Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"FRIDAY, scan."

"On it, boss." As his AI maps everything about the rinky-dink phone, Tony watches Rhodey's eyes move side to side as his friend reads Steve's letter once, twice, three times, face twisting up at the same spots every time. The three remaining Avengers sat around the small table, eating dinner that Vision had made. Tony had come in late, dodging increasingly insistent calls from Ross, and placed the phone on a nearby Starkpad for FRIDAY's easy access while sliding the letter across to his best friend.

"'I hope you understand,'" Rhodey paraphrases with a derisive snort, handing the letter to Vision, who dutifully reads it in about five seconds. "I like that he puts the responsibility of accepting his choice on you."

Tony smiles tightly as Vision tilts his head curiously in his direction. "This letter seems private. May I ask why you decided to share it with us?"

He accepts the letter when its handed back over to him. "FRIDAY?" he prompts.

"All done. All files stored. Encryption broken. You'd think His Highness would be a bit more careful."

"His Panther-ness is always careful." The bitterness of Tony's voice pairs horribly with the sing-song tone. "He knows I'll exercise the same caution. Transfer now, please."

"Yessir." Suddenly Vision head tilts sharply in the other direction just as Rhodey's phone beeps loudly in his pocket. Rhodey pulls it out, staring at the new number listed on his screen, and then turns that sharp gaze on Tony.

Tony shakes his head. "I'm not going to call. I know - I know exactly what that says about me -"

"Tony-"

"But I'm not - I can't. I'll do everything else I can possibly do, but I'm not going to call. I'm giving that choice to you. The smartest people I know - the best. You won't hesitate because you're angry or guilty. You'll do the right thing. That's Steve's number, okay. He'll be there if you need him, like he said. And if he needs us, the call will redirect to you, Rhodes." Tony takes a deep breath, turns the letter over in his hands so he can't see Steve's writing but not meeting Rhodey's eyes. "Please," he finishes on an exhale.

"Of course, sir," Vision replies promptly. His voice is calm, smooth, no hint of judgment. When Tony risks a glance up the synthezoid inclines his head before rising from the table. "If need of the Captain arises I will make the call immediately." He exits the room to the soft sound of Tony's sigh of relief.

He sucks it up and turns to Rhodey, not knowing quite what to expect, but he really shouldn't be surprised by the understanding he finds there. His friend leans forward to rest his forearms on the table, a smile devoid of happiness but not warmth on his face. "You've got a lot on your plate, Tones. Let me and Vision handle this one."

"Thank you," Tony replies quietly. It is all he wants to say to Rhodey these days. Thank you for standing with me. Thank you for staying with me. Thank you for every PT session you get through, every prosthetic you criticize. Thank you thank you thank you. But then, because Tony's still an asshole: "That's all you got?"

"Tony," Rhodey starts and then sighs, running his hand over his head. "You already understand why he did what he did. Not like it's hard to figure out, we fought over it. That's why you're not gonna call. You already get it and it's not good enough. That's fine, Tones. You've done inexcusable shit before that I got over. You need time, you take time. Viz and I got this."

It's bizarre for Tony, who's entire childhood was informed by what Captain America would do - what Howard said Captain America would do, at least - to contemplate the man not being good enough in any aspect, but as Rhodey laid it out so calmly and sure, a cold certainty came over him. No, he knew Steve's reasons. He understood, he wasn't stupid, and Steve's reasons weren't enough. They were not good enough for Tony, not now, maybe not ever. And that was something neither Steve nor Tony could fix. And until Tony got over it - if Tony ever got over it oh my God, my mother, my mother...

"I'm going to go down to my lab," Tony announces hoarsely, grabbing up the phone. "I'm going to smash this with a hammer."

"Sure," Rhodey nods sagely, like all the information isn't with FRIDAY, like Tony couldn't say the word right now and be on speakerphone with Captain America.

"Then I'm going to burn this." He reaches for the letter.

"Good plan."

"Then I'm gonna build you new legs."

"Great. These here tend to go pigeon-toed. It's awkward, man, c'mon."

It's a mistake destroying Steve's gesture of goodwill, Tony thinks, even as he takes an unholy amount of glee smashing that stupid phone to bits down in his lab and DUM-E waits eagerly with a fire extinguisher for the last of the letter to burn down. But it's a mistake Tony is happy to make.

It's a mistake he can fix.

Tony has made a lot of mistakes in his life. Most of them he was delighted to make because he was too stupid, too selfish to realize how irreparable they were. Trusting Obie had been his first. He'd never been able to fix that.

(Tony's deepest, darkest secret seems almost trivial but here it is: he would've given almost anything just to have Obie survive. He would have thrown him in jail, of course, but he would've had visited. Even if Obie spat in his face, called him every name, he would have visited. The man had practically raised him.

Tony wishes he trusted someone enough to tell them how much he misses Obie.)

Ultron had been his biggest. Tony works everyday to make sure its not unfixable but the task seems insurmountable.

Attacking Bucky Barnes is his newest, and Tony is a bit ashamed that he hasn't worked up the same amount of guilt for that as he did for Obie and Ultron. Bucky Barnes wasn't the murderer, he was the weapon used to commit the murder. He's innocent, Tony Jesus just -

my mother, oh my God, my mother

-let it go.

Tony is even more ashamed that this is a mistake that is easily fixable and he - he doesn't want to fix it.

He does it anyway.

"Mr. Barnes will be exonerated of the bombing charges, of course," the representative reassures him, picking through the evidence from Zemo's interrogation with distaste. "But he still has to answer for the multiple counts of assassination, Mr. Stark."

Tony could say something here, say he's confident that when Sergeant Barnes is brought in it'll be clear that he was just as much a victim of HYDRA as anyone else, but he doesn't. He can't. His silence scalds his throat dry.

He swallows once, twice, then opens his mouth. "Until then, the Accords, ladies and gentlemen?"

He does exactly what he told Steve he would. He signs the documents and then immediately starts amending the shit of them. It's hard without the good name of Captain America to back him up, but the newly crowned King of Wakanda helps. Tony never meets T'Challa's eyes during the UN meetings, not entirely sure he won't ask a question about the team if he does, but he feels the Panther's eyes on him sometimes, watching.

Their missions will be screened beforehand by the council that's slowly being set up but the Accords allow for the immediate guarantee that any country who signs has accepted any structural damage that might be caused in their operations, and the UN will help negotiate with every country that hasn't.

It's not perfect, and it won't ever be. The UN aren't quite thinking of the kind of response time a team like the Avengers needs in rapid-development situations and there's still a pesky 'loss of life' clause that Tony fears would be far too easy to abuse but he's working on it. Every day he's working on it. "Can we get make some kind of Avengers insurance?" he jokes to Ross one day, and surprisingly the man looks like he's thinking about it.

The Accords are not a mistake, but he will fix them.

(T'Challa breaks first.

"My father would have been proud," he calls to tell Tony.

"Good for you," Tony says, and hangs up. He calls right back. "I'm an ass, and guess what, you're an Avenger now. Come to the States, see the compound. I've built you a nice scratching post."

T'Challa comes by while on a diplomatic visit and does not say anything when Tony doesn't join in on training with Vision and a reconstructed War Machine. He doesn't have to.

There's no suit to train with and that is Tony's mistake to fix.)

"Why are you giving this to me?"

"So you can read it," Tony says blandly, watching Peter pace as the young man flips through the Accords. "If you don't sign, you can't work as Spider-Man. I need you to be able to sign."

"And if I Spider-Man anyway?"

"You can't make yourself a verb, it's lame. You'll be arrested."

Peter stops and stares at him and Tony sighs, dutifully making a note on his own copy of the Accords. "Hard limits: imprisonment."

"No shit, Mr. Stark! I shouldn't get carted off to jail just because I want to help."

Tony sits back in his chair. "Then what should happen, Peter, if you're out Spider-Manning-"

"HA!"

"-and you hurt someone seriously. What if you, you who have said yourself that you're still learning everything you can do, take out a load-bearing wall on accident and collapse a building on innocent civilians. What should happen to you?"

Peter sits down slowly in a chair, staring down at the Accords. "...but I was just trying to help." And Tony sucked in a sharp breath, hearing the guilt in those words. Jesus Christ, this poor kid.

"You do good work, Peter, don't let anyone ever tell you differently."

"Nobody lets J Jonah Jameson do anything," Peter grumbles, but he smiles gratefully at Tony. He's a extraordinary kid, Parker, genuinely good and brave. A hero, through and through. Tony feels lucky to have met him.

"If a cop screws up and they're under good command, their actions get investigated. It's the same here. You're still helping, Peter. You sign the Accords, you do all that legally. Something happens, you have the rest of us and a UN council to back you up. I can't promise it'll be like it was before, and you'll have to attend mandatory training and psych evals-"

Peter's face shutters. "No one can know who I am. It's bad enough that you do."

Tony writes masks down. "Tell you what, kid. You read it, make a note of what you want to change, I'll be back in a week and we can talk."

"That...that sounds good, Mr. Stark. Thank you," Peter says softly, looking at the doorway. The door is closed but the kitchen is just beyond, and they both know May Parker is listening on the other side. "I trust you," Peter announces abruptly.

Tony's whole body locks up in his chair and he gapes ungracefully at the kid for a moment before he remembers how to breathe. "Thanks, Peter."

"No, I mean-" Peter exhales forcefully. "They're gonna lock up anybody with powers that doesn't sign?"

"Anybody using their powers to police. Unless they retire. Until I can get that changed." Ross' control on the Accords needed to be removed as soon as possible; it's him that's pushing so hard for this sort of rounding up and registering. But until then, Tony's going to play by the rules and protect as many people as he can.

Peter stares hard at him. "Get that changed, Mr. Stark. Seriously, it's messed up. I'll go on trial, probation, whatever, but jail - no way. I'm trying to help."

Tony knows now how arrogant that statement is, even if he finds himself agreeing with most of it, but he doesn't say this to Peter. Peter's telling the God's honest truth.

A true hero. Steve would be so proud of this kid.

Tony is so proud of this kid.

"If this is something that's happening," Peter says slowly. "Then there's something you need to know."

Tony fights not to sigh when Peter relays his information, shifting around his agenda for the thousandth time, chipping away at the few hours he's allotted for sleep. Rhodey keeps expecting him to get drunk, but Tony's just doesn't have time.

"Hey." He lays a hand on Peter's shoulder when the kid walks him to the door. "Come by the compound. Get some training in. I know the Avengers aren't your style yet, but it can't hurt."

Peter's eyes grow comically large. "I - really - no way - I - sure, Mr. Stark!"

"And please, kid, call me Tony."

Peter nods, so eager and so, so young.

He made a mistake dragging Peter to that fight.

But he leaves the house feeling like he's on the way to fixing it.

Daredevil nearly punches him off the rooftop. "I've heard all about you."

"I can't say the same. What I can say is this: blunt force head trauma."

"What?"

"You're hurting people, Double D. I'll have a copy of the Accords on this rooftop tomorrow night. I'll come back a week from now. Tell me what you think."

Jessica Jones laughs in his face as they exchange a bottle of whiskey. "I'm not a crime fighter, man. I just - I'm a private investigator. I can't -" She looks down into her glass. "I can't do that again."

He slides her his card. "If you change your mind." It is a very long moment before she takes the card.

Luke Cage makes Daredevil seem like cake, sneering at Tony before he makes it all the way inside. Tony points at him. "I know that face. That face is not my friend. So I'm gonna do my pitch, leave a huge tip and this giant hunk of paper, then I'm gonna split. Deal?"

Cage eyes him suspiciously then gestures at a bar stool. He is already flipping through the Accords when Tony leaves.

Maybe they won't sign. Tony wouldn't chase them down if they didn't; so far they're pretty small-time and have the loyalty of their neighborhoods behind them. But the cops could. The government could. The government will, if Ross gets his way.

He retrieves each copy of their amended Accords the next week, snorting when he sees Jessica Jones' notes on Cage's copy, impressed by the extensive knowledge of the law evident in Daredevil's, amused by the copious amounts of 'WTF's and exclamation points in Peter's.

Daredevil and Peter both want masks, Luke Cage wants to be kept out of the Avengers but have mostly free reign over his neighborhood, Daredevil wants guaranteed help against the mob invading Hell's Kitchen, Peter's crossed out a request he made for financial assistance and Jessica Jones-

no control

Jessica-

no control

Tony swallows hard at the dark writing, gouged into the page, knowing there is something there he cannot fix.

Peter comes by every weekend, geeks out everytime.

"Where's Iron Man?" He asks the first week.

"I am Iron Man," Tony replies automatically, watching Rhodey re-learn flight from his spot on the floor. He can't see anything through Peter's mask but he still feels the kid's gaze on him like a weight on his shoulders he cannot bear.

He has nightmares. He has nightmares about Steve. You understand, he tells Tony as he brings the shield down on his neck.

He stares at the suit, the long gash across the torso.

There are mistakes Tony cannot fix.

"FRIDAY."

"Yes, boss?"

"Bring up the Iron Man schematics, make a new template."

"What are we gonna call this one, boss?"

Tony stares at the slowly spinning diagram. "Just Mark I. Clean slate."

There are mistakes Tony cannot fix.

T'Challa considers the individually amended Accords that Tony has placed in front of him on his next visit. "This is good work," he murmurs over Daredevil's copy.

"If you ever see that guy, please don't tell him that."

"Consider, Mr. Stark: we make the Accords looser in exchange for tighter, more individual contracts. This Mr. Cage should not have to serve if he does not wish, but he cannot be allowed to run amok. Likewise, I must put my country first; that cannot be compromised for the Accords."

"Conflict of interest. I see where you're going. The council is talking about this like its registration but that was never the deal. Cage, Spider-Man, Daredevil - they don't want to be Avengers? They shouldn't have to play by the rules we do."

"But if rules are placed upon us, the same will be demanded of them," T'Challa finishes for him. "A compromise, then."

"Contracts with the United States within the parameters of the Accords might do it."

"We will present our case at the next meeting." T'Challa's face is as bright as Tony has ever seen it. "I believe we are close."

Tony chances a smile. "You've done good work, Your Highness." He can't say your father would be proud, he lost that right when he threw it back in T'Challa's face the first time. But he thinks the king hears it anyway.

"I could -" For the first time ever, T'Challa stumbles and Tony has to fight a laugh when realizes a man that smart was about to give up the game, even though Tony knows the Panther knows Tony knows.

If Steve wanted to compromise he would be here. Tony wasn't chasing after him anymore. Steve could have fought for himself instead of fighting Tony, but he didn't. "The Accords are at your disposal, T'Challa" is all he's willing to offer.

It's a mistake, rejecting that kind of olive branch.

Tony will not fix it. Tony cannot fix it.

 "Please slow down," Rhodey says to him one day, out of nowhere. Tony just stares at him. "Please," his friend repeats.

Tony doesn't know what he means. Tony is moving through molasses.

 The happiness that surges through him when the board approves his new prosthesis design for public consumption is so unfamiliar that Tony actually mistakes it for a panic attack when it first happens. He lets the board members exit the room and then reaches out.

"Pepper-"

They have not spoken in a non-professional manner since even before their break up but she is at his side in a moment.

"Tony, you're all flushed." And oh her voice is just uncanny. It rings all around his head. "Are you okay? Please look at me."

She leads him over to a couch and holds his head to her shoulder like she used to and Tony just - breathes.

"Are you okay?" she repeats.

"Little out of it."

"You did good today, Tony. You did so good. This - I'm proud of you."

She is a terrifyingly good person. He tells her so and she laughs. "I learn from the best," she says, and he doesn't know what she means.

He straightens up, stares at her, drinks her in. "I've been stupid, haven't I? You're right there."

"And I always will be. We were friends first, Tony." But her eyes are so sad. Tony has been a hard experience for her.

"I know I've been pretty shit at returning the favor," he says slowly, trying to piece this together. To let Pepper fade away would be the biggest mistake of his life. "I won't promise to try, you'd find that insulting-"

"I do. I'm going to be insulted by what comes next, too. Just a warning," she teases with a spark in her eyes. Tony just stares in her in confusion. "Tony, I'm not stupid. I knew what I was getting in to. I wanted what I was getting into."

"Until you didn't," he snipes. Pepper takes it in stride, nodding.

"Until I didn't. I changed. You changed. It wasn't working anymore, not for me. And you wouldn't want me putting myself through that."

In anyone else Tony would say that ran very close to emotional manipulation but this was Pepper - and while she wasn't above emotional manipulation, this was their friendship on the line. And also, she was telling the truth.

"And, Tony," she says, cupping his face in her palm. "I would never, ever put you through that. You're a good man, Tony Stark, and you deserve someone who'll love you through everything. I'm sorry I wasn't that person." Her eyes flicker down and the spark fades away and Tony is such an ass, such an all-consuming jackass of the highest order to have not seen that look of disappointment in Pepper's eyes for what it was. For whom it was.

"Pep, Pep, Pepper, honey," he tries, and her eyes well up and he pulls her into a hug. "You are the best woman I've ever known. And I knew Peggy Carter. I knew my mom."

oh my god my mother

He holds her tighter.

He and Pepper were never a mistake. This is not something Tony will fix. He will let it settle and grow into something else. Maybe something better.

On a Tuesday afternoon Tony wears the Mark I for the first time. He can't see T'Challa or Peter's expression through the masks and Vision just tilts his head as usual but Rhodey can't quite hide his grimace.

"You're stealing my thunder, man. They won't be able to tell us apart."

Tony looks down at his new black and gold suit, lit up all over with bright red mini-reactors. "I like it," he says simply. He thinks it covers the whole thing neatly.

I can't look at the old suit. Not without feeling it. Hearing it.

He personally swung the shield at Black and Gold himself, rejoicing in the solid thud it made on impact instead of the clanging noises that woke him up at night. T'Challa's gift of vibranium could not be more welcome.

"So, what do you say?" He says, clapping hands just to hear the flat thud again. "Team All Black Everything against the Rainbow Squad?"

"I don't think that's fair," Spider-Man says uncertainly.

"Iron Man has not been in action for many weeks," Vision consoles him. "He will be, ironically, rusty." That gets a laugh out of Peter and Rhodey. Tony's not entirely sure the synthezoid understands irony yet.

But he scowls good-naturedly as he brings down the faceplate. "Just for that, I'm gunning for you, Gumby."

"Oh man, it's got red eyes!"

Peter signs his version of the Accords. "It says if I screw up, it's on you," he mentions to Tony, trying and failing for nonchalant.

"Because I said I know who you are. Because giving up your mask was never part of the deal, its just Ross being a dick." Peter laughs. "You keep the mask on, Peter, but someone's still accountable. That was the deal. Your first psych eval is on Saturday. Take this." He hands Peter a card with his masked picture and 'SPIDER-MAN' written on it. "If you need us, press that little silver square. It's a communicator."

"And if you need me?" Peter says, something like hope on the edge of his voice. Tony raises an eyebrow at him. "I...I like training with you guys. I couldn't go on big global missions but - if the Avengers need help-"

"Kid," Tony cuts him off. "You are an Avenger." It's worth it just for Peter's smile. "People love tearing up New York. If we need you, you'll be there."

"Thanks, Tony." Peter cannot contain himself; he throws his arms around Tony and squeezes tight. Tony doesn't return the hug but his eyes are still closed when Peter pulls away.

"One more thing," he whispers before he changes his mind. "FRIDAY, 121691 to Parker's phone."

"Yessir." Peter's phone chimes and he pulls it out.

"That's Captain America's number." Peter nearly drops the phone. "He's in hiding but he's promised to come back if we need him. If you think we need him, call that number. It has to be pretty major. I'm trusting you, Peter."

Peter is speechless, gaping at both the phone and Tony. "I - I - of course, Mr. Stark - Tony! I mean, you can trust me, I swear!"

This is not a mistake, Tony knows that to his bones. Peter is the best of them. Peter is one thousand mistakes gluing themselves back together.

my parents oh my god that's my MOTHER OH GOD MOM

Steve Rogers kills him almost every night. And when he doesn't, there is Bucky Barnes.

He buys a piano and puts it in the den and plays it to distraction, the same song, over and over again.

Tony cannot let it go and maybe -

Maybe it's not a mistake.

Maybe it can't be fixed.

Maybe he can just let it settle and grow into something else, like Pepper. But for now he won't. Not when he's so terrified of what it might grow into.

Natasha Romanov is hiding one day. The next she is at their breakfast table, slapping her own copy of the Accords in front of a badly startled Tony.

"It still needs work," she tells him.

"There's a doorbell!" he shouts at her.

"The Raft is still-"

"Fuck off, Romanov."

Natasha actually leans back a little, even though her expression doesn't change. "You don't mean that," she says steadily.

"I do. I really do," Tony tells her, completely sincere and abruptly already done with this conversation. "But I am not the sole arbiter of the Avengers. We do things by committee now. It's a group effort." He is being unnecessarily nasty to her but it feels so good. Its not hard to guess she's seen Cap once or twice since she left. He doesn't know why she's back, she made her loyalties quite clear.

"So if War Machine and Vision approve, I'm good?" She clarifies needlessly, sliding into a seat. They'll approve. They need her.

"Spidey gets a say, too. I assume you already have the Panther's vote," he mentions cheerfully.

She just stares him down. She looks almost uncomfortable. It's delightful.

"It still needs work," she repeats. "But it's good work. If Steve saw this-"

"The Accords are at T'Challa's disposal," Tony says evenly.

The nice thing about Natasha is her ability to have an entire conversation in very short sentences and minute facial expressions, but apparently Natasha has forgotten this skill because she goes straight for the jugular. "Why haven't you called him, Tony? Or gone to see him, since you clearly know where he is. You could show him the Accords yourself, talk to him -"

"No," Tony says flatly. "I tried talking. I tried chasing. It didn't work. I'm trying this new thing of not making the same mistakes twice."

Natasha raises one scornful eyebrow. "You're going to let your pride get in the way of-"

"Natasha. Stop talking like you know me." Tony didn't realize his voice could get quite that dangerous and apparently, neither did Natasha because she actually stops. "Look," he says on a sigh. "First thing: phones work both ways. Second thing: FRIDAY, 121691 to Agent Romanov's phone."

"On it, boss."

Natasha's gaze grows sharp at the new number in her phone. "That's Cap's. He said he would be here if we need him. Call him, Nat."

She looks up at him, her face lit up from the screen, and then she slides her phone back into her pocket.

 Vision and Rhodey approve of her with little reservation and Peter's enthusiasm cannot be contained.

Natasha smiles like her face doesn't remember how to and Tony, just a little bit, lets go. Lets it settle. He doesn't trust her. He doesn't even think Natasha trusts herself, and that's why he votes yes on her reinstatement as well.

If Natasha is a mistake he will let it happen.

18512849756:
Tell Falcon I don't blame him.

YOU:
Tony?

18512849765:
No. Just tell Sam.

YOU:
Where's Tony? He gave this to you?

18512849765:
It's Rhodes.

YOU:
Where's Tony?

RHODES:
Cap just don't.

18519924583:
Captain Rogers, this is Vision. Do not be alarmed, this line is completely secure. I wished to inquire as to your well-being.

YOU:
Tony gave you this number?

YOU:
We're fine, thank you. How about you?

VISION:
Tony said you would come if called. Please note this is not a call, Captain. Thank you for informing me. I'm quite well, considering.

YOU:
Tell Tony to talk to me himself next time. That's what this was for so we could clear the air.

VISION:
Please tell Wanda I asked her to feel better soon.

RHODES:
Did you tell Sam?

RHODES:
Sam told me about his partner. I know what that does to a person. Tell him I saw him trying to save me. Tell him it's not his fault.

YOU:
You could tell him yourself.

RHODES:
No I really can't. Take care of your team Captain. We're going to need you. Tell Sam.

YOU:
Is Tony alright?

YOU:
I see him on TV all the time.

YOU:
Are you alright? Is Vision?

RHODES:
We're all fine Cap.

YOU:
Sam said thank you.

YOU:
Do you forgive me? For taking Wanda

VISION:
It was Wanda's choice. There is nothing to forgive.

17456621212:
Is this Captain America?

YOU:
TELL TONY TO STOP GIVING OUT THIS NUMBER

17456621212:
HOYL CRAP IT IS YOU. Look i know im only suppose to use this in emergencies but tony gave it to me and i couldnt resist. im that kid in red and blue. you dropped a cargo thing on me?

YOU:
You stole my shield

17456621212:
Yep. Spider-Man

YOU:
Did you ever get around to asking Tony Stark why he was right

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
Yeah. he wasnt right about everything you know?

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
still all kind of a mess

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
but he's working on it.

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
which is more than i can say about you

YOU:
Tell Stark to stop using child soldiers

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
whoa dude what happened to u got heart kid? also thank you so much for implying i have no mind of my own i love that really are you sure youre captain america?

YOU:
That wasn't what I meant. I'm sorry, it was uncalled for. Just be safe kid.

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
dude im STRONGER THAN YOU

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
but thanks.

100616:
I'm back.

YOU:
Nat why are you contacting me at this number?

NATASHA:
Better encryption. You should ask T'Challa for the new version of the Accords.

YOU:
No.

NATASHA:
You and Tony are a lot alike.

Chapter Text

They're gathered around the table on a Friday night, Peter hanging from the ceiling upside down and T'Challa deigning to grace them with his presence, when Tony sets the papers in front of Natasha Romanov to make her the first official ambassador to the United Nations on behalf of the Avengers Initiative. There is the barest quiver at the very corner of Natasha's mouth that gives her away as she stares down at the papers, pen twirling idly in her hand.

"You'll be the liaison to the council. Confer with them on missions, tell them where we're most needed and where we shouldn't interfere," Tony explains again calmly.

Natasha hasn't spoken since he laid the papers in front of her but now she flips the pen to grip it tight in her hand, so tight her knuckles turn white, before looking up at the assembled Avengers. "Why me?" she asks, her voice trying and failing to modulate itself, eliminate the tell-tale quiver.

Tony exchanges the briefest of glances with Rhodey. He'd gone to Rhodey first to take this job but the man declined. He wouldn't say why but Tony knew that for all of Rhodey's bluffing the man was still unsteady on his legs.

And Nat - Natasha who is so terrifyingly competent but walks around the halls like a ghost. She sees things in this compound, memories and nightmares that Tony can't understand. He is still so miserably angry with her but Tony won't let her fade away like this. I need you to trust yourself again. To know you can make a decision and we will always be there to back you up.

Tony doesn't say any of that because Natasha will not ever be ready to hear it. "I'm not giving anything to you, Romanov, you're one of the smartest people I know; you've worked with the Avengers for years. You are the best person for the job. We're not - we're not like we were and -" something flashes in Natasha's eyes and Tony takes a deep breath. "Nat, I need your help here."

Natasha can't find solid ground. Natasha's in quicksand. Tony knows because he's in the same boat. For one brief bright moment there was a family here and now it's all gone.

Natasha's eyes soften imperceptibly and she lowers her gaze once more, reads the fine print. Raises the pen and puts her name to paper before sliding the document over to Tony. Rhodey claps his hands once, says "Alright, we're in business!" while Peter gives a whoop from the ceiling and Vision works his face into a smile. 

"There is already much to attend to," T'Challa tells Natasha. Tony watches as she pulls herself together, figuring out how to wear the burden of the Avengers all over again. It's a good look on her.

There are still moments in the day when he utterly loathes her, moments when their eyes meet and it's like two strangers meeting for the first time. Tony and Natasha never really knew each at all, but since the war they are both brand new people, broken open and reassembling. 

Natasha tries out a teasing smile. "Always picking up after you boys."

They're not a family. But they could be.

"You'd best get to it then," he tells her, standing up. "Supervillainy won't wait forever. I got business in the city; you need a lift, Spidey?"

"Sure."

Rhodey leans back in his chair. "You planning on getting back at a reasonable hour tonight?"

Tony smiles grimly. "Does that sound like something I would do?"

Steve kills him every night.

Tony stops giving him the opportunity. 

He'll sleep when he's dead.

 "Doesn't seem like your kind of place," Luke Cage remarks as he strides into the abandoned packing factory on the high end of Hell's Kitchen. 

Tony pauses a moment, then thinks what the hell and takes the bait. "And what is my kind of place?"

"Somewhere that doesn't smell like rotting meat."

"Never visited the caves of Afghanistan, then," Tony mutters to himself. Then, louder: "Thanks for coming. The other guy should be here any minute."

Luke raises an eyebrow and steps back. "Other guy-?"

"Already here," a voice calls from above, and Tony rolls his eyes as Daredevil makes a dramatic leap from the rafters to the floor below him, right between Tony and Cage. Cage takes another step back, hands coming up into fists, and Tony hops off his perch.

"A simple 'hello' would have been fine," he tells Daredevil, maneuvering so the three of them are standing in a triangle and reaching into the tacky messenger bag he'd brought along, pulling out their individual contracts under the Accords and handing them to the others. "Happy birthday!"

"I'm a Capricorn," Cage says testily, eyeballing the new terms.

"My condolences," Tony snarks tiredly before falling into silence, letting them both read through them, pleased to see that he made the right move getting Daredevil's in braille. "I don't need a yes right away - I don't even need a yes - but you both should know all your options. I'll work with you as best I can to make sure you can still help people, but if you don't sign and you don't retire, if you create a mess the public can't ignore, you will be hunted down."

They both look up at him at that, wariness and suspicion in Cage's eyes and the set of Daredevil's shoulders. Tony sighs. "I know you'd both like to wander around the streets doing whatever the hell you want, cleaning up Hell's Kitchen as you see fit but let me be the first to tell you: thinking that you know best how to fix life's problems, that just because the safest hands are your own means they should be the only hands helping seems self-sacrificial and noble and good. And it is. But it's also arrogant and selfish and fearful."

"Speaking from experience," Daredevil says. It's not a question and it doesn't need an answer but Tony nods anyway. The younger man goes back to his contract.

Tony takes a step closer. "I know you want to be alone, to do this alone. You've got some crusade; don't look at me like that, we all do. It's the rare man that becomes a hero just for the sake of doing good-"

"The best man I ever knew," his dad tells him, pointing at a picture of Cap.

"-but being alone never helped anyone, Double D. That's why I wanted you and Mr. Cage here to meet." Cage tears his gaze away from the Accords at the mention of his name, eyes zeroing in on Daredevil, rigid at Tony's side. "You mentioned you wanted help taking on Kingpin. The Avengers are always there to lend a hand, but I figure a guy like you might appreciate something a little closer to home. And a guy like Cage here probably appreciates some righteous head-bashing."

"It's a good feeling," Cage admits with a snort.

"What can you do, exactly?" Daredevil says to the taller man, suspicion still in his voice but leaning forward out of Tony's space and into Cage's. Tony sees his cue and digs once more into his bag, slotting his card into Daredevil's hand.

"Call me with whatever you decide."

He leaves just as Daredevil is lifting his hand to take the one Luke Cage has offered to him.

(A week later Luke Cage will call him and ask "But what do you think about 'Defenders?'"

"As a name? There's literally two of you, Cage.")

"The best man I ever knew. Even before the serum, Steve Rogers was as good as they come. A born hero." His father's arm is intolerably heavy on his shoulder. 

Tony runs his hands along the shield, gathering dust in his lab. Who was that man that his father seemed so proud of? Did he die in the ice? Or was it earlier, did he fall off the train with Bucky Barnes and leave behind a man that drove his shield into Tony's chest every night?

Tony was only sure that he had never met that Steve Rogers.

"I don't know who you are," he tells the shield. "But I don't trust you."

Natasha takes a deep breath one day at the dinner table and then says "I have a mission for us."

It's a simple operation as they go: taking out a terrorist cell antagonizing a Croatian village. It is nothing the Avengers haven't handled before, but that was before. This is now and Tony - Tony is scared.

T'Challa's too busy to lend a hand, so all four of them pack into a quinjet and head overseas. Natasha debriefs them once again and then as one they turn to Tony. "What?" he asks, and Vision inclines his head with an unspoken question.

Panic wells up in Tony's gut. They haven't even discussed this, who would be the new field commander. What kind of rookie mistake is this? The people of the world are counting on them to just do their damn jobs and Tony can't even - Tony can't even -

 Tony has to. 

"Romanov and Vision, you focus on hostages. Rhodey, bring out the big guns, take out the artillery here first then move on to actual combatants - UN wants them alive so do what you can. The hostages are our first priority. I'll be operating on crowd control. Got it?"

To his utter relief, Rhodey contradicts him. Brings out the debrief, points out where Natasha can be better utilized, debating if Vision and Tony's roles shouldn't be switched. The others chime in with their opinions and Tony has never loved them more.

It doesn't go perfectly, but it goes. They lose two hostages and it weighs them down like stones, but those saved cling tight and whisper thanks in a language Tony doesn't speak. There is no mistrust or fear here; just the day, mostly saved, and them at the end of it.

They made mistakes and Tony will obsess over them later, watch the footage FRIDAY has saved until he can see it when he closes his eyes. But they can fix this. They can make this work.

I don't need you. I'll never need you.

NATASHA:
First mission today. We lost people, but the team got home safe. 

YOU:
Injuries?

NATASHA:
The usual. Just wanted you to know.

YOU:
Thank you Nat. I appreciate it.

NATASHA:
We debrief with the UN now, after. It's not all that different from before.

YOU:
Nat enough.

NATASHA:
Tony led.

YOU:
I'm sure he did fine.

NATASHA:
He does things you wouldn't.

NATASHA:
He sees things you wouldn't.

NATASHA:
Yeah he did fine.

 Betrayal, Tony decides, tastes like rusty pennies.

The taste is at the back of his tongue as he stares down the man who just walked into the compound and the motley crew assembled behind him.

"Agent," he says softly. "I see the rumors of your demise - blah blah blah."

Coulson just smirks. "Quite. It's been a long time, Mr. Stark."

"I could say 'too long' but that would make me sound like an ass since you were dead," Tony says, his flippant tone descending into a snarl the more he talks. "Or I could say 'not long enough' but that would also make me sound like an ass since you were dead."

"You can't be surprised that Fury lied to you."

"Maybe I'm just mad at myself for not figuring it out sooner," Tony snaps. Coulson's passive face finally shows a flicker of emotion as he looks to the ground to cover a grimace.

"Tahiti," the agent says softly. "It's a -" He cuts himself off and steps closer to Tony. The crew behind him spreads out along the living room, looking at the knick-knacks left behind. "I came here because I need your help."

Tony wants to break something. "Same old SHIELD."

"It's not for me," Coulson tells him, just barely irritated. He turns to a man his group, young enough to be a kid, really, and beckons him forward. "Donald, come meet Mr. Stark."

Donald shuffles over, looking at Tony from underneath furrowed brows. "Call me Blizzard."

"No, thank you," Tony responds automatically. Donald's entire face crumples for a second before growing red, but Coulson steps between them before the situation can escalate.

"Donald Gill was taken by HYDRA."

Tony stiffens, standing up straight to face this kid head-on. "It's a miracle you got him back then. Last guy that did that took down three Helicarriers on the way."

Coulson doesn't fight his grimace this time. "We're hoping to avoid that."

"Of course," Donald spits. "Got to keep those hands squeaky clean, huh?"

There is something missing here, but the kid is scared and it sets off all of Tony's alarm bells. "What do you need me to do?"

"HYDRA programmed a trigger into Mr. Gill. Code words that would set him off." A chill slips down Tony's spine as Coulson explains, and he can't help staring at Blizzard even when he sees the kid start to freak out. A new Bucky Barnes to torment him. "The technology that you showed at MIT - we believe it can help undo the programming."

For a second, a horrible awful second, Tony wants to be able to tell Coulson that he's wrong. That Tony's tech can't help reverse HYDRA brainwashing. Because if Coulson's right - if it could - 

my mother oh my God mama

Don't do this, he begs himself. Don't hold this grudge, not against this kid god he's just a kid. You want to help. You made this to help. You want to help.

You want to help. If BARF works on Donald Gill, it could work on others. You want to help.

It could work on Barnes.

THAT'S MY MOTHER

Tony sucks in a sharp breath, suddenly so dizzy. He is staring at Donald or maybe Coulson now, he doesn't know. He makes himself say "Explain this theory of yours to me."

"Leave him with me," Tony tells Coulson. "You scare him."

"He can freeze people, Mr. Stark," Coulson replies.

"He's been through enough," Tony says and there's a flash of memory, light glinting off a metal arm.

"Until he gets better," Tony says and another flash, a red and gold fist flying at terrified blue eyes.

"He deserves to not be afraid anymore," Tony says, and the words taste like rusty pennies at the back of his throat.

T'Challa watches Tony work with Donald. It's a bad day, the kid gets triggered almost immediately, and Tony heads out into the hall while Blizzard goes into lockdown until he can be brought back out of this state safely.

"When did you last sleep?" the king asks Tony, genuine concern in his voice. Tony bats it away with a careless hand gesture.

"And what about you, Your Pantherosity? Can't be easy, running a country while you Avenge and harbor fugitives on the side." There is a pointed silence in the hall and Tony looks up at T'Challa's impassive face. "Oh, sorry, are we still supposed to be pretending Cap and Company aren't kipping out under the Wakandan stars, buddy? My bad."

"You are in a poor mood, Tony. You should consider your words."

"I don't have to do shit, majesty, this isn't Wakanda. This is my compound and that's my tech in there, and that's where it's staying. Oh c'mon. We both know why you're here."

T'Challa's eyes flash and he steps forward into Tony's space, not intimidating but very there. "Do we? We are both very clear that I am here as an Avenger and friend, interested and now concerned about the well-being of my leader, then?"

"Um," Tony says eloquently. "Yes?" T'Challa doesn't speak, waiting him out, and Tony puts his head into his hands. "Look, 'poor mood' does not even begin to cover it. Gill's memories are a mess, and I can't leave him with them alone but Jesus, I've got nightmares of my own, I don't need his."

"You won't have anybody's if you don't sleep."

Tony moves his fingers so he can peek out at the king. "Yeah, that's kind of the idea." He goes back to hiding at T'Challa's heavy sigh.

"Tony, I will not lecture you on the burden of leadership; you have been one for far longer than I. These people need you, that young man in there needs you. You're no good to anyone if you collapse."

"Still kinda sounding like a lecture there, kitty cat."

"There is nothing I can tell you that you haven't already heard before. All I have is this: tonight you shall sleep, and tomorrow you will go help me go blow up some pirates who smuggled vibranium out of Wakanda." Tony drops his hands to grin up at the other man, who laid his hand on Tony's shoulder. "Tonight you shall sleep and tomorrow you will do something great. Allow yourself that, Tony."

Tony rests against the wall, eyes sliding closed. "Do you know what I see? Do you know what I hear?"

"No. Nobody does, because you won't tell us. I have seen Colonel Rhodes wait for you when you don't come home, I have watched Agent Romanov hover at your shoulder, I have seen all the words Spider-man bites back, I have seen Vision outside this very lab, trying to find out how to just get inside. You talk so much of the team, Tony, and I believe that you believe in us. I do not know what it will take for you to believe that you are part of us."

Against his will Tony's face twists up as he fights back the burning in his eyes. "I have to make this work."

"It is working. Or did I not see Daredevil and Luke Cage's contracts pass the council's desk last week?"

"You're not here for the tech?" Tony sighs. 

T'Challa laughs, withdrawing his hand. "The tech is very interesting."

"Equivocation is no man's friend, Your Highness," Tony warns, straightening up. He gathers up his courage and meets T'Challa's eyes. "I want to tell. I do. But not tonight. I've got to get some sleep. What time are we heading out tomorrow?"

T'Challa smiles as they plan out their attack.

 He dreams that night, of the bunker in Siberia. Bucky Barnes is missing an arm and Steve is above him, shield in both hands. No. I don't want to be here. "I don't want to be here anymore," he tells Steve. Steve brings the shield down and Tony catches it in his hands, breaking it away piece by piece. "I don't want to come here anymore. I want to go home."

He's the one to walk this time.

He'll be back and Steve will kill him. But tonight, Tony walks away. Tonight, Tony sleeps.

 Tony walks next to Rhodey in the pool as they test out the water-proofing on his prosthetic. There are pieces of ice floating on the surface, spiraling from the corner where Donald sits, creating ice floes that Spider-Man is leap-frogging around on. Peter slips for the third time and Donald seems afraid of his own laughter. 

"Tony, I need better traction on the suit!" Peter garbles out when he comes back up for air.

"Why don't you just web your feet, make them sticky?" Donald suggest, thickening up the piece he's working on.

Peter hauls himself out of the pool onto the side, tilting his head at the older boy. "That makes no sense," he says, before promptly webbing up his feet and launching himself onto the closest piece of ice.

Rhodey huffs out a soft laugh as they watch the two boys. Yesterday's experiment failed and Donald was triggered into a near catatonic state. Tony couldn't even tell, watching him right now, playing with Peter. "Kids are dumb."

"Yes," Tony agrees. And then: "I'm very jealous." 

"Of what?"

Tony stops, turns towards his best friend, looks at the circles under his eyes. "Resilience," he answers shortly. Just say one thing, just let one thing go. "I can't get the sound out of my head. The shield hitting my suit." 

Rhodey's expression kind of folds in on himself and he nods. "Sometimes I still feel like I'm falling."

It's a disgusting relief, not to be alone. Tony closes his eyes, bumps his forehead to Rhodey's shoulder, and then they resume their circuit around the pool as Donald and Peter begin to engage in literal freeze tag.

A strange mist bursts one day over the skies of Newark, New Jersey, and the Avengers are called in. It's a shitshow from start to finish, even when Coulson's team shows up to help. "Terrigen!" Agent Johnson tells them helpfully as they escort citizens to quarantine. 

"I-" Vision comes in over the communicator. He was the only one they could safely send into the fog. Rhodey and Tony linger on the outskirts while Natasha coordinates with Coulson (and isn't that going to be an interesting conversation Tony will never get to see?) "I have casualties."

"How many?" Tony calls.

"Fourteen at present. All deceased. I will proceed."

But the news doesn't get better. The terrigen gas is fatal in large quantities and those in the epicenter of the blast most likely died before inhaling a second breath. Vision only grows more despondent the further he goes but nobody is going to call it. Nobody wants to. There are hundreds in there and the Avengers can't do a thing.

He finishes his sweep as SHIELD's clean up crew arrives and is coming back to them when they hear a murmur of surprise. "Viz?" Rhodey calls, but is met with silence.

Three minutes later, Vision blazes out of the mist carrying a teenage girl in his arms. She is small and dark and her skin is literally glowing.

Tony packs her onto the quinjet before Coulson can blink. Maybe it's a mistake, but he hasn't forgotten the fear in Donald's eyes.

Back at the compound, Donald has successfully made it through one trigger word but not the other, sleeping off the Asset state in one part of the lab while their new guest occupies the other. 

