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Tony waits until you’re deep in your current project (which is only partially based on the tech Doom wanted at MIT, you are way beyond that ridiculous idea and have moved on to one far more ridiculous, with Tony’s full approval).
“Stay away from Barnes, okay?”
His tone is only casual if you don’t know Tony Stark. Which you don’t, not really, even if it feels like you do. You’re still learning what makes Tony Stark™ different from the guy who is frequently up so late that he’s talking to you at 2am when you’re not even there.
But you have figured out this much. When Tony waits until you’re distracted and he’s elbows-deep in his own project, every non-sequitur out of his mouth is something he’s been mulling over for hours already and has finally decided fuck it say it anyway, better out than in.
Which means stay away from Barnes is something important. Something necessary.
Something you shouldn’t ignore.
“Okay,” you say, like it’s not a big deal that he wants you to stay away from Bucky Barnes. You’re not entirely sure why Tony would care one way or the other. You only saw Bucky Barnes the first time that morning anyway; neither of you said anything to each other and you haven’t even been formally (or informally) introduced.
“Okay,” says Tony, as if the matter has been discussed in full and settled, right there.
Neither of you talk about Barnes again that day.
*
Five weeks. It’s been five weeks since you moved into the Tower with a backpack and a cardboard box of charred belongings from the house where you grew up. And in that five weeks, every aspect of your life has changed, so completely and thoroughly that sometimes, it feels like you’ve gone past 180 and 360 and done a full 540 degree turnaround.
Sometimes, it feels like you’re still spinning. Especially when Jen Walters calls with an update about the legal proceedings in San Diego, or when you meet the real estate agent in Pepper’s office to sign the documents that officially sell the property where your childhood home doesn’t exist anymore.
You’ve barely stopped moving. There’s too much to do, too much to learn, too much to prove.
It’s kind of a blessing, honestly. The more time you spend moving, the less time you think about the cardboard box, or the cemetery outside Boston, or the various issues for why you can’t actually sell the remains of your childhood home just yet. The less time you think about the deposition you had with Jen Walters on one side and Maria Hill on the other, the things you said under oath and the things you weren’t allowed to say but probably should have.
You’ve got first-aid and basic CPR training, but you go with Sam to a more advanced field-medicine course that teaches you how to actually staunch a bullet wound and how to insert a trach tube. You’re so squeamish about the trach tube that Sam has to remind you to keep your eyes open. It doesn’t help. He teases you about it for the rest of the trip.
You’ve had your driver’s license since you were sixteen but you go down to Virginia with Thor to take a specialized driving course that teaches you how to ram a barricade and drive backwards safely at fifty miles an hour. You and Thor have entirely too much fun and are threatened with never being allowed to return. Worth it.
Steve finds out you speak French and it takes two minutes to realize the conversation practice is more for him than it is for you. Sparring in the gym, on the other hand, is all for you, because Steve never breaks a sweat. Every time you get back up, he grins at you, and that’s worth the bruises.
Clint hands you a bow and arrow, laughs for ten minutes when you can’t even get the arrow halfway down the range, yelps when you kick his chair over with him on it, races to catch up to you before you get to the elevators, then shows you every single weapon in the firing range, carefully and clearly explaining the differences between each one of them, their strengths and weaknesses, when you’d want one over the other, and lets you try them all. He doesn’t laugh again, you don’t kick his chair over again, and after a full week of this, you actually manage to hit one of the targets. He’s not impressed and doesn’t even bother to fake it, but he doesn’t let up on the corrections to your stance, either.
Natasha takes you on a few planned ops, easy missions with little opposition and medium-stakes goals. She throws you in the deep end, clearly expecting you to swim, and pulls you out when you flounder, just to throw you in for a second go. You see her smile on the way home after every trip, though. Even if she doesn’t think you catch the way her mouth turns up.
They’re setting the stage for larger things, and you know perfectly well they’re testing you.
And then there’s Tony.
One day he snaps at you for being two minutes late (or at least, two minutes later than he expected you). The next he greets you with a cheerful shout and drags you to whatever project is on the table at the moment. He pulls you into conversations both theoretical and physical, puts you in charge of Legionnaire maintenance and tricks you into helping with both Avengers and Stark Industries projects.
He hazes you with Ozzy Osborne, makes you reorganize the tool storage three times, uses you as a glorified rubber duck to work out problems with his suit, ignores you or listens to you depending on his mood, and yells when you accidentally weld his chair to the floor because you had no idea how to use the damn thing (and he hadn’t actually explained it, either).
