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Even after working together to defeat Thanos, Tony couldn’t say he trusted Steve. Their alliance was in battle, not in life. Once the Compound was rebuilt, Tony had given a short welcome speech that basically was him telling the rogues to stay out of his way, be it there or on missions.
And that seemed to work okay. The rogues did their thing, Tony did his, and never the two paths crossed.
Until the next Avengers level threat, that is.
“Another Hydra base? It’s like they’ll never stop popping up!” complained Clint as they sat in the conference room.
“Barton, there’s a reason they’re called ‘Hydra.’” Nat started.
“’Cut off one head, two more grow in its place.’” Sam muttered, having heard this phrase a million times from Steve.
Fury nodded. “Exactly. Now, when you get there, you are all splitting up.” He waved his hand to change up the holographic map that floated in front of them. “Barton, Romanoff, Maximoff, you three will cover what we believe are where they’re conducting experiments. Banner, Vision, Wilson, you’re on for clearing this area here.” He zoomed in on an area on the map.
“What’s that grey, shadowed-in area?” asked Steve, gesturing to a place on the map.
“That is where you, Barnes, and Stark are headed.” He moved the map to display an area that seemed to have no markings on it, and was just a grey block. “We believe this is some sort of escape route, but we can’t confirm it.”
Tony blinked. “Sorry, but my hearing was pretty badly damaged when I snapped, I thought you said Rogers, Barnes, and me are a team?”
“You heard me right.” Fury confirmed. When Tony rolled his eyes like a child, he leaned over towards him. “You three need to work out this aversion you have towards each other.”
“Actually, I think Stark’s the only one with any aversion issues.” Bucky commented, earning a glare from Tony.
“Look, I couldn’t care less who has what problem. All I know, is that there is a problem, and that just causes a bigger headache for me.”
Tony threw up his hands. “Okay fine, we’ll go skip around a field of flowers, or whatever, but I don’t know if a mission is the best place to ‘bond.’”
Fury glowered at him, seeming to lock eyes through his eyepatch, causing Tony to pull back uncomfortably. “You’re not getting out of this. You three are a team, and that’s final. Now get going!”
Everyone exited the conference room, Tony pouting the whole way to the quinjet.
~~~~
“This level is clear!” was Bruce’s message through the coms.
As his footfalls seemed to sync up with Steve’s Bucky replied, “Wish we could say the same. We’ve got a runner!”
Ahead of them, they could see the sparks from Tony’s thrusters as he flew down a dark tunnel. They’d caught sight of one of the HYDRA scientists and he had taken off. However, the base must have been prepared for this type of thing, because secret trap doors were the only possible explanation for this guy eluding two super soldiers and an Iron Man suit.
The two stopped as they reach Tony standing at the end of the tunnel. He was looking around at what appeared to be an endless maze of suspended platforms. The one they were on was in the middle, with a good few hundred feet above and below them.
“Whoa.” Steve breathed.
Tony powered up his thrusters again. “Split up! He couldn’t have gotten far!” Right as he spoke, the sight of the scientist running on one of the top platforms caught his attention, and he took off, heading upwards.
Steve and Bucky were distracted by a laugh from behind them. On the platform, stood the scientist- or what seemed to be him. Right when they noticed him, he grinned wickedly and faded away; a hologram!
Before they had a chance to react, the platform high above them exploded, and the two soldiers ducked on instinct. Once they were sure it had subsided, they looked towards each other, then around them, seeing the damaged platform, but theirs was still intact.
Steve caught his breath, then spoke into his coms. “We’re okay, but we just hit a boobytrap- we think our target got away while we were caught in the explosion.” There was no answer. “Guys?” Still nothing. He looked at Bucky. “I think that knocked out our coms somehow.”
“Or it could be some form of frequency jamming. Wouldn’t put it past them to pull out all the stops.” It was another moment before Bucky realized something was missing. “Steve? Where’s Stark? Wasn’t he up there?”
Steve looked around again but didn’t see anyone. “Tony?”
“Right here!” The two soldiers looked above them again, this time to the side, to see a very badly-damaged Iron Man suit, dangling from high above them, as Tony gripped onto debris. “Nice of you guys to finally notice me!”
“Tony, are you okay?” Steve called up to him.
“Oh, I’m fine, I just dangle from deadly heights in a powered-down suit for kicks!” Tony adjusted his grip, the shift in weight causing him to almost slip. “My coms are shot, call for someone who can fly!” There was a slight crack from where he hung on. “…and sooner rather than later would be great!’
“Our coms are down too!” Steve glanced from where Tony was dangling, measuring with his eyes to where they stood. If correct, Tony would fall just past their railing, just within their reach. “If you let go, we’ll catch you!”
There was a moment before Tony spoke again. “Yeah, no thanks. How about we wait for pigeon man?” His sarcasm couldn’t fully hide the slight shaking in his voice.
“There’s no time for that. That thing doesn’t look like it’s going to hold your weight for long.” Bucky said.
“Hey, you calling me fat?” His quip was answered with his support creaking a little, the color draining from his face.
Steve inhaled deeply, trying to keep calm. “Buck and I won’t let you fall! I promise!” There was a moment of silence. “I know you don’t trust me, but right now, you really need to.” More silence. “Do you trust me to catch you?”
Even from high above them, the unsureness of Tony’s expression was clear as day. The debris making noise again caused him to shout.” Okay! Okay! You guys…tell me when you’re ready!” Bucky and Steve positioned themselves right below him, leaning over the railing with solid footing. “Ready?”
“Yeah, Tony, we’re ready!” Bucky assured him.
There was a moment of hesitation.
Then Tony let go.
He didn’t even have a chance to scream before three strong flesh arms and one metal arm caught him around the waist and under the armpits.
For a moment the three of them just stayed there, as the shock of the moment wore off, before Bucky and Steve pulled him over the rail to safety.
“You’re okay.” Bucky breathed, though if he was trying to reassure himself or Tony, it was anyone’s guess.
Steve didn’t take his gaze off of Tony, who met his eyes with a bewildered, yet thankful expression. Before either of them realized what he was doing, Steve pulled him into a bear-hug. The inventor stilled for a moment before accepting it, reaching his vibranium arm around him and gently patting him on the back before stilling his hand, just letting it rest there.
When they parted, Tony glanced at Bucky, who just gave him a reassuring smile. “Hey, how about we try to find the rest of the team?”
Tony and Steve nodded as they began to double back through where they came from. “You know Fury’s gonna blow a gasket when we tell him what happened.” Tony commented.
Steve threw one last glance at where Tony had been dangling just moment before, the metal debris now hanging down by a sliver, and then back at Tony, whose face now had its color back. “Well, at least it won’t be all bad news.”
And in spite of everything, Tony chuckled.