not a mistake. Ultron was just going to be a bigger JARVIS. The mindstone- getting caught up in an AI that wasn’t fucking mine… that was a mistake. One that I won’t ever live down,” he murmurs as he turns back to his screens and takes another drink of coffee. Steve’s eyebrows pull down after a moment as his gaze zeroes in on what Tony’s doing.

“Oh my god are you making another one?”

“Another JARVIS. A bigger JARVIS,” Tony says. His hands have stilled and phased through the holographic keyboard.

“Tony! An entire country is in mourning because of your bigger JARVIS! You can’t just make another one!”

“I told you! ULTRON was evil because I was fucking with the mind stone. Without that, this AI won’t even think of it.” Steve reaches out and grabs his shoulder. He jerks him around in a bruising grip to look him in the eye. Steve searches Tony’s face, flicking from eyes to skin to nose to mouth and back up.

“No more AIs.” Tony pushes him back, but Steve is immovable on a full night’s sleep and proper breakfast, and Tony is ragged and already teetering on the edge of… something.

“No more AIs? What if someone said “no more missions”? Then you would be up in arms because how dare they, but you would be forgetting about all those non-HYDRA SHIELD agents that you gave the middle finger to. I can’t just stop because you don’t feel safe, Steve. None of us are safe. None of us will ever be safe. Not when they’re out there.”

“When who is out there?” Steve’s grip had tightened at the mention of all those people Steve forgot about for a fraction of a second too long. He pulls Tony up off his stool and makes him stand, face to face with him. Tony is struggling against his iron grip, but Steve is barely feeling it. He’s just so angry that Tony would do this, so soon after Sokovia.

“Aliens. God, Steve, they’re everywhere. We aren’t alone… You didn’t see it, but there are massive armies of aliens, just looking for an easy target. I can’t… I can’t just sit here when I could be preparing for this.” Suddenly, it clicks.

“You’re delusional. Tony,” Steve says as he brings his other hand up to hold Tony’s face, “you’re tired, and overstressed and underfed and sleepless, and you’re trying to save the world from something that isn’t happening.”

“But it is, Steve,” Tony gives another jerk of his shoulder, but Steve still keeps him there, “they are coming.” Steve rubs a thumb along Tony’s cheekbone.

“Sleep. We can talk about it in the morning.” Tony shakes his head.

“I can’t. I… I just can’t.” Steve softens his grip and moves Tony towards the door.

“What if I slept with you? When you woke up, you wouldn’t be alone.”

“You can’t fix the dreams,” Tony says, resisting.

“No, but I can help you come back from them.” Fifteen minutes later, Steve is sitting on the edge of Tony’s bed, listening to the shower running. Eventually, Tony emerges, soft and shy and painfully, painfully tired.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Tony climbs under the covers on the opposite side of the bed. Four hours and seventeen minutes later, Steve is holding him and running his broad hands through silk-soft hair. Tony clings to him, tears soaking Steve’s shirt, body quivering like a leaf in the storm. They do this through the rest of the night.

At eight the following morning, Tony is finally allowed out of bed. With another quick shower, he ventures down to the common room floor; no coffee in his private kitchen. Stares burn holes into his back as Tony tries his hardest to just get some fucking coffee.

“Stark,” says the girl- The Scarlet Witch- as she follows him. Tony turns around, both eyebrows raised in question.

“Yeah?”

“I am told that I am not to leave this floor of the Tower.”

“You don’t have a visa. Set foot outside and you run the risk of being deported.”

“I would not need to run the risk of being deported if you had not destroyed my homeland.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony says, and he doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t try to justify. Doesn’t… doesn't ask her about Hydra, who likely fired those missiles back in a cold-war style skirmish.

“Doubtful,” she murmurs as she moves past him to take the first mug from the carafe. Tony lets her do it before beating a retreat down to his lab. He’s got to do it right, this time.