He also tasks you with convincing Clint that boomerang arrowheads are a terrible idea (you fail, but it’s a fun thought experiment), lets you do the calculations on recalibrating Steve’s shield (and trusts that you’ve done them correctly, which completely freaks you out), and halfway through the second week, demands to see how exactly you broke into the Latverian Defense Ministry, before helping you Rickroll Doom. Again.
He sulks when Steve starts including you on missions. He sulks harder when you offer to stay behind and let him go instead. He debriefs you a second time after the official debrief, nitpicks every decision you made in the field, and helps you brainstorm and workshop alternate solutions and workarounds until you don’t think there is a single situation you aren’t prepared to face.
And then he gives you your own purchasing code and tells you to break the Doombot encryption or he’ll fire you.
You believe him. For about thirty seconds, until you see Colonel Rhodes in the corner facepalm with a groan.
“You can’t fire me,” you say, though you’re not entirely sure he can’t. “I think Maria Hill is the only person who can fire me. And maybe Steve.”
Tony snorts, like he couldn’t fire them, too, if he wanted.
“That code works for clothes, too, kiddo,” he adds.
“Clothes?” you echo, glancing down at your shirt.
“We’re superheroes, not cartoon characters!” Tony yells from his welding corner. “Get a different color shirt already!”
And then he starts welding, and cranks up Ozzy, and you buy earplugs with the expense account, and clothes with your first paycheck.
*
The third time you see Bucky Barnes is a few days after Tony’s advice (order?) not to talk to him, bright and early in the shooting range, and he’s missing an arm.
“It comes off?!?” you exclaim without thinking.
Luckily, he doesn’t hear you. Probably. Anyway, he doesn’t turn around and by the time Natasha’s got you installed in an aisle of your own, Barnes has hit four bullseyes in a row.
“How,” you say, staring.
“Well,” says Natasha dryly, “first you don’t get knocked over by the recoil. Which you wouldn’t do if you planted your feet like Barton taught you.”
And she kicks at the inside of your ankles while you yelp and change position.
You do catch Bucky smirking, though.
Hmph.
You lift your chin and then you lift your gun and you plant your feet and you aim with both hands and you shoot six rounds in quick succession.
None of them are bullseyes, but two of them are damn close and the others would absolutely incapacitate someone.
“Better,” says Natasha. “Again.”
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Bucky take aim with his Sauer. The target’s doing the fancier target things, moving up and down and back and forth to make the shot more complicated.
“No,” says Natasha behind you, doing that thing where she knows what you’re thinking before you’ve even thought it. It’s annoying and pesky and omg you want her to teach you how to do it.
Or maybe you really are that transparent, in which case you want her to teach you how to stop being transparent.
Bucky shoots again. Six locations, six bullets, six bullseyes.
“Wow,” you mouth, before you realize that Bucky’s looking right at you. He raises an eyebrow while he pops the chamber on the gun to replace the bullets.
One-handed.
You have never been particularly attracted to gunplay in your life. You honestly had no intentions of ever learning how to shoot anything scarier than a Nerf gun.
But all the same.
Guh.
“Looking for a challenge, doll?” says Bucky in a drawl, a smirk on his face.
Doll?!?!?
Nope, scratch the guh. Replace with ugh. You inhale through your nose sharply and frown at him.
Natasha snaps something in Russian, and Bucky responds with amusement—but you ignore both of them and turn to the target, dropping one hand and holding the gun with the other.
You fire six times.
You miss. Six times. Well, five times—the third bullet grazes the edge of the paper.
“Not bad,” says Natasha. “Keep working at the two-handed version, though.”
She leaves you to reload and keep practicing while she goes to talk to Bucky. You don’t hear much (it’s loud and you’re wearing protective earphones), but you hear enough to get that the arm had been malfunctioning and is in for repair.
Repair. Any disgruntlement you might have felt about missing the paper completely is gone at the prospect of finding Bucky’s arm waiting for you up in Tony’s lab.
Concentrating on anything is almost a lost cause after that; sure Clint can hit a Doombot at 500 feet without even looking, but you are not Clint. Nope, you’re already trying to decide if you should skip stealing Clint’s coffee and go straight up to the lab after practice and what kinds of upgrades Tony’s got planned and exactly how many plates are in the fingers to achieve the sort of articulation necessary to—
There’s a tap on your shoulder; you turn and see Bucky standing behind you. He’s frowning, and your eyes go wide as your heart leaps in your chest. You scramble to pull off the ear protection.
“Let me see your stance,” says Bucky, without much of a preamble.
You turn back to the targets and concentrate on your feet and your arms, careful to keep your finger off the trigger.
