Chapter Text
The shock of FRIDAY’s alarm woke Tony up with a jerk, blinking openly towards the slowly opening window blinds as the alarm turned into the tune of his AI’s daily rant about the weather, urgent news, and the to-do’s of the day.
Rubbing his eyes, Tony Stark finally scooched to the edge of his near-barren California king mattress, dragging his legs across the now-familiar cold sheets, dropping them off the bed onto the floor, toes scrunching into the lush carpet. Once stood, Tony walked across his million-dollar penthouse room, ignoring the beautiful sun and view in order to find a much more desirable treasure in the room adjacent.
“Coffee,” he moaned, as he walked towards a freshly brewed pot on the kitchen counter.
“Of course, sir,” FRIDAY chirped, too happy for this early in the morning, in Tony’s opinion. “Madam Potts brought over some of that exquisite Italian ground that you prefer earlier this morning, so I took the liberty of brewing it extra strong, just how you like it.”
Tony felt giddy for the first time in a while, reaching for his favorite worn-down Iron Man mug to begin enjoying this delicacy, pausing mid-pour as he realized something.
“Pepper was here this morning?” He asked, checking the clock on the stove that read 9:37, “When did she stop by?”
“Around a quarter after seven, sir, she said she was in a hurry and had little time before her meeting with some executives over at Hammer. Dreadfully boring if I may say so, sir, but at least you got some coffee out of it,” she finished, chuckling.
Tony exhaled, closing his eyes and cradling the mug close to his chest, which has started to ache. That was only an hour or so after he had gone up to bed, he could have seen one of his closest friends if he had just pushed through, or gone with his original plan to wake up early. It has been a long time since he has been able to see the woman in person, dealing with all the repercussions of the Accords and New Avengers, which took up a great majority of his time.
It was months like these last few that made Tony truly grateful that he had made the redhead his CEO, allowing her to focus on the improvement of his multi-billion dollar company, while he could deal with superpowered adults going through tantrums. It was unfair, he recognized early on, so he used much of his free time going over schematics from the R&D department, or helping financials look through their calculations, really anything he could get his hands on to help his company.
Tony Stark felt his most powerful when he was in a lab, confident with creating solutions to physical problems or becoming inspired with something new to tinker with. For the past 6, or 7 now actually, months he has rarely visited his comfort zone, spending the majority of his time across waters or in the capitol, trying to find a middle ground in the famous Sokovia Accords with the government, the previous Avengers, the ‘New’ Avengers (as they were being called by literally everyone), and himself.
Moral values aside, the Accords were an excellent idea in theory, but the politicians that made the set of laws were incredibly biased and held a disgusting amount of views on how any enhanced person should hold themselves. A decent portion of the people making up his government believed that ‘supers’ shouldn’t exist, and that anyone who showed any sort of extraordinary trait should be imprisoned, at the very least.
While Tony was not physically enhanced until he was forced to take on Extremis, genetically altering his body to take on more physical stress and become stronger, after his chest was caved in by a certain super-solider captain. Dr. Cho had tried everything in her power before genetic manipulation, but the crushed arc reactor, shrapnel, and concaved chest had left many to wonder how Tony had been able to survive without the enhancing drugs. Before this, Tony himself fit into the categories that the Accords listed as imprisonable, simply because of his intellegence and monetary standing, making it possible to follow through with almost all of his crazy ideas, which he found as a big loophole for the government to try and exploit many young people if they tried to reach out or overachieve.
The Accords were originally an attempt to monitor and control anyone who did not fit into the norm, allowing the government to publicly release any details on an enhanced person’s ability, and if a person was considered too ‘dangerous’ the government would be allowed to detain and study for ‘precaution.’ And, of course, the Avengers would no longer be allowed to work independently but instead would be working under the United Nations jurisdiction.
While Tony was no idiot, he understood that a legal document was needed to protect both enhanced and ‘normal’ folks, he could not help but feel despondant after watching almost all of his original teammates fight the accords for the simple fact that they would hinder the amount of freedom the merry band of building-distroyers and road-wreckers would be able to use. They didn’t care about others personal lives or what risk they could be under, clearly shown when they dumped all of SHIELDS personnel files into the internet along with HYDRA’s.
Tony cleaned up that mess too, offering as much funds and spare armor allowed in different countries to try and pull undercover agents or people in witness protection. There were a lot of close calls and even misses, but he was able to both reduce the amount of good people dying, and gain a decent amount of more than competent recruits for Happy’s security team. Tony hasn’t seen him in a while either, with his friend now running the charge on the internal recovery of the new SHIELD agents, whether they were in his team, joining a different department, or simply relocating because of the idiocracy.
Just thinking about the Captain caused Tony to rub his chest irritatingly, remembering the very violent reaction to Tony’s non-immidiate denial or rejection of the documents. It had taken 4 months solely to track down the rogue superheroes, only reaching after he had already drafted up an ammends that he had brought to Pepper, Rhodey and Peter first, just ensure that he covered everything fairly. After he first recovered from his surgeries, he enlisted the help of many vigilantes and other supers to track down the idiots in order to meet the deadline presented at the original meeting.