"Her name is Kamala Khan, boss."

"Any family calling in on official channels?"

"Her residence was near the center of the blast."

Tony sits down at Kamala Khan's beside, putting on a gauntlet so he can hold her hand. "Well, we'll find someone, Ms. Khan. I promise you're not alone. We're all a mess here, but we keep the falling apart to ourselves. We'll keep you together, if you want."

Orphaned at sixteen. Jesus.

"FRIDAY. Call in the big guns. Tell him its urgent. Tell him he can help."

"On it, boss."

"We'll get you all patched up. I'm already running scans. You won't believe how strong you are. Everything's going to be okay."

Tony is running a house of broken things. But it's going to be alright. Tony is good at fixing.

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
How do you deal with the really bad days?

YOU:
What happened?

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
A really bad day. please.

YOU:
Are you alright?

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
You'll see on the news.

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
the last bad day i had i almost killed a guy

YOU:
Bad days happen, kid. It's part of the job. I know its sound hokey, but you pick up and you keep going.

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
is that what you did

YOU:
I tried to. I still try.

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
let me know if that ever works out for you. 

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
imma try tony's method and work until i drop dead.

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
wish me luck

YOU:
Is everyone okay?

RHODES:
Everyone's fine cap. We have it covered. We'll call if we need you.

YOU:
That's not why I asked.

RHODES:
It's been a long day Steve. Team's fine. Leave me alone.

YOU:
It wasn't your fault.

VISION:
I have been informed many times. I know it to be true. The fact that even one person survived the initial attack was a miracle.

YOU:
I feel like I should have been there.

VISION:
There was nothing you could have done, Captain. You being there would have changed nothing. We did as best as could possibly be done.

YOU:
I know. I trust you guys.

VISION:
Previous evidence suggests you are lying.

 NATASHA:
Team's safe. 

YOU:
Nat I want to help. Nobody's told me how Tony is

NATASHA:
I would have told you if Tony was hurt. He's working. He's got a lot on his plate right now.

NATASHA:
You can't come home. Even if you sign, you can't come home.

YOU:
What do you mean

NATASHA:
I mean that the way it was is gone now. Come back before you don't fit. Stop being stubborn and look at the Accords, Tony's worked really hard on making them better for us.

YOU:
They shouldn't even exist.

NATASHA:
BUT THEY DO EXIST. Can you please just fucking deal with it? You could be here right now, helping Tony and T'challa amend them. Theyre not going away, not with Tony Stark behind them. This is real Steve.

YOU:
Call me if you need me Natasha.

NATASHA:
Maybe I won't need you Steve. 

NATASHA:
You know what?

NATASHA:
Stay gone.

Chapter Text

Kamala Khan wakes up once. It isn't pretty. Her genetic structure is dangerously unstable and it's all Tony can do to get her to meet his eyes while she screams and screams as her limbs start to stretch.

"You're gonna be just fine, you're gonna be okay, just let go-"Her torso bulges horrifically and her legs melt off the bed and down to the floor and Tony is crying even as he pumps enough drugs into her to kill a normal man. 

He was with Donnie and Rhodey in the lab when they first heard the screams; the kid is pressed tightly to the corner, sunken into a half-crouch, while Rhodey hovers anxiously at the foot of the bed, holding one of Kamala's ankles in a soft grip. Kamala quiets down to a whimper, her limbs slowly retracting as her eyes slip closed, and Tony sets up the necessary regiment of drugs to keep her in a coma while he wipes his face clean.

"Jesus," he whispers to himself. "Blizzard, kid, you okay?" Donald makes a choked off noise from the corner and Tony looks over, biting back a curse when he sees ice spreading across the walls. "I wasn't lying, she's going to be fine."

"You don't know that," Donnie manages. "She's so small." 

"Size isn't everything, kiddo, haven't you heard? Ms. Khan here is pretty damn tough," Rhodey tells him. "Not your average person that can take a Terrigen bomb to the face and live." It is a profoundly undelicate thing to say, considering what happened to Kamala's family, but over the past few weeks they've learned that Donald doesn't take well to coddling. Bluntness is the way to go.

Donnie, sure enough, starts to pull himself together. Tony gestures at him. "C'mere." Together the two of them hook Kamala Khan pack up to the wires and monitors that had torn loose in her panic. Tony gestures at the beeping machine, tapping at the spiking line of Kamala's strong heartbeat. Ms. Khan's DNA may be trying to eat itself but damned if she isn't fighting every step of the way. "Look at that. That look small to you?"

Donald watches the line, subconsciously starts to breath in time to the steady beat, and slowly relaxes. "No. It looks - normal." There is unmistakable relief in his voice. "I'm uh, sorry about-" He gestures behind him. Tony shrugs.

"Just water, kid. It'll dry." 

This can all be fixed. 

 Until Tony's big guns arrive, care of Kamala is split between him and Vision as they try to figure out a way to stabilize her. Natasha has been, in her own way, worried about their orphaned guest, letting the two of them work away in the lab while all missions are handled between herself, Rhodey, and an accommodating T'Challa, who dropped by once for a few hours and fell seamlessly into place between Vision and Tony before leaving again with the promise of Wakandan aid. Peter Parker has also been a godsend, occupying Donald Gill's time when Tony can't be with him, helping him shake off the vestiges of the Asset state whenever Donnie fails a trigger.

Tony even has Pepper on the move. While the Terrigen mist was lethal to those who inhaled large quantites, plenty of Newark only got trace amounts of the gas. Stark Industries is already funding a relief effort and Tony has his R&D labs working around the clock with local medical facilities to see if they can counteract the genetic abnormalities that have started popping up in the victims.

It is amazing between all this worry that it occurs to Tony that maybe he hasn't worried enough.

Vision doesn't speak.

No, that's not accurate, he speaks to analyze data with Tony and offer his own opinions about their extrapolation. Vision doesn't talk. Tony hasn't heard one word out of his kid that didn't involve a string of numbers.

Vision doesn't need sleep so he can keep up with Tony when the engineer works long hours into the night, but every single time Tony sees him open his mouth and then close it, something almost like hesitation on his smooth face. He thinks about what T'Challa said, his team waiting in the wings for Tony, and suddenly he can't stand it. He can't stand to see Vision not let the words out, for Vision to be so unsure. 

If Tony is the one that puts that kind of look on Vision face, then Tony damn well better fix this.

"So I was thinking," he says at four thirty in the morning. "That I don't talk. And - that you don't talk. Or, maybe you do and it's just not to me, and that's okay! But we don't talk, Viz, and it's breaking my heart."

Vision had paused by the end of Tony's second sentence and now he sets his beaker down carefully, turning towards Tony. "What do you wish to talk about, Tony?"

"Whoa, I didn't say stop, I think we're close to a breakthrough." This conversation will be easier if they're both occupied. Vision obligingly picks the beaker back up at Tony's insistent hand waving. "I thought maybe we could...tell each other how we are."

"How we...are?"

Tony's typing blind. "You picked me up out of that bunker, Vision, we both know I'm not okay. Would it -" Jesus, this is hard. "Would it be alright if I told you how not okay I am? We used to talk-" He bites his tongue hard. Vision is not JARVIS. 

Vision, the wonder that he is, lets it slide. "I am always here to listen, Tony."

"Yeah," Tony says slowly, then decides fuck it, turns away from the computer and goes for the kill. "I bet you got pretty good at that, listening, with Wanda. I know you two were close." Vision actually closes his eyes, practically an explosion of emotion for him. "You could tell me if you weren't okay, too. Or you could not, that's always an option. But I figure, you and me, we're pretty familiar to each other in our own super weird way. We're safe. For each other."

Vision nods, eyes opening to meet Tony's. "You were JARVIS' prime directive."

"I wish he would've been mine. I wish I had taken better care of him." Tony's voice stutters all over his words, throat closing up. He loved his girl FRIDAY dearly, but she wasn't JARVIS.

"You did just fine, sir," Vision says softly, and something lances sharp through Tony's chest at the honorific. 

"Thank you," he replies stiffly, going back to his computer. "So. How are you?"

"Well. Well enough. I worry."

"About?"

"You. Ms. Khan and Mr. Gill. The team. Wanda."

Tony glances sideways at him. "So everything, then?" 

"Quite. And you?"

"Same," Tony says with a shrug. "I have bad dreams," he admits after a moment. 

"About the war?" He hears Vision put the beaker down, the synthezoid's full gaze on him.

Tony takes in a deep breath, hears when his decreased lung capacity cuts the air short, that small choking sensation he's grown so used to after seven years. "If it wasn't the war it'd be something else. Before, it was the portal, or Pepper falling. Before that it was Afghanistan or Stane. Before them, it was the car crash. My last goodbye to my parents. Did you know -" 

my mother please mama i will give anything

His breath cuts short. God, he can't breathe. Vision has gotten very close in between the moments and lays a hand on the very center of Tony's back. "I do not have to know, Tony. But I am right here."

Tony nods and raises a hand to his eyes. This is just like with Rhodey, he tells himself, just let this one thing go, let someone else have this pain for awhile so Tony can breathe. 

He faces Vision head on. "I used to think she died instantly. The coroner's report said the whiplash killed my mom on impact. But now I know that she died scared. She was so fucking terrified. I died terrified once, did you know, out in space? And that's - that's how she felt. That's how dad felt. It's all I think about. And now I die like that, all over again, just like them, every night."

"Siberia," Vision surmises succinctly. Tony nods. "I am so sorry for your loss, Tony." He blinks, not expecting that of all things to come out of Vision's mouth, but the synthezoid is deadly serious and it-

It helps. 

He watched his parents die. His parents, his mother oh god my mother and he loved them and now his last moment with his parents, vibrant and alive, had been ripped away and replaced with a cold bunker in Siberia, Captain America at his shoulder. He'd lost them all over again.

He cautiously lifts a hand to lay it over Vision's. "Thank you. Really. Do you - do you dream? I'm kinda hoping you don't, obviously."

"I do not," Vision says, immeasurably sad. "I do not know if that's good or bad. I know that all I would dream of would be her." 

Tony doesn't need clarification of who her is. He shifts his grip so he and Vision are holding each other's wrists. "You lost something, too. I'm sorry."

Vision inclines his head and withdraws, going back to his workstation. Tony baldly switches the conversation to Viz's next adventure in cooking and the night is no longer silent.

He falls asleep at six in the morning, in front of his computer, and his parents' car is there, crashed into a snowbank in Siberia. Inside is his mother, screaming, and Tony rushes to save her. He tears at the car door as the screams grow in pitch and it's Kamala Khan now, her face pressed against the window, limbs stretching and stretching until they fill the entire car-

Tony tears the door off and stares inside. There in the passenger seat sits Wanda Maximoff, bound tight in a straight-jacket while a power dampener gleams at her throat. Her eyes stare at nothing. Tony is too late.

He's walking through one of Donnie's more horrific memories involving a modified dentist's chair when FRIDAY relays the message.

The mansion. Come alone.

"Big guns?" 

"The biggest, boss."

"Alright. You good for today, Blizzard?" Donnie's had a really good day today, which means he'll probably have a really bad night. Tony reminds himself to let someone know before leaves so someone can wake the kid up when he starts screaming. He wishes he trusted Donald enough to let him spend the night at the Parker's but he can't, not with those HYDRA triggers in his head and not even when they're gone. 

"I'm good. Have a - I mean, you look nervous. Have a good night, I guess?" Donnie shrugs with a lost look that makes Tony's face split between a grin and grimace.

"Thanks, kid."

Upstairs Rhodey and Natasha are debating asking the Defenders to take on a small mission in Harlem. "No way," Rhodey is saying. "Cage and Daredevil will probably just deliver gift baskets."

"Somebody's been luring high-level crime bosses to Harlem, taking them out," Natasha explains when she sees Tony's look of puzzlement. "Heading out?"

"Business in the city," Rhodey and Tony answer at the same time. Tony glares playfully at his best friend, who just sighs. "Be safe, Tones."

Tony nods, swallows down the bile in his throat. Manages to keep it down the whole way into the city, but it is very near thing when he walks into his mansion and sees Bruce Banner sitting in the living room, eyes growing green in the darkness.

"And there he is," the scientist snarls. "Tony Stark, government lapdog. You have the gall-"

"Brucey-bear," Tony says weakly. "It's so good to see you."

Bruce is up and out of his chair before Tony can blink. "Don't. Just don't. Don't try to pull any of your shit on me, Tony, because I am done. You - you sided with Ross! You know what he did to me and you worked at his side, you hunted our friends down like animals!" Bruce is vibrating with anger and Tony very determinedly does not move to put space between them. 

"I don't work at Ross' side." Calm, keep calm, think zen Bruce taught you zen. "I didn't hunt anyone down. I asked them to come in quietly and they refused."

"Did you?" Bruce snarls. "Because I don't think you did, Tony. I think you saw your chance to put things right, to redeem yourself, and you steamrolled over anyone who got in your way. I think Ross offered you a way out and you took it. The things people like you have done to people like me-"

Tony rears back. "I am nothing like Ross-"

"No, of course not! You only got into bed with him! You only jumped when he called! You only did all his dirty work!" Bruce screams. Dimly and very unhelpfully Tony marvels at how good his control has gotten. "I mean what did he give you, huh, Tony? To sell out all your friends? What did it take, c'mon, I wanna know exactly how much the Avengers were worth."

"It wasn't about Ross!" Tony snaps. "Ross was just a messenger, a harbinger, Bruce, of things to come. It had nothing to do with Ross and everything to do with the fact that two thirds of the United Nations wanted a little transparency from the rogue vigilante group wandering around destroying cities. After Lagos, Sokovia, Washington, Johannesburg, the people don't trust us anymore. I was trying to help. I was trying to fix this."

"And we've all seen how good you are at that." Bruce's shadows are distorted from the streetlight slanting in through the windows. It feels like there are hundreds of him in here with just one Tony.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Bruce takes another step forward. You are not afraid of him. This is your friend. "It means that you try to help and everybody else pays for it. You try to fix things and everybody else pays for it. You chased away Steve, you chased away the Avengers but there you are, Tony! Who's next?"

Tony's mind sort of blanks out for a moment, stunned by everything Bruce is not saying. He finally takes a step back, then another and another until he is back out in the foyer. "You were there, too," he says and he has never sounded so small. "I know I messed up but I wasn't alone."

For the first time, Bruce hesitates. He runs his hands through his hair over and over again. "You know there's that saying about how if you can't look at your actions in the light of day they were probably the wrong choices? You didn't call me until this was already over, until you'd already won, because you knew which side I'd be on." Something inside Tony crumples at that, but it also kick-starts the part of him that went silent the moment he saw Bruce's face.

"Really? You, Bruce Banner, the Hulk, you of all people are completely okay with super-powered people going wherever they please, doing whatever they want, inflicting themselves on people whether the people want them or not?"

"The Avengers aren't like that," Bruce says shortly.

"We don't get to decide what the Avengers are like to other people," Tony snaps back. "We don't get to be above it all, we don't get to pat sovereign states on the head and send them off to take a nap because we know better than they do. Wanda killed twenty people in Lagos, Bruce. Do you know how many we hurt in Johannesburg? Do you know how many Sokovians died because of Ultron? And that was all things that we Avengers did by accident. Do you not see how terrifying we are?"

Bruce looks like Tony has punched him. "Don't you dare lecture me about accidental monsters, Tony."

"We were making the people we were trying to save into our victims, Bruce!" Tony shouts. It rings loud throughout the house and Tony can't bear to let the echoes settle. He grabs for his phone, flips to a photo and shows it to Bruce. "Charlie Spencer, Sokovia, young kid, bright future and I killed him."

Bruce stares at the photo for a very long time. "Ultron killed him, Tony," he corrects softly, taking the phone from Tony's hand and holding it close to his face.

"I made Ultron."

"We made Ultron," is the immediate return. "And we didn't make him to kill people. I - what I said before, that was way out of line-"

"It's fine," Tony cuts him off, suddenly very tired. His chest aches with the tension. "You say you would have fought with Cap, but Steve - he refused to listen. And we can't do that, Bruce, you know we can't. I know I could have done better. He tried to tell me something at the airfield but I was so scared at that point of what was going to happen if I didn't keep us together-"

Bruce starts laughing, this soft miserable sound. "You're such a hypocrite, Tony. You're talking a big game of letting all these innocent people decide for themselves but when it comes to Steve he has to fall in line or else?"

"When the 'or else' is jail?" Tony asks rhetorically, sharp as knives that he softens with a sigh, knowing that Bruce has a point.

Bruce hands the phone back. "Rumor has it half the team ended up there anyway. I don't know, you tell me, Tony: was it worth it?"

Yes, Tony doesn't answer because he still believes in these Accords, still believes in the cooperation they represent. He can't be the playboy who denied his suits to Congress with a peace sign anymore, even if he never will give his suits up (patent laws, you sons of bitches). It was never about him, it was every person the Iron Man suit ever saved. Every person he ever killed.

"If you're so furious with me, why did you come?"

"Honestly?" Bruce asks. "I wanted to see what would make even Tony Stark have the audacity to call me for a favor."

Tony scrolls through his phone again, handing it back over. "This is Kamala Khan. She inhaled a fatal dose of something called Terrigen, but by some miracle managed to live through it. Problem is, it's rapidly destabilizing her DNA, faster than its repairing itself."

"I'm not that kind of doctor, Tony."

"Stop that. You've spent every moment since you became the Hulk trying to fix yourself. You know DNA backwards and forwards. Maybe you aren't that kind of doctor, Bruce, but you are exactly the person she needs." He can tell Bruce's innate goodness is telling him to say yes but Banner shakes his head.

"I can't go with you, Tony. Ross will have my head on a platter."

Tony actually rolls his eyes. Not the smartest idea, but Bruce can handle it. "You gonna Hulk out and join us out in the field anytime soon? No? Then congrats, you don't have to sign the Accords. They don't say anything about us having consultants. Ross tries anything I got an army of lawyers ready to bury his ass. T'Challa and I have basically stonewalled him anyway, but if you really wanted to stick it to him, you could speak out."

"Excuse me?"

"He put Sam, Clint, Wanda, and some dude named Scott on the Raft. Only, problem is, the Accords have always called for a fair trial before imprisonment, and the UN wouldn't be happy that it was an American underwater supermax they were thrown in. Ross is on thin ice, Bruce. You come with me, you not only save this girl's life, but you can help make sure at least one person like me doesn't happen to any more people like you." Tony spreads his arms and smiles self-deprecatingly, taking no joy in the way Bruce suddenly can't meet his eyes. He reaches forward and taps at his phone. "This is my audacity. Kamala Khan. Please, Bruce."

It is so very quiet that Bruce's sharp exhale sounds like a hurricane. A long moment, and then he nods.

Vision is perfectly polite to Bruce when Tony brings him home, having only met the man once. Rhodey is a little more enthusiastic but cautious after registering Tony's low mood. Nothing could compare to Natasha, though, whose jaw actually drops when the wayward scientist walks into the room. She gathers herself quickly enough but its too late; Tony know she is internally losing her damn mind.

"He's here to help with Ms. Khan," Tony tells them. "We're...keeping this under wraps for now. The compound's going on lockdown for as long as Dr. Banner is here. And-" Tony debates for a second then lets it go. If he can trust Natasha, he can trust Bruce. "FRIDAY, 121691-"

"Tony," Rhodey warns.

"-to Dr. Banner's phone," Tony finishes, giving Rhodey a look. They'll talk later. "That's Cap's number. He told me to call him if I ever needed him. So now you have it. If you think he's needed, call it."

"Jesus, Tony, you've had this the whole time?"

Tony hunches his shoulders. "And now so do you. You wanna see the lab or you wanna sleep?"

"Lab," Bruce says tiredly. "Let's see what you've got."

13364864255:
Steve this is Bruce Banner. Tony gave me this number. I realize it's most likely only for emergencies but I figured I should touch base.

YOU:
Of course he did

YOU:
It's good to hear from you Bruce we were all worried. You're back with the Avengers then?

BANNER:
For now. They needed my help with an experiment.

BANNER:
Steve. What happened?

YOU:
Things got out of control. The Accords wanted to tie our hands, shift responsibility. We'd be under someone else's control. Someone we didn't know someone who didn't know us. 

YOU:
They could use us to do whatever they wanted. Further someone's agenda. After what happened with SHIELD and HYDRA I couldn't submit to that kind of command again.

BANNER:
Okay.

YOU:
Well Tony disagreed. Obviously. my friend Bucky got involved and they wanted to kill him. Bucky's completely innocent, he was controlled by HYDRA. So i had to protect him, get him out of the country. We found out Bucky was being framed for that UN bombing by a Sokovian with a grudge and we went after him. Tony tried to stop us to take us in. Bucky and I got away but the rest got caught, thrown in the Raft.

BANNER:
So there was a third party. Did Tony know?

YOU:
He figured it out. He came to help us take Zemo down and we did. Tony tried to stop us again things got out of hand and we escaped. And now here we are.

BANNER:
I see. Thank you for telling me Steve.

YOU:
Thanks for contacting me. Are you doing alright? What did Tony say to get you to come back in?

BANNER:
I'm fine. He said he needed my help. We talked about what happened and I won't lie, I'm pretty angry but I think he was trying to do what he thought was right.

YOU:
He really was Bruce. We all were. 

BANNER:
Tony kept saying he was trying to help.

YOU:
When I needed him he was there. Just because we disagree on the Accords doesn't mean everything between us has to be over. Nat said he's working pretty hard on making them better but he broke them to come help me. 

BANNER:
Thanks. I've got to go. I'll check in soon.

Bruce starts working with him and Vision and silence fills the nights once more. Tony dreams that his father pleads for his life as he's trapped in the car, waiting for the Winter Soldier to kill him. Tony dreams that he is in a cell in the raft and he can't move his arms and beyond the bars is his own face, staring back. Tony dreams of falling, falling, falling from a great height.

Tony dreams that Steve is the one who pushed him from it.

"Don't send me back to them," Donnie begs him one day as Tony brushes the kid's sweaty hair back from where the neural band messed it up. 

"HYDRA's not laying a single finger on you," Tony promises him. Donnie shakes his head, hands going around Tony's shoulders. 

"Not HYDRA. SHIELD. Don't send me back to them," Donald's eyes are wild with fright. Tony's shoulders are growing very cold. "They killed me. They killed me."

Blizzard's in the HYDRA chamber, terrified and pleading as Zemo laughs in the background. Tony is trying, trying to get to him but he keeps getting distracted by Bucky Barnes.

HE KILLED MY MOM

By the time Tony's comes back to himself, Donnie is cold and still in the chamber, a bullet hole between his eyes. 

Barnes is on the ground bleeding out from a hole in his chest.

And just before he wakes up he sees a shield coming for his chest and Tony thinks yeah, this one I might deserve. 

"What would be the best dream you could have of her?" he asks Vision when Bruce is catching some much needed sleep. Vision cocks his head and Tony quickly backtracks. "You don't have to answer that."

"It is no trouble." Still, Vision falls silent and Tony lets it settle. "I think," the synthezoid says after a long moment. "I would like to see the Sokovia of her youth. I would like to see her Pietro, how she remembers him. She loved him so much."

Tony tries not to think of how Pietro looked the last time he saw the man, dead at Clint's feet. Why didn't Tony send him out in armor? Had he still been that angry or was it-

Pietro's smile is a curious terrible thing as he looks down at the heavy cloth in Tony's hands. "It will just slow me down, Stark." And Tony thinks fine, your loss, doesn't push it.

"And you, Tony?" Vision asks. "What would be your best dream?"

Tony knows he should be honest since Vision was, but he can't. There are some things he still needs to hold close. "You know, I'd really just settle for not dreaming about snow."

T'Challa visits bearing a mission to China and meets Bruce Banner for the first time. The part of Tony that still considers Bruce a dear friend - which is every part of Tony - preens a little at T'Challa's obvious admiration of the doctor.

"Ms. Khan will be cured soon, then?" the king asks, turning to Tony. "You must be relieved."

"We all are."

"Yes, but not all of us read her bedtime stories from scientific journals," T'Challa teases. Tony ducks his head. "Truly, though, Doctor, you have done a marvelous thing."

"Tony and Vision's headstart helped," Bruce admits, never one for praise. "And 'cured' is not the right word. 'Stabilized' is better. She's not ever going to be like she was. Not that she would be even if we had cured her. It's gonna be a hard world she wakes up to."

Which should be any time in the next few days. They're weaning her off the drugs as they speak. Kamala isn't fixed, might not ever be fixed, but she's fought this far. Tony has no doubt she'll keep fighting once she gets her feet underneath her again.

"I have no doubt the Avengers will be there to help out," T'Challa says confidently. "As ever. Speaking of, Doctor Banner, have you returned to join the team once more? Tony has no doubt already begun devising a contract for you."

Bruce shoots a confused glare at Tony over his shoulder. "Contract?" he asks at the same time that Tony tells T'Challa that "He's not signing, highness. We've already talked."

"Oh?" T'Challa says, looking between the two of them. Tony hates how he packs so much into so few syllables. "We each have individual contracts under the Accords, Doctor, has Tony not showed you?"

"No, because he's not signing." Tony grits out. T'Challa eyes him speculatively but Tony is saved from this nightmare of a conversation when Spider-Man comes bursting in talking loudly over an excited sounding FRIDAY.

"Did you fix it, is she better?"

"Boss, I've got good news-"

"Don't you dare, Fry, I heard first-"

"Unlikely, pipsqueak. I am literally plugged into the internet."

"And I still beat you. Guess you need a hardware update."

"Hey," Tony butts in. "FRIDAY's perfect."

"Thanks, boss. So I was running-"

Peter steps forward. "So I was on the database, scanning the channels when I heard a name."

"Aamir Khan."

"FRIDAY!"

"Sorry kid. You want the win, skip the dramatics."

Tony straightens up, glancing at the slumbering Kamala. "Khan? He's related to Kamala?"

"He's her brother! He was in the Middle East when the bomb struck, he's been trying to get back for weeks. He's on the next flight in to JFK. Should I - should we call him? He probably thinks his whole family is dead."

"I'll do it," Tony answers, heading for the door. "You staying the night, Wakanda?" The Panther nods and Tony leaves him to his devices, heading upstairs. Maybe the world won't be so bleak for Kamala after all.

Of course that is when things go wrong.

Tony has always known there were pitfalls to the Accords and now he is facing them head-on. There is a drug war erupting in the streets of Chad and the country's military is currently failing to make a difference.

Under the current Accords the Avengers can travel to any of the countries that have signed on as long as the UN council has approved, which, in most cases, there would be no reason not to. Chad is one of the few countries that have not recognized the Accords. 

When the news comes in, Natasha spends two hours on the phone, negotiating with the Avengers' UN Council and Chad's leaders to allow the Avengers to lend a hand, but they are refused at every turn. On the news, eighty-seven people lie dead in the street. T'Challa is pacing and Tony is nervous. And it's only getting worse.

"Dammit!" Natasha shouts, getting up and making a circle around the table before sitting back down and picking up the phone. The death toll rises and one by one they take turns on the phone, pleading their case a thousand different ways and denied every time.

"That's it," Tony says after Vision's unassailable logic is spat back in his face. "Everyone get on the plane."

His team stops dead. "Tony," Rhodey says cautiously. "We can't break the Accords. You can't break the Accords again."

Tony is already keying up the assembly platforms outside for War Machine and Iron Man. "We're not. But if they need us we are going to be there, not thousands of miles away. We're not giving up. Keep trying, T'Challa."

Libya is nice enough to let the quinjet hover in their airspace while they work. The death toll climbs and Tony gives it one more try, reaching for the phone. "We don't have to send in the whole team, but Iron Man and War Machine could make a world of difference-"

"No. No machines and no robots," the heavily-accented commander refuses. "We will not be another Sokovia."

Natasha seizes the phone, face alight with an idea. "Some of us are baseline humans. Would you allow us entry?" There is silence on the line. "Please, sir, we can help."

There is no response and Tony puts the call on mute, turning towards Natasha. "Absolutely not. You are not going in alone."

"They don't know that Black Panther is...special," Natasha reasons. "I'll have him with me every step of the way, right, Your Highness."

"She would be safe with me, Tony."

Natasha nods. "We'll both be fine. Tony, we can't just sit here, we have to try. If we can save even one person-"

The line crackles back to life and Tony unmutes it. On the other end the commander is furious. "You said you would keep your distance! Is this how the Avengers treat agreements?"

"Sir, none of us are on the field," Rhodey says, keeping his voice calm and even. "We are still in Libyan airspace. Can you clarify?"

"There are combatants on the field, fighting for neither side. They are attacking the insurgents. You say you are not here?"

"No, sir, all active Avengers are in Libyan airspace. Can you count these new people?"

The commander lets out a hiss that makes the static fill the entire cabin. "Attacks are from high ground, we cannot pin down a location. There is - a red mist." Everybody freezes at that and beside him Tony can hear T'Challa's claws grind into the vibranium of his suit as the king's hands form into fists. "Bombs. A man in black. There has been no sighting of Iron Man or the other machines, so I am forced to believe you are still in the air. These people are not yours?"

Natasha's head is in her hands. "No, sir, they are not. Would you still except our offer of non-enhanced aid? Black Widow and Black Panther can be there in minutes."

"We agree to these terms," the commander says, voice not disguising his displeasure. Rhodey steps away to relay this information to the Council while Tony steps closer to the mic.

"Would you accept the aid of Tony Stark?" Rhodey whips around so fast Tony winces in sympathy but he charges on. "Not as Iron Man, but as a man who used to really know his way around some pretty sick weaponry."

Natasha's hand is so tight on his shoulder Tony is actually worried she might try to break him to put him out of commission. The commander warns "If there is one hint of Iron Man-"

"There won't be. This is your call all down the line, Commander. The Avengers are just here to help."

Another long pause and then: "The mist is frightening my men, Avengers. They say they see things in it. If I order you to attack the perpetrator, will you?"

"Surely you don't want to divide our efforts," Tony reasons, forcing himself to sound as maddeningly logical as Vision does.

"...I will send the coordinates for Black Widow and Black Panther. There are snipers camping out in the buildings; get rid of them and report to the nearest Captain after. Mr. Stark, you will go to the second set of coordinates. We have a base there, you will help us coordinate."

"Agreed," Tony says before anyone else can chime in, and cuts the line. His team looks positively murderous when he turns around and he raises his hands. "You said yourself that we can't just sit here. We have to do the best we can under the circumstances."

"You'll be alone with them, Tony," Rhodey says. "No Iron Man, just you and a bunch of people who really don't seem like your biggest fans."

"You're not going," Natasha spits out. 

"If I go out with you, I can make sure they don't send you and T'Challa into some death trap just to save a few of their own men. And they're not going to kill me, Honey-bear. I realize the threat of UN sanctions isn't very scary, but these people aren't stupid. It's all going to be fine."

Vision looks uneasy but nods. "This is the best possible place for Tony. We will be in contact the whole time."

"The whole time," Rhodey echoes emphatically. "No negotiations."

"The whole time," Tony agrees easily. "I'll even wear a bullet proof vest. Punch in the coordinates, let's fly."

Natasha and Rhodey are still deeply unhappy at this turn of events and Tony won't admit it but he's a bit frightened himself. He offered without really thinking it through, but he can't back out now. Not if it means keeping Nat and T'Challa safe and helping these people.

The king has been quiet. "You okay?" Tony dares to ask. T'Challa closes his eyes, a line forming between his eyes.

"Just - ruminating my mistakes. You will stay safe, Tony." It is not a request.

"I'd say no problem but I don't have a very good track re-" T'Challa's eyes open only to narrow at him. "Safe. Got it."

Rhodey collapses beside him. "If any of you die I will kill you so hard."

They don't die.

But Natasha fucking Romanov makes it a very near thing. There is a short, three-minute span that feels like an eternity where she won't answer anyone's hails and then they hear her over the comms, with near panic in her voice shouting "Why are you here?"

"You have to get out," she says three seconds later.

"I can't protect you," she says, and Tony knows who she has found. 

They don't die and the sullen commander has turned almost thankful by the end of the night, but that brief flash of victory is washed away in an instant when Natasha comes walking out of the rubble dragging an unconscious Clint Barton behind her.

"Don't worry," she tells Tony as they head towards the plane Chad has finally allowed to land, Tony grabbing up Clint's feet. "I read him his rights before I knocked him out."

Chad wants their hands on him. The UN wants their hands on him. Ross wants his hands on jimm. Natasha says if anyone puts a finger on Clint Barton they'll lose it quickly. 

Tony is a bit more delicate. "Think of it this way, Councilor, Ross let three Avengers and some guy escape from the Raft. The Initiative hasn't lost a single prisoner...the fact that we've never had one is irrelevant. Clint Barton has the right to a fair trial. My lawyers are prepping him already. In the mean time, we'll keep him close."

Yeah, that's not going to go over well.

Clint comes to in the middle of the Avengers' scheduled debrief and between his mouth and the constant pinging of alerts through both his helmet and War Machine's Tony is impressed he hasn't strangled anyone.

"Well isn't this cozy," the archer sneers, looking them over. "The Mighty Avengers. Tell me, how many people died down there while you all dragged your feet?"

The sound of T'Challa's claws digging into to the wall of the plane is just about the worst thing Tony's ever heard. Besides Clint's voice.

"What's the matter, Stark? Truth a bitter pill to swallow, huh. It's hard to do your job when your hands are tied, isn't it? God, who could have predicted that?" Clint adopts a mock puzzled look and Tony stares resolutely at the controls even though his hands are shaking too badly to take over auto-pilot from FRIDAY.

"Agent Barton," Vision says serenely. "You have your rights, but perhaps you should calm down. The UN is allowed to access sound files recorded on the jet."

This, if possible, makes it worse. "You've let them take over everything, haven't you, Stark! I never thought I'd see you play lap-dog but I shouldn't be surprised, should I? You always were a little bitch."

"Agent Barton." There is far more warning in Vision's voice now, if you know how to hear it. Clint does not.

"Fuck you, Vision. I can't believe you're just sitting here. Do you know what he did to us? Do you know what he did to Wanda?!" 

Tony's hands drop from the controls, completely nerveless, as Clint's voice breaks, as the younger man keeps going. "He kept telling Steve how he was tearing us apart but who hasn't picked up-"

"Clint, shut up," Natasha snarls, warning. If the UN finds out about that stupid phone Tony would be in a world of trouble. Clint seems to figure this out for he is silent the rest of the trip, taking turns at glaring at each of them.

They just have to get back to the compound. Then hell can break loose all it wants.

Tony's left arm is aching. It catches at Tony's mind, something about - 

An alert chimes in his helmet, a special tone made just for Peter. Tony reaches to put it on.

Kamala just opened her eyes! scrolls across the screen. She went right back to sleep but it was great. i think dr. banner cried. i might have cried. you're definitely gonna cry. it'll be awesome.

Tony tilts his head back in the helmet and doesn't fight the hysterical laughter.

YOU:
I want to talk to Tony.

YOU:
Now.

YOU:
Rhodes you get me Tony or I will come get him myself. This is it. Clint was trying to help he shouldn't be punished for that. I take full responsibility. Just let me talk to Tony.

YOU:
It was my decision.

NATASHA:
It was Clint's decision too. He'll be fine. We've already got lawyers on standby.

YOU:
They didn't protect him before. You didn't see what the Raft was like. I'll turn myself in in exchange for Clint.

NATASHA:
We both know that's not how this works. if you wanted to do this on your terms you should have thought of that before.

NATASHA:
I'm doing this for Clint. For his family. I won't let anything happen to him. 

NATASHA:
You have to trust us Cap. Can you do that?

HE STOLE THE SHIELD:
You lost the bird man? Like how?!?!?

BANNER:
They just brought it Clint?

YOU:
Bruce hand the phone to Tony NOW

BANNER:
Tony's busy. Hold on.

BANNER:
He just stared at me.

BANNER:
Pretty sure that was a no.

NATASHA:
T'Challa's pissed.

NATASHA:
Why did you

Steve will not put his fist through the wall. He won't let out the string of obscenities building at the back of his throat. He won't shout. And absolutely will not give in to the insane urge to cry that keeps building through his body. His team is watching him, looking to him for guidance after losing one of their own and Steve can't lose control, not in front of them.

Not later, either. He just - he just has to keep it together. He's been doing this for years and he'll do it until he dies.

Why do I keep losing everything?

Steve shoves that thought far, far down. Nothing's lost here, nothing that can't be regained. Even Tony will one day forgive him, even Bucky will one day come out of cryo. There's nothing here that can't be fixed, there's nothing here that can't be fixed. He just has to be certain and true. One foot in front of the other, from the time he was little, sick and frail. If he stopped moving, if he stood still, Fate would finally catch him.

"I'll get him back," he tells Wanda reassuringly. She is curled into a tight ball on the peculiar floor bags Wakanda seems to like while Scott hovers worriedly at her back.

She shakes her head.

"I will," he says firmly. He won't let Clint go to jail. He'll get Tony to talk to him. He'll apologize to Natasha, to Rhodey. He'll reunite Wanda with Vision. One foot in front of the other.

There's nothing here that can't be fixed.

Chapter Text

Tony and Natasha watch through the window as Clint resolutely does not answer any of the lawyers' questions. Well, Natasha watches Clint and Tony watches her worry grow larger and larger.

The compound is as busy as it's ever been. Tony put off Ross for as long as he could, but the man is currently flying in from Washington as they watch Clint destroy any chance he has at a good defense.

"It'll go to the international courts," Natasha says lowly, reassuring herself. "He'll be - an accessory. To the crime. He evaded the law-"

"He broke the law," he corrects her gently. "Natasha, why did you do this?"

Her face twists, abrupt and sharp and so sad. "Because this isn't Clint, this isn't what he does. He's not a runner, and he doesn't hide. He'll always answer the call."

"And he answered Steve's."

She turns towards him, her eyes leaving Clint for the first time in hours. "So what, he should be punished for that? For not choosing your side? Tony, you did this to him." Tony's whole body goes very rigid and he doesn't answer her, choosing to watch Clint remain stubbornly silent. Natasha expels a harsh breath, steps away for a second, and then steps back. "I don't, I didn't mean that. I meant that he wouldn't be here if it weren't for us. For me."

Tony frowns at his dim reflection in the glass. "I'm sorry, Romanov, did we sometime in the war suddenly turn into Loki? Did we brainwash Clint into leaving his family and siding with Cap? 'Cause I think I would have noticed if I started talking like Hamlet and wearing reindeer horns."

"I know he made his choice," Natasha responds irritably. "But we can't just leave him to the wolves."

She turns to stare into the room again, muttering something under her breath. Her hand is trembling slightly and Tony gives in, encircling her wrist with his fingers, knowing if Natasha wants him off she'll have him disabled in seconds. 

Natasha does not want him off.

"You wanted us to save him," he says into the quiet. "That's why you did this."

She twists her hand so their fingers are just barely brushing. "We're Avengers. Isn't that what we do?"

Tony takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Okay," he whispers. "Okay. Let's do it, then." He pulls her along, opens the door to the room, and says "Anyone who has never willingly jumped off a building please exit the room!" His crack team of lawyers exchange confused but relieved glances and file out of the room as Natasha and Tony take seats on the opposite side of the table from Clint.

"Silent treatment, real mature," is Tony's opening salvo. Nat shoots him an exasperated glance and he barrels forward. "Listen, Barton, I like being here as much as you do, so let's get this over quick: you're going to trial. You broke an international law ratified by the United fucking Nations and you helped blow up a German airport. It's not looking good."

"Gee, I wonder how all this could have been avoided," Barton spits, glaring at Natasha.

"I am the only reason you even have a prayer of ever seeing your family again, Clint," Natasha snaps. For being so forlorn in the hall, Romanov has stepped up to the game surprisingly quick, green eyes sparking fire. "You're not stupid, you know this is serious. We're trying to help you."

Clint sneers. "I've seen what your help looks like. No thanks."

"All I'm hearing is 'Please throw me back in jail!' What about you, Romanov?" Tony hopes he's supposed to be Bad Cop here because he is seriously enjoying it. Clint surges up against his cuffs to try and get to Tony and Tony leans back, watching him with one eyebrow raised.

Natasha says nothing, waiting Clint out as he settles back into his chair. "You know Steve keeps that phone with him all the time?" he tells Tony, his tone deceptively light. "Sam and I have tried to steal it a few times but he never lets it out of his sight. He's been waiting for you to call, for you to tell him that we can come home, that you finally did good for once and fixed the mess you got us in but it's never coming, is it, Tony?"

"Rogers said to call him if I needed him," Tony says stiffly, meeting Clint's eyes with brittle determination. "We haven't needed him."

"Man, I bet all those dead people we left behind in Chad would be glad to hear you say that," Clint responds, bristling with anger. "You let them get slaughtered while you sat back and waited for a bunch of bureaucrats to give you the all clear. How many people died today because of you, Stark?" 

"Clint," Natasha says evenly. "Chad didn't want us in the country. We had no right to force our help upon them."

"'Right?'" Clint quotes, laughing disbelievingly. "Those people had a right to live, Natasha! A right you denied them by standing by those stupid Accords. Cap told you what would happen and you didn't listen and now people are dead because of you! Tony, well, that's no big surprise, once a Merchant of Death but you, Tasha - I thought you'd changed."

Tony and Natasha both flinch, hard, and a miserable look of glee flits across Clint's face. No, none of this, Tony decides. Natasha Romanov was brave enough to hold his hand in the hallway not ten minutes ago and Clint Barton is not going to ruin that. "You wanna read the report that Commander Garneau's going to write up, Barton? I can already tell you that he'll commend Agent Romanov for saving more lives than a whole squadron of his soldiers." Natasha looks at him, surprised, and Tony shrugs. "He really hated admitting that to me, by the way. 

"People have a right to choose, Barton. You don't get to choose for them. Chad didn't want us in their country? That is their fucking choice because it's their home. You think, what, that you're doing this for their own good, that they should shut up and be grateful, that they just don't know any better - do you know who you sound like?"

"A supervillain?" Natasha guesses and Tony quirks his lips at her, thankful that she appears to be shaking off Clint's words. "Clint, if we had gone in there, ignored a sovereign's states express wishes, we would essentially have been invading them. The world already doesn't trust us, if they saw us go back on our word? Forget any chance of this ever working in the future."

Clint shakes his head. "All of this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't signed the Accords."

"If Nat and I didn't sign the Accords we'd be right next to you in the Raft," Tony says bluntly, ignoring Clint's flinch. "The Accords were always going to happen whether we liked it or not. The people are scared of us, Barton." Clint opens his mouth and Tony slams a hand down flat on the table. "One hundred and thirty eight countries, now, Barton, who didn't feel safe with us running around unchecked across their borders. And you think your opinion is somehow more important than theirs?"