And then you feel Bucky’s right hand pressing against your spine, pushing your shoulders down, his arm reaching around to adjust your hold a little higher, a little to the left.
His hand is warm. Really warm. He’s wearing cologne, or maybe he just smells really good.
You hold your breath, until he’s taken a step back. Your head spins a little. What are you supposed to be doing again?
“Go,” he says quietly.
Oh, right. You breathe, hold, fire.
It’s not a bullseye. But it’s right on the line, the best you’ve done, and you lower the weapon, turning to flash a pleased grin at him.
He’s got a slight smile on his face, only there long enough for you to see it before he wipes it away.
And then it’s gone, and he’s back to his serious face. “Why’d you lower the gun? Do it again.”
So you do, finding the exact position he’d put you in without his help because dammit if you’re gonna let him think you weren’t paying attention.
Again, and again, for ten minutes, before Bucky lets you stop. The last set is the worst, though they’re still better than before. You’re not sure you can hold the gun any longer; your arms shake slightly when you set the gun down finally, and Bucky’s frowning.
“Not bad for a beginner,” he says thoughtfully.
“I hope not, I’ve been in here every day,” you retort.
Bucky glances at the gun again. “You’ve been here… what, two months?”
“Six weeks.”
He picks up the gun almost as soon as you put it down, holding it, turning it over, and even doing a bit of fancy flippery, a little like he’s in an old Western film.
“Gun safety is a thing,” you say, but you’re impressed. You’re not sure you’d be able to do any of that without dropping it.
“Why’s Nat got you working with this one?” he asks, as judgmental as you’ve ever heard him.
You shrug. “I think it’s what was available?”
He’s still frowning. “It’s too heavy for you. You should have something lighter. A Beretta, maybe.”
It doesn’t sound like an insult, the way he says it, so you decide not to take it as one.
He gives the gun one last flip and hands it over to you. You watch him go, then shrug and put a new target up before sending it back to the other side of the range. Natasha demands a hundred shots or half an hour, whichever comes first, and you’re determined to double one or the other no matter what.
But you remember the stance Bucky taught you, and your aim improves after that.
“What’d he say to you?” Natasha asks later, when your shoulders are aching and you’re reconsidering skipping your coffee run, because you’re starving.
“That I should have a lighter weapon, mostly.”
“He’s not wrong,” says Natasha. “But until you’ve got the permit to carry, the only reason you’d have a gun in the field is because the mission’s already gone to hell and you’re using someone else’s weapon.”
Ouch.
You don’t think Natasha meant it in a bad way, though.
“Pay attention to him,” Natasha continues. “He came by his reputation as a sniper honestly, and that was before he was ever the Winter Soldier.”
You glance back to where Barnes has long since disappeared. “I thought he wasn’t anymore.”
“He’s not the Winter Soldier the way you’re not from Boston,” says Natasha dryly.
“I am from Boston,” you say. “I mean, I was.”
“I know,” she replies, right before she hands you another weapon, and has you shoot another hundred rounds.
It’s half an hour later when you finally burst into the lab, Clint’s coffee in one hand and a cheese Danish in your mouth. It’s quiet, for once; Tony’s doing some kind of designing on his computer screens and Bruce paces behind him, ticked off about something.
The work tables are empty.
The work tables are empty.
You set your coffee down at your station, looking around the lab. Maybe it’s in one of the testing bays? Or undergoing some kind of analysis?
Maybe it’s all in pieces and Tony’s doing a complete redesign?
Except it’s not an arm on his screen, it’s something to do with whatever secret project he’s always playing with and won’t let you touch.
You must have a confused look on your face, because you’re still looking around when you hear Tony call, “Kiddo, what’s the problem?”
“Where is it?” you ask.
“Where’s what?”
“The arm!”
“What arm?”
“Barnes’s arm! He said it was malfunctioning so he sent it up for repair—”
“When the fuck was Barnes talking to you?” says Tony, his eyes flashing and his voice gone hard and fast and high.
“Tony,” says Bruce, a warning, even though he’s glancing at you. Your eyes widen, because sure Tony warned you off Barnes, but you hadn’t expected Tony to react quite like this.
“He was in the shooting range this morning,” you say. “And he said it to Natasha, not me.”
Probably better not to add that he had spoken to you—and even touched you, while showing you a better stance.
“I told you to stay away from him,” says Tony gruffly.
Your own temper flares. “Great, then you explain to Natasha why I can’t practice my aim every morning.”
“Find another time to practice,” snaps Tony. “Two a.m. sound good? Great. You’re practicing at 2 a.m. Even the Cyborg isn’t going to be up at that hour.”
