Chapter Text
ACT 1 - TOUCH
He stares at the phone in his hand.
Flips it open. Thumbs the contact button. Hovers over Rogers; name. Flips it shut.
Tony Stark is conflicted.
Rogers said it himself, or wrote it, actually. No matter what. If he needed the man, or his "team", he'd be there. And fuck, he does need him. It's been nine months and he has still made no progress. Tony is at a dead fucking end, and he can't keep doing it by himself. He needs Captain America and his highly observant allies with eyes and ears everywhere right now.
The kid needs him right now.
Because as much as he hates to admit it, Tony isn't very good at the whole lone wolf thing anymore. He is, or rather, he was a part of a team. They provided him with alternative ideas, different methods of thinking, unique skill sets, and… and more than he cares to think about right now.
He stares at the phone in his hand.
Flips it open. Thumbs the contact button. Hovers over Rogers’ name. Flips it shut.
Then again, Rogers is the one who is like…60% responsible for the Avengers breaking apart. He ripped and pulled at the threads binding them together, tenuous as they already were after the Ultron Incident. All over some stupid piece of paper they could amend after signing the goddamn thing. "The safest hands are still our own," he had the audacity to say, "I'm sorry, Tony."
Then he went and burned the remains of their familial tapestry for his hundred-year-old man crush on Barnes. A mass murder who was under Hydra's control way too long to be trusted. A suspect in the embassy bombing and death of the Wakadan king.
Sure, he didn’t actually bomb the building or kill T’Chaka. But he killed a lot of other people. Tried to kill him. Killed his parents. Helped tear apart the Avengers and did absolutely nothing to stop or prevent it.
Sorry, Rogers said.
He had a lot to be sorry for. Tony just didn't know it at the time.
He flips open the phone again, rereads the note. His thumb and index finger traces his goatee, overgrown with a 5'oclock shadow that he's sure only adds to his gaunt, haunted appearance. He hasn't slept in 75 hours or eaten in 24. Personal hygiene isn't a priority right now, and Tony is sure that he smells of sweat and oil from his workshop after spending hours hunched over the kid's suit, looking for anything he could have missed. By now, he has memorized every gash, every rent in the suit. Every burnt discoloration and frayed wire. And that's just talking about the hardware.
The software is a mess, a tangled ball of yarn that refused to be unraveled. Karen is nothing more than a bunch of zeroes and ones scattered to the wind. The Baby Monitor shows nothing but small clips of Peter's “patrols,” fuzzy with static and interference. It’s as if someone took the world’s most advanced EMP, added a big “Fuck You” addressed to him personally, and wrapped it all in a neat little bow and blew it up in Peter’s suit. Specifically in his suit. There’s no way anyone could have bypassed the Faraday cage he installed outside of it otherwise. Right?
Right.
Hell, that thing could have probably deflected a lightning strike from Thor himself.
Whoever did this was smart and had to have known about Peter’s powers beforehand. Otherwise, Peter would have been here right now, annoying him with his mile-a-minute brain going off about some new formula he developed for his web fluid or what he planned to do with Ted? Ned? this weekend. The kid was too fast, too smart, and with Tony’s tech and that Peter tingle sixth sense thing, he should have been next to untouchable. Hell, he had been after the whole Vulture thing. Tony made sure of it.
He stares at the phone in his hand.
And tosses it back on the workbench
He created an arc reactor with scraps from weapons in a cave. He can do this without the Star-Spangled Asshole’s help.
“Boss, Miss Potts is requesting to enter,” Friday’s voice, soft and lilting, sounds overhead, and Tony grits his teeth.
“Tell her no, Fri. I’m busy.”
There’s a pause before the AI speaks again, “I’m sorry, Boss, but it appears Miss Potts has overridden my controls and is coming in now.”
He hears the door open but doesn’t turn around, choosing to instead hunch over the kid’s suit, fingers twiddling with a loose wire. When Pepper’s voice sounds behind him, it’s soft and gentle. The same understanding tone everyone’s been using around him since that day so long ago. He’s getting pretty sick of it. “I’m sure you’re not busy with anything you haven’t done a hundred times before, Tony.”
“I’m missing something,” he knows his voice is as hoarse as his appearance, but he doesn’t really care.
“You’ve missed nothing,” she puts a hand on his shoulder, “Come upstairs with me, eat some pizza. Rhodey brought your favorite.”
Tony glances behind his shoulder at his fiancée, “I’ll be there soon.”
It’s a lie and they both know it. He can feel the soft exhale against the back of his neck as she sighs, “Tony, please. Everything will still be here after you get some rest. Then, Rhodey offered to look it over with you with fresh eyes.”
He might not still be alive by then, he thinks.
He shrugs. “I can’t just leave, Pep. He needs me.”
You’re right. Peter needs you,” she turns him by his shoulders and gives him a pointed look, “He needs you at your best.”
Pepper is right of course, she always is. And he does not have the energy to really fight her on it. This is a long song and dance they’ve been performing for years now, and she knows when to pick her battles. He leans into her embrace, releasing a long sigh, “I’ll give you five hours, max.”
“Doctors recommend at least six hours of sleep a night, boss,” Friday sounds from overhead.
“I’m going to reprogram you,” Tony mutters into Pepper’s neck, no real venom in the threat. He programmed her like this for a reason, after all.
“Give it six hours, and I’ll see who else I can bring in to help you two,” Pepper says. He can hear the gentle smile in her voice, cautious but hopeful.
“Yeah? Who? I doubt the Avengers exist anymore, Pep."
Tony and Pepper both startle at the shrill ringing coming from the flip phone on his workbench. “Is that…?” Tony nods an affirmation, too stunned to speak. It’s been a year since he’s received the phone, and it’s been silent ever since, “Are you going to answer it?”
He doesn’t respond, torn between his bitterness and his curiosity. Instead, he stares at the little screen on the closed, outdated phone as it rings its shrill little ringtone.
Steve Rogers, 678-136-7092.
Then it stops. As abruptly as it began.
1 missed call.
And then…
1 new message.
Tony picks up the phone.
Flips it open.
“News from Wakanda. An Enhanced they call ‘Isigcawu.’ Means: Spider.”
He stares at the phone in his hand.
Flips it open. Thumbs the contact button. Hovers over Rogers; name. Pushes call.“You better not be shitting me, Rogers.”
“I don’t know where he is, Tony, but I know where he was.”