Clint's face has grown terribly blank. "You just sat back and did nothing," he whispers. "We were watching the news and Cap was so sure you'd show up anytime but people kept dying and you weren't there. We had to do something."

"We did not do nothing," Natasha hisses. "We negotiated and cooperated. We helped as best we could inside the law."

"That law is bullshit. You could have done more. We did more."

Natasha lays her hands flat on the table, taking a deep breath. "Right now, that law is necessary. I will not be an object of fear again, Clint." Clint's eyes snap up to stare at her in shock and she smiles grimly. "I won't let it happen to me. I won't."  

Tony watches her, that smile and the calm determination hidden in the corner of it, and knows that despite herself, nobody does 'better' better than Natasha. 

 The lawyers are pretty sure Clint's only real hope is signing the Accords. Natasha stays by his side and lays out the individual contracts of herself, Rhodey, Vision, Spider-Man, Black Panther, and the Defenders in front of him. Tony calls Laura Barton.

She says hello with none of the bright warm cheer she had a year and a half ago.

"This is Tony Stark. I have something of yours."

She's packing up her kids as he hangs up and Tony is - Tony is -

Once a Merchant of Death-

"FRIDAY, how many dead in Chad?"

"Boss."

"Fry, now."

"One hundred and eleven."

How many people died today because of you, Stark? One hundred and eleven. He thinks he's laughing. That's actually on the low end, for Tony. Is he laughing? God, he hopes he's laughing-

"Tony, man, just breathe. You're alright. You're alright."

Rhodey's hand is a solid weight on his shoulder, more solid than the wall Tony is leaning against or the ground beneath his feet. He doesn't know how long he's been standing here, or even how he got to this hallway. He should be checking on Kamala, calling her brother, making sure Donnie's settled downstairs, make sure no one goes looking for Bruce, he should be moving now. He'll just - he's going to get up, right now, and move, just - half a second and -

"I can't fit in my skin," he tells Rhodey nonsensically, but Rhodey nods like its perfectly logical.

"That's okay. You've always were a bit too big for your body. Way back in college when you were like five foot nothing and weighed one hundred pounds soaking wet. Hey, this is nothing compared to Professor Eikenburg's Advanced Mechanics, huh?" Rhodey's voice is completely even, collected, even amused. There is a large hand covering Tony's aching sternum.

"That man was the devil," Tony gives in, laughs shakily. "Gave me a C minus on Dummy's initial mainframe."

"And you never forgave him," Rhodey finishes solemnly. "I mean, what did he know, right, Dummy turned out okay."

This actually gives Tony pause as he casts the man a disbelieving look. "Dummy regularly tries to poison me with motor oil in my coffee."

"Out of love! Besides, he made up for when he saved your life."

Tony takes a breath, deep as he can, feels the echo of those terrifying minutes after Obie took the arc reactor in his chest. "Yeah," he whispers. "Dummy's good people. Dumb, artificial, good people."

"He gets the good part from me," Rhodey replies, all smug pride when Tony glares that softly fades to concern at whatever he sees in Tony's face. "Hey, no, look at you, you're just fine. You wanna count the beats?"

Tony startles in shock. "You remember that?" Tony had reluctantly let Rhodey in on this quirk in college but they hadn't counted the beats together since he was twenty one and took control of Stark Industries. Tony still does it sometimes, tapping out rhythms onto his collarbone or the arc reactor when it was still there, tables and chairs and anything solid, anything that grounded him. Pepper used to let him count the beats on her spine at night, said it helped her sleep better. Tony had never loved her quite so much as those moments.

"Of course I do," Rhodey says, achingly fond. He drops his arms and steps forward into Tony's space. "Go to town."

Tony will never be as musically inclined as his mother was but he remembers this: her hands on his, pressing down the keys of the piano, plinking out first 'Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star' and then, as he grew, more complicated pieces. Tony had been enamored of the piano suite from The Nutcracker, playing it endlessly until Howard threaten to burn the piano. Maria had laughed and the two of them switched to loud pieces from musicals just to annoy him.

Now, Tony reaches out, places his hands on Rhodey's collarbones, and plays the notes from so long ago. "We're way too old for this," he remarks, even as a small smile begins to stretch across his face. His hands had been so small beneath his mother's, not able to stretch for the more complicated notes, but Maria had always pretended that he had. "Beautiful, bambino," even when she'd played half the song for him. 

There's another memory of his mother now, ugly and dark and final but Tony focuses on the notes that she taught him, beating them out on the hard ridges of Rhodey's collarbones until his fingers have stopped shaking.

Rhodey is humming along. "That was ridiculous," Tony tells him, and then: "Thank you."

"Any time," the other man says sincerely. They both straighten up. "What'd Barton say to you?"

"Nothing I shouldn't have expected him to," Tony answers evenly. "Updates?"

"Ross is ten minutes out. Basement's locked down and Bruce says Kamala's brain activity is starting to pick up but she's still a day or two out. Aamir Khan's flight gets in tomorrow. Donnie's having a slumber party with Spider-Man. And I'm a little worried about T'Challa."

"Kitty cat?" Tony asks. "Why?"

Rhodey, by way of answer, ushers Tony to the main floor. T'Challa is standing in front of the large TV, still wearing his suit and mask and refusing to answer any of FRIDAY's queries. Rhodey takes a seat with a sigh of relief and watches the pair closely as Tony sidles up to the royal. "Highness? You gonna unmask anytime soon? I mean, I know all about chafing - leather pants, never again - but it probably feels ten times worse when it's your face."

He hears Rhodey sigh heavily behind him and mutter "I remember those pants" but T'Challa remains silent, a statue but for the head that tilts to Tony's direction. The mesh covering his eyes is very solid but that doesn't stop Tony trying his best to see the man underneath before surrendering and turning towards the television. It is one of those 'breaking news' reports, covering the conflict in Chad. Tony finds this a little surprising, as American news generally avoids reporting on Africa, but then he listens to what the talking heads are saying.

"As reported by Commander Garneau, it is believed the rogue Avengers were also on the scene, including the Scarlet Witch, the Sokovian responsible for last May's tragedy in Lagos. This news, though unconfirmed, is already stirring ripples of unease across the global community, with some countries calling the fugitives' actions nothing short than an act of war."

"Tad dramatic," Tony mutters, and surprisingly, one of talking heads agrees with him.

"We've watched Captain America lead the Avengers around the world on missions for three years now. We can't expect something like the Accords to hold a man like that back from what he feels like is his duty."

"So you're saying we can't expect Captain America to obey the law?"

"I'm saying that this is the Captain's life's work, and as we all saw in Germany he's not going to give it up unless someone makes him."

T'Challa honest-to-God growls. It is astoundingly hot, or it would be if he weren't still in his terrifying outfit with his terrifying claws. "Your Highness," Tony begins. "T'Challa. Please." T'Challa actually turns towards him at that, but Tony isn't sure what he's asking for. He is saved from figuring it out when General Thaddeus Ross walks through the compound's front door, already bellowing out orders.

"I want him in my custody yesterday, Stark!"

Tony steps neatly in front of him. If Ross wants by he's going to have to go through Tony, and Tony would really enjoy watching Rhodey kick some ass with his new legs. "I'm afraid that's a no-go, General. We've already been approved by the UN council to hold former Agent Barton here until his trial can be arranged in Brussels." He's not entirely lying; there's an agent from the UN's headquarters over in New York City on their way to the compound with an ankle monitor right now.

"Really?" Ross sneers. "And was the council informed of your penchant for letting your friends slip through your fingers?"

"I assure you, General, it was not so much them slipping as them breaking my fingers," Tony says blithely. "Former Agent Barton will not get the same opportunity again and he will remain here under arrest. You have my word."

"Your word," the General repeats dangerously, stepping marginally closer to Tony. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Rhodey rising from his chair even as T'Challa flexes his clawed fingers. "I've seen the worth of your word, Mr. Stark. You couldn't stop them before and you can't stop them now." He nods towards the TV and Tony absolutely does not smile when FRIDAY switches it over to Adventure Time. "Your former teammates have to be put in check before they cause even more damage."

"Those reports are unconfirmed," Tony says through clenched teeth.

"Still protecting them?" Ross leans closer. "Even after all they've done? Even after Siberia?" A shock of cold shoots straight through Tony's body and he takes an incremental step back, staring wildly at Ross, now wearing a smug grin. "Zemo's interrogation was very thorough, Tony. I cannot thank you enough for bringing him to justice, Your Highness."

This last bit is said towards T'Challa and the king steps forward, all menacing panther grace in his steps. "General," he begins, voice deadly soft. "I believe Mr. Stark has given you all the assurance you need as to Mr. Barton's arrest. Your presence here is no longer required."

"Thanks for stopping by," Rhodey adds flatly. Ross looks in between the three of them and smirks a little before turning back to Tony.

"I know exactly what you're trying to pull here, Mr. Stark, and I will be there to stand in your way. Those vigilantes are dangerous, they have flouted the law and violated states' rights. I know you got Barnes' bombing charges dropped, but you can't make the rest disappear. There's only one place left for them."

Tony clenches his jaw, forces out a smile. "I don't know, the world loves a good redemption story. Exhibit A-" He gestures at himself. "Have a good night, General."

Tony doesn't breathe again until he's gone and is thankful Rhodey snags him by the arm and sits him down before he collapses to the floor in front of royalty. "We're gonna have to do something about that," he says breathlessly. And then he perks up. "Good thing Natasha kidnapped Barton."

YOU:
What's happening?

VISION:
I am not at liberty to say, Captain. We are handling the situation.

YOU:
Vision, I've seen Tony's definition of handling and its not fun. Can you please get him to talk to me?

VISION:
Tony is doing the best he can, along with the help of Colonel Rhodes, Agent Romanov, and King T'Challa. That will have to suffice for now.

"They cannot stay."

Tony didn't know what he was expecting.

T'Challa has finally removed his mask and is staring up at the stars visible from the second story balcony. The king looks worn down in a way Tony didn't even know was possible for him. Tony hates to only make his burden worse.

"They don't have anywhere else to go."

"And whose fault is that?" T'Challa spits over his shoulder, not meeting Tony's eyes. "They have put my country in danger, my people in danger. If word spread that Wakanda is harboring fugitives that attacked another country-"

"Who's going to tell?"

T'Challa laughs once, short and bitter, finally turning around. "I appreciate your admiration of my country, Tony, but we are not perfect. I am a new king, loyalty is not yet absolute. All it takes is one person, one angry moment."

Tony knows the truth of that all too well. "You were harboring them before. What's changed?"

"What's -" T'Challa eyes widen in surprise. "If they are found in Wakanda now it will look as if I support their actions." Tony nods, figuring that was the answer. "You are going to defend them. Why?"

"Because they're safe with you," Tony says simply, moving forward to look up at whatever had fascinated T'Challa so. "And I want them to be safe. I told Steve that I didn't want to see him gone and as mad as I am - God, I am furious - that's still true. And Wanda...I think about Wanda's safety a lot. Sam, good guy. Lang's perfectly decent, I'm sure. Barnes has been through enough crap already. I'm not defending them, you already know everything I would say. This is me being selfish, Highness. They were my team. They don't deserve the Raft."

"They don't deserve Wakanda," T'Challa shoots back, but his voice lacks heat. "They have had a certain degree of freedom with me. Your Wanda is taking classes at our university. Scott Lang's skill in engineering has not gone to waste and Mr. Wilson has picked up our language at an astounding pace. I have sparred with Captain Rogers many times...he is a good man. I do not relish the thought of taking away their freedom."

"No," Tony agrees softly. "It's kind of the worst." He glances to his side to see T'Challa's gaze on the skies again. He's young, the king, and so immeasurably sad. He should never have lost his father like that. "I can't tell you what to do. I'm a little bit scared of what you'd do if I tried, honestly. Can I ask you something, though? Why did you invite them to your land in the first place?"

T'Challa's eyes drift closed. "The way I acted after my father's death was unbecoming of his life. I had to atone for those I'd hurt and for dishonoring my king's memory. I offered them shelter from the storm."

"And what do you think King T'Chaka would do now?"

"I don't know, Tony," he admits. "I am not my father."

"Well, I know I kind of botched this the first time, but I think he'd be proud of you," Tony offers. "Whatever you decide, thank you for looking out for them."

The other man looks down at his hands, unleashing the claws and immediately retracting them. "You are welcome. I will take what you have said into consideration. Things cannot go on as they have, but perhaps I can give Captain Rogers a choice."

That involves impeding on his ability to go anywhere and do anything anytime he wants? Good luck.

Tony reaches out and cautiously lays a hand on T'Challa's shoulder then retracting it before the king can even glance sideways at him. "I have complete and utter faith in you, Your Pantherness."

"I have a name."

"Was that not it?" Tony teases. T'Challa huffs out a laugh. "You'll do fine."

"I'll do good," T'Challa swears to the stars. 

When Tony dreams that night it is Steve above him again, shield in his hands, ready to bring it down onto Tony's face. Bucky Barnes is lying armless a few feet away. "I want to stop coming here," he tells Steve. "Why couldn't you just tell me?"

"I was trying to protect you," Steve says. Tony shakes his head. "I was trying to protect Bucky."

"No."

Steve raises the shield higher. "I was trying to protect me."

"Steve," Tony says on a sob. "Look at us. Do any of us look safe?"

The shield comes down.

Tony slips into Kamala's room, closing the door softly behind him. "I'm hiding out with you," he whispers to the sleeping girl. "I think Laura might actually kill Clint, and they can't put me down as an accessory if I wasn't there."

He sits down beside her and places his hand close to hers. "Your brother should be here any minute. Rhodey decided I should take a break and went to pick him up. He's going to be so happy to see you." The beep of Kamala's heart monitor is so loud in the room. Her skin has only just stopped glowing from the last power spike. "I'm glad that - you're not okay, Kamala, but you're intact. And you're not alone. Spider-Man and Blizzard are going to drive you nuts and Natasha ninja-moms people, so you've got that to look forward to. I swear it won't be all bad. I'll be here too, if you'll have me. Which, you know, totally your choice, but there it is. I want you to know all your options."

He hears the door open and shut, but no sound of footsteps. "Is he here?" he asks Vision.

"No. I merely wanted to check on Ms. Khan."

Tony snorts. "Unconscious and already has us wrapped around her finger."

"You have always been a 'sucker' for the younger set. Observe Harley Keener."

"I am not a sucker, Harley and I have a connection," Tony blusters, feeling caught out. Vision smiles as he seats himself in the chair opposite. "They're just...tough, these kids. Tougher than me at that age. Hell, tougher than me now."

"You have collected a particularly resilient bunch," Vision agrees. "Or perhaps they were attracted to the same qualities they saw in you."

"Flatterer," Tony dismisses with a coy look through his eyelashes that earns him one twitch of Vision's lips. "I should be up there, getting things sorted. What time did Panther take off last night?"

"Five AM. And I believe Agent Romanov has it well in hand for now. Laura Barton is looking for you, however."

"Is she going to hit me?"

"I believe she wants to thank you, sir."

"Even worse." Tony leans back in his chair, away from Kamala. "Over one hundred people died in Chad, Vision."

"I know."

"I almost killed Barnes, did you know that?" Tony says edgily before he slumps down, tired. "I went there to help. I always try to help, I really do, Viz, but I just can't seem to do that. Maybe I'm not built for it. I'm an engineer, I fix things. I build them. But I don't - I don't know what I am."

Vision is quiet for a long moment, eyes tracing something under Kamala's skin that Tony can't see. "I believe Ms. Khan would call you her savior. I would call you creator. Colonel Rhodes would call you friend, Agent Romanov her leader, Spider-Man his mentor."

"I call you boss, boss."

"Thank you, FRIDAY. You do not have to be all one thing or the other, Tony. As for Sergeant Barnes," Vision hesitates. "I'm afraid I have no sage advice on that subject. I know that you were in pain and I cannot understand what that does to humans but I know how deeply it affected Wanda. So I only can guess as to how deeply it wounded you."

Yes, but Wanda let go. T'Challa let go. So why can't I?

There is a knock on the door and Rhodey enters with Bruce and a slight but tall young man behind him, his face already wet with tears. "Is that -" he says, voice trembling. "I am - my name -"

"Mr. Khan," Tony says, standing and stepping aside. "I'm Tony Stark. Kamala should be coming around anytime now."

They watch as the man bolts to his sister's bedside, holding her close even as her skin gleams gold. "Kamala, oh I'm here now," Aamir breathes. "I won't leave you again, I'm so sorry. Are you - take all the time you need, I'll be right here when you wake up, little sister. I swear, I swear." He rocks her back and forth a little and Tony doesn't remark about all the tubes he's knocking around but begins to back up. Aamir looks up at the movement and focuses blearily on Tony. "Thank you all, thank you so much. I can never repay you for this."

"No need," Bruce assures him softly. "We'll give you two some time alone. Someone will be by to check on you later."

Aamir doesn't appear to hear him, already curling tight around his sister and whispering more promises into her hair. They back out of the room quietly.

Laura Barton, the terrifying woman that she is, does end up cornering Tony and thanking him for letting her see Clint. "He seems a bit happier now that he's going to help take down Ross," she tells him. Tony nods; Clint's testimony of his arrest and illegal imprisonment, along with Bruce's written statement should get Ross booted out of office so fast he won't know what hit him. Then Laura sighs. "There's a lot he wants to say to you, some of which you deserve, but for this, I'll say for him: again, thank you, Tony."

"You're welcome."

"What's going to happen to him?" Laura asks quietly. Her kids are playing on the spot where Thor called the Bifrost down just outside the window.

"Best case, he signs and goes through house arrest for the next year or so until he's cleared for duty. Worst case, he ends up in jail. Not the Raft, but jail."

Laura nods. "Nat just wanted to bring him home. I'm grateful, I - I thought I might never see him again and Clint, his dad left him, and it must have killed him, hiding out, thinking he was doing the same thing to this family. We have a chance now. We can move forward. We can fix this."

NATASHA:
this is Clint. Tasha gave me her phone to use.

YOU:
What do you need me to do?

NATASHA:
I think i'm going to sign. I can't go to jail i need to be there for my family. i still don't agree with them but maybe this way i can make them better for us. make so you guys can come home one day.

YOU:
Do what you need to Clint. Just be safe.

NATASHA:
they give us these individual contracts. they're actually pretty good. air tight. Tasha says t'challa's got one of his own you should take a look. 

YOU:
We might not be in Wakanda for much longer.

NATASHA:
What why?

YOU:
T'Challa came and offered me a choice. Said we could stay but be kept inside the compound or leave and be free.

NATASHA:
Cap please take the deal. for wanda. she's had enough running scared in her life. Wakanda is safe.

YOU:
And what if something like Chad happens all over again? I'm just supposed to sit back.

NATASHA:
stark is still a grade-a asshole but he's doing okay by me. just stay steve please. i've gotta give the phone back now.

NATASHA:
If you leave they will never stop hunting you and Bucky will never get better. Be smart Steve.

The first thing Kamala Khan ever says to him is "Oh, it's you," in the most unimpressed voice that Tony has ever heard.

"Kamala!" Aamir admonishes, and she turns to her brother.

"Do you know who this is? This is Iron Man, AKA he who broke up the Avengers!" Tony tries to keep his face impassive, hand falling from where it was outstretched for Kamala to take, but her words lands hard in the space between his ribs, making his chest ache all over.

She's only been awake for two days now, and Tony, between Clint and Stark Industries and Donnie, is one of the last people she's gotten to meet. 

"He saved your life," Aamir tells her sternly. Bruce is watching Tony with barely concealed pity from his place by the monitors.

"Oh," Kamala says, her face growing stony. "Thank you, Mr. Stark."

"You're welcome, Ms. Khan."

"Kamala."

"Tony."

And they both wrinkle their noses at each other. Kamala picks at the threads of her covers. Her glow is all gone now, every piece of her drenched in sadness. "I know your voice," she confides slowly. "I heard you. You...read to me?"

"Scientific journals," Tony confirms with a nod. "Sorry, they were all I had."

"They were nice," she says with a shrug. She won't meet his eyes. "Dr. Banner says I'm going to be different now."

"Yes."

Her eyes slide up to his then, clever and sharp. "Are you going to make me sign the Accords?"

Tony swallows. His face feels very hot. "Are you planning to use your gifts in a crime-fighting fashion?"

"No," Aamir says promply, while Kamala immediately answers "Yes."

The younger Khan turns to her brother. "Aamir, I survived that mist for a reason, I have this-" She frowns, concentrating, and her arm stretches out inhumanly long. "This thing for a reason. I can't let it go to waste."

"Kamala, you're sixteen. Mom and Dad would never-"

"Mom and Dad aren't here," Kamala grits out. Her shoulders shudder for a long moment before she regains her composure. "But I'm not signing the Accords. The Avengers are heroes, they shouldn't be put on leashes." The last part she slings at Tony like a shot.

He can do nothing but look at his feet and keep breathing. "Who was your favorite, kid?" he asks quietly. The Captain, he supposes, or maybe Wanda. 

Tony looks back up when there is nothing but silence to meet Kamala's eyes. The fight has gone out of her and she looks crushed beneath an enormous, invisible weight.

"You were."

"She'll come around," Natasha tells him softly. "Just give her time. She told me she has all our action figures; I think she's just sad we broke the set."

"We let her down," Tony surmises miserably.

"You saved her life," Nat corrects him. "We just need time, Tony."

He gives Kamala space. It's easy, between working with Donnie and readying for Clint's trial. Ross has apparently heard whispers about Tony's plan because Tony now has a very threatening voicemail sitting in his inbox. "Do not push me, Stark," it says. "You won't like how I retaliate."

"He's just scared," Tony tells Rhodey and Bruce, but Bruce is shaking his head.

"He once used Betty to get to me, Tony. His own daughter. He's not afraid of the low blows."

But Tony submits Clint and Bruce's testimony to the council with no hesitation the day before Clint's trial, along with a new contract for the Accords, fresh with Barton's signature. T'Challa and Tony fought to keep the trial private and one bright morning Tony packs the Avengers old and new into a quinjet and flies them off to Belgium where they sit and watch old men debate for five hours before sentencing Clint to a year of house arrest and five years probation. Tony thinks Natasha may have actually cried.

Clint looks completely dumbstruck and a little ill. Tony feels - relief. "And General Ross?" he asks one of the representatives when he's shaking his hand. 

The man frowns. "It will be nice to see the backside of him."

Indeed by the time they make it back to the compound the next day, news has spread fast that Secretary Ross has quietly resigned from his post, leaving President Ellis scrambling for a replacement.

They pile into the living room, an odd reluctant happiness in the air that explodes into real joy when Laura and the kids come barreling into the room, screaming, to tackle Barton to the floor. They all pointedly ignore the cuff around his ankle and the tears in Clint's eyes as Rhodey asks FRIDAY for whatever the news is reporting. 

"Mr. Hawkeye?" asks a surprised voice. Kamala Khan is in the doorway, supported by her brother who looks apologetic, and Bruce, who looks exasperated. Donnie is behind them both saying "We tried but she's pushy!" "But - you went away! With Captain America!"

Clint's face shutters closed for a moment before one of his kids hugs him tight. He looks up at his wife, then Natasha, then Kamala, with a kind of helpless look on his face. "I came back."

Kamala turns until her eyes find Tony and she tilts her head, considering him. Tony would just once like to find a dumb kid, one that's not too smart for their own good. He feels very judged. 

The talking heads on TV are talking about the 'controversial' decision, what it means for the fugitives still at large, if the public will ever accept Hawkeye back into the fold when the screen suddenly cuts to black and FRIDAY says "Boss."

"What gives, Fry?"

"Boss there's something on the news." His AI almost sounds scared. 

"Don't be cryptic, FRIDAY, what is it?" He reaches over Rhodey and grabs the remote, turning the TV back on manually. On screen, the pretty girl from the five o'clock news looks upset, warning the public about 'the graphic footage they're about to see' and something cold drops in Tony's stomach.

"Boss, it's the video. From Siberia."

The images go black and white. Tony leans forward, feels the ground spin away from underneath him. "I know that road..."

He watches his dad die all over again before Natasha can tell FRIDAY to shut it down. There is not a sound to be heard in the room. Clint is covering his children's eyes and his face is unreadable in the darkness while his wife stares at the dead screen in horror. Vision is quiet at Tony's shoulder and there is a hand on Tony, solid, realer than anything else so Rhodey is there too.

"You won't like how I retaliate," Ross had said. He'd told Tony how forthcoming Zemo had been. And now the whole world watches his parents scream and cry and beg for mercy. The whole world has a piece of Tony's pain to dissect and tear apart. 

Tony's hands fall blindly to his sides and he tries to - to count the beats. Try to remember. But it's just screaming in his head, no melody, just the sound of Bucky's fist hitting Howard's face, the sound of Tony's fist hitting Bucky's.

oh my god MY MOTHER

"Steve, is that - is that Bucky?"

By this time tomorrow, the whole world is going to learn Bucky's name all over again. Steve watches Maria Stark die - I don't care he killed my mom! - and feels bile at the back of his throat. Tony must be in agony right now.

"Did Tony know?" Sam asks.

Steve is going to break the damn television. They had been waiting anxiously for the results of Clint's trial, and Steve couldn't deny the relief he felt that there would be no journeys back to the Raft even if it burned him to hear that Clint would be placed under house arrest. The response hadn't precisely been pretty and experts were already predicting some friction with the Accords, but Steve had to trust that Clint would be safe for now.

And then. And then.

They even included the sound. So you could hear Howard call out to Bucky. So you could know the precise pitch of Maria's screams. 

"Steve?" Sam steps closer, peering at his face and apparently not liking what he finds. "Steve, did you?"

They're never going to let Bucky be now. He's never going to get back to where he belongs. He doesn't even know where that is anymore. He wishes he had written it a thousand times in that damned letter. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. 

Let me come home, because I don't have the strength to build my own anymore.  

"Did you know?"

NATASHA:
You hadn't told him.

NATASHA:
I thought you had. I was counting on it because Steve Rogers Hates Secrets. I thought 'wow Stark took that really well how out of character'

NATASHA:
But no. You only hate other peoples secrets. 

NATASHA:
I don't know how this happened to us.

Tony dreams that night of burning pianos and Bucky Barnes' hand on his neck, his team behind glass he can't break, Steve and the shield and he dies and he dies and he dies.

Chapter Text

Tony - Tony actually does surprisingly well until he hears a 'legal expert' argue on CNN that they need to exhume his parents' bodies to corroborate their injuries with the video.

Then he starts drinking.

The video was up on YouTube for an hour before anyone flagged it, racked up two million views before it was taken down. Pepper's called like eighty times and Tony really needs to get on top of this whole thing but for now he takes another sip of scotch and curls up in his lab.

This is how Bruce finds him.

"Huh," Tony says intelligently, blinking up at his friend. He thought he'd have the lab to himself for at least another day. "Okay, Banner, I'm gonna be a hypocrite here for a minute and explain what 'space' means, alright? Bear with me." He sits up and sways a little; his tolerance has gone way down over the past few months.

Bruce's mouth tightens and he reaches forward to take the glass from Tony, swallowing the remaining scotch in one swallow before setting it aside and sitting down beside him. They sit in silence for a very long time and Tony just stares at nothing, trying very hard not to think. His chest hurts; Tony allows himself one dramatic moment to consider his heart might be breaking before letting it pass with nothing more than a sardonic twist of lips.

"It's just," Bruce begins carefully. "It's just that you didn't seem very surprised."

Tony lets out a bark of involuntary laughter. "That's what we're going with? C'mon, Banner, there's a video of my parents' murder on national TV, that doesn't earn me at least one sympathy point?"

"Tony." His name comes out like Bruce is choking on it. "I am sorry you have to go through this, but your face - it was like you already knew. Did you know the whole time that the Winter Soldier killed your parents? Is that...Is that why you fought against Steve, to bring James Barnes to justice?"

Tony's breath catches hard in his throat and he coughs, hard. God, his chest hurts. Bruce lays a cautious hand on his shoulder, rubbing soothingly, before continuing on in the same calm, careful tone. "I know what it's like to see...something like that, Tony. I know what it does to a person. I don't blame you-"

"I knew in there," Tony cuts him off harshly, hoarsely, pointing up. "I didn't know before the fighting."

Bruce's hand on his shoulder stills and there is the very faintest beginning of strain in his fingers now. "Then. I don't understand. You found out - during the war? Clint said something about Siberia."

"I went to Siberia to help Steve," Tony says dully. He doesn't want to tell this story, so he doesn't. Bruce is smart, let him put together the pieces. "That's where Ross got the video from."

"That was Ross' doing?" Bruce's hand is abruptly very hard, biting into Tony's skin. "Tony, I told you-"

"Please," is all Tony says, and Bruce shuts up, breathes deep, lets go of Tony.

"How did Ross find out about this?" he finally manages.

Where is that bottle of scotch? Tony could have sworn he put it right next to his foot, but it's not there when he looks. "You saw where Barnes was found innocent of the UN bombing in Vienna? Guy called Zemo framed him, lured us, me, Barnes, Rogers, to Siberia. T'Challa found him and took him in and apparently he spilled his guts to Ross. Not surprising, the man was pretty damn chatty when we found him."

"And so you lost control." There is not one hint of judgment in Bruce's tone. Well, the man did write the book on losing control. 

Tony can stop right now, let this lie; Bruce doesn't think he's a monster for attacking Barnes and that should be enough. Let this be the end of the story. But Tony is a little drunk right now. "He knew. Before the fighting ever started."

"Zemo?" Bruce asks, but Bruce is smarter than that. 

"Before even Ultron happened. Since SHIELD fell. That's...that's a long time, don't you think?"

Bruce's voice is remarkably flat considering how tightly he just balled up his fist. "Steve." 

"If he would've told me," Tony goes on like Bruce hadn't spoken, like now that it's out he can't stop. "Then I could've kept control. I hope I would have. If he would have just given me the chance - all he had to do was give me a chance. And maybe I wasted my first one on Ultron, but I've done some pretty great things with second chances, Bruce." Iron Man, Vision, Pepper. The Accords, even. Bruce's breathing is incredibly, deceptively even and Tony just sighs, lays his hand on top of one of Bruce's fists and squeezes. "No green, okay? Just. Let's just stay here."

161042625468:
hey cap. its clint. back at compound. yep i too have joined the Tony Incommunicado Club. actually i just memorized the number when tasha let me use her phone.

YOU:
It's good to hear from you. I'm glad you didn't end up back in jail.

CLINT:
thanks man me too. so now i know why youre always hanging onto that phone. natasha says everyone's got this number. so first things first i want to know how wanda is.

YOU:
She's fine. She misses you.

CLINT:
Aw kid. Tell her i miss her too. Second thing.

CLINT:
it does not take a genius to figure out what happened in siberia. turns out all it takes is two super spies. me and tasha are really awesome like that. man let me tell you i do not want to know what it feels like to be disappointed in Captain America ever again. its the fucking worst.

YOU:
I wasn't trying to hurt him.

CLINT:
i figured. you shouldnt have done that to him.

YOU:
I know.

CLINT:
Stark deserves a lot of things but he didn't deserve that. 

He finds them watching Tony Stark on the television.

Wanda sits beside Scott on the couch while Sam hovers behind them, arms crossed as they watch Tony leave Stark Industries in a crowd of paparazzi, clinging tight to Pepper Pott's hand. The scroll at the bottom informs Steve that SI's stocks have been fluctuating wildly in the three days since the video was released, the public apparently both eager to show their support of the Avenger and wary of what this could do to him.

Tony has his sunglasses on but even they can't hide how utterly wrecked the man looks, keeping Pepper close as he wades through the mass of people slinging questions at him.

"Mr. Stark were you aware of James Barnes' involvement in your parents' death?"

"Mr. Stark, do you feel responsible for Zemo's actions as a victim of Ultron's attack on-"  

"Mr. Stark, did Captain America know about the Winter Soldier's role in the accident that-"

"Did he run to protect the Winter Soldier?"

"Is he still protecting him now? Mr. Stark!"

Tony disappears with Pepper behind Happy Hogan into one of his more conservative limos and Sam glances to the side, finding Steve hovering indecisively in the doorway. "You missed the good part," he says when he sees the look on Steve's face. "Before he came out they were discussing if Stark released the video himself to garner sympathy."

"People are assholes," Scott bites out. 

Wanda just rubs at her temples, red sparking at her fingers. She does that now, a nervous habit developed after a week spent locked into a power dampener, a reassurance that her abilities were still there. It's only gotten worse over the past few days.

Steve had confessed to them what had happened, tried to explain in the simplest, most clinical way he could. Zemo had lured them to the base, shot the Soldiers, and played the video in the hopes it would turn Tony against Bucky. Steve had revealed to Tony he'd known for two years and Tony attacked. Steve disabled the suit and dragged Bucky out into the snow where T'Challa was waiting.

Maybe he should have said all the things he didn't, because the crushed look on Sam's face and the dawning realization on Wanda's was not something he ever wanted to be responsible for. Even Scott's growing distance ate at him. 

Maybe he should have told Sam how scared he was of Tony's unhinged fury, how he watched Bucky rise and fall then fall again and felt like it was 1945 all over again. How he just wanted it to be over, he just wanted to stop fighting. He'd felt like he'd been in a nightmare since he first got Bucky back and that wasn't right, that wasn't how it was supposed to feel. God, Steve was going to be so happy and then and then and then-

Or maybe he could have told Sam about the five whole seconds after he'd looked Tony in the eye and told him he knew Bucky had killed Howard and Maria. The five whole seconds where Steve had watched Tony fall apart and Steve had done nothing. Five seconds and Steve's a super soldier. He can save the world in five seconds, but he couldn't save Tony or Bucky.

So, no. Maybe Steve couldn't tell Sam about that. Captain America is supposed to be better than that.

Sam, Steve realizes too late, has been waiting for him to say something. When he doesn't the other man just sighs, taking the door opposite Steve to head to his rooms. Scott has also had enough, pausing to pat Wanda comfortingly on the knee and heading towards the kitchen. Wanda looks up at Steve and then shuts off the TV, gesturing at the empty space beside her.

"How are you doing, Wanda?" he asks her as he sits. Since taking T'Challa's deal of laying low, they've all been cooped up in this house and of all of them it grates on her the hardest. Wanda's gone from one cell to another for the past five years of her life, this is just one more. Steve hates what this war has done to them.

Wanda does not answer him immediately but Steve's had a year of learning to wait her out. Eventually the spark between her fingers disappears and she closes her eyes, breathing in deep through her nose before opening her mouth to speak. "Causality and catastrophe."

"Pardon?"

"Something Vision said," she clarifies with a faraway look in her eyes. "Do you think we create our own monsters?"

"I think," Steve begins, and then stops, thinking it through. He certainly didn't create Red Skull. He didn't create HYDRA, or Loki, or Ultron. But the last two weren't really his to claim, were they? Thor always seemed guilty about his treatment of Loki and Tony and Bruce created Ultron. "I think our monsters must already have monstrous qualities to do the things they do. Qualities that can't be changed no matter what we do to help. Where's this coming from, Wanda?"

Wanda's eyes spark red and the air around them seems to tremble. "I helped make a monster of the one who made a monster out of me. He made one of his own and his creation killed my brother. I don't know what could have prevented it but I...I think about it all the time."

"Wanda," he says, trying to put a little Captain America in his voice to make sure she was listening. "You are not a monster, you never were. And what happened to Pietro was Ultron's fault and nobody else's. You remember what I told you? We try to save everyone we can, but that's not always possible. There are some things you can't help."

"And there are some things you can," she snaps, finally looking at him. Steve raises his hands placatingly, watching several objects drift up into the air around her. 

"I'm not saying you shouldn't try, Wanda. I'm saying that you can't let these things destroy you. Thinking about it won't change what happened to you, it won't bring your brother back. All it will make you do is doubt yourself and in the situations we get into, we can't afford that."

The objects clatter to the ground and Wanda's whole body dulls as she slumps into the couch. Her eyes catch on the blank TV like she can see still Tony on the screen. "I am not sorry I followed you, Steve. You're a good leader and you did, in the end, stop Zemo. But...how a thing is done is just as important as doing it. We fought against our friends, we lied to our friends, and they did the same to us. I think that - causality and catastrophe. We make our own demons. We've made our friends into monsters, or maybe they made us. I don't know which is more frightening."

(Steve dreams about those five seconds.

Every time he does something. Sometimes it's violent, he takes Tony out before the other man can move. Sometimes it's not, and he explains everything. Sometimes he says 'I'm sorry.'

Every time he tries.)

 "So, can you believe this is the one place they don't come looking for me?" Tony asks with a roll of his eyes. "They're camped out not five miles from the compound waiting to get a peak at me but this - what, this? - this is a step too far. Like I don't remember them all lurking around the funeral. You know how famous that picture of me is, in the car waiting to go to the will reading? I ran the numbers once, they use it in sixty eight point seven percent of any and all biographical pieces on the great Tony Stark."

He reaches his hands out and places his fingers on the cold stone, tapping out something that only marginally resembles Claire de lune. He remembers the first time he came here and realized the ground had evened out over his parents' caskets instead of the small hill of displaced earth. It was when he really got that they weren't coming back. Now the ground is well-worn beneath his legs and he is twenty-five years older but the feeling hits him all over again. They are his parents. How can they not come back to him?

"I know you must hate this, dad," he says on a shaky laugh. "You always bitched about me talking at you and not with you. I am sorry to report I never outgrew that habit - pah, no I'm not. Fantastic defense mechanism, and I learned it all from you, pops. I learned a lot from you. I should have told you that. I should have-"

There is no slow struggle of emotion; it rushes up in him and Tony is shaking apart all over his mother's headstone before his next breath. "I should have - I really messed up, guys, I'm so. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to but it just - I was being good, I swear and it got out of my control. I'm, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have let this happen to you. You've had enough."

There is more but it's lost in the warm circle of Pepper's arms as she wraps herself up against his back and around him, shushing him softly. He is ruining her sensible but stylish pantsuit, he thinks dimly, but she doesn't seem to notice or care, running her hands up and down his chest and neck until he releases the death grip he has over his mother's name and holds her instead. 

Finally he calms down enough to stop trying to shiver out of his own skin and Pepper releases him to rest his head against the one in his mom's date of death while she rubs his back.

"They never remembered her before." He feels like he's speaking around broken glass. "She was just - Howard's wife. Tony's mother. Now the whole world is going to know her name. Maria Stark. Loving wife, devoted mother, strangled to death by the Winter Soldier. God, I hate this, Pep."

"I know, honey. But you've got the September Foundation. That's your mother's legacy, not this."

"They, um, did you see they've already changed my dad's Wikipedia page? There's a whole new section on his death now, it gets edited like eighty times a minute. And that's, that's weird, to be angry about? But there's a link now, to the Winter Soldier's page and fuck, my parents will never escape him now."

Pepper lays her forehead in between his shoulder blades. The heart necklace falls from her shirt and hits his spine; he can hear the pieces clinking together and his chest throbs in response. 

Tony beats at the stone again, Moonlight Sonata this time. "They said on the news - they said 'did he deserve it?' I mean, they phrased it nicer than that, but I could hear it. 'Creator of the atom bomb, director of SHIELD, weapons manufacturer, did he deserve to have his face caved in? More at eleven. And now, Judy with the weather.' I mean, fuck."

"Of course he didn't deserve it, Tony," Pepper whispers to him, like Tony doesn't already know this, but it helps nonetheless.

"He never should have taken her with him," he says fiercely, glancing sideways at his father's headstone, bigger than his mother's. "She shouldn't have been in the car with him and the serum. I should have - I could have asked her to stay."

Pepper makes a distressed noise, pushes her forehead tight to his suit and holds him close. "This isn't your fault, Tony, it never was. Sweetheart, just sit with me for a moment, alright? Tony?"

He blinks his eyes, letting the tears fall, and pulls back into her embrace for such a long time that time grows a little fuzzy around the edges. "At the funeral," he tells her in a whisper between one moment and the next. "I wanted to crawl in with them." She doesn't have anything for that but a kiss on the forehead.

The silence is broken by Happy, a ways away, yelling at someone that they can't be there. Pepper stiffens behind him and extracts herself, getting up on her knees to glare at the intruder. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm sorry, I just-" Tony knows that voice and he scrambles into a sitting position.

"Who do you work for?"

"Ma'am, I-" Peter sounds terrified; Tony doesn't blame him. Pepper's got enough ice in her voice to freeze the Hudson.

Tony struggles to his feet and doesn't bother to hide how he wipes at his face before turning towards Peter, standing there with his backpack still on and a camera around his neck. "Pepper, I've got it from here."

"But, Tony-"

"I'll meet you at the car," he tells her, even as he pulls her in to kiss her cheek. "Thank you."

Pepper casts a doubtful glance between him and Peter and opens her mouth to protest once more before thinking better of it. She squeezes Tony's hand one last time and dusts off her pants before heading down to the car and Tony gulps twice before facing the kid.

"Jameson heard a tip you were here," Peter explains, wincing. He works weekends at the paper, scraping together extra cash for his aunt. Tony's got to get this kid a paying internship at Stark. "Sent me."

"You do make a pretty good sacrificial lamb, Parker."

Peter laughs weakly. "Your boss is scarier than mine, nobody else would take the job. I actually kinda volunteered. Jameson will understand. I just wanted to see you. I'm sorry I've been so busy, I saw on TV and I - I'm sorry, Tony."

"Hey, no, none of that, kiddo, you know I don't want you giving up your life for..." Tony gestures in his entire general area, scrabbling together what he hopes is a reassuring smile. Peter just bites his lip, stepping forward.

"These are your parents? I mean, obviously."

Tony watches as he carefully doesn't step where he thinks the caskets might be. "This is them. 'S been them for twenty five years."

"I'm sorry," Peter repeats immediately.

"Don't be, Pete, that was - I'm a bit of a mess."

Peter shrugs carefully. "I remember. I'm still there, too. My parents, Uncle Ben, they're just down the way." He points to the south, down a sloping hill, before dropping his hand. "I didn't watch the video."

Tony nods, ghosts shaking fingers over his mother's stone. "Thank you."

"Can't avoid the news, though." Peter's voice is so heavy for someone so young. "You look like her, you know? Your mom." Tony's hand clenches down spasmodically as tears well up fresh in his eyes and he can't do anything but nod.

please i will do anything my mother

"I'll be by the compound tomorrow," Parker promises, hefting his backpack more firmly on his shoulder and looking uncertain before he decides to turn away. Tony drags his hand away from the cold, dark stone to watch him go.

"Hey," he calls when Peter is only a few paces away. "Do you...want company?" Peter cocks his head to the side, brows drawing in, and Tony points down the hill. "To visit them. I could come. If you want."