You stare at Tony, your heart rolling in your chest. Tony’s been angry with you before—heck, Tony was angry with you about once a day in the beginning, and it’s only tapered to once a week now that you’re coming up on two months—but at least you always knew why he was angry.
This time, you don’t have a clue.
You hate not having a clue.
“His arm’s not here,” says Tony through gritted teeth. “Because apparently, I can’t be trusted. So don’t bother looking for it. I want a progress report on the Legion by this afternoon or I’m switching you to ‘bot repairs.”
Dum-E lets out an indignant squeak, his gears working overtime as they look back and forth between you. More so when Tony turns and stalks across the workshop to one of the welding bays.
You watch him, mouth dropped open, then look at Bruce, who leans against a table and rubs his forehead.
He doesn’t look green. Yet, anyway. Just tired, which honestly is how he looks most of the time in Tony’s lab. You still keep a careful, if not entirely wary, eye on him, because you remember when he did Hulk out on you.
You hadn’t seen that coming, either.
“He’s not mad at you,” says Bruce, wearily.
There’s a brief flare from the welding tool bursting to life, then Dum-E lets out another shriek and races across the floor, ready to hop onto fire watch. The noise from whatever Tony’s destroying is terrific.
“You sure about that?” you say.
“He’s mad because Barnes’s arm is the best piece of tech in the entire building, and the only one he doesn’t get to play with,” explains Bruce, testily. You deflate a little, but don’t take your gaze from Bruce. “You just reminded him of that.”
“What’s Barnes got against him looking at his arm, anyway?” you say, still looking at where Tony’s systematically taking apart the next model of the Iron Man suit. “Who’s better at tech than Tony Stark?”
“The Wakandans who built it,” says Bruce.
“It’s in Wakanda?”
“The outreach center in Midtown, more likely.” Bruce crosses over to you. “Don’t worry about it. Tony’s going to die mad about it, but that doesn’t mean he should be taking it out on you. He’ll apologize when he’s done working out his frustration.”
There’s a frantic squeal from Dum-E that makes you jump, followed by the splash of water and Tony shouting.
“Do I dare go over there right now?”
“I wouldn’t,” says Bruce. “But I haven’t stared down any supervillains lately, either.”
“That was practically two months ago,” you say absently, and bite your lip, still staring at where Tony’s working.
“Stop worrying,” Bruce tells you. “Let him work it out on the suits.”
“I’m not worrying.”
Bruce doesn’t look convinced.
“I mean, it’s fine. Plenty of places I can go next. California’s probably out for the next decade, but Chicago was cool. Pizza’s pretty good, haven’t spent as much time at Illinois Tech as I should—”
“You think he’s going to kick you out?”
You glance at Bruce. “He hasn’t exactly said he wants me to stay.”
Bruce stares at you for a long minute, a look on his face that low-key says, you have got to be kidding me. “Do yourself a favor. Go look at his holoscreens.”
Your eyes go wide, but Bruce just gestures to where Tony had been sitting.
You’re not sure what’s on the screens, not at first. It looks like suit of some kind—but not for Iron Man. Maybe for Widow…
And then you see your name at the top of the screen, and your breath catches.
“This is for me?”
“He’s been working on it for the last week,” says Bruce. “Reinforced Kevlar, similar to what Cap wears. The design’s a cross between Rogers’ and Romanoff’s, though. You should be able to move well enough, and he’s been working out how to integrate whatever tech you need to carry.”
“He’s making me a suit?” You reach out to touch the screen; the moment your finger touches the relay, it expands into a 3-D hologram on the viewing platform, just your size.
“You can’t keep borrowing Romanoff’s stuff forever,” says Tony, startling you. You glance over your shoulder at him; he’s leaning against the table closest to the bay, wiping his hands on a cloth. His jaw’s still tight, but he doesn’t look angry anymore, not really. “Cap made some suggestions, I’ve got a couple mock-ups.”
You turn back and stare at the image slowly rotating on the viewing platform. It’s gorgeous, really, all shimmery lines and smooth curves, a utility belt that you’re dying to examine more closely.
You want to ask if you’ve heard him right—if Tony’s making you something… and talking with Cap about what you need in the field…
Does that mean they’re going to let you stay?
“Want to try it on?” asks Tony. “Could use your input.”
“I thought I was under house arrest!” you blurt out, still unable to take your eyes from the mock-up.
“Why the fuck would you think that?” asks Tony, bewildered.
You’re still not sure you can believe what you’re seeing or hearing, and then you step onto the platform, and into the image.