…

He and Steve get together (officially) on a Wednesday evening. It’s right after this huge explosion the team has over his new AI. In this argument, Vision sits by him, silent and supportive. Under the table, he had reached forward and grasped Tony’s hand before sliding away again. It was enough. His baby was, like two AI’s and a whole new consciousness together. He wins the argument, but Wanda’s glare just gets that much more poisonous.

Later, after a dinner Tony didn’t eat is put away and there aren’t any leftovers, Steve finds him, brings him a sandwich, and leans down to kiss him.

“I’m proud of you,” he murmurs against lips that forgot what it felt like to not be hated.

“Why?”

“You stood up for yourself,” he says as he runs his tongue along the seam of Tony’s mouth. For a full hour- the longest time in all the months since ULTRON- Tony forgets that he broke the world. His brain is all caught up in the fact that Steve is balls deep in his ass and his hands are leaving bruises as livid and clear as the one that was on his shoulder from when Steve first found out about his new AI.

Eventually, though, the hour passes, and Tony does the walk of shame back up to his floor, where he takes a long, hot shower and tries to forget it all for at least a few more minutes. It won’t happen, though, not with the occasional ding indicating that Wanda has bought something else popping up in his peripherals.

Tony takes his time as the months drag on and Friday tries to get him to sleep and he gets fucked whenever and wherever Steve Goddamn Rogers  wants. In between all that, Tony’s still finding traces of Bucky, and so frequently it will be himself and Wanda, and that’s just terrible.

Steve is beginning to scare him, too. He has not said a word about how the team won’t stop acting like he shouldn’t even be here despite this being his home and his tower. Tony’s trying not to notice that. He’s failing.

“Hey, Boss?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you should see this.”

It’s a video feed. Of the tower. Real time. Tony’s stomach twists in uncertainty. He said, when they moved in, that the surveillance was passive. He said that the only time he would be looking at videos is in the case of emergency, which is constituted as a threat to Stark Industries, the serious harm or death of anyone in the tower, or a security breach. In the past five years or so, that third category has caused Tony to look at the security a total of six times, two of which involved Clint Barton and the fucking vents.

The other four times had to do with that time when Steve had been poisoned and underestimated that poison’s effects, and the day Sam had been the one to stumble into Clint’s boobie trap, the day Tasha had been delirious with fever and had somehow snuck into the tower on death’s doorstep, and the very last time Tony let Dummy make him coffee.

But now FRIDAY has flagged what is assumed to be an emergency, and now wants him to look. Tony deliberates for all of ten seconds before he nods. The feed comes up. Tony’s hands unconsciously drift together as he starts to press along the small finger bones- a rarely indulged in nervous tic he’ll probably never be rid of.

It’s the feed from Natasha’s bedroom, from the looks of it, she had been reading, but chose to put the book down in favor of her guests. She’s sitting on the edge of her bed, a set of knives laying in their sheathes behind her. She’s got her arm around Wanda, whose hands are clenched in her lap. Steve is sitting at the chair that goes to Natasha’s desk. He’s leaned forward, hands extending far beyond his knees to hang down into empty space.

The angle of the camera means he can see Natasha’s unflinching calmness, and Wanda’s barely contained anger and passion. They contrast each other so nicely, like cream and burgundy. Distantly (hysterically) Tony wonders why he’s never noticed before. Even their accents (when Natasha has an accent) are similar. The angle of the camera means that all he gets is the back of Steve’s head.

“FRIDAY. Second view. Steve’s face.” Another feed pops up. Tony reads over the transcript as their words from the last few minutes and the audio being picked up right now float out into the room.

“Look, Wanda, I know you don’t want him building another AI, but time is scarce and people are scared and Tony himself is convinced that aliens are coming to get us.”

“That murderer is using that as an excuse!” She insists, and Tony tilts his head. His mind is receding, the analyst in him picking out how her abilities always flair dangerously whenever she gets this angry. There isn’t a lick of red right now, though.