"I - sure, Mr. Stark," he replies easily enough, even as his face is still confused and he slips back into distanced formality. "I, I mean I talk a lot to them."

Tony just shrugs. "Are they gonna talk back?"

"That would be creepy."

"Can I talk to them?"

"Of course!" Peter stalks forward to catch at Tony's suit jacket, smiling cautiously as he plucks him along down the slope. "I've already told them all about you so you're gonna have to come up with something pretty crazy to impress them."

Tony's face is stiff with drying tears, stinging in the bitter wind, and his heart still weighs like a stone in his chest. He listens to Peter chatter inanely to his parents and uncle and wonders if someone had to hold this kid back from crawling in with his parents, too. He imagines so; Tony is not special or unique in his grief. But Peter's done a lot better than he did back then.

"I bet they're real proud of you, kid," he tells him during a lull in his non-stop diatribe against cafeteria food. 

Peter nods, smiles softly. "That's the goal."

 It would be shamefully easy to slip back into his old ways, and for thirty-eight hours Tony does. He locks himself in his lab and doesn't eat or drink, he just builds. FRIDAY has been reduced to a drone in the background the way he never could manage with JARVIS, but even through her constant needling for him to take care of himself she keeps everybody out. Tony movies from one project to the next without stopping, even when his hands come out from the Iron Man suit bloody. Butterfingers nearly ends up with a brand new head when it tries to bring a soldering Tony bandages, which brings its on hosts of worries that result in Tony spending an hour on the floor with his bots and bottle of vodka, apologizing every five minutes. Dummy has never been apologized to, before; he thinks its making the robot very anxious.

At hour thirty-nine Tony is flicking holograms back and forth when FRIDAY finally gives up, activates one of her more deeply-hidden protocols left behind from JARVIS, and lift the blackout.

"Mr. Stark?"

Tony whirls so fast he trips and stumbles off his stool. Donnie is there in a moment, competing with Dummy on who gets to get Tony to his feet. Donnie wins and hefts Tony up with ice-cold fingers. "I didn't realize - I'll come back later."

"What do you need, Bliz?" Tony slurs, and Donnie turns back around slowly. In his hands is the neural band Tony fashioned for him to take on BARF. 

"I was just wondering," he says nervously, running the circle of metal through his fingers over and over. "It's been a coupla days and I was doing really well, so I thought we could try again. I could ask Dr. Banner, but Kamala's having a rough time with her powers and he doesn't - he won't understand. Like you." 

Tony stares blankly at him for a long moment, processing. Kamala catches at his mind worriedly but he doesn't want to disrupt the girl if she's having trouble and Donald looks as anxious as Tony's ever seen him. "You haven't gone under in, what, a week now?"

Donnie looks down guiltily. "I've gone."

"By yourself?" Tony asks, flabbergasted. "You've been triggering yourself alone? Godammit, Donnie-"

"Hey, I locked down the labs, I know what I'm doing," Donnie insists angrily. "I didn't put anybody in danger. Besides, I watched that MIT thing, you went under alone-"

"Yeah, to see the last memory of my parents, not to trick myself back into a HYDRA agent!" Tony shouts back. His hands are shaking in rage - and worry - and guilt. Donnie's been sleeping off the Asset state for an entire week, no one's been there to drag him back up, anything could have happened.

Donnie still looks angry, but underneath that is a thick layer of misery. "I just want to be better," he says to his feet. "I didn't want to bother you. I know what they're playing on the news."

"Kid, do you think I want to worry about you on top of all that?" It is a brand of emotional manipulation that Tony is not comfortable with using, but he's tired and willing to take shortcuts. Donnie's face registers surprise and just the slightest bit of wistfulness before he shakes his head. "Tell you what, you give me twenty-four hours and we'll give it a go." Donnie nods, looking relieved, but Tony goes on. "And give me that band."

He hands it over and Tony sets it aside, placing his hands on his workbench and breathing deep. "I can't let you do that again, Don. I know that you wouldn't mean to hurt anyone but HYDRA programming is - it's not exactly people-friendly. And if you get triggered, you don't have any control. I'm gonna have to lock you out of the program." Donnie looks hurt by this, but not nearly as much as he does when Tony says on a sigh, "Should've been the first thing I thought of."

He doesn't mean for it to hit quite like it does but Donnie's entire frame sort of folds in on himself and the kid looks anywhere but Tony. "I just wanted to..."

"Hey," Tony says, voice cracking as he turns to face him. "Look, I'm glad that you remembered to lock yourself in, kid, really. I know you wanna get better. You've got time. I promised you I wasn't going to let SHIELD get there hands on you."

"Yeah," Donald murmurs, eyes back on his feet again. "Okay. Okay. I'll - I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Stark." Tony wants to say something else but his mind is blank and he just watches Donnie leave, head hanging low. He's pretty sure he's doing the right thing, and it's his fault that Donnie even had access to freely enter BARF in the first place, but now the kid knows that Tony still doesn't trust him. Cracks in the ice, Tony thinks nonsensically, then looks back at the display. 

"What'd I make here, FRIDAY?"

"New operating system, Boss. Seems operational, I fixed some of the coding. Should I send it off to Ms. Potts?"

"Go crazy. Send a free copy to Parker's school, too." He needs sleep.

Nick Fury is in his living room. Tony walks in, sees the man sitting on his couch and holds up one finger when the man opens his mouth before walking straight back out again. "FRIDAY, get the team. Lock down Kamala and Donnie's floors." Then he straightens his shoulders and heads back in.

"Seems I'm gonna have to beef up the security."

"Stark," the man greets coldly. "Care to explain to me how I turn my back for five minutes and suddenly half my men are hiding out in a jungle?"

Tony scoffs. "Seriously, Nick, it's been months. Where have you been?"

"Tracking down the people responsible for the terrigen bombs." Tony doesn't even try to hide his surprise that Fury is so freely giving this away. "I'm here to ask for assistance. But first I thought I'd get an explanation."

"Like Hill didn't give you a twenty page report," Tony laughs, sitting down in the furthest chair from where the director sits. He doesn't think Fury will hurt him but he'd like to have a lot of space just in case. "And don't think for a second I didn't catch that or that I'm not going to tell T'Challa there's a SHIELD spy in his government."

Fury shrugs. "Go ahead. You owe him one anyway. His Highness has worked pretty damn hard for these Accords." He raises one eyebrow. "I've read the reports, Tony. I want to hear what happened from you."

Tony's grin is all teeth and edges. "Oh, you'll get a lot more than that." As if on cue, Natasha slinks into the room, looking barely ruffled by Fury's presence. Clint, not five seconds later looks a bit more shocked and Rhodey, legs half on and assisted by Vision, almost slips.

"Sir," he says dutifully, letting Vision lower him into a chair.

"Colonel Rhodes. Good to see you back on your feet. I'm surprised the military isn't all over your ass to come home."

Rhodey glances at Tony then to the side before realizing his mistake and facing Fury head on. "I'm sure they'll be by any day now. They know I'm happy to serve, and they know where I serve."

Fury nods, apparently satisfied. "Agent Romanov, Agent Barton. Glad we're not having this conversation through steel bars. Vision." Clint and Vision murmur greetings but Natasha doesn't speak. She hasn't even moved from her place directly beside Tony's chair. Tony really, really loves Natasha Romanov right now.

"Fury here wants a sit-rep," Tony says to the group, all fake cheer. "Well, post sit-rep. Apparently he was off in Timbuktu during the civil war."

"Civil war," Fury harrumphs. "I saw that in the news. Civil war. There were twelve of you, that's not war. More like a street fight in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Now, since we're all here how about you stop dodging the question and tell me what happened."

"I'm afraid it's not any more exciting than whatever you've read, sir," Natasha finally breaks her silence. "The team had a sharp ideological difference regarding the Accords that was exacerbated by Helmut Zemo's plot to frame the Winter Soldier for the United Nations bombing. We tried to detain the other members at the airport when they attempted to escape. We were unsuccessful due to my letting Captain America leave with the Winter Soldier. The others are now fugitives from the law after breaking out of the Raft."

Fury's one, very judgmental eye moves between Natasha and Tony before turning on Clint. "You fought on the other side. Would you say Agent Romanov's report is accurate, Agent Barton?"

Clint keeps his eyes trained forward even as he grimaces through his answer. "Sir, Steve Rogers contacted me on the fifteenth and asked for my help in taking down an international criminal. I reported with Scott Lang and Wanda Maximoff to Germany where we were to take a plane to Siberia. The other team tried to stop us and we fought."

"Why didn't you let them go?" Fury asks directly to Tony, but it is Vision who speaks up.

"With all due respect, Director Fury, we had not been told of Zemo's plot and at that point the stakes had grown too dire to simply let Captain Rogers be. The forces being sent after the Avengers who had not signed were also tasked with taking in Sergeant Barnes, and they had orders to shoot on-sight. We felt our comrades were in too great a danger to not take the tasks of detaining them for ourselves."

"Shoot on-sight?" Clint asks, not exactly surprised but uncomfortable. "Little harsh, don't you think?" 

Tony knows Clint is looking at him but he lets Vision take the lead again. "As I said, Agent Barton, the orders were for Sergeant Barnes, who with the help of Steve Rogers and the Falcon had just destroyed a substantial portion of a Berlin pass."

"Tensions were running high and things looked bad, Barton, real bad," Rhodey adds. "Then Barnes goes Winter Soldier and kills half his guards? Forget it. Nobody knew about the brainwashing, nobody knew anything about Zemo, it was just an insane HYDRA ghost and his enabler that, oh yeah, dresses up in the American flag."

"Germany not pleased?" Fury guesses mildly and Tony suppresses his groan while Rhodey doesn't. That seems answer enough for Fury as he sits back in his chair and contemplates the group in front of him, from Rhodey all the way across to Tony, where his gaze stays. "And after Leipzig?"

"Siberia," Tony grits out. "In the report. It's a pretty dull story, too. Tell us yours instead. Something about terrigen bombs." That perks everyone but Clint right the fuck up, since the Avengers as a whole are really, really on board with murdering the hell out of the people who killed dozens and mutilated Kamala. 

Fury doesn't speak, though, just waits Tony out, and it is Clint of all people who takes pity on him this time. "Tony came to the Raft, told Sam he'd been wrong about Barnes bombing the UN, then headed off to Siberia to help Steve out. Report says Zemo had already killed the other Assets?" Tony nods. "So I guess he just wanted to mess with us. Which...he did."

"You've seen the video, Nick," Tony says venomously. "But I'm guessing it wasn't anything you didn't already know."

Fury breathes in sharp through his nose, lips twisting down. "We knew your parents had been assassinated. We didn't know by who until Agent Romanov's data bomb, and even then it took us months."

"They told us he was drunk, that's why he crashed the car. Was that SHIELD's doing?" Rhodey is half out of his seat at the edge in Tony's voice and Natasha has shifted incrementally closer. Fury's eye moves once at the movement then back down to Tony before nodding, widening when Tony laughs, high and brittle. "Agent Carter was still in command. My godmother let me think my dad killed my mother."

There is no reply this time and Tony shoots to his feet. "Oh my god, fuck all of you. Fuck your secrets and your lies and your fucking high-handedness, fuck her and you and fuck you double for passing that kinda bullshit on to Captain America."

"I don't think you're in any position to be preaching about secrets and lies, Mr. Stark."

"And I don't think you're in any position to try calling me out right now, Director Fury," Tony nearly spits. His heart is pounding in his ears and he is so off his head that the beat sounds all wrong. "Zemo showed us the video of December 16th and Steve knew. He'd known for years. He started a war for the man who killed my parents."

Natasha's face is a careful mask of blankness, her voice as gentle as can be. "Bucky was brainwashed by HYDRA for years, Tony."

"Yeah, Nat, I got that. I get it, okay, will all present who have never had their heads messed with please raise their hands? I think, what, we're down to Vision and Rhodey? You should form a club! I get how not-guilty Barnes is. I nearly killed the guy, I am painfully aware of how much say he had in doing any of it. But it's all still there, in his head; I asked him if he remembered them, you know what he said?" Nat's head shake is more of a flinch, but Tony is past caring. "He said 'I remember all of them.' It's not like the power of friendship and Steve's halo magically cured him! The thing that killed my parents, that killed hundreds, is still sitting pretty right there in Barnes' frontal lobe. Steve wasn't fighting for the Accords, he wasn't even fighting for Bucky Barnes. You think he even once asked that kid what he wanted to do? No. He was fighting for that thing, that monster, and how Steve was gonna fix it. He was gonna fix his whole world up just right, who cares if he ruins everyone else's to do it?"

He is panting and truthfully he's not sure what just came out of his mouth. He's not even sure he believes all of it, or if he just spat out every half-formed dark thought he's had about Steve over the past few months. The team is staring back at him, Rhodey standing up now while Natasha has sat herself down in Tony's chair and Clint has curled back against the couch cushions, his arguing face on even though he thankfully keeps his mouth shut.

Fury leans forward in his chair, and the creak of it breaks the quiet and all of Tony's righteous anger. He walks carefully over to where Rhodes is and the two of them slowly sink down onto the loveseat. Rhodey keeps a hand on his forearm as Tony beats out a mindless melody against his fake sternum.

"There's my report, sir," he shoots at Fury. "You can add it to Romanov's and Barton's. Terrigen mists. Tell us so we can start negotiating with the council."

Fury nods, pulling his phone out and flicking it so the information is projected all around the room. Rogue HYDRA cells, of course, are dropping these bombs all over the place, trying to make more Inhumans and recruit them to the cause. Tony thinks of Donnie, who got through most of his triggers today without much struggle, and Kamala's dead parents, and wants to vomit. Instead he lets Natasha and Rhodey take the lead, promising Fury full cooperation when they get the UN council's go ahead.

They all stand when the director gets up to leave, even Tony who's glad of it when Fury stops in front of him. "I know that you don't want to hear it," Fury says gravely, and Tony tucks his chin to his chest. "But you were young, and Agent Carter had to split the difference between loving you and doing what was right for everyone else. Now matter how unfair it is, we really were trying to protect you, Mr. Stark."

Tony doesn't reply and Fury walks out. Tony strolls over to the kitchen, hearing the subtle clink of Rhodey's legs behind him. "Tones, man, you okay?" Tony holds up a finger, opens the lid to trash can, and empties the contents of his stomach.

BANNER:
So why didn't you tell Tony? Or for that matter me, when I asked you what the hell had happened

YOU:
I thought it was Tony's story to tell

BANNER:
And now its everybody's.

YOU:
I never wanted that to happen. It was private.

BANNER:
Yeah, it was. It was Tony's. Not the worlds not SHIELDs and not yours Steve. 

YOU:
I thought I was protecting him. I was only protecting myself I realize that now and I've told him how sorry I am about that. It was a mistake.

BANNER:
Just don't make the same mistake twice.

"And so, yeah," Tony says to Peter, since he can't take the way T'Challa is staring so evenly at him. He doesn't think the guy has blinked once. "Terrigen factory. In Canada. Canadian HYDRA is apparently the deadliest HYDRA. You think they apologize when they bomb people?"

He can see Peter's nose wrinkle through the mask. "Probably."

"'Sorry about all the murder!'"

"'Come back soon!'" 

Tony just begins to summon a weak laugh when T'Challa surges forward and seizes the hand Tony had splayed out over his tablet. "What the hell, Def Leppard?" But T'Challa merely holds up the captive hand between them and even Tony can see his fingers trembling. Spider-Man goes quiet and Tony wrenches his hand away, glaring at the king. "You're very rude. See if I take you HYDRA-hunting."

T'Challa just raises an eyebrow, glancing to his side. "I'm assuming the spider will be going with us?"

"What?" Peter yelps. "Really?"

"Canada's basically given us a free pass as long as we work with the police. You'll be bagging and tagging, kid." Tony points threateningly. "Don't pull a Germany this time. When I say keep your distance, you keep your distance. I'm serious, Spidey."

Peter nods so hard Tony fears for his neck. "You got it, Tony. You won't regret this, I swear, I'll kick ass. Metaphorical ass, of course, since I'll be keeping my distance."

"Great. You need an excuse, use me."

Peter nods again and then sits there for a moment, glancing between Tony and T'Challa before going "Oh," and exiting the room quickly. Tony turns on the king. "Kind of a dick move, highness."

"Don't think that he didn't notice," T'Challa says mildly. "I didn't want him webbing you to the chair to stop your attempts at vibrating out of your skin. My method seemed more efficient. You've stopped shaking."

"Nowhere to shake when your royal smugness is taking up the whole room," Tony snipes back with a tired smile. T'Challa accepts it with good grace. "Canada specifically wanted a non-American there. Apparently the former KGB super-spy and the robot don't count. Thanks for doing this."

"I am glad to help. HYDRA is a menace that has made attempts on Wakanda in the past."

"Attempts. Listen to you. Does Wakanda have giant panthers that eat anyone who tries to cross the border with bad intentions?"

T'Challa chuckles. "Yes, and they are called the Dora Milaje." Private joke, Tony assumes. Or christ, maybe there are magic panthers guarding Wakanda. They sit in silence for a long moment while T'Challa studies Tony and Tony studies the grain of the conference table.

"Captain Rogers agreed to stay," the king finally says, and Tony's shoulders drop from a tense hold he hadn't been entirely aware of. "For now, he said. They are safe, hidden away, and very unhappy about it."

"You don't expect him to stay."

"I don't see why he would leave," T'Challa replies, and for a split second a shadow crosses his face before his eyes refocus. "Despite what you may think, he is a good leader. He won't leave his team."

"I followed the guy for three years, highness. He's the best there is, when he puts his damned mind to it." Tony exhales sharply. "I know that couldn't have been easy. Thanks."

T'Challa inclines his head, a flicker of something dark in his eyes when he finally breaks eye contact. T'Challa's not much for deference of any kind, so the whole gesture makes the hair on Tony's arms raise a little.

"It was better to arrest him," the king suddenly blurts. "He needed to face justice."

Tony is completely puzzled. "Who, Steve? Barnes?" T'Challa's eyes remain downcast and Tony gapes, figuring him out. "Zemo? Uh, yeah, it was better. The guy killed your dad, T'Challa, and a whole lot of other good people. He deserves to rot."

T'Challa leans back in his chair, not relaxing but Tony has not once ever seen T'Challa fully relax, but slackening somehow. There is a wry smile on his face. "Forgive me. I thought I would try a preemptive strike against any possible anger, but I may have misjudged you."

"Anger? You mean at you. For the part where you didn't kill him."

"And the part where he told General Ross of the evidence in Siberia. I know how it affected you, then."

"Yeah, well I wasn't in the best place," Tony mutters, drawing back against his seat. T'Challa shakes his head.

"I spent three whole days trying to kill James Barnes. If anyone understands your reaction, it's me."

Tony sighs and butts his head against the back of the chair, eyeing T'Challa speculatively. "This why you've been keeping your distance lately, kitty cat?"

This earns him a glare and the return of all that coiled Panther grace. "I don't know if you've realized but I do have a country to lead, Mr. Stark." Tony mouths 'Mr. Stark' at the ceiling, laughing a little. The shaking's almost completely gone now and, as is worryingly usual nowadays, Tony feels bone-tired. He lists his chair to the side so T'Challa is only in his peripheral vision before speaking.

"I'm not mad. Honestly, it didn't even occur to me that being mad at you was a possibility. That evidence has been a noose around my neck for years, even if I didn't know it was there. We're good, Panther."

"Good," T'Challa echoes, rising from his chair. "I have business in California that I must see to. I will return in five days to prepare for the mission." Tony gives him a grin and a wave and turns the chair with his feet so he can watch him leave. T'Challa hesitates at the door, turning back. "You could come to Wakanda yourself sometime, Tony. I promise the Dora will not eat you."

Tony's jaw clenches tight. The panthers aren't what scares him about Wakanda and they both know it. "Thanks for the offer, Your Highness, but I think I'll pass."

The king's hand grips tight on the door. "If you change your mind," he offers, and then he is gone.

Tony sits in the car next to his mother. His face is covered with blood and she says "Bambino." 

There are footsteps outside. 

"Don't be scared," he tells her. "I'm right here, mama. It's going to be alright. No matter what happens, okay, I love you." A hand reaches through the window and wraps around her throat and Tony just watches, slumped against the steering wheel, as her eyes go wide, more white than pupil. "Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid." Her screams trail off to gasps and then the hand clenches tight and wrenches. Can't have the car accident victim die of strangulation.

His mother dies of a broken neck. The hand retracts like it was never there.

 "I knew, too, you know," Natasha tells him, watching him out of the corner of her eye while he strips some wires and works at the gauntlet at the dinner table.

Tony shrugs. "I expect it of you." She rears back the exact same way she did when he called her a double agent and he sighs, laying the wire down. "Nat, be honest with me, there's a part of you that's surprised I'm not blackout drunk right now."

She thinks about it and reluctantly seems to accept it, sitting down beside him and carefully sorting the nuts and screws and washers into piles. "I guess we'll have to adjust our expectation from now on."

"Oh? You done with keeping secrets, super-spy?"

"You done with drinking, playboy?"

They smirk at each other and Tony steals a screw from her pile. "Cold turkey wouldn't work for us anyway."

Kamala comes to him.

He is working in his lab when FRIDAY announces a visitor and he hears a feminine gasp. Knowing that in no way would that sound ever leave Natasha willingly, Tony whips around only to find Kamala Khan nearly skipping around a curious You.

"Ms. Khan, good to see you up and moving. How are the powers coming?"

"You made all this?" Kamala says instead of answering. Dummy comes barreling around a workbench and she very nearly squeals. "How many of these do you have?"

"Um, three. Butterfingers probably went to grab the fire extinguisher. New people make him nervous. How are you?"

"You named a robot Butterfingers? What are these called?"

"That one is You and the one trying to grope you is Dummy. Dummy, not nice."

Kamala waves a hand at him and Tony winces when her arm stretches out a little too long at the gesture. "Oh, he's fine. I can't believe you call him Dummy, that's so mean."

"Well, I'm a mean person," Tony says lightly, earning him a look from the girl. He sighs and gets off his chair, coming up beside her to pet his first creation. "But seriously, he's a learning bot. A really bad one. 'Dummy' was the first word I ever said to him and it stuck."

"Why don't you fix him?"

Tony wraps a hand around Dummy's single arm. "He doesn't need to be fixed." Dummy nods eagerly at that and whirs off to go grab them Cokes from the fridge. Kamala watches where Tony's hand hangs in the air and scuffs her toes on the floor.

"I didn't mean like that. He's really cool, Mr. Stark." She looks around the lab, eyes still wide but with a new gleam in her eye. "So you built them?"

"Yep."

"You build a lot of stuff."

"That's me."

"Could you build me something?"

Tony raises one eyebrow. "That depends."

Kamala takes a deep breath and begins walking around the room, picking stuff and putting stuff down. Tony's not too concerned; Butterfingers has located the fire extinguisher and is stalking her from a reasonable distance. "My parents' funeral," she begins, and his stomach plummets. "Aamir's been putting it off for as long as he can, but they need to be at rest. It's already been too long, the mosque has called and my aunts and uncles-"

"I'm sorry, Kamala," Tony says quietly, hoping to stop her before she gets worked up. Or maybe she needs to get worked up. Tony is crap at this. "What do you need?"

"My powers are still really wiggy. I can't go out in public like this, but I can't not be at my family's funeral. Dr. Banner said the only thing he could think of was drugs and to ask you instead. I - I don't want drugs. I want to remember."

Tony crosses his arms, thinking hard even as he minds Kamala, crossing the lab to stand in front of the new Mark II, black and gold and no visible central arc reactor. "There may be something. A dampener. It probably won't feel very good." He remembers Wanda near-catatonic in her cell, that bright red light blinking around her throat.

"I can handle a little pain," Kamala says over her shoulder.

"When's the funeral?"

"Three days."

Tony mentally clears his calendar. "I'll get it done. What do you think of it?" He gestures at the new armor.

"I miss the red and gold. I remember watching you fly up into the portal on TV. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen." Kamala taps on the glass then spins on her heel towards Tony before something catches her eye. "Is that Captain America's shield? Why do you have it?"

His heart is very abruptly in his throat. Tony tries not to choke on it, the useless thing. "He left it with me."

"Is he coming back for it?"

"That's up to him," Tony replies flatly, flicking a glare at the shield.

"If he left the shield with you, he's coming back," Kamala says confidently. "Captain America doesn't just give up." Her unlike some people doesn't need to be said; its right there in her voice. Tony nods, lets her have it, and starts hacking into the US government's files on the Raft's for the blueprints of Wanda's collar.

There is a hand on his shoulder and Tony jolts. Butterfingers rolls a few threatening feet forward, extinguisher aloft, and Kamala retracts her arm way too far before raising her hands in surrender. "Sorry! I just, I know that - I am really grateful, Mr. Stark. Thank you."

"Sure thing, kiddo."

They leave it at that. It's enough.

"Stark, we have a visitor. On the roof."

Tony is geared up before Natasha finishes explaining and on the roof second only to Vision. A woman in a strange but familiar looking costume stands there, hands on her hips and looking for all the world like the Avengers have kept her waiting.

"Um, hi?" Tony tries. The woman's shoulders tense and she snatches off her helmet. "Mrs. Pym?" Tony says dazedly, but no, her eyes are too blue, her features a touch too sharp. Mrs. Pym was always smiling, too, one of the few adults to say hello when Tony was allowed down at Howard's parties. "Hope van Dyne. Pleasure."

Janet's daughter doesn't smile. "Mr. Stark."

"You can fly."

"You're very astute," she says drily. She presses something in her hand and suddenly there is a canvas bag in her hands. Out of it she pulls two sheets of paper and what looks like a copy of the Accords. "I saw what you did for Clint Barton and I'm here to make a deal. You're going to get Scott Lang out of whatever hellhole he's in and back to his family."

Tony doesn't really have a problem with that, considering he was only eighty five percent sure Scott Lang was the guy's actual name, but he cranes his body so he can look around Hope van Dyne to Vision. "I didn't hear a deal in there, did you, Viz?"

"No, I did not."

Oh, never mind, Hope can smile. It's not nearly as nice as her mother's. "You get me my boyfriend back and you get the Wasp. I signed the Accords."

Chapter Text

Hope's suit is making his hand itch.

It's just as much a technological and biological marvel as Scott Lang's was and has been mostly impervious to FRIDAY's subtle scanning. Or, maybe not so subtle, judging from the smirks Hope van Dyne throws his way when she's not glaring across the table at him.

"I don't know where he is," he lies one more time. Hope's eyes more give the indication of rolling than performing the act itself but it still makes him grimace. "We got Clint because he wandered into a warzone like an idiot and got himself captured by the Black Widow."

"And you expect me to believe Scott wasn't right by his side?" Hope challenges, leaning forward in her chair. "Scott's a hero, Mr. Stark, he was born to help those who couldn't help themselves."

Tony snorts. "Yeah, I read his file. A modern day Robin Hood, right?" Hope's pretty face screws up in an ugly sneer and Tony puts his hands up. "I'm not saying I won't help, alright? I'm saying it'll take some doing. And in the meantime-"

He grabs her signed copy of the Accords and with an exhausting bit of strength, tears it in two. "Don't sign these. Seriously, don't let anyone else know you signed this version, because the UN will take you for all you've got. We've got our own individual contracts lined up. Think about what you do and don't want and talk to legal. Until then, there's about eighty-five bedrooms in this place, knock yourself out."

He moves to stand but Hope hisses "I'm not finished yet" and he sits right back down, a little quailed despite himself.

She brushes aside the pieces of the Accords to grab two slips of paper. She holds them carefully even though her knuckles are turning white with strain and her face is agonized as she reads over words she must have read a thousand times, probably has memorized.

"When the call came," she says on a deep breath. "Scott was just sitting down to dinner with me and his family. Introducing me to them. It was so important to him that we try to make it work between us. His daughter, Cassie, she means the world to him and he was so nervous about the two of us meeting-"

"Ms. van Dyne," Tony begins, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. Hope shuts him down with one upwards flash of her eyes.

"-but when the call came and Sam Wilson said that Captain America needed help saving the world, Scott dropped everything to do it. Because that's the kind of man he is, a good guy, truly good." She slides one of the papers across to Tony. "This is the kind of man he is. And you sent him to jail."

"Lang sent himself to jail," Tony bites back shortly, touching the paper with just the tips of his fingers. It's a letter. Of course it is. "After being told that his actions would land him in jail. Maybe he is a truly good man, Ms. van Dyne, but even good men have to face consequences for what they do."

"Truly good men seem to be the only ones who do," she volleys right back, eyeing Tony up and down with no question of if a good man sits in front of her. He removes his hands from the letter just so he doesn't crush it on accident when they ball into fists.

"So why are you here, then, Hope?" he asks instead. "Just to sacrifice your suit and your life on the altar of Ant-Man? And here I thought you'd have done enough of that in your life, or are you and Daddy Dearest finally getting along?"

Her eyebrows can't decide whether to furrow down in anger or raise in surprise. It's a bit hilarious. "You know my dad?"

"I knew both your parents. Your mom was pretty great - last time I saw your dad he was in our foyer screaming bloody murder at my father. I was eighteen then; anybody who had the balls to bitch out Howard was my idol. Not the point. The point is that you don't have to do this. You don't have to sign. With Barton's trial, we've set a precedent to get Scott Lang and Wanda Maximoff back in the States within the year."

Hope looks down again, carefully places the two halves the Accords together so the edges line up. "I'm not here just for Scott. I want to do this. For myself and for my mother. And the Accords - my father hates the whole idea of them, which generally means its a good idea, but I can see why. Government oversight tends to lead to government control. And the fact that they threw Scott in the others in jail without a trial is terrifying."

"Right to fair trial's there in the general charter. Ross was on a power trip; we've taken care of it." Paid the consequences for that, didn't I, Ms. van Dyne? "I'm sensing a 'but' here."

"But I can also see why they're a good idea. The Avengers were all over the place and the one time we got any official word from them was Agent Romanov telling Congress to fuck off after she and Captain America dropped three flying aircraft carriers into the Potomac. That...wasn't very reassuring. If I'm going to do this, I have to do this right. I don't want people to be afraid of me or the suit my mother wore."

Tony understands. Legacy is a powerful thing. They meet each other's eyes across the table and for a moment everything is very still. Then Tony breaks it, looking to the side with a shrug. "Report to Agent Romanov tomorrow morning for training. She'll assess your skills and we'll go from there. Welcome to the Avengers, Wasp."

"Iron Man," Hope replies, only a little sardonic. She stands, crosses to his side, and taps the paper. "Read it. Because it wasn't just you and Steve Rogers out there, Mr. Stark. It was the whole world, and you two tore it straight down the middle, no matter who slipped through the cracks."

 Dear Cassie,

I know letters are kinda lame, but I thought I'd give you something more permanent than a text while I'm away. I don't know how long I'll be gone, but Captain America - yeah THE Captain America, I'm freaking out, too - asked for my help. I know its hard but this is my job now.

I just want you to know that even though I have to be gone sometimes and even if I'm gone for awhile, you were, are, and always will be the most important thing in my life. Every time I go out in the suit, it's for you. To keep you and your mom and Paxton safe and happy. I didn't have the chance to chase away the monsters in your closet when you were younger but maybe taking down real life monsters can make up for that, huh?

Be good for your mom and Pax and be nice to Hope while I'm gone okay. She seems tough but she's a big old softie on the inside (DO NOT TELL HER I SAID THAT CASS). I promise you that I will always come back to you and I'll call as soon as I can.

I'll be back before you know it.

Love, Dad

 "Oh, God."

"Mr. Stark, are you okay?"

Tony rolls around to his back and winces. "You've flattened me into a pancake and you still can't call me Tony?"

Kamala's face glitches and shakes on the HUD as the suit recovers from being smacked between her atrociously large hands. They're normal sized now, and reaching for him but he waves her off, content to just lie there for awhile.

Somewhere Peter is snickering. "I can't believe you got taken out by a round of applause."

"I can't believe you got taken out by Frosty the Snowman. How's it hanging, Donnie?"

They are in training room B, Peter and Tony developing a baseline for Donnie and Kamala's power levels while Bruce and Vision collect and extrapolate results. Tony's first power inhibitor got taken out by Kamala's first power spike but the one based off this data should stand up to the test. Donnie just wanted out of the basement.

Now, he is currently hanging upside down from one of the rafters, tangled up in spiderweb. In fact, Kamala Khan is the last one standing and trying not to look too visibly pleased with that fact. Her brother, standing behind the reinforced glass, has no such qualms; Tony can hear Aamir cheering from here.

"Good job, Ms. Khan," Tony says, finally sitting up. The mini reactors have kicked in and his suit is back to functioning even if his ears are still ringing.

"Ms. Fantastic Elastic!" Peter chimes in gleefully.

Kamala snorts indelicately. "Lame."

"C'mon, you gotta have a code-name, Kamala!"

Tony nods sagely. "Get it done before the press does, or they'll name you Iron Man." He bursts up to retrieve Donnie and by the time he's back down Spider-Man is free, shaking off clumps of ice.

"I like Iron Man," Kamala says quietly.

"Yeah, man," Donald agrees. "You've got a built-in theme song. I'm Blizzard. I'm a Dairy Queen treat."

"Spider-Man," Peter commiserates. "Man who is a spider. Wow. So creative." He shakes a fist at the sky, probably cursing J Jonah Jameson's name.

Kamala lets out a genuine giggle and Tony beams behind the helmet. A girl like her wasn't built to be miserable, and he wishes he could have spared her - her and Peter - what he went through, but he's happy to see she's getting better. "Alright, kids, time to head out." They all begin complaining at once and Tony holds up a hand. "We still don't know what your powers do to your metabolism and I am not carrying you around if you pass out. So go change and head to the kitchen. Yes, even you, Spidey, I can see your ribs through the suit, what are they even feeding you in Queens?"

He harangues them out of the training room and off to their respective suites and/or basements as he himself heads through a disassembly line for the suit. "Boss," FRIDAY begins. "We have a lead on who let out the video to the news."

"Hit me."

"Sources say the leak began with Viastone Incorporated."

Tony stops dead, the ball of anger he always carries around in his chest nowadays coiling up even hotter and tighter. "Schedule a meeting with Tiberius, Fry."

"Mr. Stone's schedule is currently full, boss."

"Oh, Ty," Tony snarls softly. "Still a coward." Honestly it's not all that surprising that Tiberius would sell him out. The man's built an entire company out of it. "Then I guess Iron Man will have to pay a visit instead."

"Are you sure the Accords will allow that, Tony? I mean, you can't just fly around in the suit anymore."

"Suit's still mine, Fry, and I've got the patent to prove it," Tony snaps, halfway ready to stop the machinery and put the Mark II back on before he stops and thinks. "Fine. I guess I'll just...wait in the lobby. Ugh."

"Sounds horrifying, boss." He had got to stop programming his AIs with so much sass.

"You'll be right there with me, sweetheart," he sing-songs. "Virtual minesweeper. Sixty four by sixty four grid. We might be there for hours, Fry."

"I hate you."

The kids are already in the kitchen, crowded around the island with the Barton children in between while Clint and Laura dole out sandwiches at super-speed. "Nat still in with Hope?"

Clint nods, eyes glued on his kids like he still can't believe they're with him. "Yeah. Apparently the suit's got some kind of stingers, may be even stronger than Tasha's bites. I think she's jealous."

"You've got company, by the way," Laura says, coaxing Nate into eating a bite of apple sauce. "In the living room." She hands a sandwich off to Tony and points out towards the room in question.

A pretty blonde is sitting with Rhodey on the loveseat, one hand on his knee. "Speak of the devil and she shall appear," Tony says, taking in her Air Force duds and remembering Fury's words about the military coming back for Rhodey. Losing War Machine has got to be eating them alive.

"Tony, this is Captain Carol Danvers," Rhodey says when he gets closer. Carol stands - she's taller than him, dammit - and sticks out a hand.

"Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Stark. We've all heard great things about you." Her smile is as warm and her grip is tight over his and Tony doesn't know which one to trust.

"Captain Danvers. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

Carol directs that smile over her shoulder at Rhodey and Tony watches his best friend's face light up. "Colonel Rhodes has been on medical leave since Germany," Danvers answers when she turns back to Tony. "But I see that's unnecessary. These prosthetics are amazing, Mr. Stark. Your design, I'm assuming."

"Hole in one, Captain. Stark Industries is working to bring them to the public in the next three years."

Carol Danvers beams at him, shaking the hand she hasn't let go more vigorously. "That's fantastic, Mr. Stark. Would you consider an early release to the Veterans Affairs? I know a lot of soldiers who -"

"Carol," Rhodey butts in, almost sounding embarrassed. Danvers finally lets go of Tony with a nod, sitting back down beside him.

"As I was saying, Mr. Stark, Colonel Rhodes has been on leave but he's more than welcome to come take his place with the Air Force once again. War Machine is capable of taking on missions an ordinary pilot cannot. His presence has been missed."

Rhodey adjusts his legs by hand, probably just to have something to do with them. "And as I was saying to Captain Danvers, my place is with the Avengers now." His voice sounds firm but Tony can't miss the spark of longing in his eyes. Rhodey's a military man through and through, always happy to serve, happy with his men and his rank and the lifestyle. And Tony took it all away from him.

"You would be working within the US Military," Danvers says in a tone that indicates she and Rhodey have been going around in circles for awhile. "Surely the Accords don't prevent you from doing that."

"They don't," Tony says, eyes on Rhodey. "The Armed Forces are free to call us at anytime; the United States was nice enough to hand those decisions over to them for the time being. We're also free to say no."

The last part is hard, directed towards the Captain. Her already ram-rod posture grows even more stiff but otherwise she shows nothing. "Of course. I just wanted to let Jim know what his options were."

"I know, Carol," Rhodey tells her, mustering up a smile. "And don't think I don't realize you could have just done this over the phone. Thanks for coming to see me."

Captain Danvers smiles brightly and pulls him into a hug. "We miss you around the base. No matter what, you promise to come visit us soon, alright?" When she gets a nod from Rhodey she rises and shakes Tony's hand again. "Iron Man's help would not go unappreciated either, Mr. Stark. Food for thought. It was nice to meet you. I'll see myself out."

Tony and Rhodey watch her go, his friend with more than a little wistfulness on his face. Tony sighs. "Honey-bear, I'm not keeping you locked up here. You wanna go, then-"

"My place is with you," Rhodey says, quiet but firm, without making eye contact. "You need me."

"Oh, God, you're gonna make me sappy," Tony whines as he plops down on the couch and burrows his shoulder into Rhodey's. "I always need you. I'm a needy person. I need Pepper, too, but please note this is me, needing her from several miles away. I won't spontaneously collapse if you're gone for a few days."

"I don't really want to test that theory right now," Rhodey teases. "Look, whatever Carol says, they're doing okay without me. The Avengers are still getting their feet underneath them - so to speak." He palms his braces and Tony can see condensation from his damp palms collecting on the plastic. "So stop trying to kick me out, man. We don't leave a job half finished."

"Roger that," Tony responds. He tilts his head up and waggles his eyebrows until Rhodey looks over, then waggles them some more. "So, Carol, huh?"

He is promptly shoved into a couch cushion. "Don't be weird, Tones. She's cool. Actually gave me some intel you might want to hear. Seems Ellis has already lined up Ross' replacement. You heard of General Aleksander Lukin?"

"Sure. Family owns Kronas Oil over in East Europe, came here as a kid, big shot front-lines army guy. You think he's legit?"

"Lukin's never had any complaints from the men who serve under him and he's always had a good mind for strategy. He can't be any worse than Ross," Rhodey says with a shrug. "I mean he never created a knock-off Hulk and that's gotta count for something."

"Wow. What ringing endorsement. I'm gonna have FRIDAY investigate him anyway. In the meantime, you want to head into New York with me?" Tony asks, slipping on his sunglasses so he can start reading the information FRIDAY's already pulling on General Lukin. "I found out who got the video onto TV."

Rhodes sits up, eyes already sparking hot coals. "Who?"

"Okay, you know how you've always wanted to punch Tiberius Stone in the face? Well, I've got good news."

So:

Rhodey doesn't punch Ty, but Tony wears his watch gauntlet and taps in threateningly against the arm of his chair as Tiberius tries to explain that it "totally wasn't me, Tony, c'mon."

About the time Tony starts beating out the 1812 Overture Ty gives up. "Fine. What did you want me to do, Tony, shelve it forever? Not only did that thing get me twelve million first sell but seriously, doesn't the public deserve to know exactly what kind of monster the Winter Soldier is? I mean, you were friends with Captain America, right? What was he doing, defending that guy?"

Tony's gauntlet begins to whine as he involuntarily powers up the repulsor. He doesn't need Tiberius Stone telling him how terrifying the Super Soldier Dream Team is, he has an x-ray back home to prove it. Maybe he should do some 'leaking' of his own, show the world exactly what happens to an already fragile ribcage when a vibranium frisbee is shoved into it.

But the world doesn't get any more of Tony's pain and they can't handle any more of Bucky's. "Seems to me you owe me, Ty."

"How do you figure?" the other man says, eyes flicking between Tony's face and the gauntlet.

"Well, I'm willing to bet there's something in there I can sue you for. Don't ask me what, that's why I have lawyers, and they're good, Stone."

Rhodey grins, all teeth. "Real good."

"So here's the deal. You're gonna give me proof that Ross gave you the leak and you're gonna give me one favor."

Never has Tony been so happy to see Ty so furious. "Just the one?" his former best friend snarls.

"Just the one," Tony parrots, making his smile extra wide. "I'll call it in when I need it. Just be ready."

Tiberius twirls the Montblanc in his fingers once, twice, before slamming it down on the table. "Fine. Whatever. I fucking hate you, man."

"Aw, Caesar," Tony simpers, just to see Tiberius jolt at his old childhood nick-name. "You say the nicest things to me." He and Rhodey stand and head for the door.

"It wasn't personal, Tones," Ty calls after them. "It was just business!"

 "So what's the favor?" Rhodey asks on the drive home.

Tony shrugs, squinting at his tablet as FRIDAY pulls up everything she can find from Zemo's interrogation. Maybe the world can't handle Barnes' pain, but they all deserve the truth.

He is sitting in the car with his mother. Not in the snow or on a deserted road, but in a parking lot outside church in Manhattan. It's eighty-five degrees out and Tony's down to his undershirt but his mother is pristine as always. Dad's outside, resting on the hood and smoking a cigar with Obie. His whole family is here, and that why this isn't real.

"Do you forgive me?" he asks her.

"There's nothing to forgive, sweetheart."

"You're just saying that because I'm dreaming."

"Or because there's really nothing to forgive," Maria says on a laugh. Outside, Howard puts out his cigar and shakes Obie's hand then comes around to slide in the driver's seat, reaching for his mother's hand.