It instantly molds around you, as form-fitting as it would be in reality. The digital lines glow brighter on your arms, like fluorescent, transparent fabric, readjusting until the length and breadth of the suit is absolutely perfect. You stretch your arms out to your sides, then in front of you, as if you’re testing the fit. Even the fingers are exactly the right length, and you know you’re sporting a silly grin, from the way Bruce hides his own smile, but you don’t even care.
You have a suit.
Bruce wanders off after checking that the medical sensors are properly placed, but you and Tony talk for a while about the best placement for the pockets, the holsters, even the exact design of the pack you’ll wear to carry anything else. Jarvis makes additional suggestions, most of which you and Tony agree to implement. There’s slots for flash drives and a built-in tool kit, plus it’s wired so that you can send a bolt of energy to break through almost any electrified lock-box you might find.
You work through several tae kwon do forms to make sure you have full range of motion, then mimic sparring with Steve and shooting the various weapons Clint and Natasha have thrown at you. Tony’s still tapping away on his pad, saving all the corrections and notes, while Dum-E skitters around the edge of the platform, worrying, and you admire the way the images float over your hands as you move them back and forth.
“Think this’ll do?”
“Do?” you say, your voice shaking a little. “Tony, I…”
Tony keeps tapping. “I’m thinking a good, deep red,” he says. “Gotta be dark, can’t have it so bright you catch the light when you’re infiltrating evil bases, right?”
“Or just black.”
Tony frowns. “Half the team wears black, you don’t want to make a statement?”
Your mouth quirks up. “Well. Maybe some color would be okay. Green? Dark, though, not like Bruce’s.”
“I’m okay with that,” Bruce calls over. He sounds amused now.
“Not red, or gold? Fine, fine, be that way.” Tony types a few more notes. “Okay, one last part.”
“There’s more?”
Tony throws something from his holoscreen to the platform. You see it spin, fast.
“Is that—” you say, but before you can say anything else, the world is whited out.
Your face, your eyes, your mouth, your nose, smothered by bright digital lines.
Pressing in on your ears, wrapped around your neck, pushing your mouth closed.
Heartbeat echoing in your head, breath caught in your throat.
The world, supernova-bright and pressing in fast, tight, choking.
You can’t breathe.
“No,” you whisper, high-pitched and frantic.
“Kiddo?” Tony’s voice sounds far away, echoing.
“No no no no…”
Your eyelashes brush against the electric walls closing in, they sear into your cheeks and nose and ears. Every beat of your rapidly speeding heart hurts in your chest. Your throat burns, your eyes tear up, your ears ring.
“Tony—” Bruce sounds alarmed, sharp like knives, teetering on the edge of anger, and if he goes green… you whimper, clawing at your hair. How can you feel your hair, you shouldn’t be able to feel it through the shroud, but you can and you scratch at your scalp, trying to pull it away so you can breathe. “She’s panicking, shut it down!”
“Take it off take it off, take it off!”
“I’m trying, she won’t stop moving!”
You’re trapped. It’s so tight around you, shackles, a straight-jacket, you’re drowning caught in a box and they’re walking away and the walls are caving in and the rockets are getting closer and the entire house is falling on your head and the boom boom boom of your heart goes in time with the dirt that lands over you, echoing inside your head.
“Kiddo, stay still!”
You’re not going to get out. You’re there forever. You can’t breathe. Your head spins, there’s no air you can’t breathe there’s no air. You yank at your hair, because there’s nothing else to grab.
“I can’t, I can’t, I have to get out—”
Two firm hands grab you by the shoulders and hold you steady. “It’s not real,” says Bruce calmly, firmly. “Breathe in, count of four. One, two…”
He keeps counting. You can’t breathe—and then, like a punch to the gut, you do.
It hurts, that first gasp of air, like your lungs aren’t built to hold it, like you can’t take in enough.
But Bruce holds you steady, and you shake through the hold, through the exhale (which makes you feel like you’re dying), and then the second breath is better.
You’re halfway through the exhale when the images finally disappear, and you slump, exhausted, and Bruce’s hold never falters.
Sunlight pours into the labs; you hear Dum-E squeaking worriedly from somewhere behind you. Bruce isn’t green; he’s calm, breathing exaggerated steady breaths that you are probably meant to copy, so you do.
“You good?” asks Bruce.
“Couldn’t breathe,” you whisper, voice shaking. “Sorry.”
“Come on, sit down,” says Bruce, leading you off the platform and over to the couch. You grip the fabric tight, feeling it catch on your fingernails.
“Claustrophobic?” asks Bruce gently.