“I don’t think he is, Wanda. Tony… Tony’s always had this drive to finish and finish the best. If he says he’s doing this because of the aliens, he probably is.”

“He is mad. There are no aliens coming for us. There is simply him.” Steve is nodding, and Tony has five seconds to feel hurt. He says he’s proud of Tony for standing up for himself, but he turns around and does this to him? Debase him to a girl who already considers him the lowest of the low?

“I think he’s delusional, too, but I also think that stopping him now, when he’s not working with anything but what he has in his head, will just do more damage. It will be months before he even has so much as a working rudimentary AI; we have time to deal with it all.”

“You say that because you fuck him into the mattress,” Wanda snarls. Still no red. He has an entire list of new things he’s learning today.

“Wanda I get that you question my objectivity but I am not making this up. Tony really is delusional, and he really does need help, but he also really is harmless, and I really am working on a way to get that for him.”

Tony remembers with bitter clarity how he’s been having long conversations about how this new AI could best defend against an alien invasion. Something had told him in the back of his mind that he shouldn’t get too comfortable, that Steve was humoring him, but he didn’t realize that Steve thought he was downright delusional.

“Okay.” Steve leaves, and Natasha and Wanda begin to converse in quiet russian.

“FRIDAY. Revoke all access codes to the lab for everyone but Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Rhodey, Vision, and Pepper.”

“Would it not be better if you revoked the access codes of Captain Rogers and Miss Romanov?”

“No. I see your point, but I need them to make a move, or it will be obvious that I’ve seen this conversation.”

“Yes, Boss.” Tony turns back to work.

“Put the lab on lockdown mode.” When Tony stumbles into bed at three in the morning, he finds that Steve is already there. He opens his eyes as Tony walks in. Distantly, he wonders when he started letting Steve be in his room.

“Hey. You locked the lab down.” Tony forgets what he wants for a moment.

“I wanted to focus.” Steve looks dubious as he pulls Tony across sheets to nestle right up against his body.

“I think you should shift.”

“No.”

“It’s proven to relieve stress,” Steve says as his hand strokes along Tony’s belly. Up and down, up and down, each pass promising more but not delivering. Tony’s head goes a little fuzzy; Steven rarely touched him except to bend him over. That’s nice, of course, but it isn’t like this. He remembers soon enough, though.

“Not for me. Listen, Steve,” Tony says as he sits up and slides away to the edge of the bed, “I want to call it quits.” Steve raises his head.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that everytime I turn around you’re pushing me to go in a direction I don’t want to go and I can live with that, but I can’t get fucked by that,” Tony says as he pulls his jeans back on and shuffles around in his dresser for a shirt. He wishes he still had the arc reactor. If nothing else, it made a damn good flashlight.

“Tony, I don’t think you’re thinking clearly. How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

“Not nearly long enough to forget that this is a good idea. A wonderful idea, even. You go back to your room, and I stay in mine, and we bicker like we usually do and I don’t have to buy so much lube.”

“Tony,” Steve says, and he says it like he’s talking to a child, “you need to calm down.” Steve joins him at the door, where Tony has opened it up. It’s an invitation to get the fuck out.

“I am thinking clearly; you just don’t want me to think at all.”

“Tony, this isn’t about you not thinking. I just don’t want you to do something you might regret. This isn’t the best time to make that sort of decision…” Steve says, drawing closer with his hands out in front of him. Tony backs a little farther away.

“This is the perfect time.”

“Please, Tony. Give me a sec. I’ll… I won’t insist on stuff so much. I can’t say that I won’t try and get you to eat and what not because your habits are bad and I worry, but I won’t make you.”

“You knew I didn’t like it in the beginning. The first time you left a fucking bruise!”

“I know, I know,” Steve says. His hands are reaching, and Tony is backing away, but doing so more slowly. “I’ll do better. I swear.” His big hands lock around Tony’s arms. It seems like it would be easy to break that hold. “It was wrong. I know that.”