"Methodist church next week, Maria. I can't do a full month of Mass, I just can't. Buckled in, T?" Tony makes a noise of assent and the Starks drive off.

"Dad, do you forgive me?"

Howard and Maria exchange a look and his father meets Tony's eyes in the rearview mirror. "It's your dream, kid. You asking me, or you asking you?" Which was honestly such a Howard thing to say; Tony hates him all over again. The car turns and the city gives way to trees and undergrowth. Behind them, Tony hears a bike revving.

"Wait," he whispers. "I know this road."

"And so now Wanda listens to K-Pop every night and the rest of us suffer the consequences." Steve finishes his story and he remembers the laugh that Bucky used to give whenever he didn't think Steve was particularly funny but didn't want to hurt his feelings. He places a hand on the frosted glass and sighs. "You were always looking out for me, Buck. I'm sorry I couldn't do the same."

Bucky, of course, doesn't reply, but Steve can still hear his reply loud and clear. He'd say stop feeling sorry for yourself, Punk, you did the best you could.

Always that. Always the best Steve could. Bucky has been telling him that his whole life - their friendship is big on catchphrases, Steve's noticed - and the only thing that's changed is what Steve is capable of doing.

"I should have told you," Steve says. "When you asked. You were worth it, Bucky, all of it. All those times you protected me, it was about time for me to do the same. I just wish you were here now, you jerk. I told the others what happened in Siberia; they aren't too happy with me. I'm not too happy with me either. Honest, Buck, I didn't mean to hurt Tony like that, I just - kinda figured he'd never find out. I know that's not good enough, don't look at me like that."

Bucky remains frozen.

"I sent him a phone, too. I told you that last time, didn't I? Sorry if I repeat myself, I'm going a bit stir-crazy here. It's like back in the thirties, being laid up with the flu. Trying not to die," Steve whispers. "Well, I sent him a phone and a letter, told him I was sorry, but he hasn't called. Gave the number out to everyone, and they'll talk, but not Tony. I know what you're thinking. I could call him. But I just...

"Look, Buck, every time I talk to one of them they talk about how much better the Accords are now, how maybe I should sign, like I'm some kind of idiot who was too stupid to understand the first time around. I don't doubt that Tony and T'Challa and Nat have worked hard at them but at the end of the day it's still tying our hands behind our backs, putting us in cages and deciding when to let us out. Nigeria ended bad, yeah, but what would have happened if we weren't there and Rumlow got away with the bio weapon? If we had just let it happen, the same people demanding we turn ourselves over to the government would be raking us over the coals, asking where we were when the world needed help."

Bucky is still and silent.

Steve hangs his head. "Which, I guess happened anyway, huh? Where was Captain America when the world needed him? Hiding out in the jungle from his friends. I still, I can't believe that they did that. I know Tony thought he was protecting us, but Tony always thinks that and half the time we end up in worse shape than when we started; look at Ultron. Tony and his best intentions and what do we get? A killer indestructible robot. How was I supposed to trust him?"

He drops down onto the table, head in his hands. "I didn't. I didn't trust him. We can't control everything but God does that man try, Buck. He put Wanda under house arrest, and then at the airport...He's a good man, he is. I know that. Iron Man is...amazing and a hero, and so is the man inside. But I can't agree with what he did. And I can't agree with the Accords. There has to be a better way. If a country doesn't want us there, then, okay, we don't have the right to overrule them. But after what happened in Chad, do you think the others can honestly look me in the eye and say the Accords are working?"

Bucky's chest rises and falls, barely a millimeter either direction.

"I wanted to trust him. He came for us in Siberia and I thought 'Finally. Everything's gonna be okay.' Because Tony, you don't know this about him, but he fixes things. Makes them better than before. And I thought with Tony on our side the rest would follow and we would all be - okay, together. And it's keeping me up at night to think that Tony's on the other side of the world, thinking the exact same things about me.

"Buck, I - I don't know what to do."

"Perhaps I can help with that," a voice says, and Steve is whipping around and grabbing the table to flip it up in defense before he can register who is talking to him. It is a man, smooth- and dark-skinned like the other Wakandans, completely regular except for the slight flatness in his accent and the way his face is not quite shaped like the typical Wakandan.

"Who are you?" Steve says, all Captain in his voice.

The man smiles. "As I said, I am here to help. I'll be blunt." And the man's accent slips away entirely to something familiar. Boston. "I'm an agent of SHIELD, Captain Rogers, and I've been made. The Dora are probably looking for me as we speak."

"What do you want?"

"The same thing we all want," the man says, eyes narrowing. "The world's not going to survive working at half-strength. There's only so much Tony Stark and his group can do, especially with the Accords holding them back. We need Captain America. We need you."

"I can't leave him," Steve says, edging in front of Bucky. "Or my team."

"Your team is more than welcome to come. As for the Winter Soldier, SHIELD has experience dealing with victims of HYDRA. We can help. Or, should you choose to let him stay with King T'Challa, you'll find your way back here anytime you wish."

Steve wishes desperately for his shield. "I guess you've never taken on the Dora or the king. Neither take kindly to threats to Wakanda."

The man smiles and there is a creeping darkness around the edges of his frame. "Only if they see me coming." The darkness expands and then contracts and Steve is left blinking at the place where the man once stood.

"We know how much you care about him, Captain-" Steve whirls. The man has somehow gotten behind him, facing Bucky's cage, one hand ghosting over the glass. "The whole world has seen what you are willing to do to keep him by your side."

"Get away from him," Steve snaps, and the agent steps back, digging into his clothes. He brings out a phone, handing it face up to Steve so he can see what's on screen. His eyes catch on the word 'HYDRA,' more than once. "Damn."

"Yes," the agent agrees succinctly. He pressed a button on the phone and it rings once.

"Fury," a voice barks over the phone.

"The Captain has been contacted. Ready for extraction," the man says, that strange blackness creeping out again.

"Confirmed, Cloak. Get out of there."

'Cloak' winks at him. "'Til next time, Captain." And then he is gone is a swirl of darkness, leaving the phone in Steve's hands.

"Director?"

The line fills with static when Fury sighs. "Look, I'm gonna give it to you straight, Cap: you fucked up big time. Now the Avengers are missing their best man and Barton's wearing an ankle monitor. I understand your concerns about the Accords and frankly I don't give a shit. You and Stark should have talked this out like adults instead of blowing up an airport, but I guess that was too much to ask for, huh?"

"Sir-"

"Can it, Rogers. You've had enough time in Wakanda to lick your wounds, now its time to get back to the fight. The world doesn't wait for Captain America to make up his damn mind. There are missions the Avengers can't do, countries that won't let them in. You ready to go to work, son?"

Steve looks up at Bucky's face, so pale and still. "I can't leave - I can't leave my team."

A long pause, then Fury, gruffer than before and impossibly more irritated. "Call and let me know when you've put on your big boy pants, Rogers. Fury out."

 Kamala's family's funeral goes as well as a funeral can possibly go. Tony sends flowers, then apologizes since he didn't check to see if that followed custom, and Aamir thanks him anyway while Kamala tries to hold herself together. Literally. She's torn the inhibitor off and her hands have wrung out to the ground.

Hope settles in well enough, though she doesn't hide her irritation that even Tony can beat her on the mat as well as she thinks she does. She's terrifyingly smart and can talk Donnie and Tony both into the ground when it comes to biology, though she has a little more trouble with Bruce. Hope is competitive but she's making a conscious effort to make it productive, something to motivate the rest of them. Clint tells her a few stories about Scott and she hangs on every word.

Neither of them are happy when the rest of the team suits up to head to Canada, but Clint can't go twenty yards beyond the compound's walls and Hope still isn't quite meshing with the rest of them.

Parker is going to bounce straight out of his skin before they even get there but T'Challa is as calm as ever. "I need to talk to you when we're done here," Tony mutters lowly to him. "And no, you're not going to like it. Just hear me out, okay?"

"Of course," T'Challa agrees easily. "Until then, I believe our team is awaiting orders, Iron Man."

"Canadian government has approved casualties but would prefer prisoners. It's out in the middle of nowhere so they don't particularly care if we blow it up. We'll be working with their army and SHIELD agents to take this place down. Primarily goal is to retrieve as much information as we can and getting a sample of the terrigen mist. Spidey, you're keeping your distance, got it. Round them up and put them away. Widow, you and T'Challa have the ground. We'll be the internal team. War Machine and I will take the outside, try to funnel them in. Vision, you're the only one who can survive the mist. SHIELD wants a sample, Canada wants a sample, and most importantly, I want a sample. Can do?"

"Of course," Vision says, while the rest of them either chorus yesses or suggest improvements. In the end, with collaboration from Agent Coulson, Tony agrees to head inside with the other two while Quake works at containment and Agent May fights on the ground with someone called Mockingbird. With Canada's final okay, the quinjet opens up and the Avengers wage war.

It's a good idea, leaving War Machine with the SHIELD agents; he's used to working with a team under pressure so they coordinate attacks well. Spider-Man keeps out in the woods all along the perimeter, webbing people to trees and creating huge traps at the entrances and exits of the compound that the stupider HYDRA men walk straight into. Iron Man works seamlessly with Black Widow and Black Panther, slinging them up to walkways and rafters while blasting any agents he comes across, creating distractions while Vision just fazes through everyone, intent on his goal.

They move as one. They work as one. Tony has missed this more than he can say and he finds himself thinking that at least when Cap comes back Tony will give him a team to be proud of.

He moves into position so T'Challa can catapult off his shoulders at the line of snipers up near the roof. The factory is laid out oddly, no floor, just single, enormous rooms filled with equipment. There is a scary green vat bubbling away in the corner that wouldn't look out of place in a Batman cartoon and empty bomb shells ready to be cased. Tony takes great joy in blasting those apart.

The three head farther in, trailing behind Vision, occasionally finding evidence of his presence. Coulson lets his agents pull a perimeter behind them but the army hangs back, the threat of terrigenesis very fresh on everyone's mind.

There is a mad scientist, at the end of it all.

Before that, they stumble into a room where the experiments were conducted. There are still bodies on the table, most mutated into horrifying forms, too many legs and eyes and all of them dead. It's obvious HYDRA had begun testing younger; Natasha very quickly covers a young girl with skin a boiling red and fangs protruding from her mouth with a sheet before they move on. "Her body was still warm," she tells them in a hushed whisper. "They killed them right before we got here."

"If they can't have them, no one can," Tony surmises grimly. Panther's claws scrape horribly across his own suit.

The mad scientist has a bomb, because of course he does.

"Do not do anything rash," Vision is advising the man as they step into the room.

"Of course he's not going to do anything rash," Tony says, stepping forward. "He doesn't want to risk surviving and turning into what we saw back there, now does he?"

The HYDRA agent grins. It's slightly crazed and flecked with blood. "You will not stop me from my goal, Avengers. I was warned of you. The doctor told me what I must do. To save us all. The doctor told me. The doctor told me." There is a sing-song quality to his voice that sends ice straight down Tony's spine. The man raises his right hand and reveals the trigger. "To save us all. I was warned."

"What doctor?" Tony blurts. "What are you saving us from?" Suddenly a burst of gunfire echoes loud over their comms and Tony hears Rhodey curse. He switches his speakers to private. "War Machine, report!"

"Looks like HYDRA had some back-up. Lots of it. You need to get out here, Tones, we're getting swarmed."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Tony chants to himself. "Widow, Panther, fall back to War Machine, lend a hand. Vision stay with me. Spider-Man, do you read?" The crazy man is laughing as Black Widow and Panther retreat.

"They know, too! The doctor helps all, Iron Man."

"I'd like to meet the man who could handle my issues," Tony says genially. "Where can I meet the guy?"

"Iron Man?" Spider-Man's beaten down voice echoes through the helmet. "I tried to keep my distance but these guys are pretty clingy."

"It's fine kid. You got the watch on? Friday's sending you blueprints. Head to the place she's marked. There's a window there. Get it open and web the man's left hand. You'll know when you see. Left hand, got it?"

"On my way, Tony."

Back in the room, the man is still babbling. "You don't meet the doctor. The doctor finds you. He finds all those who need his help, like he found me. He has been sent to us, from the glow, from beyond, to cleanse us all, to make us ready."

"Ready for what?" Tony asks but his voice sounds far away even to his own ears. Beyond, he thinks, and sees stars and darkness and the Chitauri on fire.

"Coming in now. The web's gonna knock him off balance, one of you needs to grab him just after I do."

"That will be me," Vision says, going incorporeal.

The man smiles at Tony. "For infinity."

A web snags around his hand and Vision phases through him, coming out of the other side with the trigger and bomb intact. "NO!" The man shouts, his mouth a bloody foam. "You can't stop this! You can't-"

Tony releases a tranquilizer dart and the man collapses. "Bomb's secured," he barks over the comms. "Check in."

"HYDRA's thinned out, but they're still coming. They're targeting fire on War Machine, we need more aerial assistance." Natasha sounds exhausted.

"I'm gonna sit this one out," Spider-Man garbles as he comes to an unsteady landing beside the unconcious man. There is a patch of red at his shoulder darker than he suit, bleeding through the blue. "Watch this guy for a bit, if that's okay."

There is a high noise in Tony's ear that's nearly drowning out everything else and he takes a few unsteady steps forward. "Kid-"

"Healing factor, Mr. Stark. I'll be fine. Might crash on your couch for a few days." Peter lists to the side as he webs the man up, his movements overly precise to make up for whatever the blood-loss is doing to his head.

"I - okay," Tony breathes. FRIDAY, unbidden, reoxygenates the air he's breathing in and his head clears a little. "Okay. Viz, stay with him. Don't let go of that bomb. There's a medical room back; see if you can find any sterile bandages and patch him up. Iron Man inbound, copy?"

"Copy."

War Machine's taken a few bad hits, one of them even precise to affect the targeting on his shoulder-mounted machine gun, but since they've stopped worrying about casualties he and Tony let out the big guns. T'Challa is a one man army, jumping from woman to woman on the ground to give them some breathing room and Widow's Bites are arcing all over the place. Quake is keeping entire units pinned to the ground while Agents May and Morse make sure they stay down. The army keeps its fire careful and precise, picking up any stragglers. Ten minutes of non-stop noise later it comes to an end, the last few HYDRA agents deciding that killing themselves is better than being taken alive.

Natasha's been grazed more than a few times and might have broken a rib, Rhodey's stable, and T'Challa, for the most part, just sounds impressed HYDRA was able to bruise him at all. Even Tony has managed to make it out mostly okay. The SHIELD agents are a bit worse off, what with their substandard gear that principle alone will demand Tony upgrade. 

"Spider-Man's wound is already closing up," Vision reports. "It appears most of the affect is coming from the other side of an adrenaline rush."  Yeah, that was one of Peter's myriad problems, a side-effect of radioactive spider powers combined with the changing hormones of a teenage boy. When he crashed, he crashed hard.

Vision emerges with a hazy Spider-Man behind him and the Avengers files into the quinjet to give their report and confer with Agent Coulson. 

"So, here's the deal," Tony tells Coulson. "You take the man, I'll take the bomb, we both send our findings to Canada HQ. Sounds like a plan? And before you say no, remember that I have never secretly been HYDRA." 

Coulson's bland face remains so. "I remember. We'll take the prisoner. I expect a full report on the bomb within three days. And before you say no, remember that my scientists have been working on this a lot longer than yours. We can help."

"Four days. Busy man, got lots of stuff to do."

"Speaking of," Coulson says, stepping closer. "How is Donald Gill coming along? How soon can we expect him back with us?"

"Back with you? What exactly do you want with him?" Tony straightens up so he looms over Coulson. 

If Coulson is intimidated, he doesn't show it. "We don't want anything but for him to get better. However, Donald Gill is a powerful Inhuman with a traumatic past and like you said, Mr. Stark, you're a busy man. We want to make the healing process as smooth as possible."

"Then I suggest you leave him with me," Tony snaps. "Where he's comfortable." Coulson's pale eyes flash with interest and Tony quickly steps away. "We got a deal?"

"Of course. Four days, Tony. I'll send you the interrogation tape by then." Coulson moves to leave, sending a nod towards Natasha that she doesn't return.

Tony blurts, "he kept talking about a doctor. A doctor coming from the glow, from beyond. You ever heard of anything like that?"

Coulson frowns, shakes his head. "Have you?"

"No," Tony says quietly. His arm tingles; he remembers this from the portal, how he lost the feeling in his fingers first. "But I think I've seen it."

Time passes in a weird lurch after that and Tony spends it half-awake and listening for Peter to buzz him if the kid needs help. Earlier, Hope taught Kamala how to properly bandage the wound he hadn't realized he'd gotten on the back of his head but the girl was convinced she wasn't using enough gauze so now he's toting a miniature pillow on his skull; at the very least it makes camping out on this couch easier.

In between the moments of unconsciousness T'Challa takes the armrest at his feet. "I have been called back to Wakanda and must leave immediately. If we are to talk, it has to be now." The king stretches out a hand and blearily Tony takes it, letting T'Challa pull him into an upright position. Tony, still half out of it, pats his bicep appreciatively. He thinks T'Challa might be smirking now.

"I need you to throw Scott Lang out of your country."

T'Challa's face smooths over immediately. "No."

"Okay, look, that didn't come out right. I need you to ask Scott Lang to get himself arrested so we can extradite him and bring him home to his family. You met Hope? That's his girlfriend. She came here for him."

"Tony," T'Challa sighs, and slides gracefully down the fabric of the couch to rest beside him. "I know how keenly you feel the loss of the Avengers, perhaps more so than anyone else. And I know you wish to protect them and keep them safe. But you can't decide this for them. There is a line between protection and control; I do not think you realize where that line is. Consider your behavior towards Ms. Maximoff."

Tony rears back. "I was protecting Wanda. I should have told her beforehand, I realize that, but Wanda wasn't an American citizen, they could deport her at the drop of a hat and the way the public was turning against her-"

"Wanda is also an adult. Your friends did not lock you in a Tower after Ultron. She should have had the choice."

She would've chosen wrong, Tony almost spits back, but godammit that would only prove T'Challa's point. "So what's the line, then, Highness, since you seem so well-informed? What's in the space between protection and control?"

T'Challa looks at him carefully. "Fear," he says.

My name is Tony Stark and I am not afraid of you.

Tony's breath stutters and he drops his gaze to his hands, watching the muscles move underneath his skin when he flutters his fingers, watches them reach out for Pepper, for Obie, for Rhodey. Watches it all slips through them one by one. Watches them covered in red and gold and stretched above him, trying to block a blow from a shield that will never come because Steve was aiming for his chest.

"You think I don't know?" he whispers. "I didn't go to Leipzig up on my moral high horse because the Accords were just oh-so-righteous. I didn't go for the Accords at all. I went for them, because someone was coming to kill them and you know - you know what it's like, right, to sit there and watch people die and you could have stopped it?"

"You know I do," T'Challa says. Tony reaches out blindly, fingers tapping a beat on T'Challa's knee. It might be Debussy again, he's not sure.

"Yeah, you know. I built bombs, I killed thousands, I built Ultron and killed hundreds, I outfitted the Avengers and they killed dozens and I mean, golly, my kill-count's going down I guess, but I'm still killing people. I can't escape this, I can't protect people from this, the only thing I can do is try to control it, and you want to talk to me about fear?"

"Yes," T'Challa says fiercely. Tony's mouth closes with an audible click. "I do not want your fear to drive you, Tony Stark, because you are a better man than that." He snatches up Tony's hand like he did a week before and holds the fingers up between them both until Tony stops shaking.

When they do, Tony sighs. "Well, I'll get right on that, Panther King. In the meantime, this thing with Lang - just let him know his options, okay? I have some things that belong to him that he needs to see. You seem big on choices but I'm pretty sure Team Cap over there doesn't know all of theirs."

T'Challa agrees to those terms and Tony reaches over to the table where the papers Hope laid out for him rest. He sticks them in a manila envelope and scrawls a note on the front, then hands it over. "You know," he says, then pauses. "Never mind."

I am Tony Stark and I am not afraid of you.

"So, anyone else want to explain why we've been confined to our rooms for the past two days?" Scott whines for about the fifth time. They are all camped out in the communal area, trying to pass the time together after a Dora announced two days ago that their already limited access to the palace had been restricted even further. 

The two separate phones weigh on Steve like stones. He hasn't told the others about Fury's mission, about possibly leaving the country and going back to their jobs but he's sure they would jump at the chance. His line to Tony has also remained worryingly quiet, even though they saw on the news where the Avengers helped the Canadian military take down some terrorist group in northern Manitoba. He feels twenty-five again, watching Bucky get ready to ship off to war while he stayed behind, useless and weak. He hates this feeling more violently that he has ever hated anything in his life.

Today. He'll tell them today and tomorrow they'll be out there, making a difference again. Helping. Steve has always only wanted to help people.

He is surprised when T'Challa strides in, holding a very plain envelope in his hands. "Avengers," he greets them cordially. He always calls them that, even after Steve attempted to correct him. T'Challa is an Avenger now himself; maybe he likes the idea of camaraderie.

"How was Canada?" Steve asks.

T'Challa just grins. "Explosive. Mr. Lang, I have a delivery for you. Along with something I think you all should see." He extends the package in Scott's direction, who scurries to take it, while he throws another sheaf of paper on the table in front of Sam. "That is my copy of the Accords. I was waiting for one of you to ask or show interest, and of course you always have the choice not to read it, but it has...occurred to me how hard is it to make a choice when you don't know what the choice may be.

There is a terrible noise and Steve realizes it came from Scott. The man has a sheet of paper in one trembling hand, the other clapped over his mouth. "Scott? What is it?" Wanda asks. She steps forward and picks up the envelope he has dropped and her face goes a little pale before she crosses to hand it to Steve.

Lang, a scrawl reads on the front, and that is Tony's writing. Steve's whole body tenses, curls over the slip of brown paper.

Lang,

So letters are a really bullshit method of communication but somehow you and your kid make them work. Power of true love, I guess. Hope brought this to me hoping (ha) that I could somehow get it to you. My end of the bargain is complete. The rest is up to you.

TS

Inside is another copy of the Accords, negotiated between three parties. The UN Accords Panel, the Avengers Iniative, and Hope van Dyne.

He can't hide this any longer. It's time to put all the cards on the table.

"Thank you, T'Challa," Steve manages. "Can we have a moment?" The king narrows his eyes minutely but bows out of the room. Steve takes a deep breath, reaches into his pocket, and throws Fury's phone on top of the Accords Sam is looking through. Sam jumps, eyes flicking between the phone and Steve before he realizes the make and model aren't Wakandan.

"We need to talk," Steve tells him. He thought he would feel relieved, but the Accords in his hand have pulled his heart to the ground.

Daddy,

I'm very proud that my daddy is helping Captain America. I want a signed comic book. 

I wish you were here. When you were gone before it was okay because I was used to that but now I miss you more than ever. You're a big hero now but don't get too big for me, promise. Mama explained to me what was going on and I understand but come back soon. 

Send me lots of pictures and letters. Sometimes before I forgot what you looked like. I like you being here but I know other people like you, too, and that you're important now. But I don't want you to be sad because I'm just fine, daddy. You always come back. Mama said we have to have faith but I already have all of that. 

I've got Ant-Man and my daddy. Even when you're gone that means I got more than anybody else.

Come home soon.

Love, Cassie.

PS: Stay safe! Don't get squashed!

(Call me selfish, but I don't care about the world. I care about our daughter. Come back soon, Scott. We need you more than they do. Love, Maggie.)

Chapter Text

"So," Sam says. "Let's discuss this like the rational adults we are, alright?"

Scott, eyes still red from his crying jag, gestures in front of him at the phone. "What the fuck." 

Sam sighs.

"I don't understand," Wanda says. "We ran away from the Accords so we wouldn't have to answer to someone. And now you want to follow SHIELD again? Were these people not secretly HYDRA?"

"Yeah, and what about the Frozen Chosen sleeping down there?" Scott asks sharply. Steve frowns at his tone and the other man scoffs. "C'mon, Captain, let's be real here. We fought your friends at the airport to save Bucky Barnes. And now you're just gonna leave him? What did we fight for?"

"To save the world," Sam reminds him pointedly, but it only riles Scott up further.

"Except there wasn't anything to save, huh. Zemo was fucking with all of us and we fell for it. We fought the Avengers and now we're here in Wakanda and I've missed three parole meetings." The man takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Look, I say no. No more going behind anyone's back. This Fury guy, who knows if we can trust him? If you do this, Cap, don't think for a second that the UN won't send the Avengers after you again. Don't tell me you want a repeat of Leipzig. Or Siberia."

Steve flinches imperceptibly at Scott's reminder. "None of us want that, Scott. And I never wanted to take you away from your daughter, I'm sorry that it came to this." Scott looks murderous for a second before he hangs his head low. Wanda places a hand on his shoulder. "But Fury was right. There are places the Avengers can't get to because of the Accords, and he's probably not the only one who's figured that out."

Sam's nodding along even as he pieces through the Accords. "What better place for the big bad to hide than in plain sight where the Avengers can't actually get to you?"

"How do even know this was this Fury?" Wanda asks. "This man, Cloak, he has been here for weeks, watching us. He knows us. He knows you, Steve. This is everything you've wanted since coming here. Doesn't that strike you as strange?"

Steve leans back in his chair. He's been played by Fury before. He's probably being played right now. Fury said all the right things during that phone call, subtly pressing all of Steve's buttons even as he pretended to berate him. But if this is anything like before, Steve can't just sit back and let it happen to him; he has to act. Tony's not the only one who knows about working from the inside.

"Even if its not Fury, can we afford to let whoever Cloak is working for wander around wreaking havoc? There are bigger things at work here, Wanda, and we can't be left in the dark again. We need to know what they are."

"Why?" Wanda asks. "Because the safest hands are our own? Shall I remind you what these hands have done?" And she thrusts her palms towards him, red sparks dancing along her fingertips. "Scott's right. If we are to be under someone else's control we might as well return home and work for Stark. At least they are our friends."

"Friends who stuck us in the Raft," Sam points out, keeping his voice calm and even. "Wanda, what happened in Lagos was an accident. Things could have gone a lot worse if you hadn't acted. It's the same principle here."

"Right," Steve says, more thankful than he can possibly say for Sam's presence. "Stark and the rest of the Avengers are limited in what they can do. And if Fury is telling the truth, HYDRA is working overtime. We can't just sit back and let that happen. You saw what happened in Chad, Wanda. The Avengers got tangled up in the Accords and people died. If we have the ability to help, what right do we have to let our fear control us and keep our heads down while other people - people who can't do what you can - suffer? Maybe the Accords could work if we were talking about just Crossbones and Strucker, but there's more out there. Gods and monsters that can't be defeated by a set of guidelines."

Wanda's face scrunches up as his words sink in but Scott merely snorts. "You haven't even glanced at the Accords once. I mean, listen to this: Item 4A, Party C - that's Hope, by the way - Party C will retain complete control of the Wasp suit and weaponry. There are six more like that, all making sure that if Hope screws up the government can't take her suit. And here: Item 1C, in the event that Party C's actions under Party B - the Avengers - results in casualties, Party C will be given a hearing only if her actions were found to be unconscionable and/or reckless during the debriefing. We all saw Clint's hearing, and he got off pretty light. They aren't just going to throw us in jail anymore."

Steve slides the phone off of T'Challa's copy of the Accords and tugs them closer to him. There are three logos on the first page: the giant 'SA' on top, the UN's globe to the left, and the arrow-A of the Avengers to the right. "But who decides if the action was unconscionable and/or reckless? The council. And who's to stop their egos and agendas from finding us guilty?"

"Vision is on the council right now," Wanda says softly, holding her hand out to look at Hope van Dyne's Accords. "That's one of the rules, yes? One of the Avengers must always be on the council. Item 2A: Party C withholds the right to reject any and all missions authorized by Parties A or B."

"That's in T'Challa's, too," Sam says. "Followed by Item 3: Thou shalt not go where you aren't authorized. But picture this for me, Scott. T'Challa, King of Wakanda, says the Avengers can't interfere even while, I don't know, Russia is bombing their coastline. You think the people of Wakanda care about the Accords right then? Or do they care about making it out of that nightmare alive?"

"Picture this, Sam: the Wakandan military stops the bombing because that's their job."

"Not Wakanda, then. Somewhere people don't have the resources to help themselves. Third world countries where the military would sooner spit on their graves then lift a finger to help, places where the military are the ones doing the killing," Steve snaps back. "Or, hell, even places like New York City. The police did the best they could but it wasn't enough. If we hadn't have been there New York would be a radioactive wasteland and Loki would likely still be around raising hell."

If Iron Man hadn't been there. If Tony hadn't flown through the portal. Well, Steve doesn't have Tony anymore and he might never have him again. He has to soldier on anyway. He did it once; he survived without Bucky and he saved the world. Damn if it wasn't the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. He could do it again, he could keep on living after everything is gone. It's an old wound by now.

Scott is staring at him, his red eyes sharp and his mouth quirked down. Scott isn't like Tony or Bruce, or even Rhodey, their wits acerbic and intelligent in a way Steve has mistaken for cruelty before, but he's a genius in his own right and it's just as intense having that focus turned on Steve as it was whenever it was Tony staring him down. "I don't think," Scott says finally. "I'm the one you should be saying this to. This plan, this Fury guy? They're not going to fix anything."

"There are more important things than the Avengers, Scott," Steve says quietly.

Scott just shakes his head. "Look, I get where you're coming from. I honestly do, Cap. And I thought I would follow Captain America into anything. But not here. You're right. There are more important things. Cassie's one of them. I need to go home."

"They'll make you sign," Sam warns him. Scott suddenly looks infinitely exhausted.

"I didn't fight for the Accords. None of us did. I fought for a safer world for my kid, and I failed her. I followed you before, Steve, and I ended up in jail. It's not your fault -" Scott raises a hand to forestall any protests, but Steve keeps his mouth shut regardless. Scott needs to say this, and Steve owes it to him to hear him out. "But I can't do it again. I - I'm gonna go pack but I'm. I'm glad I got to meet you. All of you."

Steve nods. "We were honored to have you, Ant Man." He rises and offers a hand that Scott takes with a shaky smile and a weak grip. He exchanges a one armed hug with Sam and turns towards Wanda.

Wanda, who looks devastated. "You should come with me," Scott whispers to her as he gathers her close. There is red sparking along her skin, floating into Scott's body, but he doesn't even flinch.

Wanda meets Steve's eyes over Scott's shoulder. "I need to make my own choices," she says, to all of them. 

Scott pulls away and wipes at his eyes again before reaching down and gathering all his papers together. He hesitates and then hands Hope van Dyne's Accords to Steve, waiting until he has a firm grip. "I think you need them more than me," he says. He takes one last look around and sighs to himself. "Well. Hopefully T'Challa can arrest international criminals."

He heads out towards the hallway and Steve all of the sudden goes boom-down into the couch before he can even think about moving. It's like a post-battle crash, but he hasn't been fighting. Wanda and Sam are by his side in an instant but he just pushes forward through their comforting grips to rest his forearms on his knees and breathe deep. 

"You guys can go, too," he says on a shaky exhale. "I won't hold it against you."

He feels more than hears Sam's slightly-forced laughter. "C'mon, Steve. I go where you go. I'm your man, through and through. Besides, you aren't the only one curious as to what Fury's up to. I remember Spy Game 2012 pretty damn well, let me tell you."

Steve throws a grateful smile over his shoulder and then glances sidelong at Wanda. "I need time, Steve," she tells him. "Please give that to me."

"As long as you need, Wanda."

She smiles graciously and gets to her feet, heading off to give more goodbyes to Scott. Sam, sensing Steve's spiralling mood, leaves as well. 

In front of Steve lay the phone and two copies of the Accords. He already knows what he's going to do, what he has to do, what he has always done. But it can't hurt to know every side. He pulls T'Challa's Accords towards him and picks up a pen.

"As near as I can tell from the files we pulled, Terrigenesis is based off of the bastardized Super Soldier serum originally manufactured for the Red Skull," Tony relays to Natasha as they watch through the windows while Hope works on her flight, dodging Clint's blunted arrows. On the far side of the room Rhodey, Vision, and Spider-Man are working through some combo moves. Turns out Rhodey's shoulder gun is a great place for Spidey to hang his web; the two have managed to run circles around Vision for the past thirty minutes. "The kid should be on bedrest."

"He's going home tonight," Natasha says. "I told him he had to test out the shoulder before I'd let him leave. He's fine, Tony, stop worrying."

Tony snorts. "I never worry. Hey, did you know that Kamala has missed a month of school?" Natasha sighs but its almost fond, her lips quirking up when she glances at him. "Got it. Priorities. Terrigen mists."

"No - Tony," Natasha sighs again. "You do realize you've got the rest of us right here? You don't have to take on the entire world; in fact, it'd be better if you didn't. You're not built to work alone."

"Well, lucky I'm an engineer then, huh? I know how to fix a flawed design." All that gets him is a glare and Tony turns, rests his shoulder against the glass and settles in for what is about to be, without a doubt, an uncomfortable conversation. "What were your words, Natalie? Self-obsessed, volatile, textbook narcissist, not a team player? Stop me if I'm wrong-"

"That was four years ago, Stark, and written when you had the luxury of screwing up," Nat snaps, turning to face him as well, her face smooth despite the fire in her tone. "You don't have that anymore, none of us do. This terrigen thing, have you even asked Bruce for help, or did you do it all yourself?"

"Bruce doesn't want to talk to me right now," Tony says stiffly. He thought, after the video and helping Kamala, that they could go back to some semblance of their former friendship but beyond that drunken night on the couch Bruce had maintained a polite if slightly frosty distance from Tony, still trying to reconcile with Tony's actions during the war.

Natasha snorts. "Good thing this isn't about you, or him, right? This is a threat to the world and we need the best minds working on. We need better than 'as near as I can tell,' Tony. And Rhodes told me you went to Tiberius Stone when you know Pepper would have dropped everything in a heartbeat to help you ream him out. And this mysterious favor you're going to call in, I bet you're going to do that all by yourself as well."

"Natasha-"

"And you won't let anyone help with Donald even though you don't have enough time for him-"

"Donnie trusts me," Tony cuts in. "And I'm the only one who can help him with the neural system."

"Donnie trusts you because you keep him locked up in the basement eighty percent of the time like he's going to snap at any moment!" Tony cringes at that; he hasn't been keeping Donnie away, he's been keeping him safe. If anyone came to the compound and saw the unknown Inhuman wandering around it would raise too many questions. "And you were slow in Manitoba, don't think I didn't notice, but you're probably not going to ask T'Challa how best to manipulate vibranium because-"

"I'm trying, Natasha!" he yells, voice cracking horribly. He takes a step away from the glass, away from her, and puts his hands over his face and just breathes. "Jesus Christ, Nat, I cannot do anymore..."

He can't hear anything but the sound of each slurred gasp echoing around the shield his fingers have made but he feels two small, deadly hands creep along his sides and around his back until Natasha is pressed against him in a hug. "I know you can't, Tony," she says softly. "I know. That's what I'm saying. You can't do everything. We're your team, you have to let us help. You have to trust us."

He drops his hands around her shoulders, not returning the gesture but settling Natasha closer, feeling her skin vibrate when he laughs. "I'm in your web, itsy bitsy. Is this the part where you eat me?"

"Tony." She pulls back. "I watched Steve do this, you know, exactly this. Try to take on the entire world. Didn't work out very well for him. It's not happening to you."

"Yes, ma'am," Tony says, sharp and sad and smiling. "I trust you, out in the field. You're my second, I've kinda got to. I'm - out here, it's harder. I'm trying."

Natasha's eyes go a little bright and he suspects she didn't realize how highly he valued her on the battleground. "Let me prove it, then. You're the boss, Stark, give me a job."

Because this is how it is, the two of them: Natasha and Tony have always worked at the same speed, the same frequency. Zero or sixty, no in betweens, never at the same time. She's his second, and by process of elimination, he's hers. Let go of just this one thing. 

"The favor that Ty owes me," he begins slowly. "I'm thinking of countering some bad publicity."

"The Avengers?" Nat can't help but start guessing, and its not surprising that once she stops and thinks, she gets it. Her eyes widen, head tilting towards Tony like they're conspiring. "Bucky Barnes. That's...big of you."

"That's what she said," Tony quips, not wanting to discuss this particular act of do-gooding. Just saying it makes him feel like he's burying his mother all over again. "I need the evidence from Siberia. Ross got the video from Zemo but Zemo knew how to trigger Barnes. He knew about the brainwashing. The evidence has to be out there, and maybe it won't be enough to clear Barnes but it'll definitely reduce his sentence. Rogers can let him plead insanity, get him some proper help. I know Barnes isn't any better or else T'Challa wouldn't be eyeing BARF like the cat and the canary." Natasha's eyes flicker with something dark - doubt or maybe guilt. "C'mon, Nat, Ty will eat it up. The public loves a good underdog story."

She untangles herself from him, shaking her head. "No, it's a good plan, Tony. I just wasn't expecting it of you. You want me to find the files Zemo cracked?" Tony nods. "Give me two weeks. T'Challa can get me in to see Zemo, right?"

"He and Everett Ross are pretty tight nowadays. Pretty sure short stack's in love so I'll just ask His Highness to bat his big panther eyelashes in the right direction."

"Oh, please let me be in the room for that conversation," Natasha laughs quietly. Her shoulders are settling back and loose, her posture going lax; she's getting her game face on. Tony hasn't seen her like this since before the war. "I'll head out tomorrow morning. Thanks, Stark."

He just shrugs and turns back to their team on the other side of the glass, noticing Vision vastly outpacing Spider-Man now. Clint and Hope have gotten distracted by the other three's antics and Clint is yelling something and Tony watches, a wince crawling up his spine, as Peter webs himself from one corner to another before banking hard on his injured shoulder to avoid one of Vision's blasts.

He can hear Peter's yelp from the other side of glass as the kid twists in midair around the wound, his momentum carrying him straight into a wall. "Shit," Tony hisses, and he and Nat scramble to the door to get inside.

Vision already got Spider-Man down from the wall, setting him down gently on the ground and helping Peter peel back his suit so they can take a peek. "I told you, kid, I fucking told you," Clint is saying, worry seeping through his voice. When Tony comes skidding to his side, he can see Peter's mechanical eyes dilating back and forth rapidly, meaning the kid inside isn't even tracking. "There's no need to push yourself."

"I think I know my body better than you do," Spider-Man snaps back, a little blearily. "Tony," he whines when Tony crouches down beside him. Natasha is already coming back from the corner where she's retrieved one of Bruce's neat portable scanners. "Tony, I swear I'm fine, it was just a twinge."

"A twinge that sent you into a wall," Natasha says, waving the scanner over his shoulder and twisting her wrist sharply so the scan flies up into the air between all of them. Hope is already manipulating it before its fully settled, separating the unmarked epidermal layer from the musculature underneath. 

"There," she says, pointing out a dent in Peter's back. "It wasn't done knitting and it tore. With your healing factor you need, oh, probably another day's rest."

"Told you to take it easy, Spidey," Rhodey says, making Tony grimace. Really, after thirty years of Tony, Rhodey should know better.

Sure enough, Peter yanks his uniform back together, bad shoulder be damned, and stands up straight through the hologram, disrupting and dissipating it. "I said I'm fine, okay, are you getting that?"

"Loud and clear, kid," Tony says, straightening up. "We just worry. First-class worriers here. Perks of the job. Or did you miss my late-night chats at Kamala's bedside and the five million version of braces Rhodey's never going to use or Clint's inability to not feed us or Hope's love affair with bandages?"

Hope sniffs. "Proper first aid is important, Stark."

Peter's uncomfortable; Tony can tell by the set of his shoulders even though he can't see his face. "I'm not a kid. Well, I mean - but I can take care of myself. You know that, Tony."

"'Course I do, you saved my life," Tony says simply. Natasha, to his side, chimes in with an 'and mine' that Rhodey echoes. "But even heroes need a break, kid. There. Stick that on your inspirational quote of the day calendar." Spider-Man rolls his shoulders and lets out a shaky exhale. "Spidey, the rest of us would be laid up with a bullet wound for weeks. You can stand one more day."

It's manipulation that would make Captain America proud and it seems to work. Spider-Man relaxes, doing that weird shaky laugh of his that he tends to do in awkward situations. "Yeah, I mean, of course I can. No biggie. I'm sorry for snapping."

"No biggie," Tony slings back. "You ready to head back into the city? I've got to take Kamala and Aamir out to Newark anyway." Kamala's powers still aren't stable enough to be out in public all the time, especially with the power inhibitor giving her migraines and sore muscles. Kamala's already erratic moods took a nosedive when Aamir and Tony began discussing homeschooling so for now Aamir's worked out an agreement with her teachers that she'll do her work at home until she's 'recovered.'

"Sure, Tony. Thanks."

The others says their goodbyes to Peter and Kamala seems cheered by his company. On his way out, Tony presses his hand to Natasha's shoulder and she taps it once, nods her head knowingly. 

Tony trusts her. He has to.

He stays the night in the mansion, too tired to drive home. He collapses on the couch beside the piano in the sitting room just off the foyer that Bruce sat on not long ago, that he slept on a quarter of a century ago, nursing a hangover as his mother serenaded him. 

It's not that he wants to stop missing his parents - he can't do that, he will never not miss them. But he thinks it'd be okay if some part of him just let go and stopped grieving them. Sometimes, when he doesn't have nightmares about Steve Rogers, he dreams that he's keeping his mother here with him, unable to move on to whatever is past death, to the God she prayed to, forever serenading a son that cannot recover.

In the end he even enlists Rhodey to help him look at the bomb while he and Bruce break down the chemical formula of the terrigen mists. "You'd think after Red Skull, the Abomination, and me," Bruce mutters to himself as they piece through the messy, unstable science. "I mean, look at this-!"

Tony looks. Bruce has a whole page filled with messy scrawls of compounds and reagents, pointing at a place where sodium oxide most certainly should not have been used, but Tony's eyes catch on the formula just above it. It's familiar, he knows he's seen it somewhere, but he can't place where.

His musings are interrupted by a "What the hell" from Rhodey and both scientists look up. Rhodey is holding up the trigger mechanism in pieces, a skeptical look raised in Tony's direction. "Hey, genius, you telling me you didn't notice this thing was a dummy? The trigger has no catch. We were never in any danger."

"Really? Well, the man was certifiable," Tony remarks, coming over to inspect it. Rhodey's not wrong; the trigger is there but nothing's connecting it to the wires that would set off the bomb. "Let's not tell Spidey about this, okay?"

"We're telling Coulson, right?" Bruce asks. "I mean, why mess with the trigger when you could just use an empty bomb?" Tony nods, remember the shell casings all over the place. "They basically handed us a sample of their top-secret formula. Why?"