“Kinda?” Not really. But you aren’t sure you can explain it to either of them.
“And Barton was so looking forward to showing you the air vents,” says Tony.
“Tony,” says Bruce, a mild reprimand, as he hands you a juice box.
“Yeah, right, sorry. Okay. Well, scratch the Iron Lady suit.”
“That’s a horrible codename,” you say, still shaky. You wish you didn’t sound so teary. “And I don’t want a codename anyway.”
“If you don’t pick one, they’ll just make something up and then you’re stuck. Ask Bruce.”
Bruce winces. “He’s not wrong.”
You swallow. “I’m sorry. A suit would have been neat.”
“Eh, it’s fine. You should see the number of uniforms Steve’s nixed.”
“Drink the juice,” Bruce tells you, and you nod, sipping at the juice.
You’re almost done with the box—but still feeling like an absolute juvenile idiot for freaking out over nothing—when Tony comes over to collapse next to you.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper.
“It’s fine.” Tony glances at you. “So. House arrest.”
You pick at the seam on the juice box and shrug. “Tell me how I’m any different from Scott Lang.”
“For one thing, you don’t have a criminal record.”
“I probably should. If you and Steve hadn’t vouched for me, I’d be on the Raft. Or dead. Or stuck in the dungeons in Doomstadt. I get that you’d want to make sure I don’t go spinning off into supervillain mode.”
Tony snorts. “Yeah, you belong on the Raft, sure.”
“Tony. I broke into classified systems and almost started a supervillain showdown. I took down the Avengers servers for six hours, convinced Doom to attack MIT, and almost destroyed San Diego Harbor. There’s something like ten million dollars worth of damage and my parents are—”
The sentence ends abruptly, because you can’t continue; the knot that fills your throat won’t let you say a word. You close your eyes and try desperately to breathe through the bands that wrap themselves tight around your chest. Tight as a set of chains, tight as the imagined armor in which Tony would trap you.
As it is, your shoulders shake and your grip on the apple juice is just a little too tight; the cool droplets splash on your fingers.
A hand lands on your shoulder.
It pats you once, twice. So carefully modulated that you know it’s Tony, at his absolute most awkward, trying to comfort you and not having the slightest clue how to do it. There, there.
It’s too ridiculous. Especially when you hear a familiar whirr, and open your eyes to see Dum-E, racing across the lab with a box of tissues, which he shoves directly under your face.
You start laughing, right through the hurt and the guilt and the grief, and take one of the tissues from the pop-up box. “Thanks, Dum-E.”
Dum-E whirrs his pincers, pleased.
You glance over at Tony. “I’m sorry. It’s probably a great suit. I bet it’d be so much fun in the field.”
Tony shrugs, all nonchalance. “Eh, it’s not all that. Gets hot, you know. Visibility’s crap. I was gonna try to give you some VR thing in there, probably good for watching movies or whatever.”
You smile a little. “That would have been cool.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He sits back and drums his fingers on the armrest. “What if we used glasses?”
“What, like Clint’s?”
“Yeah, but for VR, not targeting. We could tie you into Redwing, so you could see what he sees through the glasses.”
It sounds plausible. But… “Why are we still even talking about this?”
Tony frowns. “I told you. Widow’s possessive about her shit and Cap says—”
You shake your head. “Tony, I’m not an actual Avenger. I’m here because—”
Tony cocks his head to the side, but when you don’t finish, he waves his hand in the air, as if asking you to continue. “No, go on. Do you not want to be here?”
You shift on the couch to turn to him. “Of course I want to be here. Are you crazy? This is like… a dream come true. But… I can’t go out and save the world, Tony, I couldn’t even save my parents.”
“Neither could I,” says Tony. “Look. You don’t want to go into the field, you don’t have to. I’ll scrap the whole uniform, no biggie. But you have a place here at SI as long as you want one. Or until you’re done with Dum-E’s redesign, he still can’t aim for shit.”
Dum-E lets out an indignant screech from somewhere nearby.
“Dum-E doesn’t want a redesign,” you say, watching as Tony pushes himself off the couch and heads back to his workstation.
“Yeah, whatever, you two work it out.” Tony doesn’t turn around, shoulders hunched over in a sulk. After a few moments, you get up, too, head over to the bathroom where you throw out the empty juice box and wash the stickiness off your hand.
You lean against the sink and stare at your reflection in the mirror for a moment. Your eyes are still red and a little swollen, and your skin is pale and splotchy. Your hair’s a mess, too, so you take a breath and try to straighten it with your fingers.
It doesn’t help much. You still look awful.
You know about the red in Natasha’s ledger.