“Do you?” Tony says as his arms slide from Steve’s grip.

“Yeah.” Tony is halfway out of the door, belly quivering as he tries to decide if he’s coming or going.

“I’ll sleep on my own. I want you, I’ll text, and vice versa,” Tony says, finally. Something like relief goes through Steve, and Tony wonders if he should be angry, or maybe angrier over his delusion comments. But maybe he didn’t really mean it. After all, there’s no way he forgot that Tony would see whatever could bring him harm (and this could bring him harm) but he chose to have that conversation anyways. Besides, he did buy Tony time before Wanda gets antsier.

“I… okay. Okay, yeah, we can do this. Thank you,” Steve says as he leans toward Tony, his forehead pressing into the shorter man’s neck, “Thank you.” Tony moves backwards the smallest bit, and Steve lets him go.

“Goodnight, Tony,” Steve murmurs. He captures one of Tony’s hands and, ever so slowly, raises it, rough and calloused, to his mouth. A single, chaste kiss is pressed the the lightly haired back, then he drops it. With one more nod, like Steve is trying to tell himself that he must truly leave, the super soldier disappears into the night.

Tony closes and locks the door behind him before he takes a seat on the bed. He drops his face to his palms and tries to breathe for a second. When did things get to this?

Steve begging for one more shot and Tony just trying to avoid begging at all. God, what a life he leads.

Chapter Text

Tony can get the suit to sit halfway up like those little half curls people do when they work out. Or maybe just “work out”. His whole damn chest hurts, and his head hurts too, because even though his mind is cataloguing injuries and aches and pains, he’s also trying to think back to when exactly things went so wrong.

He’s trying to think about how his artificial sternum might be compromised. He’s also thinking about all those times where an alert would ding and Tony would check over the message before sending it to Steve, knowing full well that the soldier, who he was slowly growing closer to in a new, better way, would not be home to text that night.

He’s trying to reach down to his thigh, where the switch for the emergency functions is located at. If he had been any less lucid, the signal sent out and the warmers to ward off frostbite in the armor would have begun automatically. As he collases back and looks at the far-away roof of the bunker, light from outside blinding his eyes, he’s trying to reach a conclusion as to how he completely missed that while he was getting fucked, he was also getting fucked over.

As he closes his eyes, fully aware of what he must do but loathing the task anyways, he tries to convince himself that he ought to get it over with.

He’s remembering, though, about that conversation where Steve had said he was delusional, and wondering why the hell he didn’t do anything to correct that train of thought. There wasn’t much he could do about it though. Delusional as an opinion has the uncomfortable ability of stripping credibility of the person in question.

After a few more minutes he closes his eyes, reaches deep inside himself like he’s wanted to for the entire year since Sokovia. He screams. He can’t help it. The noise is high and ungainly and so, so ugly that Tony just wants to kill himself for making it at all. His shift twists through him, tortures him at the chest and the leg and the arm and only makes it worse around the ragged wound Steve gave him. It only takes a few moments, though, and Tony is crawling down to the warmest part of the armor: the boot. He curls up against the heater and closes his eyes, human tears tracking down his cat face.

He’s going to die out here, isn’t he?

Hours and hours later, someone is lifting the whole suit up, and Tony can’t bring himself to care, given that he is out cold, little heart just a few hours away from death.

…

T’Challa has made a lot of mistakes in his life and just a few in the days since his father’s death. With both supersoldiers sitting in the fuselage, Zemo tied up and grinning across from them, T’Challa thinks he has rectified his mistake of hunting the wrong man, and that, as soon as he figured out the best way to deal with Rogers, he will be done.

Dimly, as though he is trying to be quiet, he hears James Barnes through the speakers, asking if they were the sorts of people who left men behind, and wondering why he didn’t remember that particular habit of theirs. Something cold drops T’Challa’s mood, and he presses the buttons on the control panel.