"Maybe they can ask Rose Tyler," Tony murmurs. At Rhodey's frown he just shrugs. "Bomb guy. Kept talking about a Doctor. Look, yeah, we'll tell Coulson."

 NATASHA:
I'm heading out on a solo mission. This is a heads up. I won't be able to update you on the team.

YOU:
Is that authorized is your contract?

NATASHA:
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you're genuinely asking.

YOU:
I can't do both?

YOU:
I'm reading the Accords. They're better.

NATASHA:
Everyone's just full of surprises today. 

 He goes back to the formula, in the middle of the night. Stares at it, writes it down in his own handwriting to see if that triggers something, stares some more. He knows this. No one can piece together Erskine's original notes to create the original serum and besides that, no one can replicate the Vita-Beams pod his dad made. 

"FRIDAY," he begins, but he trails off. He misses JARVIS acutely. He could have bounced ideas of him until he stumbled upon the answer, but FRIDAY has limitations JARVIS did not, limitations that might have stopped Ultron. In a way, she's not much more than Dummy or You, and Tony is occasionally breathless at the idea that she's smart enough to realize this. That she knows what he's done to her.

She can't hurt him. It's not in her code, and she can't develop logical overrides like JARVIS or Ultron could. But she's not his prisoner or his slave, she's his kid and his partner and Tony loves her. "FRIDAY, what do you think of this?" he tries.

"Should I run it through your database, boss?"

"Sure thing, Fry, but what do you think?"

A pause. "I think what you think, Tony," she says, and his heart sinks until she goes on. "But it seems a bit out of place. It's precise, stable. If we look at the larger picture-"

And amazing FRIDAY pulls Bruce's formulas off the page, throws their holograms into the air and turns them into their physical compounds, surrounding Tony like the Starkium atom so long ago. 

"-I think it might be the basis of the whole formula."

Tony leans forward to the part she is indicating, blinking bright white. "So here's where it starts," he murmurs to himself. Something pure, something exciting.

And then come the mistakes, a darker voice finishes for him. He thinks of Maya then, Bruce, those people in the HYDRA base, Kamala's family. Thinks that of-fucking-course Steve Rogers was lucky enough to live through that, to come out better than before.

Thinks of his father, then, the way he'd cuff him across the ear if he heard Tony's thoughts now. Howard would say that it wasn't luck at all, that is was just how Steve was. "The best man I ever knew. Even before the serum, Steve Rogers was as good as they come." He can smell the alcohol on his father's breath across thirty years. Scotch. Stark men love their Scotch.

Was Howard like Tony is? Maybe it wasn't admiration Tony heard in his father's voice as a child. Maybe it was resentment. 

Tony's phone rings.

"Boss, it's Ms. Potts, there's something on TV."

"Yes to all of it, Fry." A large projection of the nightly news plays against the glass of his lab doors showing a skyscraper in New York - Oscorp, close enough to Stark Tower that Tony can actually see his name glowing in the background of the shot. "Pep, please tell me you aren't in the city."

"I was calling to ask the same thing!" She says over the phone. She is clearly watching the same explosions blow out window after window from Oscorp just like he is. "Tony, what's happening?"

"I have no idea. I'm at the compound." The camera suddenly jerks upward to watch Spider-Man swing through the air, landing on the side of the building and scuttling inside. "FRIDAY, we got eyes and ears on Stark Tower, can we get a read on Oscorp from here?"

"Just barely, Boss."

"The lights were still on," Pepper supplies. "Before the explosions. There are people still in there."

Tony curses softly and shakes his head, trying to get his brain on straight. "Alright. Alright. You sure you're safe, Pepper?"

"I'm on the Upper East Side right now, I'm fine."

"Good. Stay there. I'll call back later. FRIDAY, scan what we can and get it to Spider-Man. Get the Mark II ready for-" Suddenly the explosions stop and something - someone emerges from the building, standing on one of Oscorp's prototype gliders and holding Peter by the throat. "What the fuck is that?"

"I don't know, Boss."

A sound comes across the video feed and it takes a second for it to register as a laugh. It is high and wild and mad and not human. Tony wants to shut it off; he can only imagine how Peter feels, hanging there. Apparently, the madman has similar sympathies, as he drops Peter in the next second. Tony shouts, watching Spider-Man fall end over end through the air until he slings out a web randomly and catches a building, righting himself.

The glider retreats back into the building and Tony watches in horror as he emerges with another person, a male in a labcoat. They exchange words before he, too, is dropped, and Tony bursts into action. 

"Get the Mark II ready now! Call up Rhodey, we're the only ones who can get there in time-"

"Boss," FRIDAY says, something like a warning in her voice even as she follows his commands. "This isn't in the Accords."

Tony stops dead. "What?" he snarls.

"You have to clear this with the council. Iron Man cannot take unsanctioned action and engage without permission from the UN Avengers Initiative Council."

He pauses on the ramp, his eyes staring at Spider-Man re-entering the scene, fighting with the masked, green figure. Peter's still weak on his left side. Peter might lose.

Did Peter catch that man?

"Time for Iron Man to change the game, then," Tony decides, stepping into the machine and letting the Mark II assemble around him. "I hear the Raft is nice this time of year. Cap's going to be insufferable."

"Tony-"

"Get me the Defenders and the council on the phone, Fry. In that order." 

Before now the council has always had a certain amount of time to decide what the Avengers can and cannot do. Now, as War Machine and Iron Man race towards New York City they seem to struggle under the pressure.

"Without a proper threat analysis-" A man with a thick French accent is saying to Tony before Tony orders FRIDAY to close the line if only to control his anger.

"We're gonna have to fix this," Rhodey says evenly, Tony's ragged breathing clogging up the airwaves. "Go back to the drawing board. You and me, we'll set a precedence, Tones, the council-"

"This should already have been fixed," Tony snaps. "Cage, you there yet?"

Luke Cage's panting is loud in his helmet. "Two blocks out. Daredevil's running the rooftops. Gotta say I didn't expect to see you in our neck of the woods, Tin Can."

"Might be your last chance, so live it up," Tony growls, putting on a new burst of speed. 

Daredevil's image suddenly flares up in the corner of the HUD. "Oscorp's in flames. Lot of people on the rooftops, this guy must have gone after the bottom floors first. I can see some people on the eighth floor-" Tony dimly wonders how but doesn't interrupt. "I'm going in. I'll get them to the roof but the rest is up to you, Avengers." They can hear Daredevil grunt, then a long whistling sound, then a thud. "I'm in. If I don't check in in five minutes, please come get me. Smoke inhalation is not how I'm going out."

"I'm going in, too," Luke says. "I'm fireproof. I can't see your boy Spider-Man. Pedal to the metal, Iron Man."

Natasha was right, this suit is slower than before. The thickness of the chestplate has added at least two miles onto his max speed and Tony doesn't have time. He outstrips War Machine as they race across the countryside, the lights of the outer boroughs appearing on the horizon. 

There is a loud crackle in Tony's ear, making him involuntarily jerk to the side. As he course corrects, he barks out a roll call, but Luke and Daredevil are as fine as they were ten seconds ago. "Spider-Man?" Tony tries.

A battered exhale. "Tony? Please tell me you're coming." Peter's voice is so small. "I'm not doing so hot."

"Spidey, I'm patching you through to Luke Cage and Daredevil, give them your location-"

"I don't know," Peter breathes out wetly. "I don't know, I don't know, he knocked me through the floor. I can hear people screaming. I can hear him laughing."

When Peter crashes, he crashes hard. FRIDAY's indicating his watch is a little busted but she's reading multiple lacerations and three broken ribs. Peter's most likely going into some form of shock, which his healing factor would normally compensate for but not when he's panicking like this.

"Spider-Man, listen to me," Tony barks as he and Rhodey sail over outer New York. "I know it hurts, but you've got to push through it. Open your eyes and tell us what's happening. We can't do this without you." There is nothing but silence on the line and Tony shouts "Get on your feet, Avenger!"

"Yessir," Peter slurs. A few seconds and then: "Floor's on fire. There's a elevator, I'm on floor thirteen."

"Meet me in the stairwell," Daredevil cuts in. "I've got civilians."

"Uh. Roger, strange person in my ear," Spider-Man says shakily.

"Daredevil."

"No way." 

"Way, kid."

Tony sends them to background chatter. "FRIDAY, you got that last bit for me?" At her confirmation he grins savagely. "Open up the line to the council again." Before the representative can even speak, Tony lets FRIDAY play out the conversation between Spider-Man and Iron Man. When it ends he hears nothing but quiet. "That enough threat analysis for you, sir?"

Another long pause and Representative Rochambeau sighs. "The council will back you up, Mr. Stark. Now we will see if New York City will do the same."

"You'd better get to work then."

That small flush of victory only lasts so long. War Machine and Iron Man make it to Oscorp just in time to see the glider burst from one of the top stories, Daredevil pinned between two of its blades and barely hanging on while the green figure ragdolls Spider-Man around.

It stops short when it catches Iron Man right in front of it, repulsors at the ready, and lets loose another laugh. Tony lets his repulsors whine. "Drop him," he commands, and then rolls his eyes at himself at the opening he just left wide open. "Rhodes-"

"Poor choice of words!" The green figure cackles as once more Peter is sent flying through the air. War Machine intercepts him immediately, taking Spider-Man to the ground.

"Let go, Double D," Tony says quietly, and cuts his thrusters as Daredevil does just that. Iron Man catches him around the shoulders and swings him into an open window in the building. "Find any more survivors, get them to the roof. War Machine, you're on extraction. No live rounds in the city. FRIDAY, can you patch me through the police?"

"Iron Man!" Cage shouts. "Get back up here!"

The green figure has descended on the terrified group of Oscorp employees on the roof, being guarded by Cage. "Come now," the green man cackles, his voice distorted horribly through the insane mask he's wearing. "I only want just the one. Hand over Dr. Anderson and the rest go free."

"How 'bout I hand you your ass and you go to jail?" Cage shouts back. 

Iron Man comes to hover over the crowd, making a tsking noise. "We're gonna have to work on your superhero banter, Mr. Cage. Try this on for size." And he raises both hands, repulsors at the ready. "You repulse me." He fires, sending the green man careening backwards. War Machine knocks him even further away on his fly-by, coming to hover a few inches above the ground and holding out his arm as his faceplate snaps up.

"I can carry four," Rhodey says. "Let's go, now."

Four huddle in close to War Machine and he takes off while Tony picks up a few of his own. "Daredevil should be up here any moment. Keep the bastard occupied until we get back. I'll keep him in the air while War Machine evacuates. Got it?"

"He comes near me again he'll be the least of your worries," Luke snorts. 

"Don't get cocky."

They have not gotten everyone to the roof; Tony sees a few waving out of the broken windows all along the building. He knows Vision and Wasp are still a few miles out but they direly need more fliers. He sets his two civilians on the ground, about the head back up when a tall, older blonde man in a police uniform calls his name.

"Captain George Stacy," the man supplies. "We've got helicopters and firetrucks inbound but we're glad for the assistance, Iron Man."

"Great. Would you mind holding that thought for the United Nations?" Tony says. 

Captain Stacy frowns, stepping closer. "My daughter's somewhere in there, Mr. Stark. Gwen. Blonde hair. If you see her-"

"I'll let you know."

War Machine is picking people out of windows and Tony has lost track of both Peter and Mr. Green as he rises through the air.

"Boss, incoming!"

The glider slams into his side, sending Iron Man careening out into open air. By the time he rights himself the glider is back on him and it comes with blades. Sharp ones. It catches the suits side and sparks fly where they scrape along the vibranium. "Puns," Green snarls from above him. "I hate puns." The glider pushes Tony straight into the next building and the man looms over Tony, holding up his head. "So this is the famous Iron Man. I expected as much. You always were all flash, Stark, no substance."

"Are we friends?" Tony asks, and without waiting for an answer he blasts Green in the face, slipping out from between the glider's blades. Green and Mean gives chase, dodging repulsor blasts with amazing agility. He sends Tony careening into another building with a flash bomb that takes out the HUD for about eight seconds. The impact is hard, jostling all along Tony's false sternum, and he loses his breath.

"Tony!" 

The HUD comes back online to see Peter enter the fray again. He gives chase after the two as they tangle through the air, catching Spider-Man when he's thrown off and depositing him on the roof. "Evac, Spidey, now!"

He hears the hum of the glider and Luke Cage roars, sprinting to the edge of the roof and displacing the Green Man with one punch. Unfortunately he appears to be locked in; the whole thing flips and Luke slides off. Luke falls as the glider rights itself and the man commanding it turns his sights back on the roof. There's enough noise that Daredevil seems to be a bit disoriented, and Tony freezes for a second, knowing Daredevil won't be enough protection and Luke won't survive the fall.

He has seconds before Luke is irretrievable and he jolts in his direction when something sails through the air and grabs Luke around the waist. The figure descends rapidly, ungracefully, and a second later Tony hears the crackle of Luke's communicator.

Jessica Jones says "Looks like you boys are having some trouble."

"You can fly?!" Tony shouts, boosting himself to the roof and repulsing away one of Green's bombs.

"Guided falling," Jessica corrects. "You need help?"

"You'll get in trouble," Tony sing-songs. Jessica snorts.

"Sweetie, I am trouble. I'll be up in a second. Kinda got to work up to this."

Daredevil gets his chain hooked around the glider and he and Tony pull, sending it crashing to the ground, but Greenie's not done. He dismounts and swats down Daredevil's flying leap like swatting a fly, leaving himself open for a repulsor blast to the side and an iron fist to the face. Tony pushes off while he's still disoriented, keeping his distance and containing him with repulsor blasts until Daredevil is back in the fray to distract him.

When Spider-Man is back on the roof, Tony tags out, sending him after Green while he grabs up three passengers and takes them down below. He takes Luke with him and leaves him on the roof to help the others as Tony skims along the building, picking up survivors waving their lab coats out of the busted windows to be noticed. Jessica is aiding the firefighters on the lower levels, carrying the heavier water hoses and maintaining a hover between twenty to thirty feet. 

He hears a shout over the comms and then Daredevil is tumbling over the side of the building, falling thirty feet before being snatched up by War Machine. "He's out," Rhodey says over the comms, descending to the ground and reminding the police there's a strict order to not remove DD's mask.

Spider-Man's on the ground and Tony rises just in time to see Luke intercept one of the small deadly bombs, curling around in so when it explodes he absorbs the impact. He is thrown to the corner of the roof, hitting his head hard and collapsing, still.

"Dr. Anderson?" Greenie sings. "Oh, Dr. Anderson?" He peers at the four people left on the roof and hisses. "No! Where did you put him you-" He dodges Iron Man and circles closer. "Oh, but Dr. Ivanov. That's almost as good; you're all the same, really. Snivelling, weak, even as you pretend at superiority. Look what I've done, Doctor. You said it couldn't be done but I did it! Who's laughing now, Doctor! Who's. Laughing. Now!" His loud cackle seems to blanket New York as the blades of the glider elongate and he shoots forward.

Iron Man darts in the way, pulling up against the sheer force and momentum of the machine as it takes him clear over the rooftop and down into the streets below. Through FRIDAY's warnings he can see that Green isn't even on it anymore, meaning Tony's left those people on the roof defenseless. He can hear the mad cackle so loud over someone comms, someone's fighting him, someone will stop him-

Tony powers up the repulsors, grabs on the glider, and pulls. It rips apart slowly under his hands, zigging and zagging him through the air until he breaks some essential component and it sputters to a stop, dropping like a stone and taking him with it. He cannot get untangled before he lands, hard, on the street, but there is no time for the burst of pain spreading out through his chest, because someone is screaming.

Tony stands and looks up and watches a small blonde girl teeter on the edge of the roof for one long second, her arms reaching out for someone that isn't coming as she loses the fight with gravity and falls. Tony engages the thrusters, taking off, heading straight up for her, but he can see Spider-Man at the edge, his arm reaching out and a shot of web spinning through the air for the girl's foot.

"Peter!" Tony shouts. "Peter, don't!" The girl has already reached terminal velocity, a stop at that angle will break her neck. And the web is beating Tony. "Spider-Man, pull back!"

"Tony, I-!"

"Now!" Peter's arm jerks, the web's speed checked and its trajectory unbalanced and Tony reaches the girl just in time to get a hand under her neck and lower back and pull up as the web catches her ankle. "Vitals, FRIDAY!"

"She's breathing, Boss."

"Holy shit, Tony, what-" The web jerks and Tony looks up to see Peter falling to the side, the Green man peering over the edge before turning back to his prey. "Daredevil, War Machine, anybody, to the roof, now!"

Tony drops down, finding Captain Stacy waiting for him on the ground. "Gwen!" he shouts, taking the girl out of Tony's arms. "Is she alright? Oh God, thank you, thank you!" Tony doesn't stay for it, blasting to the roof.

Spider-Man is already back on his feet, dodging blows. "You're just a child!" Mean Green cackles. "You think you can beat me? I know you, Spider-Man! I made you! I brought you into this world and now I'm taking you out!"

"You," Peter grits between punches. "Are. Insane. I have met. Ninja Assassins. And brainwashed soldiers. And a guy. Who grew thirty feet. In ten seconds. But congrats, Goblin Face. You've topped them all."

Tony chooses to punctuate this tirade with a repulsor blast, and before Goblin can recover from that Peter is on him, slinging out web after web, pushing him further towards the edge. "Spider-Man," Tony calls out. "Take him down, now. We're done here."

"Oh, we're done alright," Peter says darkly, and shoots out one last web, wrapping the man up before kicking him over the edge of the building. "How's it hanging down there?"

Goblin Face screams impotently. "All I wanted was Anderson. You've ruined everything!"

"Spider-Man," Tony snaps. "Pull him up, now. We're done."

Peter looks over his shoulder. His mask is torn open over one half of his face and his visible eye has a sort of wild blankness. "Just like that? After - this is what he gets? You don't think he deserves a little fear?"

"I don't care about him, I care about you. And tomorrow you're gonna feel really shitty about this."

"How do you know?" Peter spits. 

Tony thinks of Barnes, scrambling for the roof before Tony blasted the hatch shut. "I know."

Peter looks down at Greenie, still screaming, and lets out a frustrated shout before pulling him back over the edge. Tony cuts the webbing loose just as a loud clank sounds behind him. "You're late, sour patch."

"Yeah, that's not what the screaming people I saved from the burning building said," Rhodey says dryly. "You want me to take him down? Your suit's sparking, Tony."

Tony waves a hand. "Blades took out one of mini-reactors. It's fine. Spidey here could probably use a lift, and Luke over there."

"I-" Both Tony and Rhodey whip around to face Peter and he raises his hands in surrender. "Sure. Carry me away, noble steed."

"You're with me, Goblin," Tony tells the raving man. When they all get down to the ground there are already reporters flocking to the scene, and they call out loudly as Tony hands over Mr. Green to Captain Stacy, swarming close when he steps away. War Machine keeps Peter tucked in close to his side where his face isn't visible and hands off Luke to an exasperated Jessica Jones and a limping Daredevil.

"Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark, was this approved by the Accords council?"

"Will you be paying for the damages to the surrounding buildings?"

"Mr. Stark, why the color change? Black is the new black?"

"Should Spider-Man be on active duty, Mr. Stark? How well do we know the man behind the mask?"

"Does the Defenders jurisdiction extend into Manhattan now?"

"Mr. Stark!"

"Mr. Stark?"

"Iron Man!" And Tony pauses at this last voice, halting in his endless push through the reporters so he can at least get Cage, Jones, and Daredevil inside Stark Tower. This voice is smaller, younger, and hopeful. He turns.

Tiny Gwen Stacy, bleeding from a cut on her forehead, is pushing through the crowd to come stand before him. Out of the corner of his eye Tony sees Spider-Man lean out of War Machine's grip towards her before remembering himself. 

"Iron Man," Gwen breathes when she gets in front of him. He flips the faceplate up and steadies her with a hand to her shoulder. Her smile is as brighter than the million flashbulbs surrounding them. "You weren't going to leave before I said thank you, were you?"

"Uh," Tony says, and Gwen's eyes turn sharp exactly the way Pepper's do when he's done something fond and exhausting. "Of course not. That would be rude."

"And we wouldn't want that!" Gwen chirps smartly. She gets up on her very tippy toes and he obliges her, crouching down so she can place a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you, Iron Man. You saved me and my friends. All of you. We won't forget."

Luke gives a bleary thumbs up while Daredevil ducks his head. Jessica looks like she might actually cry. Gwen turns towards Spider-Man, whose eyes are trained on the ground. She ducks a little, trying to catch them with a small, secret smile.

"Don't think I didn't see you," she warns him. "Coming after me. You saved me, too." She leans forward and Peter shrinks back into War Machine's chestplate. Gwen frowns for just a moment, then she compromises, kissing the tips of her fingers and laying them on his cheek. Spider-Man's remaining good eye rapidly dilates and Tony absolutely does not smile at any of it. "Thank you."

 In the end, he heads back out with Jessica Jones to help the firefighters, which Jessica says is ostensibly to build up good PR for her now that she's thrown herself into this Accords business. When its over he stays by her side while she flies shakily to the roof and they sit up there eating congratulatory donuts.

"I was surprised," he tells her. He doesn't specify.

She shrugs. "I was a hero once. I still remember how." 

 YOU:
Are you alright?

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
nearly killed a girl held a guy over a twenty story drop. i'm super.

YOU:
That girl said you saved her life and that 'guy' was the one who nearly killed her, not you.

HE STOLE MY SHIELD:
Tony said id feel bad about it. he was right. i shoulda been better. 

YOU:
Then be better. That's how you know you're still one of the good ones. 

SPIDER-MAN:
thanks cap.

Steve has come down for his daily chat with Bucky but his attention keeps getting drawn by the newsfeed he's set up on his tablet to keep track of the fallout from last night's battle in New York. Rhodes hasn't responded to any of his texts but frankly, that's probably a good sign.

"The UN council has already come out to publicly support War Machine and Iron Man's actions last night, saying that they provided their approval before the suits engaged Norman Osborn," the pretty newscaster tells him as footage plays behind her. "But as we now know, neither men's contracts under the Avengers Initiative provide for unsanctioned actions in a sovereign state. The United States' approval was not sought before last night's battle. It remains to be seen what, if any fallout might result from the Avengers' actions. This would be Iron Man's second violation after last may's flight to Siberia to aid fugitives James Buchanan Barnes and Steve Rogers, former Captain America-"

The tablet crunches a little under Steve's grip.

"It's bullshit, you know," a voice calls out from the door. Steve swears Sam has a sixth sense for any unhealthy emotion.

"It's exactly what I warned Tony about," Steve says tightly. 

On screen, a tall man the caption tells him is New York City Police Captain George Stacy is frowning at the camera. "We all know my stance on vigilantes has been strict. But Spider-Man, Iron Man, all those guys are working within the law and with the law now. Last night they acted in accordance with the police to save thirty two Oscorp employees, including my daughter. I understand the people's concerns and I am a proud supporter of the Accords, but Spider-Man didn't create the Green Goblin. He is a product of unsafe testing and Norman Osborn's own twisted mind. If the Accords prevent the Avengers from safely taking down someone like that, perhaps there are more adjustments that need to be made."

Sam is pretending not to listen, flipping through the copy of the Accords that Steve has been taking everywhere, jotting down notes and improvements whenever he thinks of them. "You gonna say something about this in here? T'Challa's contract allows him free movement in Wakanda. Perhaps the others need the same thing for the United States."

"I tried to tell him, dammit. The Accords are tying their hands, getting them tangled up. The police wouldn't have been able to stop a maniac like that in time."

"He went anyway," Sam points out. "Just like last time. He broke the Accords when it really counted."

Steve watches the black and gold suit shoot across the screen. The new suit is dark, more boxy, and far more frightening than the red and gold was. Or maybe that's because its less familiar. Colder. Darker. There's no central arc reactor, no bright glowing heart anymore and it makes Steve ache. If Tony had been wearing this suit in Siberia it never would have ended.

That's probably the point.

"So, what? This is just supposed to keep going until he ends up in the Raft?" Steve finally demands. "Or am I supposed to be happy that Tony is ready to instantly compromise on the very thing he fought with us over?"

"Stark's always ready to compromise himself," Sam says, but there's no judgment there. "To fix his mistakes. To do what's right. Don't pretend you don't know something about that, Mr. I Went AWOL To Save My Best Friend. Twice."

"Sam," Steve says shortly.

Sam shrugs. "You're right, it's a bit of a mouthful. Put your worries down on the Accords, man. Don't give me that look, writing's theraputic. You are giving those back to T'Challa, right?" Steve stares down at the papers silently and Sam sighs, pulling up a chair and sitting in it backwards. "Steve."

He sounds like Steve's ma when Steve was being his most stubborn. He feels a muscle in his jaw tick. "I never wanted any of this to happen. I never wanted to fight, I never wanted anyone to get hurt. It sounds so stupid to say it out loud, of course no one wanted that-"

"It's not stupid," Sam says softly. "But maybe tell me what you did want, Steve?"

Steve glances to where Bucky lays dormant. "Him, safe. And I wanted to do what I promised Dr. Erskine. I promised to stay who I was. Am. 'Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.' I didn't want to just follow orders and fall in line. I tried it once, when I woke up here, I thought it would help, but it only made things worse. The people in charge have changed, or maybe its me. The world's a lot...louder now. Messier, more gray. I don't know where I fit in that."

"You've got to make your own space, Steve. Find what makes you happy."

"The Avengers," Steve answers immediately. "Fighting alongside my team, I was happy there. I fit. But then...things started to fall apart. How's that poem go? 'The centre cannot hold.'  I don't know who gave first: me or Tony, or neither of us and we all got played, but I never wanted that. I wanted the team, fighting together against the threats others couldn't defeat, holding the line. I told them, once, that we'd fight together and we'd die together and I thought that he heard me, understood."

"And now?"

"I still think it. I just think it wasn't enough. Not for Tony," Steve says, thumbing at the Accords. "Not for a lot of people, it seems. But I stand by what I said. I'd have stood by his side. But Tony did all this without me. He does that a lot, leaves me behind." Steve glances back at Bucky. "Or maybe I just can't catch up."

"You've still got friends, Steve. And Bucky. Hell, I'm willing to bet you still have Tony."

Steve nods, facing away from Sam but no longer looking at Bucky. Iron Man is still on the news, dark and red-eyed and new. "I can be mad at him, too."

"No one's saying you can't be," Sam responds, sounding confused. "Stark pulled a lot of shit in the war."

"No, I mean-" Steve feels off-kilter, unbalanced, like he always does when he gets on the track because he knows its wrong. "I mean I never belonged anywhere but at the compound. I told him once that it felt like home. And he, it feels like he took it away from me. I know he didn't. I know it's irrational, but I still feel it. Because it's Tony." And Steve starts laughing, so hard it feels like it cracks something inside him. "And I don't know if you know this, but its a lot easier to blame someone else than yourself."

When he looks over, Sam is grinning self-deprecatingly, strained. "I do know this, in fact." He tilts forward in his chair, stretching to lay his hand on Steve's shoulder. "Look. Its not just Tony, it's all of them. And it's okay to be mad at them and to miss them and whatever else you want to feel. Better you feel it now that store it up for later so it can explode all over the rest of us. And then let it go, so you can find out what's really there. You never give yourself any time, man. I oughta teach you some yoga. Guided meditation. How do you feel about ASMR?"

"I don't know what that is," Steve says, which is precisely why Sam mentioned it. "Thanks, Sam."

"Don't knock the validation of your feelings, Rogers. Sometimes you need to be told emotions are okay. It's a thing, it's cool, it's why you have me. You're welcome," Sam preens. The heaviness from before is lifting by the second. "So what are we going to do, Cap?"

Steve sighs, fishing the phone out of his pocket. "I have to act, somehow. This last stunt with the Accords just proves that. They need help. Whatever else I feel, we're still Avengers, and they're still our team."

"Damn straight. You know I'm with you." As Steve claps him on the shoulder, Sam points at the cryo chamber. "And him?"

"I don't trust him with SHIELD and he chose this place to go back into stasis. He felt safe. Out there I can look for a cure for the triggers that I'm not going to find sitting in Wakanda. Until then, T'Challa will protect him."

Sam leaves him not long after that and Steve finds himself looking through the Accords again, eyes flicking to the news every once in awhile. Before he knows it, he's sketched an Iron Man flying through the skies, War Machine and Spider-Man at his side headed straight out of the page. Nice suit, he writes beside it. He thinks of crossing out, of all the wrong ways Tony could take it, and then he realizes with a start that he is going to give this to T'Challa. He wants this to get to Tony. He wants him to see that Steve is thinking about it. 

The notes come quicker after that, remarks on the Accords and little anecdotes, sketches of Wanda and Sam and shields and arc reactors. When he looks up it is dark and quiet, Bucky still sleeping, and Steve is out of space on the pages.

 Tony stares at the compound as a message from Coulson blinks on his computer.

Albert Malik. Soviet spy, it says. We asked him about the dummy bomb. He said the doctor told him he was helping. The doctor told him that the world needed guidance. This doctor apparently has disciples, in a word, and Malik was one. Sent to guide lost sheep. His words, not mine. 

He mentioned you. Said the doctor would be glad to help Tony Stark find his way. This was right before he crushed a false molar and swallowed a cyanide capsule. Watch your back, Mr. Stark.

Above him, FRIDAY cheerfully announces that Aleksander Lukin has just been appointed as Secretary of State. There is a full body scan of Peter's multiple injuries on his interface and the memory of Hope and Clint's disquieted faces in his head. The formula spins around him. The door to the lab slides open and Bruce is at his side, trying to get his attention.

"Well, this definitely makes things easier to look at," the scientist says. "Thanks, FRIDAY. Anything I can help with, Tony?"

Watch your back.

"No," Tony answers. "Not right now."

Chapter Text

Steve watches as Wanda runs her hand over Bucky's chamber. "Can you feel him?" he asks her in a near-whisper. "Is he okay?"

"He dreams, sometimes. Loud, so loud." Here Wanda winces, retracting her hand as she glances sidelong at Steve. "I - I try to help. It's dark in his head, I just shine a little light-"

"It's fine, Wanda," he tells her, even though the last thing Bucky needs is more people in his head. "Only maybe wait until he can give you permission, next time."

She takes a step away from the tank, chastised and a little hurt. "I would not do to him what I did to you and the others, Steve."

"It's fine," he repeats, laying his hand on her shoulder with a smile. "And I'm willing to bet Bucky appreciates it - he's always been a soft touch for a pretty girl. But it's still his mind, Wanda, and right now he can't say no, you see?"

"I see," Wanda says quietly, a tentative smile, a little broken around the edges, coming across her face. "Sergeant Barnes deserves his choices."

"That he does."

They both turn to look at the man in the cryo chamber. "I will take care of him," Wanda promises, and Steve's stomach roils. He's leaving him all over again, abandoning him to strangers, how can Steve do this to him again? 

C'mon, Stevie, Bucky would say. There are more important things than me. Let's hear it for Captain America, yeah?

Except the man in front of him isn't that boy, anymore. This isn't six years ago, or seventy three year ago depending, sitting in that tiny canteen in the city with Bucky laughing at his propaganda costume. 

This Bucky says Steve's name like he's asking a question, truth or fiction, your name is Steve? Truth or fiction, newspapers in your shoes, your mother's name was Sarah? Truth or fiction, I killed dozens of people, I killed Howard?

What you did all those years, it wasn't you. You didn't have a choice.

But I did it, Bucky said. He always had been braver than Steve. 

Wanda's small hand fits into his and Steve tears his gaze away from Bucky, looking down at her. "I'm going to miss you," he tells her. She shrugs off the affection, as she is prone to do, always more comfortable giving than receiving.

"I wish I could come with you," she says, even though it's her choice to stay here. It's a choice Steve respects, especially after Wanda explained how she'd been under the control of one shadowy organization after another, 'of my own volition,' she'd said with a snarl, and that she would like to understand what a semi-normal life was like. He'll worry about her endlessly, stuck here alone. He even broached the option of going back to the States and working with the Avengers, but Wanda shook her head; it's her choice, in the end. She deserves her choice. They all do.

"Anytime you want to join us, just say the word," he tells her, and she squeezes his hand tight before letting go. "I'll come up in a few, okay? I just want to say good-bye."

She nods, heading for the door, when she pauses, looking back at him, and Steve is suddenly struck by the paralyzing need to make her stay with him and a crippling fear that if she walks out the door she will be gone forever, just like everybody else.

"Steve," she says, deadly soft. "It's okay. I'll be fine. I learned from the best, didn't I?"

He laughs without humor, lets his hands relax from the fists he didn't realize he was clenching tight. "I'm holding you to that."

"Captain." And then she's gone, and Steve is left with the hum of Bucky's chamber and the traces of Wanda's perfume.

He can't look at his best friend, cold and silent and still. He leans back against the frozen glass and closes his eyes, thinks of Bucky as the lean, bright-eyed sergeant he'd been in 1944, hanging out of treetops with his rifle and a cigarette, trying to teach everyone German so the Nazis would know when they were being insulted. "God, I miss you," he breathes out. "I wish you were here. I wish we were there." It's not fair to the real Bucky, sleeping just two feet away, but life hasn't been very fair to either of them, has it? Steve will take what he can and get by how he has to.

"I'll come back for you," he promises, picturing Germany, Steve storming ahead with his shield while the Commandos leave Bucky in a sniper's perch. 

'You'd better,' Bucky would say. 'I ain't spending the night in a tree, not even for you, punk.' Even though he would, and he had. Bucky was always there for Steve, and Steve had always let him down.

Jesus, is this what he's been reduced to? Romanticizing World War II? 

"Not anymore, ya hear me, Buck? We're here, and we can't go back and - we'll make it this time. Best we can," Steve says, eyes still closed. "I'll be back before you know it. I'm with you til the end of the line."

 "How are the new calibrations looking, Bliz kid?" Tony calls from where he's coasting in the air. Rhodey is somewhere up above him in the War Machine and below, Donnie monitors their readouts on a Starkpad while Barton, his wife, Hope, and Vision relax on the roof.

Donnie's so pale he's nearly sparkling in the sunlight and the kid has never looked so excited. A tug of guilt weighs Tony down; even today he'd hesitated at bringing him up out of the basement, out of the safe walls of the compound. Exposing Donald to outside stimuli runs at thirty eight chance of backfiring spectacularly, Tony's calculated. Never mind that FRIDAY's reprimanded him for not including Donnie's own emotional response in those calculations. Emotions are rough and not to be trusted, especially under pressure, and Donnie has managed to amass more issues than all the Avengers combined.

"They're good, Tony," the kid answers, eyes on the tablet. Vision could do this job just as easily but Tony hates the idea of a mind like Donnie's going to waste. Plus, he's the only other engineer in the building, at least for something actually relevant, shut up Rhodey aerospace is for pussies.

You're an aerospace engineer, Tones, Rhodey always points out smugly, with the good grace not to point out that Tony only got that doctorate after a conversation in which Rhodey successfully managed to confuse him back in '93, because Rhodey is a better person than Tony deserves.

"Mr. Rhodes? Readouts are showing a little bit of drag on the left leg, are you feeling that?" Donnie asks. There is heavy pause over the line and then Donnie stutters out "I-I mean, sorry, I mean is the suit showing the same thing?"

War Machine drops a little through the sky. It makes Tony's heart race every time, but it's nothing compared to what Rhodey feels every time he pushes himself like this. Tony can't point this out, mostly because it would involve Rhodey knowing that FRIDAY is a bit more keyed into to War Machine's systems then she had been before the fall, so he just watches, heart in his throat, as Rhodey lets the thrusters reengage and brings War Machine to a hover and they all ignore the panting they hear over the comms and Tony ignores the big flashing heart rate in the corner of his HUD that doesn't belong to him.

"Yeah, the Machine's catching it," Rhodey finally answers. "Delayed response time of about .5 seconds in the back left hip joint, you seeing it?"

"I see it. The connections between your braces and the suit's interface are fully locked," Donnie replies. The kid looks up in the air, squinting at the two flying suits. "You might have to reset the whole frame, Tony."

Rhodey snorts loudly over the comms. "Don, my man, if you don't think Tony Stark hasn't already got FRIDAY fabricating eight different frames as we speak then where have you been the past three months?"

"In the lab," Donnie answers, his tone an odd mix of cheerful and sardonic. Tony's gut clenches even tighter. "I'll see your eight frames and raise you eleven, Mr. Rhodes."

"Call me Rhodey and you've got a bet, kid."

"You are both wrong," Vision butts in serenely. "FRIDAY is only making four."

Rhodey groans. "Viz, you are killing me. Ready to pack it in, Tones?"

Tony rolls until he is facing up towards War Machine's impassive face, matching his speed from above him. "Baby, you thought I only took you out for a test drive? No, sweetie pie, we are going all the way today."

"Hell yes," Rhodes says firmly. "Also: ew."

And they're off, barrel-rolling and hair-pinning their turns, competing for G-forces, racing around the compound and playing tag. War Machine wasn't exactly fast before but while Rhodey has better control of his legs in the suit than out of it he's much less graceful than before. Luckily for him, Tony's damn Vibranium chestplate isn't exactly built for speed either so the Machine isn't too badly outpaced.

Still, it's supposed to be fun, and Rhodey is laughing, and all Tony can think of is how much better both of them were a year ago. He mentions tagging out to Rhodey and flies higher than he has all day, letting the repulsors whine down until he's just drifting.

"Frame one ready," FRIDAY informs him. "You've got a message from the council confirming Tuesday's hearing. Shall I respond?"

"Go ahead," Tony says tonelessly. It's why they're out here in the first place, making sure War Machine's up to scratch. No matter how positive public response was to War Machine and Iron Man's actions in containing Norman Osborn they still broke the law of the Accords, if not the spirit. The Avengers' army of lawyers have pretty much guaranteed that under Good Samaritan laws the United States will be willing to let this go, but Carol Danvers has already informed Rhodey that the military is considering taking War Machine at least partially back under their wing in a sort of probation period.

As for Tony and Iron Man, he finds himself for the first time working from the weaker position in relation to the Accords. Clearly after what happened revisions are still needed and luckily King T'Challa's word is still practically gold, but Tony already has a reputation as a 'loose cannon' that no amount of Accords-signing can change, and he's now on his second strike.

He's trying not to panic for now, so instead he's decided to obsess over other things. Like the terrigenesis formula, and teaching physics to Kamala even though she won't look him in the eye, and pouring over Peter Parker's medical scans - broken wrist, fractured foot bones, remnants of two successive concussions, eight contusions, muscle tears - while he ignores the kid's calls. He can't talk to Peter right now. He can't listen to his voice and try to reconcile how proud he is of Spider-Man with how scared he had been for Peter on that rooftop.

"You boys going to rejoin the land of us mortal creatures anytime soon?" Laura Barton calls, her voice faint where she is obviously leaning close to someone else's comm. "Roast should be just about ready."

"Laura. Laura, my love, when the year is up and I finally get to kick Clint out of my compound, promise me you'll stay?" Tony pleads with forced playfulness. "I won't be able to go on without you."

"Sadly, he's not joking," Rhodey interjects. "I have never seen the man so well-fed. Stay with us, Laura."

"Stay, Laura!" Tony croons.

"I do like the smell of your apple pie," Vision adds, and Laura and Hope's sniggers drown out Clint's grumbled curses.

"I'll take in under consideration," Laura chuckles. Tony spots her tiny figure rise up from one of the deck chairs and one by one beckon the other tiny figures on the roof to follow her inside. "Ten minutes, boys. Any later and your portions get added to Nate's food smash."

Tony slowly turns himself upright to face War Machine and gestures downwards. They descend about twenty feet and then Iron Man stops, Rhodey halting a yard below him. Tony flips up the faceplate and breathes as deep as he can. It's dangerous for him, with his reduced lung capacity, to be exposed at these kind of altitudes without the suit's very filtered oxygen, but the cold autumn air feels amazing on his face.

"Tones," Rhodey calls, his voice unmodulated. When Tony looks down it is his best friend, not War Machine, looking back. "It'll be okay, you know that, right? I've got your back."

"Yeah," Tony says. "Yeah. Go on without me, okay? I'll be down in a sec, I just-" He waves at the air around him and Rhodey nods understandingly, flipping the faceplate down and descending to where the War Marchine robots wait to dis-arm him. 

Tony closes his eyes and breathes again. Tony hates the quiet more than anything; it's no coincidence all the worst moments of the past five years of his life all include the loss of JARVIS or FRIDAY in his ear. But for once he doesn't want the constant clamor of the suit, the bright lights and noise and the reminders that there is always something waiting for him out there. There are no more quiet moments left for Tony. Just a few stolen seconds in the breeze, his suit wrapped tight around him like a ready-made coffin, how has no one ever seen that Tony built himself a coffin-

The faceplate snaps down and FRIDAY is right there. "Your heart rate spiked. Are you alright, boss?"

"Always," Tony promises. "Fry, have you landed any hits on Malik, yet?"

"Nothing new outside of everything SHIELD pulled up."

"Keep looking," he orders as he lets himself drift back down to earth.

 "What is your name?"

"My name is Albert Malik."

"Who do you work for?"

"Don't you know? You know, you know. You know who I am, SHIELD. I was you, once upon a time, and then the good Captain tore us apart."

"You were part of the HYDRA contingent in SHIELD before 2014?"

"I am HYDRA. HYDRA was SHIELD. I was SHIELD. I was you, Agent - what's your name?...You can tell me. I'm not leaving here. This is where I belong."

"Mackenzie."

"Agent Mackenzie. My name is Albert Malik. I've been sent by the doctor sent by the beyond, to help. I was warned you would resist. But this - this is where I belong."

They sit around the table - Bruce and Kamala marking a clear delineating line between Tony and Rhodey and Clint's family. Tony's petty enough that he told Rhodey exactly what Barton said in the Raft and now it's better to keep at least a seven foot distance between the two at all time. 

"He put me in jail," Clint had yelled one day when the silent treatment got to be too much. "I was pissed, Rhodes!"

"You put yourself in jail, Barton," Rhodey had said back, the evenness of his tone doing nothing to alleviate the disgust on his face. "You knew what would happen and you did it anyway and all you can do is take it out on everybody else." He had looked Clint up and down with an expression that would have made Tony want to die if it was ever directed at him. "Who the hell are you anyway."

Clint accepts that with all his usual grace - none - and keeps away from Rhodey. Even now, as they all gobble down Laura Barton's pot roast and a thousand talking points shift from minute to minute there is still a line there where the conversations don't cross. 