You know about Bruce’s fear that Harlem could happen again.
You know that Tony’s still trying to make up for the destruction his weapons created.
But you’re not them. You’re not sure you ever could be. You can barely hit a bullseye with two arms, let alone with one. You passed the advanced first-aid training, but you crashed so many cars in Virginia that you’ve got a permanent spot on their Fantastic Failures wall, and you still stumble whenever Steve pats you on the back after sparring practice.
What makes you think you deserve to wear an Avengers patch?
What makes them think it?
“Jarvis?” you say, hesitating a little, because sure, Jarvis is an AI and can’t technically be embarrassed about a conversation in a bathroom, but still.
“Yes, miss?”
“Do I really belong here? I’m not an Avenger. I’m never going to have super strength, or hit a bullseye without looking. I can’t do triage, I can’t fly, I can’t even steal Clint’s coffee without getting caught half the time. Tony made me an entire suit, and I had a panic attack! I’m not anyone. I’m just… me.”
Jarvis is quiet for a moment. “Sir believes you belong here.”
“Why?”
“I believe there are several reasons. You speak six languages with varying degrees of fluency. You are a black belt in three different martial arts forms and training in a fourth under Captain Rogers’s guidance. Agent Barton believes your marksmanship skills are currently at a professional level, and fast on track toward Intermediate. Additionally, there are three Legionnaires who would not be operational without your repairs, and Mr. Stark has submitted four patents with your name attached on projects he considered stalled.”
“That doesn’t make me an Avenger, J,” you point out. “And none of it matters anyway if Tony doesn’t want me to stay.”
Jarvis doesn’t answer.
Instead, you hear the argument coming in from the lab: Bruce and Tony. Normally you can’t hear anything from in the bathroom, but this sounds like it’s coming from the speakers, like Jarvis is letting you listen in on purpose.
“—pushing her out a door she doesn’t even know how to find!”
“I’m not pushing her!”
“You designed an Iron Man suit for her, Tony. What do you call it?”
“You didn’t see her in San Diego, Bruce. She was…”
“Out of her depth?”
“It didn’t stop her. She stood her ground, every one of us going down with the ship. She saw the one in a million chance to turn the whole damn thing around, and she took it. Kid like that doesn’t belong on the Raft. Or in jail.”
“She’s not a kid.” There’s a pause. “Tony… is this about—”
“No. Yes. Probably. Anyway, he’s fine. Got his aunt, great school, friends. Doesn’t need me.”
“And she does?” Tony doesn’t answer, and Bruce’s sigh is audible. “Tony, what are you doing?”
“The right thing.”
“The right thing. Really. Throwing her into the field—”
“She’s great out there. You’ve seen her.”
“I’m not saying she’s not, but… did you even ask if that’s where she wants to be? Not all of us want that, Tony.”
“Who wouldn’t want that.”
“Tony. She’s not you.”
“I know.”
“You can’t make her into you.”
“I know.”
“No matter how many suits you build.”
“You don’t think Pepper and Steve have said the same thing? Anyway, the suit’s a bad idea. We’re scrapping the suit.”
“Tony—”
“You know MIT wants her back? CalTech says she’s got a place there as soon as the legal mumbo jumbo’s cleared. Hell, even U London wants her on their roster. She’d probably get on great with Lewis—”
“Does she know that?”
“Yeah, sure. Of course. Probably.”
“Tony.”
“What am I supposed to do, Bruce? You know her, the minute I tell her any of that, she’s going to read into it and think I want her to go. Especially now. She wants to leave, she can tell me. She’s a smart kid, she knows she’s got options.”
“You sure about that?”
The feed abruptly cuts off. “Miss?” says Jarvis.
“Is it true?” you say, staring at your reflection in the mirror. Reddened eyes, pale skin.
“Yes.” Jarvis is so straight-forward, so matter of fact about it, that you can’t help but believe him, even if it sounds unbelievable.
University of London? You’d never even imagined. “I don’t even have a passport.”
“That can be easily remedied if you should decide to take the offer.”
London. It’s a ridiculous idea, imagining yourself living there, an expat in a teeny tiny flat. The montage in your head is straight out of every rom-com coming-of-age movie you’ve ever seen. It’s still ridiculously tempting.
But…
“I’d be running away,” you say, still thinking of all the running you’ve done already. “Again.”
“I don’t see it that way,” says Jarvis. “You chose to take responsibility for your actions in San Diego. Choosing something else now does not negate nor diminish that decision. It merely means you’re making another one. And I’ve always found that the ability to change their minds is one of humanity’s greatest assets.”