“Brother, you better have good news.” Shuri, current Heir Apparent over Wakanda and his sister, is tired of hearing of the clusterfuck that is the Accords.

“Unfortunately, sister, I believe I have made a grave mistake, and I do not trust current company to allow me to rectify it.”

“What has happened?”

Hours later he gets a text from Shuri, telling him that Anthony Edward Stark has been recovered and is in intensive medical care. All T’Challa wants to do is throttle the supersoldiers for their disregard to human life.

Guilt swirls in his gut as he settles Bucky with the doctors and leaves them instructions as to the keeping, if not yet care, of one Steve Rogers. Then he walks as swiftly and as smoothly as he can to another, closed off part of the palace infirmary, where a tiny cat lays resting in a bed on a large white pillow. There’s a breathing tube in, and the chest and two legs have been wrapped in bandages. T’Challa does not dare touch.

He turns when the door opens. Irrationally, the thinks that Steve Rogers has found him after all, and his knife is halfway out and ready to throw before he recognizes the unimpressed, pissed face of his sister. He sheaths his weapon and looks back at Anthony Stark.

“He… he is so small. He ought to be as large as I am, yes?” He says to Shuri as she takes her place at his right side, as the Heir Apparent and de facto advisor should.

“Yes, he should. You are not looking, and so I will inform you that I am very unimpressed, and it is written on my face.”

“I am also unimpressed with myself. I was under the impression that Doctor Stark was fine. That he would be okay and be able to fly back on his own. This… this is not what I thought ‘fine’ would be.”

“What will you do?”

“For now? See to my debts, and look into keeping the threat that is Steve Rogers contained. If he attempts to escape, knock him out.

“And when Stark wakes up?”

“It would appear he is suffering the condition of many a man with a weak heart suffers; I shall endeavor to make him stronger.” Ever so gently, T’Challa reaches out a finger to trace alone one charcoal ear. It doesn’t move. He straightens up, face hardening, and turns to go.

“Where are you going?” Shuri asks as she follows him out of the room. The Dora Milaje are waiting for them both, and surround them as T’Challa stalks on.

“Doctor Stark is in a hospital bed because I failed to take his well-being into account enough to go and check on him. He has a great deal of unfinished work. If he is who I think he is, he will be drowning in it when he wakes up. I will do this work for him.” Shuri is quiet for a moment.

“That might just earn his forgiveness, though a fair few who wish for it don’t deserve it.”

“It is not about forgiveness,” T’Challa says as Shuri falls back to do her own duties. At least… at least her brother did not do this thing out of spite, but rather carelessness. The latter can be learned from. The former requires a far heavier touch to be changed.

...

After three weeks of T’Challa insisting that “Doctor Stark is alive, but not well, and has not been cleared for anything except sleeping” and taking over as many of his duties as he possibly can, Accords wise, T’Challa thinks things may just go okay.

Tony woke up and had the breathing tube removed after a week, and while he has definitely been doing a lot of sleeping (and nightmare having…), he’s also been fairly receptive of Shuri. His sister is invested in feeding Tony tiny bits of food. It is not uncommon to see the princess of Wakanda striding purposefully down a hallway, a small cat resting in her arms or on a comfortable pillow carried by Shuri’s friend, M’Dalla.

The older woman is prematurely grey and a practitioner of the Panther Magics that are, in part, responsible for T’Challa’s enhanced physical state. She is, as near as T’Challa can figure, a priestess-in-training, and Shuri’s own de facto advisor. Whenever T’Challa sees the two, along with the little cat, it makes him happy.

He could die today, and Wakanda would be in good hands. Shuri would be in good hands. Doctor Stark would be in good hands. When a man is inclined to care, that is one of his greatest achievements.

“Princess. May I have a moment?” T’Challa says as he smoothly exits his office and joins Shuri on her walk to wherever.  Judging by his and her calendars, it’s probably lunch time, given that they have a 12:30 meeting, and they normally meet to relax at midday. Thankfully, this is one of the few days when Tony is not nearby.