And yet. Rhodey is conversing with Donnie about the fix to War Machine while Bruce is painstakingly explaining Hulk cell replication to a rapt Aamir while Kamala smiles at her brother, a hint of pride in her dark eyes overshadowed by wistfulness and grief (she will confess to Tony one day that her parents always called Aamir brilliant but lazy and would have been ecstatic that he's showing interest in something for once in his life. She will cry about how sometimes she gets so angry that it took them dying for Aamir to make something of himself. She will let Tony hug her tight). Hope is chatting with Lila Barton because it only took her two days to stop pretending she wasn't good with kids while Clint steals food off Cooper's plate amid his son's protestations and grabby hands. When Laura finally breaks it up she lets Nate, bouncing on her lap, decide 'who started it' and Clint pouts when the baby points at him and gurgles. Tony eats with one hand while he and Vision pass holograms between them, working on a new set of codes that could become War Machine's first-ever AI.

After this Tony will head down to his lab and lose himself in the terrigenesis and watch Malik's interrogation for the fourth time and determinedly not look at Peter's eight voicemails in his inbox. He'll drink a tumbler of whiskey and ignore the fact that the dust and grime is now so thick on the shield that the blue is getting hard to distinguish from the red. He'll take a sleeping pill with the alcohol because its never killed him before, why would it now?

He'll dream anyway.

But for now he laughs with his best friend and his team, splintered right down the middle but still together; a shining point of light in a sea of darkness. Sometimes Tony thinks that maybe life isn't supposed to be like that, but its all he's ever known and even if he isn't happy, it's still his. He holds on to it tight, with both hands. 

"I wish you would reconsider," T'Challa rumbles from where he stands with them just outside the west wing of the palace where he has allowed them to stay for these long months. In his hands are Scott's processing papers he brought as proof that their one-time teammate was being treated according to the law. The king would look completely unruffled if not for the way the papers are beginning to crumple in his grip.

There are seven of them standing in the small pavilion. Steve and Sam, wrapped up in their uniforms and gear; Wanda, small and worried in a sweater and sleep pants; T'Challa, wearing the claw necklace of Wakandan royalty; his sister Shuri, a brilliant scientist fiddling with her gear and her two assistants helping her work. This is the only agreement T'Challa would accept after Steve informed him of Cloak's visit, the phone, and his intentions to rejoin the fight. Cloak must arrive at the appointed time with Director Fury and must allow his powers to be measured by Shuri so that Wakanda could develop a countermeasure to prevent him from ever getting inside their borders again. Fury had agreed without a fuss over the phone, too smug at having Captain America at his side again even if Steve wouldn't be wearing his present uniform for a long time.

"Will you tell Tony?" Steve had asked him.

"Of course," T'Challa replied, as if doing otherwise had never once crossed his mind. It was strangely cheering to see the sort of loyalty Tony was beginning to command. Steve and Tony had never had that, and Steve knows that wasn't all Tony's fault. That kind of bond works both ways and what he had achieved so naturally with Bucky, the Commandos, even Sam he took for granted in others. "I don't imagine he'll be surprised, Captain. He has anticipated this from the beginning."

"Will you...come after us?"

T'Challa had fixed him with a steely gaze then. "The Accords allow us to say no. You and your friends were not eager to fight before; I can't imagine that has changed." 

Steve didn't point out that the Accords also allowed the council to put their foot down in certain situations and order the Avengers to operate, though T'Challa's has worked around that in his contract while Hope van Dyne has not. The Accords are rapidly shaping the Avengers up as some kind of military force under the council, establishing a chain of command, and while Steve could appreciate that this has some benefits it still makes him uneasy. The Avengers shouldn't be used as a puppet army for the United Nations. Tony, Natasha, the other Avengers, and himself - these are people he could trust. Everyone else is a potential threat; SHIELD and the World Security Council proved that.

Steve has to do what he can to protect his friends, even if that means putting himself into the hands of Nick Fury. Arguably the man is a bigger threat than the rest combined, always two steps ahead and so good that he isn't afraid to let everyone know while maintaining an impenetrable shroud of secrecy. 

The enemy of my enemy, he thinks grimly to himself. Steve is more than capable of taking down HYDRA cells and keeping his eye on Fury's doings, especially with Sam by his side. 

"Thank you for helping us," Steve says to T'Challa, finally responding to his statement when the king's gaze grows pointed. "You didn't have to, it was a huge risk, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it - and looking after Wanda while we're gone."

"I can look after myself," Wanda grumbles, but she graces T'Challa with one of her rare smiles. "My magic versus his claws? Who knows, Steve, I may end up looking after him."

"I would be honored for a protector such as yourself, Ms. Maximoff," T'Challa says charmingly, his tense gaze relaxing a little as he dips her a barely deferential bow. "As for you, Captain, the honor was mine." Steve fights down both the wry grin and the grimace that cross his face. He knows exactly how much tension he put on T'Challa with the mission to Chad and though he doesn't apologize for and doesn't regret doing it, he does feel guilty that he put the man who has taken such good care of them in a precarious position.

"I'm picking something up," Princess Shuri announces, the ever-present tinge of impatience in her tone sharpening. "Mr. Wilson, you are standing in a very inconvenient spot. Move if you like your legs attached to your torso."

"It does make things easier," Sam quips as he scuttles back a few feet. Sure enough, not ten seconds later a speck of black appears in the air that expands outwards to stretch five feet across and at least seven feet high. Cloak and Fury step out of the inky blackness and Cloak waits patiently for Shuri's go-ahead before closing the portal behind him with a swish of his wrist.

"Captain Rogers," Fury says, looking him up and down before eyeballing the crowd. "And assorted company. Your Highnesses."

"Director," T'Challa replies, and there is no mistaking the growl in his voice or the rigid set of Shuri's shoulders. Steve can feel a prickle of awareness signalling that the Dora Milaje, ever vigilant as they are, have somehow become impossibly more alert. "And Agent Tyrone Johnson, also known as Cloak. Welcome to Wakanda."

"It's good to be back," Cloak says with a stretch and a smile, apparently not overly fond of his good health. 

Shuri snorts indelicately; T'Challa remains impassive but for the twitch of his lip indicating he feels much the same. "I'm glad you so enjoy our country, Agent Johnson. Would you like to meet the native wildlife?"

Cloak takes one glance at the royal siblings, Steve's unimpressed face, and the utter blankness of Fury's, and sighs, stepping back. "I'm good, thank you, King T'Challa."

"We're not starting a dialogue here," Fury finally snaps. "Your Highness, you have SHIELD's unending gratitude and a personal guarantee from me that our agents will never again cross your borders. Rogers, Wilson, you're already on the clock, so let's stop wasting everyone's time and get in the goddamned portal. Cloak!"

"Sir," Cloak says, nearly drawling the word, and flicks out his hand again to summon another splash of darkness. "Captain."

"Can you maintain that?" Steve asks, already turning towards Wanda, acknowledging Cloak's slightly-offended 'yes' with a nod before pulling his youngest teammate into a hug. "I'm going to miss you. Keep the phone on you, alright?" He already has Wanda's new number plugged into the phone that was meant for Tony. "I'll call as soon as I can."

"Captain," she says into his shoulder, and then, choked: "Steve. Be safe."

He pulls away. "No promises." She tries to smile and fail, instead turning into Sam's waiting arms as they whisper goodbyes to each other. Sam's eyes clench tight and Steve has a intense spike of self-loathing at ripping Sam away from another home. Sam would hate him more for thinking that way, so he breathes through it, lets it go.

"T'Challa," he says lowly, turning to the king watching them all impassively. He steps forward, digs into his bag, and pulls out the copy of the Accords he has not let go of for days. It seems even heavier now than when he first received it, laden down with his notes and drawings or, if Steve was Sam, his regrets and worries. "Can you make sure this gets to him?"

T'Challa doesn't ask who he's talking about, just simply takes the Accords in his hands and looks down at the little drawing that Steve has sketched in the space between the symbols for the Accords, the Avengers Initiative, and the UN. It's the world, the North and South America, Europe and Africa shaded dark, with a circle around it. Equidistance apart in the circle are six little breaks, miniature circles, each containing different symbols. Steve's star, Natasha's hourglass, Clint's bow, Bruce's sardonic radioactive hazard sign, Thor's hammer, and Tony's old arc reactor. 

The original Avengers, protecting the earth together, always connected. Steve is running the good risk of Tony's distant indignation when the older man sees it sees it but he wouldn't erase it for anything. 

"May I read it?" T'Challa asks, settling the document comfortably in his hands.

There are notes in there for Tony, Rhodes, Nat, Clint, and Vision. Even some for Spider-Man. But T'Challa is discerning and unlikely to pry if his eyes find something unwanted. "Sure."

He sticks out a hand and T'Challa doesn't hesitate before taking it. "You are a good man, Captain. I wish you luck."

"Same to you, Your Highness."

He turns to Fury, glancing to make sure Sam is ready, and after his partner says his goodbyes to T'Challa, they step forward into the darkness, Steve looking over his shoulder for one last look at Wanda, one last prayer for Bucky, before he slips through darkness for a long disorienting moment. "Keep walking," Cloaks warns, and Steve takes a step forward, stumbling just a bit when his first step meets nothing. The next meets hard concrete, and the darkness is gone.

Around him is a deserted hallway, the dim sounds of bustle and machinery in the background. "So, this is the Vault?" Steve asks. He wouldn't agree to Fury's terms until he knew where he and Sam were going. The files Fury sent over after one long-suffering sigh listed the Vault as SHIELD's number one containment facility and full-time base, designed by Howard Stark and a Doctor Reed Richards and constructed under Director Margaret Carter. Steve knows the thrumming in the air is from Cell Block 42, housing the most dangerous criminals the government didn't get to know about, holding them behind the strange energy barriers developed by Dr. Richards before the man went off to space with his untrained wife and family and never came back.

(There was a note on Richards file that from Fury that just read "Damn idiot. No, do not mark him 'deceased.' Sue's too smart to let them all die.")

"One and only," Fury says, turning to Sam and Steve. "We've got your rooms ready; settle in for the night and be ready for debrief in the morning, 0800. No arguments, Captain."

"What happened to 'on the clock?'" Sam asks with a smirk that Fury returns.

"The last thing I need is Captain America and the Falcon getting caught on a routine mission 'cause of sleep deprivation," Fury says. "I just wanted out of Wakanda before Princess Shuri decided to eviscerate me. Get some sleep. Cloak."

"Sir." The younger man pushes off the wall and circles his fingers lazily as he begins walking. "After me."

He leads them to a section of barracks, the walls a slick gleaming white in contrast to the concrete of earlier, and points to two near the end. "Those are yours. General passcode is 1-6-1-0. We'll get you new ones tomorrow. Now, since someone had me keep a portal open for his weepy goodbyes, I am beat. See you in the morning, boys." In direct contradiction to his apparent exhaustion, he summons up another portal and steps through it, disappearing.

Sam hefts his bag onto his shoulder and faces Steve, his brow furrowing at whatever he sees. "Steve," he says, placing a hand on his shoulder. "We knew what we were getting into, and we can always get out of it. You wanted to know the long game, the real threat? This is the place to be. I'm with you, alright? Now get some sleep."

He picks the leftmost door and punches in the code, waving at Steve before heading inside. Steve lets himself into the other room. It is smallish, sparsely furnished, all grey and black, but nice enough to have its own bathroom. He places his bag at the foot of the bed and sits down, elbows on his knees.

It's so quiet. It was never quiet in Wakanda, or in the compound, or in the Tower, or in the war camp, or in Brooklyn. Jesus, Steve hates the quiet, the way it builds up in his head until he feels like he has to scream. No screaming here. He can't show these people any weakness.

He looks around and it's all so unfamiliar. For a moment Steve feels utterly lost and untethered. For a moment he can't comprehend what he's looking at, or how he got here, or what he's doing here-

What am I doing here?

Calm down, he thinks. "Calm down," just to break up the silence. Steve isn't lost. He has a purpose, a reason, a goal. Steve is fine. He has Sam here and Bucky and Wanda waiting for him. Tony will get the Accords and maybe he'll finally call. Maybe Steve can tell him personally what he's doing here. Tony can't not act either, they're the same like that, always fighting, always pushing.

"Calm down," he repeats, listening to his even breathing, his steady heartbeat, the quiet building in his head. "Calm down."

 "You worked on the terrigenesis formula?"

"Yes, I did."

"But you didn't create it."

"No."

"Who did?"

"Dead men, long past. We stitched their legacies together to create something beautiful."

"It's unstable."

"No, no, Agent Mackenzie. Unstable implies an inevitable collapse. Terrigenesis will stand tall, forever. We began from infinity and we will continue on."

"The formula doesn't work though, does it? It kills 95 percent of all targeted. You were testing it on hostages. Not HYDRA soldiers, hostages. Which means you were trying to fix it, you were trying to stabilize it-"

"It's not unstable!"

"Then what is it, Mr. Malik?"

"...it is a cure. Ascendance. To meet the beyond when it comes for us. And it is unfinished."

"And you're after the missing piece to the puzzle, then."

"There is no need for chase. The doctor told me. The missing piece is after us. It needs help. The doctor helps all."

Fury sits him down thirty minutes before the debrief looking more tired than Steve has ever seen him, and Steve has seen him one foot in the grave. Its 0747 hours and Steve didn't sleep at all last night. By the way Fury grimaces, it shows.

"You were both wrong," he tells Steve bluntly, and Steve barely covers a flinch. "And don't come at me with 'we were both right,' because it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. You were both wrong and you fucked up and every single one of you damned Avengers, people that I trusted with the safety of the entire world, you just made everything worse. There are threats worse than the Accords waiting for the moment to strike and - you and Stark just handed it straight to them. Silver platter. Zemo played you like a puppet on a string."

Steve leans back in his chair. "We're not infallible. We make mistakes. All of us," he adds pointedly, and Fury huffs. "I made mistakes, I know that. That's why I'm here."

"Atonement?" Fury says, sounding surprised. "Really? That's the game plan, Rogers?"

"The game plan is the same as its ever been. Fighting the fight that others can't," Steve corrects firmly, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's like you said. I couldn't just sit back in Wakanda. If you have the means to help and you don't, you bear your own responsibility for the fall out."

Fury leans forward into Steve's space. "And that's some real pretty talk, Captain, but tell me this: are you fighting for you or are you fighting for them?"

"Excuse me?"

"Are you fighting to satisfy your morality or are you fighting for those in need?" Fury clarifies, biting off each word as they fall from his mouth. Steve just stares at him for a moment, sideswiped by the question, and Fury's gaze softens. "What did you fight for, against Stark? Was it Barnes? To stop Zemo? To oppose the Accords?"

"And if I say all of it?" Steve asks softly. "I never wanted glory. I-I mean, I'm nobody, really, just a kid from Brooklyn. I do what I can, where I can, as best I can. I just wanted to help where I could and fight for what was right. Bucky was innocent and Zemo was a threat, and Tony had locked Wanda up in the compound in the name of the Accords. I know he was trying to protect her and keep us together but only under his terms. I didn't matter what I thought, it didn't matter what I said. And I - yeah. I got a bit lost on the way. Did things I shouldn't have. Didn't do some I should. But it was never to fill some moral quota or do my good deed for the day."

He doesn't meet Fury's eye and silence settles in the room for a long moment before the older man leans back. Softly, deadly, he asks "Why didn't you contact Stark, or Romanov for that matter, with your information?"

"We thought-" Steve inhales sharply. "I thought they would stand by the Accords. They wouldn't be able to help us in time and worst case, they would tell Ross what was happening." And then Tony came to Siberia to help Steve. "I got it wrong. I wasn't thinking straight. Peggy was gone and Bucky was slipping through my fingers and I couldn't trust-" 

He shuts his mouth, teeth making an audible click and he makes himself meet Fury's gaze to make up for the slip. The man is expressionless, observing, calculating. 

"You're scared," he says quietly. "Willing to bet the last time you weren't, you were dodging mortar shells in France." 

"'D be an idiot not to be," Steve bites back, because fear isn't ever what's going to get him. Steve's never had a problem being scared, not the way Tony and Natasha do. What is there to be scared of? Steve's died once, and life just kept going anyway. 

Fury sighs. "I've heard Stark's team's side. And I know what happened in Siberia. To learn that a man who railed so hard against his teammates keeping secrets from him just a year ago had been sitting pretty on a ticking time bomb with Tony's name on it for nearly twice that - well. You finally surprised me, Rogers."

"I never meant to hurt him. Anyone," Steve says quickly.

"And since then," Fury goes on as if Steve hadn't spoken. "You've given up your shield, your position, gone into hiding and turned your back on Captain America. Your choice, Rogers, I've made my opinion on all that clear. But Captain America - I knew that kid. Stubborn son-of-a-bitch, not big on authority, but a more decent man than the rest of us deserve. I knew what he fought for. I just need to know: are you still that man?"

Of course, Steve tries to say, but he can't get it out. Because being that man is exhausting. Captain America, man out of time, always missing people and losing time and fighting everyday relentlessly, always living up to an impossible image.. Captain America should have died in 1945 but Steve Rogers just keeps on surviving, carrying the mantle of a corpse.

When he dropped the shield in front of Tony, he didn't feel loss.

He felt relief.

He doesn't meet Fury's gaze, staring at his hands spread over his thighs. "I can't say that I am. I'm aiming to be someone better." 

Tony flicks the series of numbers off his Starkpad and points imposingly at Pepper. "You do that again and I'm having FRIDAY cut off your access."

"I don't actually need your permission, you realize?" she points out. "I'm your CEO."

"I own 51 percent of the company," Tony counters, eyes going back to the data FRIDAY has been running on the recording of Malik's interrogation. Heart rate suggests he wasn't lying. No sweating, no twitching muscles, just chatting amiably with Agent Mackenzie about the end of the world. For HYDRA, maybe that's just a regular Tuesday. "SI has enough subsidiaries. We're not buying out Oscorp."

"The company is collapsing, Tony. That's two thousand people out of jobs in New York City alone."

"And if Harry Osborn can't turn it around in a year, then maybe we'll talk about it," Tony says, measured. "It's his father's company, Pep. His family's. I'm not taking that away from the kid."

Pepper's gaze softens and she raises her hands in surrender. "Okay. Alright. But I am buying a share of the interest. Three percent."

"Square deal. Hey, see if you can snag one of their interns for the spring semester. Stacy, Gwendolyn." That'll give Peter a nice little heart attack when they both show up for work. Tony glances over at Rhodey, sprawled and snoring over two seats and Vision sitting peacefully two rows away, then back. "Thanks for coming with us, Pep."

"Well, you need someone able to herd your army of lawyers," Pepper smirks. "I think they're actually incapable of saying anything to you that isn't 'No, Mr. Stark, sit down, Mr. Stark, please, Mr. Stark, stop antagonizing the judge, Mr. Stark.' Poor things need a translator. Fortunately, I'm an expert in Stark-speak."

"Hope so, it's only been fifteen years. So what are they saying? They're probably more honest with you than they are with me."

Pepper looks down at her tablet, idly scrolling through some reports so she won't have to look at Tony. "You broke with the Accords, Tony. Again. But you did so with the express consent of the council and Captain Stacy. It honestly could go either way; it depends on what the council wants to do."

"Yeah," Tony sighs. "That's what I figured." Rogers wasn't all wrong about the Accords. If it were still up to them, Tony wouldn't even be on this plane right now, he'd still be riding the high of a job well done with his teammates, and he wouldn't have had to worry about conferring with a bunch of people who'd never seen a battlefield over whether he should try and stop the masked madman throwing people off buildings. He wouldn't have to answer to anyone but Steve. Used to, that made him feel safe.

Used to was before Ultron. Used to was before he first saw the Accords and realized the implicit threat hidden in them if they didn't act. 

"Tony," Pepper says softly. "You did the right thing. You and the Defenders saved a lot of people. Whatever the council decides...I'm always proud of you, you know that." Iron Man had caused so much grief between them, most of it Tony's fault, and he's so lucky to still have her with him. He taps her foot with his appreciatively and they smile at each other before returning to their respective tablets.

The seatbelt light chimes on thirty minutes later, a smooth accented voice informing of them of their imminent arrival in Brussels. "Rhodes!" Tony calls, throwing peanuts at his best friends until his wakes up. "We're almost there. Lock and load, buddy."

Rhodey sleepily rolls his eyes, dragging himself upright. They all watch interestedly as he shifts his legs as much as he can, straining to use the mostly-defunct nerves until they are in position and he can strap the braces on. Rhodey is slowly regaining feeling in parts of his legs. He'll never be like he was, but he's getting better. In the meantime Tony just builds him different braces every other day and tries to fool Rhodey into thinking he's just a test dummy for Stark Industries' new line of prosthetics.

"Boss," FRIDAY suddenly interrupts. "Secretary of State General Aleksander Lukin is waiting for you on the tarmac."

Tony exchanges confused glances with his friends. "What does he want?"

"A minute of your time. He's planning on attending the hearing tomorrow."

"Ellis probably ordered him to get back into the council's good graces," Rhodey says. "It's got to make him itch, not having an American on board."

"He has company. An agent Sharon Carter."

"Sharon?" Tony splutters. "As in, aided and abetted international fugitives Sharon Carter?"

"Bingo, boss."

"Maybe they do not know of her crime," Vision postulates, his voice hesitating on the last word. 

Tony highly doubts that. Everett Ross through a huge fit when he figured out what his favorite agent had pulled, no way the man didn't put a fatwa on her for every other agency out there. "FRIDAY, run a search on our illustrious Ms. Carter. Everyone else, poker faces at the ready."

Aleksander Lukin is an intimidatingly tall man, his eyes a near electric blue and cold and his mouth set in a smirk that borders on a sneer. And the first thing he does is hold out a hand for Tony to shake.

"Mr. Stark, it's an honor. As a military man, you cannot imagine the appreciation I have for your ingenuity and tech. We lost big when you left the weapons business but you made the right call. What Stane was doing with your company was a disgrace." His speech is all American, his voice set into the familiar cadence of Northern California, but Tony can still detect the trace hints of a Russian accent underneath it all.

He takes the hand. "Secretary Lukin. Honor's all mine."

Lukin shakes all their hands, dropping a kiss on Pepper's and gripping Rhodey firmly. "Colonel Rhodes. You look good. I saw the news; War Machine is flying better than ever. Airforce crows about you every chance they get."

"They're good people, sir," Rhodey says.

"They're annoying is what they are," Lukin replies bluntly, but its all that armed forces joking that Tony has never quite understood, because Rhodey just laughs. "I wanted to meet you today, Iron Man, War Machine, Vision - in case we don't have time tomorrow. President Ellis has asked me to sit in on the hearing and the council has graciously agreed. In my opinion, the whole thing has been overblown."

"Really?" Tony says, canting his head to the side.

Lukin smiles, all teeth. "Oh, yes. In this life there are many paths, but finding the right one is hard. Keeping to it, even harder. The Accords are of course one more step along that path, but only if the leadership is strong. But you could not sit idly by while the world spun out of control, could you, Mr. Stark? You are not that kind of man." It's all the right words but they still sound wrong; Tony can feel his spine straightening subconsciously, chin tilting up, thankful for his customary shades. "You've taken action both on and off the battlefield. It's to be admired, not persecuted."

"Well," Tony says, blank for a moment, then he grins. "The world's a busy place, Secretary Lukin. No doubt they can pull off both."

"No," Lukin returns with that same shark smile still in place. "No doubt at all. Oh, forgive me, Agent. I believe you all know Agent Carter?"

The blonde woman steps forward, uncharacteristically demure up until this point. She catches Tony's eyes from under her eyelashes and ducks a nod to the others. "The Avengers. We're acquainted."

Well, gee, nothing like getting the 'acquaintance' brush-off from the girl you assisted building her eighth-grade science fair volcano. See if Tony ever makes realistic inflammable lava for her ever again. "Agent Carter. This is a surprise."

"It's a bright new world," Sharon says back, a too-sweet smile on her face. "Full of second chances, right, Mr. Stark."

"I know Agent Carter got involved with the other side of your Avengers' conflict, but that's water under the bridge now," Lukin says genially. "She's the best of the best. I couldn't afford to pass that by."

"Of course," Pepper says, stepping forward to Tony's side when she realize the three Avengers with her have temporarily lost the plot. "We're honored that you came by, Secretary Lukin, and I hate to cut this short-"

"But you're exhausted," Lukin finishes, smiling charmingly at her. Tony feels a twinge in jaw from how hard he grinds his teeth. "Of course. I have business of my own to attend to. I'll see you all tomorrow at the hearing. Good luck, Mr. Stark, Colonel Rhodes."

More handshakes and nods and Lukin and Carter leave them on the outskirts of the tarmac. Vision watches them go, head tilted to the side, before turning to Tony. "I am still learning about human behavior but that was...weird, was it not?"

"Just a bit," Tony says, watching Lukin's back until the man disappears.

 "We all have so little time, do you see? I must help where I can."

"What's happening, then, Malik? Why do we have little time? Who is this doctor of yours?"

"The doctor is the shepherd and we are his disciples. I admit I'm not overly fond of the imagery but I cannot deny that it fits. We are only here to help, Agent Mackenzie. Let us help."

"You know we can't do that."

"...You really can't, can you. I thought...the doctor warned me. He told me to help but I am not him."

"What's his name, Mr. Malik? Just give us a name."

"I thought I could be like him. Do more. It's all I ever wanted."

"Mr. Malik."

"You are all lost sheep. SHIELD, the Avengers, your leaders. Tony Stark. Tell him, won't you? Tell him I was telling the truth. The doctor can help, but he has to want it. He has to prove it. The doctor would be pleased."

"Wh - is there something special about Tony Stark? Malik?"

"This is all I can do for you, Agent Mackenzie. I'm sorry I couldn't do more."

"What - no! Malik! Goddamnit, spit it out! Get medical in here now!"

"I feel like I'm sneaking out of my bedroom window," Tony hisses to T'Challa when he meets him down in the lobby. It's two o'clock at night and the crisp Belgium air is shocking through his thin sweatpants. T'Challa eyes him, amused, and Tony shrugs into his jacket and glares. "What's up, kitty cat? Missed me?"

"Do you always get into such trouble when I'm gone?" T'Challa asks, reaching out to flick Tony's collar up against the wind. Tony resists the urge to bite his fingertips in retaliation. "I saw the battle. It was well done."

Tony huffs. "Thank you, Big T. Mind explaining why the congrats couldn't be given over the phone?"

"I see I was not missed," T'Challa says, raising one eyebrow. He turns and begins walking down the sidewalk without waiting for Tony, who splutters for a moment before grudgingly following him. "I was expecting a report on what happened. None were received."

"I debriefed with the council, you can read the transcripts."

"The council is not you, Tony," T'Challa says. "And you are not yourself around them. Stop deflecting and tell me." When Tony remains silent over the next few moments T'Challa sighs and comes to a stop, turning to Tony. "My first and only duty will always be to Wakanda, but when I am away and something happens to my team, I cannot help but feel guilt that I could not help. It helps a great deal to have your words and opinions on how the battle fared. Please, Tony."

His eyes are more open than Tony has ever seen, wide and earnest. Tony gapes at him for a moment before pointing an accusing finger at him. "Are those fluttering eyelashes I see, Pantera? From Mr. 'Tony-I-Am-A-King-Not-A-Errand-Boy' himself? You hung up on me!"

"Everett Ross is a direct man," T'Challa says, caught out now and still smug. "He required a direct approach, which I used to great success to get Romanov into to see Zemo. You, my friend, require a bit more subterfuge."

"And you, my friend, suck at subterfuge." T'Challa smiles and shrugs, resuming his walk. Tony sighs. "You realize there's nothing to feel guilty about? There's not a lot you could have done, and if you had you would be in that hearing with us tomorrow. Not a good look for royalty."

"But a good look for a human being," T'Challa counters, glancing at Tony and saying nothing when the shorter man shifts a little closer while they walk, cursing the cold. "It is important first to be good, then to be a king. My father told me that." His whole postures shuts down, as it does every time he mentions T'Chaka. "I am here to show my support for my fellow teammate and for our leader. The Accords - I thought they seemed so simple when my father and the others first began outlining them, but living them has proved more difficult than I imagined."

"Do you regret it?"

"Not at all," T'Challa replies immediately. "They are direly needed. It is not only about what is fair to the Avengers but what is just for all of us. The Avengers as they were before were dangerous. Completely autonomous and nigh unstoppable. But this seems like such a simple matter and yet here you stand, eight hours away from hearing determining your future. I know they will side in your favor, but will they do it because it's right or because they have been backed into a corner?"

"The Accords are still going to be there no matter what we do," Tony says softly. "And we need to be seen as accountable, so if a blow's coming, I'll gladly take it. The Accords came to be because of fear and mistrust, and the only way we're going to fix that is proving to everyone otherwise. Reminding them of what the Avengers really stand for. If the media wants to shout fear-mongering rhetoric at them, then we make sure our actions speak even louder." He looks over at T'Challa to see the king staring back, eyes glimmering with something indefinable. "...in the meantime we amend the charter as best we can. You ready with your proposal?"

"Yes," T'Challa says slowly, glancing away. "The United States will likely back some level of free movement, considering Lukin's support and Ellis' dire need for public approval. If any other countries want to take the offer, it is free to negotiation."

"Wakanda, of course, will not," Tony says, teasingly, and T'Challa smiles back even if he doesn't dispute this. T'Challa, as much as he tries to work the wise king act, is still young, barely thirty, and still very proud. It would gall him to have anyone but Wakandans protect his country. "Good work, Sir Pounce-a-lot. I owe you."

T'Challa grimaces at the nickname but otherwise remains silent, his eyes going very far away as they head down the cold sidewalk, arms bumping into one another. The cold has settled into Tony's bones now, and it aches a little but the pain is almost pleasant. It is quiet this time a night, his and T'Challa's footsteps very loud, and Tony starts absentmindedly counting them, one and a half of his for every one of T'Challa's. They create an odd, off-mark beat together but it's steady. Steadying.

"Captain Rogers left Wakanda in the company of Nicholas Fury," T'Challa suddenly says, and Tony stumbles, throwing the beat off entirely.

"I-" He says, then swallows. "Why? No, hush you, I know why. It's Steve. Did he take the others with him?"

They have come to a stop again, and this time T'Challa's gaze is very wary. "Wanda Maximoff remains. Sam Wilson went with him. As for Scott Lang, he is currently here in Belgium."

"He what?"

The king draws his long coat open and pulls out a slip of paper. There is something else in there, a familiar looking packet, but Tony concentrates on the paper in front of him. It's a transfer slip for one Scott Edward Harris Lang from Wakandan custody to Belgian. "He will need more help than Agent Barton. It is my understanding that Mr. Lang has missed...'parole?'"

"Parole," Tony confirms. "Lang's a convicted felon, but it was for Robin Hooding the shit out of Vistacorp, greedy bastards. Yeah, that's gonna be a problem. I'll call my lawyers in the morning, see what they can do. I can't wait to tell Hope. Maybe she'll stop trying to kill me with her death glare when she thinks I'm not looking. She doesn't realize it's only effective if you look 'em in the eye..."

"I must admit only half of that made sense."

Tony looks up at T'Challa, grinning a bit madly. "You are full of surprises today, Def Leppard. If you got any more, I'd like a warning. My heart can only take so much."

T'Challa holds his stare for a long moment, searching for something Tony is pretty sure he can't give him. Then he reaches into his coat and tugs the Accords out of his belt. Even from here in the dim light of the street lamps Tony can make out Steve's distinctive writing and art style. Tony's always liked Steve's art; he is overly precise in his details and has no head for drawing faces but his crisp clean lines have always been perfect for sketching out Iron Man. He used to have five or six doodles in his workshop alone. He still has the first postcard Steve sent him from his cross-country tour after the Chitauri from Seattle, a ink-pen Iron Man flying around the Space Needle.

The front page is covered in little notes and drawings from what Tony can see when T'Challa holds it out to him, but it is dominated by the large world sitting between the three printed symbols. The world is protected by a thick black ring, and in the ring are the original Avengers' symbols, side by side. His eyes dart back and forth from the arc reactor and the star, linked together by an unbreakable line.

"He wanted me to give this to you," T'Challa says quietly. 

The cold has grown unbearable. He feels the suit weighing him down, cold concrete against his back and a weight at his hips. He hears the wind and its sounds like a shield slicing down, down, down.

"He read them?" he whispers through numb lips.

"He read them. He offered many notes and comments. They are...well thought out. Things and worries that have not occured to us, the Captain has accounted for." Tony must make some sort of derisive sound because T'Challa exhales and pushes closer with the Accords. "Tony, the proposal that I have created? Some of it was made from Steve Rogers' counsel. Read it. If not for him, then for the rest of us."

Here's the thing:

Tony doesn't know anything about righteous fury. For the greater part of his life he's been the recipient of it, not the giver. He doesn't know what it feels like and if he did, he wouldn't let himself. Tony is not a righteous man. Tony doesn't deserve it.

So.

So it's not anger that keeps him from contacting Steve. Not really. Because Steve lied to him, Steve took his money and his tech for years and lied to him. Steve berated him about Ultron and knew the truth and lied to him anyway. From most perspectives, Tony's perfectly within his rights to be pissed at Steve for all eternity. But even that mad craze that seized him in Siberia, that wasn't righteous. It was just pain. And it disappeared the moment Steve did, leaving Tony in the dirt.

He still feels it under his nails sometimes, the dirt and blood and snow.

It isn't anger. It's the way Steve looked at him. "Did you know?" "Yes." And Steve, glorious, righteous Captain America, stared at Tony, jaw tight, chin tilted up, eyes defiant. It's the expression that had crossed Steve's face when he broke the reactor. Pained, yes, but so resigned. Like he couldn't have stopped this from happening. Like what he did to Tony was an acceptable loss.

And he did. He did something to Tony, and not once did he care. He did it without thinking. It didn't plague him at night, it never stopped him from meeting Tony's eyes. Tony's feelings never once occurred to Steve as something that mattered, and when it finally came to haunt them all he tried to keep lying. It doesn't make Tony feel angry, it makes him feel like nothing. Like he is the dirt beneath Steve's boots, like a truth that belonged to Tony more than anyone else was an inconvenience.

I was trying to protect myself, Steve had written, and it had carved out Tony's heart. Not even Captain America had spared a thought for saving Tony Stark.

 Here's the thing:

Tony is sick of locking himself up in that bunker every night, letting Steve or Bucky kill him. He wants to leave that place and dream of his mother without pain or fear.

Steve read them. They could work on them together, in some small way, just like Tony had wanted before. Of course his suggestions are brilliant, he's Steve. Not much for politics, but Steve was the one who knew the Avengers, Steve was the one with the moral compass to point Tony in the right direction when he got lost. Now that's all gone, but Steve is trying, at least a little, to repair the damage he's done. 

Tony is well acquainted with causing damage. So far the world has been gracious enough to let him at least try to repent for it. He won't let Steve fix what's broken inside of him, but he can't deny Steve the right to the same chances he was given himself. 

He reaches out with a shaking hand and takes the Accords. "For the team, then, highness," he breathes out, aiming for something light. "And world peace."

Dimly he feels T'Challa's hand pass from his wrist to his shoulder to his cheek before falling away. "You are a good man, Tony Stark."

Steve has used the word 'damn' on one his comments on the front. Language! springs to Tony's head, unbidden. He opens his mouth, then lets it go, sighing tiredly. "You, uh. You really know how to wear a guy out, T'Challa. Let's just go back, alright? I'm -" he hugs the Accords in close to his body. "I'm not a fan of cold." 

Chapter Text

Don't you know what this is, Howard hisses. Tony is eight years old and his hand is so small around the stylus as he carves the formula for terrigenesis into the dirt floors of a cave in Afghanistan. There is a sharp pain at the back of his head and his whole body lurches forward. Tony, his father says, shaking his hand out. Concentrate. You have to concentrate. Don't you know what this is?

"Don't get in the car," Tony mumbles. "Don't take her with you."

You know why I did that. You're supposed to know everything. His father's hands are so much bigger than his when they wipe away the formula. Again, Tony. Try again. Don't you know what this is?

Tony tries but the floors are too hard now, concrete instead of dirt, and when he looks up he can see his reflection in the glass of five different cryogenic tanks. He is twenty one years old and his parents are about to die.

In the middle of the sea of concrete and glass and Winter Soldiers sits Bucky Barnes, strapped up to a dentist chair. Tony remembers things he won't know for years yet, a red-haired woman with sad eyes who shows him files and files of how this chair broke people.

Howard hovers at Barnes' shoulder, fiddling with the tubes sinking into the other man's arms.

Tony's heart weighs like a stone in his chest.

Dark liquid begins to creep up the tubes as Howard whirls on Tony, Howard with his face caved in, his Dad through that ruin of a mouth demanding Don't you know what this is?

Tony wakes up screaming.

"The fact is, Mr. Lang has missed over five parole meetings since May. There was no way he wasn't getting extradited, Tony. We're lucky he's on house arrest right now instead of going back to jail."

"Lucky?" Tony says, swiping at another arrow schematic that he wasn't paying attention to, ignoring the work on Terrigenesis waiting for him. "We must be if you're chalking up to luck instead of your mad skills."

Jennifer Walters snorts. "Never, ever say that again, I beg you. I'm doing everything I can, Tony, but between this and the work you've got us doing on the Accords..."

"I'm grateful. I've mentioned that, right, how grateful I am?" Tony asks. "You're totally getting a raise."

"I'd prefer a vacation." She's joking, but for just a moment he can hear the thread of strain through her voice. He reminds himself to hire Jennifer some more newbie lawyers to handle the mundane paperwork. It'll make a few of his SI employees always dying to show off their Harvard grads happy, too. 

"That, I am afraid I cannot do," he says instead, sending the memo off to Human Resources. "I need you, Jenny Wan Kenobi. You're my - I mean, you're not my only hope, but damn, lady, you are pretty damn close."

"Don't call me lady," she snarks back. "I'll get it done, Tony. I always do."

Tony thanks her and ends the call. "Any messages from Hope?" he asks FRIDAY. Their erstwhile Wasp has been absent for the past two weeks, accompanying Scott Lang back home to California where he's staying with Hank Pym. The Ant-Man was nice enough to send Tony a nervous-sounding voicemail, thanking him for all he'd done getting him back to his daughter, but Tony hadn't responded, not sure what he could say beyond the anger and guilt. Lang should have never been there in the first place, never left his daughter, but he certainly didn't deserve two and a half weeks in the Raft.

"She estimates her return in a week or so, Boss," FRIDAY finally chimes in.

"Great. It's been getting kinda toasty around here without her icy glare." Even with an entire country between them, Tony does not feel safe even referencing the tears Hope had cried when he brought Scott home with him in handcuffs. She'll know, somehow. Hope's spooky like that. 

There is a weight suddenly to his left and he flinches before a flash of Natasha's red hair catches at the edge of his vision. He turns off his tablet to give her his full attention.

"Lang?" she asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"Handling it," he responds shortly. "Well, not personally. Law is boring."

"Because physics is just so exciting," Natasha says dryly. "Lukin?"

Tony leans back so he can look at her better. "Is this a sit-rep? Are we sit-repping, Nat? Do I need to call a team meeting?"

"Tony."

"I'm not the spy here, Natalie. What's your read?"

She looks thoroughly unimpressed. "Because reading politicians and board members takes no skill at all. Stop being prickly and work with me, boss."

"Kinky," Tony says, but on a sigh so it loses all its punch. "He...he's off. I couldn't tell you how. Anyone who's got Sharon Carter trailing after him like a well-trained dog can't be good news."

"You don't like Agent Carter?"

Tony rolls his eyes at her. "Widow, I have known Sharon since I was fourteen. She thought we were actual cousins until she was eight. When she was a kid I liked to tell her there were monsters in her closet just to go watch as she went and kicked their imaginary asses. Made the little 'hyah!' sounds and everything, god it was cute. My point is, Sharon Carter doesn't roll over for anything. You think there's something wrong with Lukin?"

"Yes," Natasha said, a tiny sparkle of mirth in her eyes from Tony's story dimming as she turns serious again.

"Well, Sharon's just as smart and badass as you are. And he's got her completely snowed. I don't like any of it."

"Maybe she's playing the long game," Natasha says, considering. "She did it with Steve; had him fooled for sure-"

"That's because Rogers is an oblivious moron-"

"-and if she's as smart as me then she's good enough to fool Lukin. Maybe we should accept his liaison offer. If Agent Carter is running some sort of con on Lukin, for whatever reason, then we need to know about it. We need her to trust us more than she suspects him."

Tony frowns down at his lap. Lukin has been asking to visit the compound and set up a regular government liaison for the Avengers since the hearing nearly three weeks ago. "I think one constant interloper is more than enough," he mutters.

"Don't," Natasha says with no bite. "Rhodes is really happy." When he doesn't respond or look up, Natasha sighs and curls a little closer to him, making no more contact than that one hand but very there and very warm beside him. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there. It didn't turn out exactly like we wanted, I know."

"It's just probation, Nat. I'm fine." 

The council, in their infinite wisdom and constant terror of public backlash, let Rhodey off with a warning and an incredibly unsubtle hint that they'd be ecstatic if he resumed his partnership with the US government. Tony would have thought the United Nations would be wary of handing over that much firepower to the US armed forces but he supposes the Avengers are still a little too autonomous for them. Now they've got Captain Danvers trundling in every weekend to take Rhodey out for test flights. His best friend is happier than he's been in months, happier and healthier and gone. Tony had promised Rhodey he'd been fine but...

Tony was a precedence. An opportunity to make an example, to show the world just how serious the Accords should be taken. And he's fine with that, really, he is. Six months probation is nothing, especially since he's still permitted to lead the team. Except for the implication that they're now on a three-strikes system. Or, no, they're mostly European - a yellow card/red card system, then. One more strike and Tony is out until he is deemed fit again. A rule for the entire Avengers system, there entirely by Tony's mistakes.

"It wasn't all bad, though," she reminds him, as if reading his mind, and Tony smiles half-heartedly for a moment. In the wake of Captain Stacy's statement and the city of New York's general enthusiasm for the Avengers' aid, the United States - with a serious helping hand from Wakanda - is now pushing hard for the Avengers' actions while in their home country to be governed by their laws and for the council to only be allowed sway over international waters. It's a brilliant, obvious solution to homegrown threats that Tony is kicking himself for not thinking of earlier, and it was Steve's idea. This is why Tony wanted him with him all along. 

"Good ole US of A," he murmurs derisively. "Always down for unadulterated ass-kicking." He feels more than sees Natasha's smirk, but as the silence drags on it fades away.

"You're not fine," she whispers to him.

"I'm-" he snaps his jaw shut so hard his teeth grind painfully. 

Her hand slides down to wrap around his elbow. "C'mon. Tell me. I'm right here, I swear it."