When Rogers had thrown his tantrum, a heavily injured Tony begged the UN for an extension to the meeting to finalize the accords, bringing up points on privacy and international security, which was the only thing those bastards seemed cared about. After being given a year, clearly out of pity, to collect the Avengers and come up with a revised version of the Accords that every party had to agree unanimously on, Tony was immediately shoved into the deep end of legal jargon, social politics, and worse, immaturity.
With less than a month left, the revision had finally made it to the board and had been passed unanimously with more than enough powerful signatures and witnesses to back it and make it stick. Starting with the first of the new year, just over two months away, any individuals that were considered enhanced must check in to their local town hall and fill out a discreet form that was immediately sealed and sent to a new division inside the UN that would simply file it away if ever needed. If that person wanted to use their powers, they had to contact the same division and apply for use and identity protection as well as a test on their morality and actual capabilities, otherwise they would be labeled as a villain and would be forced into a cell.
Tony refilled his mug, adding a decent plop of cream and a half a spoonful of sugar, before standing with a stretch and shuffling over to the doors of his balcony, finally awake enough to function properly. FRIDAY opened them automatically, allowing him to wander through, lost in his thoughts.
He was grateful he asked Peter for help, because the Accords didn’t cover the already present vigilantes, making them almost imimdialy at fault for improper use of their abilities. He propositioned that all existing vigilantes had to take the same morality test, and still register their identity and power, but did not need the capability test because they had already proven themselves.
Humming to himself, Tony took a sip of his coffee, thinking about how Peter would react when he handed him the paperwork. His mouth stretched into a small grin when he imagined the boy literally jumping for joy, bouncing off the walls as he talked about telling his best friend, Ned. Tony was grateful for the Spider-Kid, who helped him in every step, keeping his sanity whenever Dr. Strange, that Ant guy, or even Rhodey began to be insufferably irritating.
Tony’s hands clenched onto his mug, suddenly wide awake, as he turned quickly back towards the penthouse in a brisk walk.
“FRIDAY” he barked, “how long until Honeybear’s showing up with the Motley Crew?”
“It is currently 10:10 in the morning, your guests will arrive to the tower at around noon, so you have just under 2 hours, boss.” Tony sighed at the AI, wondering why she always decided to go on a rant instead of getting to the point, like JARVIS did.
A pang went through Tony’s chest at the thought of his old AI. While he was grateful for the Vision and all of his help with relocating the rogues and agents, he could barely stand to be around the robot for more than a few minutes at a time, as he reminded Tony of just exactly who he lost a few years ago.
Tony was not excited for this mission, and even less excited at the fact that it was with his old team. The UN, now partnering with what’s left with SHIELD (aka Nick Fury and co.), took a deal where they were only half in charge of the Avengers, old and new. They had to know of any mission before it began, and in emergencies they were allowed to delegate the supers to areas in need. Tony found it extremely fair, but Rogers and his groupies found it horrible that they might have to split up to save civilian lives.
Rhodey had been quintessential to Tony’s patience, making him eternally grateful that he would be here for the initial meet and greet, which was what Tony was going to treat it like, since they had barely looked his way, let alone speak to him, since they were forcefully dragged back into the mess they created.
Tony moved to the elevator, “to the Common Room please, FRIDAY.” Getting an affirmative, Tony leaned against the cool walls of the silver box, listening to an odd piano rendition of a familiar AC/DC song that he couldn’t put a finger on. Before he could come to a conclusion, the doors opened and he was greeted with the most sparsely decorated floor in the entire tower. While his floor was in a similar grayscale, at least he cared for a shic finish and petty knicknacks given to him were scattered around, with those most meaningful residing in his lab where he could look at them more.
The Avengers common room showed its disuse, with the large white couch sitting in front of an off-white table and tv stand, sitting on a grey shag carpet, etc. There was no personality, only cookie-cutter furniture, not even a placeholder on the table or walls. Whenever any of the newer Avengers showed up, it was always at the compound just outside of the city, where they had better equipped training rooms and ‘a better vibe,’ according to Peter and Lang (ant-guy’s name, he hopes).
The Rogues, as Tony will continue to call them, were not allowed access to either building, and with the return of Thor and Bruce, who had been on some sort of space escapade which brought the entire population of Asgard onto Earth. Tony was anxious for this, worried about the success of the mission simply because of the tension between everyone. He invited the two alien-goers earlier than the rest, simply because they were the only two Tony hadn’t visually seen in some time, let alone talk to. Plus, they seem less likely to throw a tantrum when he chews them out.
Moving towards the couch, he grabbed the remote before plopping down, frowning at the firm, unused cushions. Turning on the TV and Roku, he started pulling up some sort of streaming service, trying to relax into the couch.
About 20 minutes had passed before he heard his AI’s confused announcement on the two early arrivals, making him tense right back up with a large, shaky sigh. This was going to be tiring.