“Of course, brother,” Shuri answers as they turn a corner.

“I would like to acknowledge that one man, even a man with as many assistants and technology and such as myself, cannot be in two places at once,” T’Challa says as they pass through a greenhouse and settle just outside it, in a little garden.

“I would also like to acknowledge that,” Shuri says with a playful tone in her voice.

“I would also like to note that you are extremely capable.”

“Hmm… it has taken you some time to come to this conclusion.” T’Challa grins at her as he picks up his fork and stabs a piece of pork.

“Well, it is not that I was not already aware…,” the humor fades away for a moment, “since our father’s death, I have made mistakes. Not the least of which involved taking Mr. Rogers at his word.”

“This is true,” Shuri says as she takes a bite of her own food.

“In seeking to correct these mistakes, I have had to think a great deal about the circumstances in which I made them, and I have come to the conclusion that it may be best for you to be more visible to the world at large.”

“Why?”

“If I am hospitalized, you will have to take my place. My entire place; not part of it and not temporarily, should whatever happens prove fatal. I want to be ready for that possibility.” Shuri sets down her fork and reaches out to take T’Challa’s empty hand.

“We’ll be ready.”

“The other thing I want to do involves Doctor Stark.”

“Oh?” Shuri says. Her phone dings, and she puts it on silent.

“Yes. As I mentioned before, he is too small. And, as we both know, there is a solution to that.”  

…

The day is dreary and grey, and the exact opposite of what Steve is feeling. As he and the other rogue Avengers climb out of the boxy, windowless van and stand on the front drive of the compound, his heart lifts, and he feels like he’s coming home. As he pulls his duffle bag from the trunk and hands out the rest, the front door of the Compound opens up, and they are met with a small, prim woman.

“Hello. I am the a physical body of the AI, FRIDAY. Please take and keep these access badges. Nothing will open to you without them,” Apparently-FRIDAY says. On closer look, Steve realizes that she doesn’t quite look human, though she resembles one well enough. After that is a whirlwind of tour of the Compound which, while essentially the same, has changed drastically in some areas.

The most notable of those things is that everything is setup to be used by no less than a dozen people. The kitchens that had been strategically scattered about have been gutted and remodelled into livingrooms or ballet/yoga studios and the like. One of the largest open areas is home to a cafeteria.

Steve’s hopes begin to sink as he realizes that all of this was done with good cause. There are people in every room they go to. In fact, small groups of three and four often form impromptu teams, though everyone meshes well enough. He sees humans walking around with their shifted companions, and at one point, a panther pads by without stopping.

That must be Shuri, then.

“FRIDAY?” Steven asks, uncertainty just barely kept out of is voice as they pass by the back end of the compound and spot that panther laid out on strategically placed rock, sunning itself.

“Yes, Mr. Rogers?”

“Where’s Tony?”

“That information is above your clearance level, Mr. Rogers.” There is a moment of silence from the group of returning heroes as they consider the implications of that.

“What clearence level are we, FRIDAY?” Clint asks. He wonders if he himself is still an Avenger at all.

“Probationary Level One,” FRIDAY says, cheerily as ever. They move away from the windows.

…

It takes them four months to figure it out. There are two panthers at the Compound, which Steven knows is T’Challa and Shuri. He’s at the back of the building again, watching them sunning themselves on a rock.

One of the panthers butts her head under the other. Her eyes are closed as they nuzzle a bit and then settle again.

“FRIDAY?” Steven says. While he normally wouldn’t address the AI at all, since it doesn’t like him, he finds this important.

“Yes, Mr. Rogers?” FRIDAY’s disembodied voice asks from the ceiling.

“Why does the princess spend so much time in her panther form?”

“Sir, neither of those are princesses. That’s King T’Challa, and Doctor Stark.” Out on the rock, the panthers settle again, happy, and as content, as they could possibly be.