You stare at your reflection for another minute, waiting until your hands don’t shake, your breath doesn’t stutter, and your heart rate has slowed.
You can stay in here, and that’s okay, no one will think less of you for it, Clint had told you. But I need to get back out there, so you gotta make a choice.
You splash your face with cold water, and somehow, that helps as much as Jarvis’s confidence.
The lab is as you left it, more or less. The Iron Lady suit is gone from the platform, of course, but Tony is still nearby, frowning at the holoscreens and tapping on the screen, then his pad, then the keyboards, all in tandem. Bruce is doing something off to the side, yelping as he works with the small welding torch, while Tony throws off-hand remarks about the steadiness of his hands, if he’s feeling testy or not, does he need a moment to cool off or should Tony prepare a Code Green?
Dum-E races between the two of them, as if waiting for the next explosion, and when he spies you, he clacks his pincers until you smile, and he races back to his monitoring.
Your table is waiting, just as you’d left it the day before, Clint’s boomerang arrow schematics on one end, a half-built Widow’s Bite on the other, a delivery you’ve yet to unpack that undoubtedly contains some kind of project for SI that Tony has yet to explain.
You stand off to the side, and your eyes drift back to Tony.
“What is it, kiddo?” he asks, a bit absent, just when you think he hasn’t noticed you at all. “Penny for your thoughts.”
“Thought they were worth a dime at least.”
“Nickel at best.”
You smile. “I had a thought. About the field glasses? Patching them to Redwing would be great for when we’re not on the Quinjet, but Sam’s already got something like that. What would really be useful is if we had something really tiny, like nanites or something, because there’s a lot of places Redwing can’t get to…”
Tony’s fingers go still. “Keep going.”
“And I could use them to follow cables and wires and stuff. And patch that through to the glasses. And maybe even patch into computer systems remotely, take down security on the inside while we’re still on the outside.”
Every bit of sulk is gone from Tony’s shoulders as he turns and throws one arm around you, leading you away from his workstation and back to yours. “Now you’re talking. That’s your next project, kiddo. And you’ll still need something for the field. Not a suit. But first, show me what you’ve done with the Legion.”
“The Legion,” you echo, still thinking miniature drones and how to manufacture something that small and maybe Scott Lang can help you with that, if you build it bigger and then take it small, and what you’d need to ensure you wouldn’t lose the visual connection despite not having line-of-sight.
London can wait. Forever, maybe. Today, tomorrow, as long as you can, you’re choosing here.
Tony snaps his fingers at you, pulling you back to the lab. “Yes, the Legion, the army of robots I’ve been having you troubleshoot for the last week because their Guardian protocols keep stalling their systems.”
It takes a moment to redirect your thoughts. “It’s not the Guardian protocols, though, there’s this bug in the system—here, it’s going to be way faster if I show you—”
Tony watches over your shoulder as you show him the coding you’ve redone, sometimes with a suggestion, sometimes with a fix, and it’s only a few minutes before you’re both off to the races, diving into the problem and thoroughly enjoying the chaos until it’s resolved.
It's not until you’re leaving the lab, because you’re starving and exhausted and late for meeting Steve in the gym, when Tony speaks. “Still need a uniform, though. A jacket, maybe? Tactical pants. All the bells and whistles, of course.”
“And green piping.”
“Ugh, fine, if you want.” He waves you away, but just as you reach the door, he speaks again.
“It wasn’t your fault. San Diego.”
It’s that casual-not-casual voice again, though. The one he uses when it’s something he doesn’t want you to know is important.
You turn back and look at him, but he’s not looking at you. He’s looking at his holoscreens again, but this time, you recognize what he’s working on. Now that you know, it’s easy to see the similarities to his Iron Man suit, except the one on the screen is smaller. Sleeker. Worn close to the body.
Yours. Or would have been. It’ll be someone else’s now.
San Diego was absolutely your fault. As was MIT. And your parents. No matter what Tony says.
But if Tony’s giving you a uniform, and Steve’s gonna take you into the field to use it… maybe you can make amends.
Maybe you can make sure no one else has to lose what you’ve lost.
You can be brave, for someone else. Even if you can’t be brave for yourself.
“Okay,” you say, because you can’t say I know San Diego wasn’t my fault, and you sure as hell can’t agree. If you tell Tony he’s wrong, that it’s definitely your fault, that you’d do just about anything to undo what you caused, he’d just argue with you about it.
Tony doesn’t say anything to okay, though, so you head down to the gym where Steve is waiting to continue your training, and try not to wonder what it’d have been like to zoom in a metal suit across the sky.