Tony takes a deep breath. "I'm worried. Sometimes. That I'm doing this for the wrong reasons. I'm not - I know part of it is my guilt, and that's selfish, alright, bringing that into the game. I'm not proud of it. I did - I did some messed up things in the fight. But what if it's spite? What if I can't give up just because that means that I was wrong?"

"We've all been selfish, Tony. That market was cornered long before built yourself a walking soup can." She lets go of his elbow to bring her legs up and cross them Indian-style, fully facing him now. "Listen to me. You don't really believe that. You're just scared," she tells him firmly. 

He moves to mirror her, placing one elbow on his knee and tipping his head into that hand. "Tell me more about myself, Nat."

"Please, just-" she starts sharply, and then she sucks in a deep breath. Tony watches her trying to gain control of her already impassive expression and feels like an ass. 

He straightens up. "Okay, no, you're - I'm here, hit me."

She eyes him as if she's thinking of taking that literally and then she sighs. "There's good and bad in the world, Stark, but the 'right thing?' That's all relative. All we can do is fight for what we believe and hope that it's good enough. The Accords aren't easy and they aren't perfect, but we're all here because we believe that they're better than what we had before. This is the right thing, for me and for you and everybody on this team. This isn't just about you, so don't think for a second that I'd be here if you were doing this all out of spite. What, do you think the rest of us are sticking around because of your magnetic personality?"

Tony smothers a laugh into his hand, feeling properly chastised. "Yeah - okay, I hear you."

"Hey," she says softly, smiling. "Calling you out is the best way to break you out of your funk. It's super spy proven. But it's okay if you've got doubts, Tony. I'd be scared if you didn't. What is that charming expression you Americans use to get out of everything - 'you're only human?' That's you, Shellhead."

"Thanks, Killer Queen," he replies, and is briefly overwhelmed at how much he has missed Natasha, even though she's been back for several days. He clears his throat and looks away. "You see where Rogers marked up the Accords? I guess they're allowing crayons at the kiddie table again. He left some notes for you."

"I'm sure he did. He hates not having the last word. Reminds me of someone else I know," she says, rolling her eyes but unable to hide her look of pleasant surprise. "Send me up a copy, I'll take a look. Have you decided what you're going to do about Barnes?"

Right. The veritable stockpile of data sitting pretty in FRIDAY's servers right now, ready first for the council to see and then for Tiberius' spin to show the whole world just how helpless James Barnes really was. "I kinda wanted the guy's permission before I make him the greatest underdog story ever told and dump his trauma on national television - my own experience with that was a fantastic learning experience - but T'Challa got real cagey when I asked him if he'd gone with Rogers to Fury's hideyhole. I could call up Rogers, I suppose, but..."

Natasha watches him carefully, something darker than usual in her evergreen eyes. "Tony. Just do it. Get the worst out of the way before Barnes' has to deal with it in person."

"Some of them will want his head on a platter," Tony says tiredly. In his mind the dream still weighs heavy. Barnes had been so quiet, sitting in that chair. "Some will want him for information. And most people are still going to want him locked up. It's never going away for him, Nat. I know that better than most."

"Yeah, you do," she tells him. "Good thing he's got you, then."

"Dagger, Cloak, fan out and take out any stragglers. Falcon, keep to the walkways, you've got eyes in the skies. I'm heading towards the vault." Steve snaps a hand out to catch the hardlight shield Fury had given him - Starktech, hadn't that been a kick in the teeth - and steps over the fallen body of the soldier he's just incapacitated. His team mutters their agreement over the comms, separating.

Except for one. He hears Diamondback's giggle before he actually sees her, and he sees her shurikens before anything else. They flash in the air and spin into the keypad locking them out of the innermost section of this HYDRA base, frying the connections. A moment later and the giggle herself drops down beside him, all pink and black and dangerous. "Am I your back-up, fearless leader?" She smiles wildly, grabbing for her weapon without looking, plucking it up perfectly by its deadly little edges. She throws out a snappy salute with it. "I am flattered."

"Stay here," he orders her. She pouts and with the pink lipstick she insists on spackling on that somehow never smears, it comes off more obscene than anything else. 

"You don't speak HYDRA-ese like I do, Cap. How 'bout you watch my back instead?" 

There's an innuendo in there. There's always an innuendo in there with her. "Diamond," he grits out, pushing past her. Inside the vault is the computer banks Fury was hoping they'd find when they sent them out on this mission, but no sign of the way Madama Hydra has escaped. "My experience with HYDRA-"

"Is completely outdated?" Diamondback finishes cheerfully, falling dutifully in place to guard the door for all her bluster. "Back from when they wore Hugo Boss and ripped their faces off their faces?"

"D," Dagger huffs over the comms, that mix of fondness and disdain that seems near permanent whenever she speaks to Diamondback. "Running commentary. Really necessary?"

"Of course," is the reply, like it would be anything else. Steve gets to work on the computers, noting with dismay that the data is already being corrupted. He finds a drive plug-in and gets the SHIELD-issue stint in place, shutting down the deletion process and allowing him to take a look while the files transfer. "Time is of the essence, and Madame Hydra waits for no bitch. I know her better than anyone here, I could have a lock on her in no time if some people would just let me take a look."

"Not on your life," Cloak mutters. He shares none of his partner's tolerance for their team's erstwhile criminal element. 

Diamondback's eyeroll is almost audible. "Fine. Whatever. Just a perfectly good resource here, completely wasted. And this is why the bad guys keep winning."

"Diamondback!" Steve warns, and the comm falls silent. Out of the corner of his vision, his excellent eyesight catches Diamondback through the partially open door, petulantly throwing a shuriken at the floor. 

He can't hear anything from Sam, not even a hitch in his breath or a grunt as he flies from walkway to walkway. He hasn't heard anything from Sam the whole mission that wasn't a 'yes' or 'no.' It's so quiet that for a moment he can't even focus on the data in front of him, watching letters and numbers scroll by. "Report," he demands after a moment. 

"All clear," Dagger responds immediately, echoed by Cloak and Falcon.

"Falcon, meet me at my location. Cloak and Dagger, final sweep, then ready for extraction."

Sam exchanges a tight smile with Diamondback when he arrives. "Nomad," he directs at Steve as he approaches, pushing up his goggles. His new name is hard to get used to, so for a moment Steve just stares. Sam looks exhausted in a way Steve has never seen before and he finds himself mindlessly reaching out and grasping his shoulder, only realizing himself at the last moment and using the motion to reel him in.

"Here, and here," he points out at two separate reports. "HYDRA mentions 'making successful contact.'"

"You think they mean outside the organization?" Falcon says, squinting up at the screen.

Steve shakes his head. "Look at the number sequence afterwards. It's the same number. I bet you anything its a serial number. It's not a person they're contacting, it's a product."

Falcon's shoulders tighten up under his wings. "Shit. You're thinking terrigenesis." He trails a finger across the screen. "'Contact confirmed. Tests unclear. Sending backup.' Another plant, maybe. If we can find where this was sent..."

"We track it down," Steve agrees. "This has to end now." He thinks he hears Diamondback snort over the comm but ignores it. Three missions out and not once has she agreed with his methods. Steve doesn't have the energy but to be anything but resigned to it. The USB beeps once, the data transfer complete, and Steve palms it. "Let's move out."

They meet Cloak and Dagger just outside, the latter wrapped around her partner and glowing bright white, echoes of tension fading from Cloak's frame. They need to work on his endurance, Steve thinks to himself, and the thought just makes him tired.

"You ready?" he asks. Cloak straightens up in Dagger's grip but she doesn't let go, content to hold him as long as he needs. Steve doesn't question it; doesn't feel like he can. He doesn't know these people. "Get us out of here, then."

The portal opens and they step through darkness into the training room Fury has assigned for them specially. And instantly, except for a still clinging Dagger, they take a step away from each other.

He'd like to say he feels the space acutely, but truthfully he's just grateful for the space to breathe.

They don't even look at each other. 

They traipsed off the Quinjet in twos and threes and Tony grumbled beside him about debriefs and 'this is what email was invented for, Cap, I spend quality bonding time with all of you preventing our imminent deaths, is that not enough, I ask you,' even though every time - every time - Iron Man was the one pulling up feeds and charts and pointing out where they could have done better. They collapsed as one over couches and chairs in the common room and one by one turned to Steve, waiting for him to start the meeting-

The Commandos sat in the remnants of a successful raid and Morita counted out ammo and supplies while Bucky turned to him and said 'What's the plan, Cap-

Wanda was still shaken up but seemed calmer with Clint there, and Bucky and Sam had been ready for this since Bucky first told them about Zemo's plan. The new guy, Scott, seemed nervous. Steve watched his hands shake as he slid them into his odd Ant-Man gloves. Tony and the others were waiting for them, they were going to try and stop them. For the good of everyone, Steve couldn't let that happen. He stood taller, shoulders going back, and around him the rag tag group snapped to attention. 'Here's what's going to happen-

It's not like he had been expecting it to be easy. He has a whole new team now; he has to start over from scratch. But he can't quite recall it every being this hard before. He can't recall waking up in the morning and thinking to himself that this is the day he'll just stay in. This is the day he'll hide, let his team sort themselves out, let someone else handle it. Even in those first few months with the Avengers when he and Tony could barely stay civil through one conversation and everyone kept pushing into Barton's sore spots completely unawares, there had still been something there that held them together. 

There's nothing here. It's not fair of him, to hold them up to ghosts and find them wanting. He should try harder. But the thought of - of making a team out of this, caring for them and having them all ripped away is just -

"Captain," Sam prompts. "Orders?" He has stepped farther away than any of them, holding himself back or holding himself close or both, Steve doesn't know anymore. 

There is untapped fury in Diamondback's posture, another week of Madame Hydra slipping out of her grasp. Cloak is exhausted and Dagger curls more and more protectively around him by the minute. Sam's entire body is sagging to the floor but when Steve sends him away, he knows the younger man will just wander out to 42 and stare at all the prisoners, trying to reconcile the fact that he now knows what they're going through.

"I'll get this to Fury. Hit the showers, team. You did good work today." It sounds rote even to his own ears but they all nod and depart at his dismissal.

Fury accepts the data but refuses the report, telling Steve to get some rest and come in with his team tomorrow. In the quiet of his room, Steve lays on the bed and runs his silent phone through his hands, the one that never rings. He's beginning to think it never will.

Used to, when Tony was 'retired' and only visited the compound to upgrade some gear and work with Wilson at building Redwing, he had an apartment on the top floor that he split with the rest of the reserve members - Barton, Rhodes, Banner, Thor.

Immediately after Rhodey's fall, though, it was a trial for his friend just to make it to his elevator to get to the fourth floor. So Tony tore out some conference rooms and cobbled together a suite for the both of them. "Just like college," he crowed when he showed Rhodey, trying and failing to keep his hands from hovering at the other man's elbows while he traipsed unsteadily around on his braces.

Back then, it had been a struggle for both of them to keep their distance from one another. Back then, Tony's entire chest had been covered in a plaster while what was left of his bones settled. There were brand new stitches from where Helen Cho had cut him open and replaced the broken fiberglass sternum.

(He had come out of that surgery to find Rhodey by his bedside in a wheelchair, holding the cleaned remains of the fiberglass in his hands, running his fingers over the deep cracks that had come from the suit's reactor being driven into Tony's chest. 

"Throw that away, Jesus, Rhodes," Tony had ordered.

Rhodey hadn't even looked up. "I have tried so hard to keep you safe," he whispered. "But I guess I don't know how."

"Rhodey, no. Jim," Tony had pleaded. "Come on, I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you. This was bad luck. The exact right angle. Or wrong angle, I guess."

Rhodey had relaxed after that but Tony is sure to this day that if he searches long enough, he'll find his old sternum wrapped up in a room somewhere. A reminder.)

Now they are both healed as best as they can be but they still share a suite. It is there Kamala Khan finds them, drinking hot chocolate that Lila Barton, the utter sweetheart, is wandering around the compound handing out to the various Avengers.

They are on the phone with Luke Cage at the moment and Kamala points towards the door in question but Tony waves her off. "Luke," he says into the air. "No one will care. Well, someone will, but do you really care? Tell them to kiss your ass. Peacefully."

"I hear ya, Stark. Just having to ask you this makes me wanna knock someone's head around but I figured better safe than sorry. I'm supposed to be working with the police, you know. Going to a BLM rally is gonna ruffle a few feathers."

Rhodey scoffs. "Any good cop isn't gonna care about you exercising your right to free speech, Cage. Anyone who does, let us know. It'll be helpful to know which ones we need to watch out for."

"Ruffle away," Tony agrees. "The Accords won't stop you."

"I just thought you deserved a heads up, at least," Cage says grudgingly. "I owe you one for keeping attention off Jessica. I'm pretty sure she wants to be a part of the Defenders but the Accords still make her nervous."

"Understandable," Tony says. Jessica Jones had made the council very wary, but so far Tony is keeping them placated by insisting that she was acting to help her friends and not in any official capacity. It wouldn't last forever, but it would give Jessica time. "Good luck at the rally. Be cool, Cage."

"You know it. Before I go, I sent you an email about this Iron Fist tearing up Harlem's hotspots. You get it?"

"I'm sorta drowning in emails right now, Cage. Threat assessment?"

"None, in my opinion, but whoever this fool is, they are making a lot of people nervous. Daredevil and I are gonna try to talk to him. Might need an assist if it goes south."

"Great. Keep us posted."

"Will do. Cage out."

There is a low hum as the call disconnects that ebbs away into silence. Kamala is staring up at the ceiling in awe, coming back to when Tony waves his mug in her general direction. "Hot chocolate?"

"I, um. Already had two cups," Kamala stammers. "Was that Luke Cage?"

"He of the endless yellow shirts? Yeah."

"He's going to a Black Lives Matter protest?"

"Thinking about it," Rhodey answers. He is currently pouring over the codes for the new AI Tony has built for War Machine. He mutters out of the side of his mouth, "We are not naming her JOCASTA."

Tony purses his lips. "Kamala, what do you think of JOCASTA? As a name?"

"It's...it's nice, I guess?"

"HA!" Tony shouts at Rhodey. "Queen Khan has spoken. JOCASTA it is."

"What does that even stand for?" Rhodey demands.

"Just Original Computing Artificial Sentient Tactical Assistant," Tony rattles off. Kamala and Rhodey stare at him.

"Did you," the young girl begins. "Did you just make that up?" Tony's smile turns a bit smug. 

Rhodey sets the tablet down with a huff. "Whatever, we'll all end up calling her Jo anyway. What can we do for you, Ms. Khan?"

Kamala seems to come back to herself, squaring her shoulders. "Well, I-" And then she loses the plot again, looking to Tony like she's lost and he's a compass. "Will he really be okay? Mr. Cage. Going to a rally like that? People won't get mad?"

"People are stupid," Tony says bluntly. "Of course they'll get mad. But if you're asking if its okay for a superhero to do it? Yes, still very okay. The Accords didn't make us mindless attack dogs, Kamala."

"But, I guess I'd have to get used to that, huh?" Kamala asks dully. "If I ever...became an Avenger. Double checking everything I do, looking over my shoulder. People would always - because of who I am, you know."

In the set of her shoulders is a lifetime of discrimination. "Who you are has nothing to do with it," Rhodey says quietly. "That's all somebody else's ignorance, Kamala. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that its easy or fair - people are a lot more comfortable with Tony than they are with say, me or even Natasha even though we're just as good as he is."

Tony nods. "Better, really." That gets something like a smile out of Kamala. "But the rest of team will be there to back you up no matter what. Have you even got a chance to look at the Accords, yet, Ms. Khan?"

"No," she says slowly, her eyes darting away. A pause, and then she sort of shakes herself, sucking in an irritated breath. "That wasn't why I came here, anyway."

Tony lets her have the abrupt change in topic. "What was it, then?"

"I...well I was wondering if we could get out of the compound?" she asks, toeing the ground. "It's just that I haven't really been out since the funeral and I kind of miss the city."

"Sure, no problem," Tony says immediately, kicking himself for not realizing how long Kamala and her brother have been cooped up in here. "You and Aamir are welcome to any of the cars in the-"

"Actually," Kamala says, blushing at interrupting him. "I was thinking all of us could go somewhere. It would be fun, Tony. Miss Natasha doesn't do anything but work and Donnie says you haven't been out of lab in weeks and Vision is...Vision, so. I thought we could - well the Avengers are supposed to be-" She stops, breathing a little hard and looking almost upset, and Tony feels a sympathetic tug in his chest that he absent-mindedly rubs at. "Maybe when Miss Hope comes back? It...it would be fun."

The rooms falls silent as Kamala adamantly refuses to meet their eyes and Tony focuses on the table. Beside him, Rhodey shifts in his seat. "Well," he begins, and when they both look at him he is wearing a large, sly grin. "I think that sounds like a great idea, Kamala. Any idea what you want to do? Tony sort of owns the world, so he can get you anything."

Kamala's blush intensifies as a small, hopeful grin blooms on her face. "Really? That - well I was thinking, maybe everyone won't like it but since this was my idea they can deal - but I'd really like to go see The Phantom of the Opera. My parents saw it on their 25th anniversary and it was their favorite. My dad used to sing Michael Crawford to my mom," she trails off wistfully. 

Almost against his will, Tony's fingers begin to beat out Music of the Night against his heart. God, but his mother hated that play. 'Cheesy, overdramatic shlock!' she cried. Dad used to buy her tickets every year for her last five birthdays just to hear her fly into one of her impassioned rants. Of course, Howard always had her real gift waiting in the wings. The Phantom tickets went to friends, coworkers, the Jarvises, even Obie (it was Stane's secret shame. Tony had gotten him an autographed mask once. Tony doesn't want to think about that.)

(Tony doesn't want to think of any of this.)

"Sure, Kamala," he croaks. "When Hope gets back, alright?"

Kamala perks up. "Thank you, Mr. Stark." At Tony's jerky nod she bounces a little so that she briefly stretches up to seven feet tall before coming back down. "It'll be fun, I promise. I'll ask and see who wants to go. Thank you, thank you!"

She scurries out of the room and Rhodey's smile has turned incredibly smug. "What?" Tony says.

"You pushover," Rhodey laughs. "You hate Phantom of the Opera. I've never seen you disappointed in Pepper except for that one time she told you the ending made her cry. Don't forget a ticket for her or she'll kick your ass." Tony just pushes at his shoulder with a roll of his eyes. "And buy an extra for me, would you? Carol will be coming down. I think she'd like it."

Tony flops back in his chair, pushing harder at his chest. "Oh god. I'm like a sugar daddy with none of the benefits."

Today is the day, Steve thinks as he lies in bed. Today is the day he won't get up. It's nice here. It's warm. He's safe. Just today. He'll be better tomorrow.

 What's one more day, though? There's a whole endless stretch of time out in front of him. Steve has time. Steve has nothing but time. He'll wait here, until its better. He'll be better. Tomorrow.

There's a knock on his door.

When he levers himself out of bed he aches in a way he is unaccustomed to, not even back when he weighed ninety-five pounds and was constantly on the verge of death. This ache has somehow gotten into his bones and weighs him down. The bed seems insanely tempting.

Diamondback is at the door, magenta hair in a tight ponytail but sans mask or makeup. She's just Rachel Leighton, former convict, right now, and there is nothing bright or dangerous in her eyes but the critical assessment of a skilled agent.

"Madame Hydra fights with a whip," she tells him unnecessarily. He just blinks at her. "Your legwork is shit and it makes you an easy target for distanced attacks. That's why she got away last time. Look, Rogers," oh, and she's definitely Rachel right now if she's using his last name. "Fury told me to be on my best behavior, work with you, and I'd get my girl. But you're not giving me a lot to work with. I want that bitch dead and you're going to help me do it. Ergo, you and I are working on your legwork today. Pull on your big boy super tights and let's roll."

"Leighton," he begins, and she holds up a hand.

"Not a single part of that was a request. Move it or lose it, Rogers." She flicks her hand and a shuriken is there in her palm. Steve sighs and surrenders to his fate.

Diamondback is an even better gymnast than Natasha and nearly impossible to pin down. She bounces around the training room, attacking him from a distance, and by the time she is done with him he's bleeding from several gashes on his leg. "Maybe we should get some rubber darts for you," he tells her when she digs her nails into a cut just to see him wince.

"Oh, I have them," she says cheerfully, and licks the blood off her fingertips because she is probably insane. "I just choose not to use them. Your legwork is still shit. Who taught you to fight?" Steve answers that with a glare that has absolutely no affect on her. "Well. Maybe you're just a slow learner. We'll work on it."

"Why is this so important to you?" he asks her, retracting his hardlight shield into its wristband. Rachel aims a confused glance at him.

"Did you read my file?" When he shakes his head she frowns. "Did you read any of our files? Madame Hydra captured me and my partners. She tortured us for months then she shot my two best friends up with that Terrigenesis crap. Neither of them lived. I was supposed to be next but something spooked her. She got sloppy and I escaped."

"I'm sorry," Steve says carefully. Rachel shrugs, looking away, her blue gaze going somewhere very far away.

"Don't be. All I want is for you to help me get even. And you know-" She turns to him, taps him on the cheek with her still bloody fingertips. "Maybe to smile, at least once. I bet you have a nice smile. Guys like you always do."

Steve tries for one right then and knows he misses by a mile. Nothing seems to fit him right nowadays. Rachel's smirk fades as she watches him.

"You and your friend," she says softly. "Are very sad. It's kinda bringing down the whole mood. So. Fix it. Fury says we need you but I'm not sure about that." Steve just stares at her bleakly, her words wrapping around his brain like cotton. He thought he was fixing it. He thought he was making the first step, with this team, with the Accords and Tony, with everything, but its like he's been walking in circles, wearing down a trench for himself and now he can't get out. Rachel smiles as gently as she can, and its still all razorblade edges. "Convince me, Rogers," she says. "We'll do this every day until you do."

"I heard about Kamala's plan," Bruce mentions to him one day as they work quietly in the lab. Vision is interfacing with JOCASTA, preparing her to enter the War Machine suit while Donnie works on the lagging hip joint that's giving Rhodey so many problems. Tony acutely misses Peter for a moment then shoves it away. "Team bonding, huh? It sounds like it'll be fun."

Tony looks up, the wording of that bugging him. "You're coming along, right?"

Bruce shrugs. "I know Ross isn't a problem anymore but I think keeping a low profile is in my best interest right now."

"Oh, come on, Dr. Banner," Donnie wheedless from his workplace. "You've got to! Vision's coming. Even I'm going, so you being there won't-" He catches the dismayed look that crosses Tony's face and his mouth clicks shut, his expression going carefully blank as he sets down his tools. "I am coming, aren't I? I mean, I've been around everyone now for dinner and Kamala said I could."

Kamala isn't in charge of you.

"Kid," Tony says softly, and Donnie's whole face screws up tight. "If SHIELD sees you out with us - and they will, Don, they've got spies everywhere -"

"So I'll wear a baseball cap and some sunglasses, it'll be fine!" Donnie insists. Vision has disengaged from JOCASTA at this point and even FRIDAY's constant hum has gone quiet. "Or make me a disguise, or something. You can't stop me from going out!"

Tony turns to him fully, taking a step towards him. "I just - I'm not sure it's a good idea-"

"So a normal life is only for everybody else, huh?"

"-I'm not sure it's safe-"

"FOR WHO?" Donnie yells, and Tony can't figure out how this has spiraled so badly out of control. "For me or for everybody else? I've passed all my triggers twice now, but you've never once talked about letting me out of here!"

"Where do you want to go, Bliz?" Tony demands. "You said not to let SHIELD have you, but what do you think is going to happen the moment you step foot outside of this compound?" 

"You said you'd protect me, I didn't think that meant you'd lock me up in your basement. You're just like them!" Tony feels his whole body flinch. He doesn't know who Donnie is referring to, SHIELD or HYDRA. He doesn't want to know. He doesn't - he isn't -

Bruce sets down a beaker. "Donald."

"Donnie," Tony says, wondering if everyone else can hear the thread of desperation in his voice. "I just want you to be safe."

"Then make me an Avenger, then!" Donnie shouts. "Make it so they can't touch me." Tony just stares at him for a long moment, calculating risks and scenarios and probabilities and Donnie's face just grows more and more wretched. "You don't trust me at all, do you?" he asks. His voice is all over the place, quiet devastation running ragged all over it. "You've - you know how much I try and you still...look at me like I'm -"

"No," Tony says through nerveless lips. "That's not it at all, kid-"

"STOP CALLING ME KID!" Blizzard screams, and his arms ice up to his elbows in a sparkling flash of blue. Everyone in the room tenses and watches Donnie stare in mute horror at his small loss of control. Tony did this to him, pushed him to this point. Donnie drops his hands to his side and snarls at the floor, unable to meet anyone's eyes. He is ashamed of himself, Christ, Tony never wanted this for him. "If you need me, I'll be in my cage."

Tony gets his feet into motion, chases after Donnie, reaches out and grabs him by his frozen forearm. "Donald. Of course you can come, I'll build you a holo or something. I-"

"Forget it, Stark," Donnie spits, wrenching himself away. "I don't want your pity." He stalks out of the door and it slides shut behind him, blocking Tony off. He stares at the blacked-out glass, clenching his icy fingers, feeling the prickles of numbness all up his arm. 

"Tony," someone says softly. Bruce is beside him, taking his hand, rubbing the fingers between his own to get warmth circulating back through them. "He's just upset, okay? Give him some space and talk to him later."

"Like he'll want to talk to me after that," Tony says distantly, disdainfully. Bruce sighs.

"That young man worships the ground you walk on, Tony. He just wants you to be proud of him."

Tony starts at that, looking at Bruce like he's crazy. "Of course I'm proud of him. Do you know what that kid has done in the past four months? Nothing short of incredible."

Bruce smiles softly. "Have you told him that?"

"I-" Tony stumbles back a little at the realization. "Jesus. I'm my father. I'm actually Howard. Please shoot me, Bruce."

"Sorry, Tony," the other scientist laughs. "No easy way out for this one. Just take it slow, okay? And for God's sake, Tony, let him go to the show. If you can't keep him safe, no one can. Even if you can't, this is his choice."

Bruce pats him on the shoulder and beckons to Vision, who runs his smooth hand once through Tony's hair before passing through the door after Bruce, leaving Tony alone. He staggers back to his work station, peering at the notes he was assembling on the Terrigenesis formula.

Don't you know what this is?

"FRIDAY," he begins, dropping the notes, then stops. 

"Boss?"

"Call," he tries. "Call Wakanda, will you?"

FRIDAY doesn't have a ringtone, so he listens to the silence, staring at his video screen and watching the loading icon circle on its duplicate. He is just about to make FRIDAY end it when suddenly T'Challa appears, blinking blearily into the camera and not wearing a shirt.

"Tony," he rumbles, trying so obviously to pull on a dignified mask even though Tony has just woken him. "What is wrong? Is this an Assembly?"

"No, no," Tony assures him. "I just. Um." T'Challa blinks at him slowly, once, twice, slightly puzzled.

"T'Challa," Tony says.

Instantly T'Challa straightens, all haziness gone from his eyes. "What is wrong?" he demands.

"Nothing," Tony insists, and it sounds like a plea. "I don't know why I called. I just - I messed up. And I-"

"How?" T'Challa asks, but there is no judgement. Tony explains, haltingly, about Donnie and the fight and the show, this thing building in the Avengers compound that feels strangely like a family, this thing that he's supposed to support but he has no idea how.

"And I know what you said about me," Tony says in a near whisper. "That I'm controlling cause I'm scared. Maybe you're right, whatever, I don't know. Even if that were true, I wouldn't be able to figure out how not to be."

"You have to trust them, Tony," T'Challa says gently.

Tony can feel his mouth twist in an uncomfortable grimace. "And what if I can't do that, either?"

"Tony, I know you trust me," T'Challa tells him when Tony finally summons up the courage to meet his eyes. They are darker than his, darker in the shadows of his camera, but warm. "I know you trust the Widow and the Spider and the Machine. Even the Vision. And they know it, too. The only one who doesn't know is you."

Tony rubs at his chest and the bridge of his nose simultaneously, nodding. He does. He'd put his life in Nat's hands any day, and he'd place his soul in Rhodey's without hesitation. But there are parts of him that he has to keep safe, parts where he can't let anyone reach anymore. He let Steve in there, and he didn't even realize it. Followed the man proudly on the field, admired the hell out of him off of it. There was nothing Rogers could do that would convince Tony to leave his side. Until there was.

And he wasn't naive enough to think that it went both ways, that Steve would follow him into the gates of hell or whatever charming phrases those army types said, but he thought Steve would follow him far enough. 

And now that Steve has forcibly torn himself out of the space he had carved into Tony, now that Obie is gone and Aunt Peggy, too, what is he supposed to do? Is he just supposed to try again? Hope for the best? Just let the world keep having go after go at him and keep getting up over and over again?

Tony can't. He can't do this again.

"You must try," T'Challa says, like he's reading Tony's mind. Or maybe Tony's been rambling out loud, he does that when he's over tired. 

"I'm sorry I keep doing this to you," he mumbles to the screen. T'Challa laughs in a sleep-heavy rumble that has Tony swaying towards the sound.

"It is quite alright. I get to practice all my sage kingly advice on you. I thought my father-" T'Challa breathes in. "I thought it came naturally to a king. Now I am not so sure."

Tony huffs. "Yep. All those fatherly lectures? You and your sister were just guinea pigs for talking down pissed politicians."

"No wonder he was so effective," T'Challa says fondly, gaze turning inwards for a moment before he looks into the camera. "I am glad you woke me, though, for I have good news. France and England have promised that if the Accords can be maintained for two years they will consider our amendment to the original charter and the United States is seeing positive signs in the negotiations with the council to allow the Avengers the clause Captain Rogers suggested."

"Worldwide police force. Gonna act the part, gotta pay the dues, I guess. Germany's going to take some convincing," Tony mutters. "Still. Yeah. Good job, T'Challa."

T'Challa's eyes are gleaming. "This is what my father dreamed of. Thank you, Tony Stark."

"No problem, ThunderCat," Tony says weakly. "Get some sleep."

T'Challa wishes him well, eyes already going heavy-lidded, and Tony sits in the quiet of his lab, feeling maybe not as terrible as he could.

Sam lets himself into his room without knocking, barely raising an eyebrow when he sees Steve sprawled out on the floor surrounded by files. "Good reading?"

Steve shrugs. "Catching up. Should have done this two weeks ago." Sam nods and pulls his hands out from behind his back, revealing a large bottle of rum before he trundles over and slides down the desk opposite Steve, reaching for Dagger's file.

"You mind?"

Steve grabs the bottle himself and cracks it open, taking a long swallow before turning another page on Rachel Leighton's horror show of a life. "Why the hell not."

He thought nobody would ever quite beat Natasha and Bruce in terms of sheer traumatic childhoods, and while Cloak and Diamondback are not quite on their level, the things they went through are real in a way that hurts. No Red Rooms or obsessive generals or drunk fathers, but multiple foster homes and stints where they are unaccounted for. The psychologist who assembled their profiles remarks that they were most likely living on the streets during this time.

Both Cloak and Dagger have been Inhumans from a relatively young age, and Diamondback was enhanced in some way, probably similar to Natasha's extra-ordinary skills. Dagger is no walk in the park to get through, having spent three years blind after an injury acquired in a SHIELD operation. There are notes from that time period advising her handler to 'take her out' as she was a liability but the handler apparently refused; not for Dagger's sake, but for the influence she had over Cloak. The whole thing makes Steve want to hurl, so he drinks instead.

It explains things about his teammates that he should have been wondering; things he could have figured out just by talking to them. He never had to go through Natasha's file to get her to open up to him, and he waited years for Tony to tell him the story of Afghanistan instead of looking it up himself. No wonder Cloak and Dagger are so obsessively devoted to one another - no only do their power complement each other but surely they have to be aware they are what keeps the other alive. And no wonder the consistently-abandoned Rachel latched so hard onto her friends, and now feels their loss so keenly that she'll stop at nothing to destroy the woman who took them from her.

When he has read each file four times, memorized every aspect, and drunk at least a quarter of the bottle, he pushes the papers away. Sam's dark, slightly hazy eyes watch him intently for a moment before he tips his head back and stares at the ceiling.

"It's harder here, huh?" he asks after a moment.

"We doing this?" Steve grumbles. Sam just flicks his foot sharp against Steve's calf and Steve deflates. "Yeah. Yeah, it's hard. You okay?"

Sam hums. "Nah," he decides, says it frank like it's normal. "I don't...know what I'm doing? No, that's not it. I know, but its like slogging through snow uphill to get there."

"I've done that," Steve remarks. "Trust me, it was a lot easier than this."

"Like I can't get my ass in gear," Sam says. "Like I'm waiting for something." Steve glances over at the phone that won't ring.

"Guess we don't really have time for waiting?" he murmurs.

Sam sighs, stretches out wide, eyes him tiredly. "Steve, man, it's like I keep saying. Just let it settle. Figure it out. Then move. You keep turning back."

As if on cue, the phone lights up and vibrates, showing a new message for Steve. He jolts a little, the bottle scraping against the cold floor, before glancing over at Sam like he needs permission, receiving a sardonic eyebrow lift in response. He snatches the phone up, bringing up the message, and stares at it for what seems like forever, drinking in every detail. He's caught between anger and something else, something now unfamiliar. He surprises himself.

He laughs.

"What?" Sam demands over his chuckles. "What is it?"

Steve hands it over, watches Sam take in the same picture he had, sent from Natasha's phone. It's a snap of one of his drawings on the Accords, his own head in cartoon form, giant wings sprouting out of the side of his head. Beside it, written in Tony's blocky engineer's print, is the sentence: Pop quiz everyone: What does the A on Cap's head stand for?

ASSHOLE, is directly underneath it, in what is most likely Rhodey's scrawl.

Is it not America? Cursive and elegant and oblivious, must be Vision.

AVENGER! He remembers that writing, it's Bruce's. Wait. No. Those are on the shoulders.

Clint's messy scrawl is next: We're just ignoring the wings? We're ignoring the wings. Okay.

The wings are weird, Natasha agrees.

After a pause, Sam begins laughing as well. If it sounds a little choked, neither of them mention it.

She sends him more, over the next few days, the embellishments to his drawings and words. Some are funny, like when Clint warped his drawing of a panther in motion to the Hulk riding a kitten. Some make him angry, like the few times someone will just write 'NO.' under one of his suggestions. Some make him sad, like the drawing he made of Tony back when they first met that Tony has viciously scribbled out the arc reactor from, leaving the smirking, bright-eyed man in the drawing with a dark hole in his chest.

Some make him hopeful. Steve has taken one of the parts of the charter that discuss the rules within the Avengers Initiative itself to task, pointing out that nowhere in there does it necessarily protect the council from deciding they can change these rules to suit their own whims, and suggested a fix. Tony has circled this multiple times.

Might be a good idea, it says underneath it in his scrawl.

And it's not better. He still wakes up, listens to Rachel knocking on the door, and thinks that today is the day. He misses Bucky. He misses the compound and his bed and his shield. He misses Nat like crazy, Wanda and Viz. He's not sure he misses Tony because Tony is not someone he ever had, but he does it anyway. His stubborness is funny like that.

But this - this is hope, even just a little. Steve Rogers can do a lot with a little.

Today is the day, he thinks. But tomorrow will be better.

Tony!

That is Pepper's voice, and his mother's, and Steve's. Tony is eight and twenty-one and forty and forty-six. His pulse beats like a hummingbird at his neck and he can hear the thrum of it all through the bunker. Tony is eight, trying to keep his hero Bucky Barnes calm. Tony is twenty-one, and Bucky's cries cannot be heard over his own. Tony is forty and locked up tight in his suit, cannot help. Tony is forty-six and shoves his fist through Bucky's heart.

Bucky bleeds out dark blue. Howard is in Tony's ear, hissing Don't you know what this is?

Tony wakes up in his lab, passed out the couch, and DUM-E is by his side, trying to wake him.

"FRIDAY," he gasps. He can't get up. His chest weighs a ton. Is he - still dreaming? This doesn't look like Afghanistan.

"Boss, I think you need help." Not Afghanistan. Labs. Safe. No blood, no - he can't think over that sound, what is that sound?

"I'm fine - Wakanda, Fry."

FRIDAY is silent. Oh god, that sound is him. Tony wrenches himself upright by DUM-E's arm, bringing the bot close when he whines. "Sorry, buddy, but I need - Wakanda, FRIDAY. Now."

The formula floats on screen as FRIDAY brings up the video call. Tony can see the barest reflection of himself, his huge dark eyes sunk into his face, the sallowness of his skin. T'Challa answers more quickly this time, fully dressed and probably headed to a meeting. "I am beginning to think you miss-" The king glances at the screen and his entire face changes. Tony belatedly realizes he's still gasping and forcibly stops.

"Barnes," he croaks, and T'Challa's eyes narrow. "Where is Barnes, T'Challa? Did he go with Rogers?"

"Why?" 

Tony swallows. Swallows again. Don't you know what this is? "I need his help. Everyone does. He - the serum. I need his blood." 

Chapter Text

"Explain."

Tony can hardly hear T'Challa's sharp request over the buzzing in his ears. Barnes. The only living recipient of Zola's bastardized serum, the only serum Dad would have been able to get his hands on -

"I think my dad," he breathes. "I think my dad might have done something terrible."

 "God, I hated him," Tony said, and then clapped his hand over his mouth and bent at the waist.

Hands caught him at the shoulder and the temple, smoothing over skin and expensive twill. "Hush, now," Peggy whispered. "No one's here but me. None of this, now, Tony, stand up. It's quite alright."

"It's quite alright that I hated him?" Tony laughed hysterically from behind his hand, straightening up under his godmother's guidance. He hadn't expected her to come find him, expected her to stay and mingle downstairs with all those government agents like she always did. Dear Margaret Carter who liked to sit at the dinner table and frown while he and Dad sniped at each other across the table. "Why are you here? Did you bring my cousins?"

"No. Your friend James is having difficulty extracting himself from people who like to talk shop at funerals and Obadiah's company is probably not what you're after right now."

"I'm not after anyone's company, Agent Carter." Because Tony never knew how to address her and letting her be Aunt Peggy today, the day he put his parents in the ground, letting himself have the illusion of family when it was all gone was asking too much of him. "I'm after a bourbon."

A Scotch is thrust under his nose almost immediately and he took it after turning to see Peggy sipping down one of her own. Must have had them waiting. She watched him silently for a moment, watched him swallow down the Scotch in two great gulps, and sighed, touching her tumbler to her chin in a hand that shook. Affectation to endear him to her or real weakness? Tony never knew with her. 

"You're not the only one-"

"I am the only one," Tony snarled. "They were my parents before they were your friends or their friends or anybody's anything. I am the only one."

"-who hated him," she finished quietly. Tony snorted and she raised an eyebrow, setting the drink down. "Oh, not all the time. It was impossible to hate him all the time, even for you, I'd imagine, or saying it out loud wouldn't have had you so out of sorts. But he could be a right bastard sometimes."

"Speaking ill of the dead, Pegs?" 

"Facts, my dearest," she said wistfully, and began to cry quietly. "There were so many things he never got over. He should have had more time. I'm so sorry, Tony."

"This," he says, scrambling at his holographic keypads. T'Challa says his name once, twice, with increasing urgency. "FRIDAY, throw up the formula that we found."

It floats up on the screen and T'Challa glances sidelong at it, keeping the brunt of his gaze on Tony even as his hand disappears off screen to tap at something. "This," Tony says. "Bruce recognized bits and pieces of Erskine's original, Red Skullifying formula from his work before he became the Hulk. We knew - we knew it was similar. But this. I have seen this before."

Don't you know what this is?

"Where?" T'Challa says, eyes narrowed.

"My dad's files. It must have been. It must have - don't you see? My dad was an engineer, how, why would he create a super soldier serum, except he was fucking obsessed with Steve Rogers. FRIDAY, why didn't you catch this?" Tony whirls around to view the lab at large.

"You locked the Stark files down, Boss, shall I-"

"Yes," Tony hisses, turning back to the screen. "Do you get it?" His father, in the dream, pumping that viscous liquid into Barnes while the other Winter Soldiers looked on. All the versions of the formula were gone, except those known by Arnim Zola, a man the US Government had let into SHIELD. A man who used his cover to experiment on Barnes for years and years before he went HAL 9000. 

T'Challa is watching him warily and his hands have inched towards the screen like he wants to reach through it. "You want Barnes' blood - to prove a theory about your father?"

Tony rears back. "What - no - that's not," he splutters. He feels like his head isn't on straight. Don't you know what this is? "If we can find out how this was created - if we know the basics we can stabilize the formula, it won't hurt anyone anymore, we could neutralize-"

"Tony?" Tony hadn't even heard the door open, but Rhodey is standing there, leaning heavily on his crutches with his legs wrapped up in the lightweight braces Tony made him for sleep. Tony looks back and forth between Rhodey and T'Challa as his best friend slowly approaches. "Tones, what's happening?"

"Did you call him?" Tony asks T'Challa.

"You seemed to be in distress," the king replies. "I was worried."

"I'm fine!" Tony nearly shouts, then turns away from him, grabbing his rolling stool and placing it close to Rhodey just as Bruce walks into the lab as well, rubbing at his eyes.

"I got to tell you, the other guy is not happy about three AM wake-up calls, what's-" The scientist finally looks up at the tableau in front of him: Rhodey, still standing with his hand outstretched towards Tony, T'Challa observing with a strained expression, and Tony in the middle of them. "Jesus, Tony, you're - sit down before you keel over."

"I'm fine," Tony insists again, pointing an accusing figure at the screen. "Privacy is apparently something they don't teach in Wakanda, I'm fine. Bruce, listen to me, I figured out the formula."

"You did?" Bruce asks, surprised. Rhodey shoves the stool at Tony, reaching out for him again, but Tony finds himself jolting back, knowing that if anyone touches him right now he will careen into the stars and the desert and not come back down again for awhile.

"FRIDAY?" he snaps.

"Located, Boss."

She throws up a projection of one of Howard Stark's thousands of scribbles, something that Tony must have looked at a thousand times but eventually threw in the 'Not Helpful' pile. On it is the formula, in the middle, with about ten different paths branching out from it. One of them is cordoned off but the rest look like guesswork. 'In absence of ray,' a scrawled note says, and Tony remembers seeing that for the first time and wondering what the fuck in meant.

In absence of the VitaRay.

"I knew it," he breathes, facing T'Challa. "Do you get it now? This is my father's work, he must have based it off of Barnes' serum because it was the only source left, and I have to be sure-"

"Tony," Bruce says on a gasp.

Rhodey puts the crutches to the side and like a puppet on a string Tony lunges for him before he falls. Rhodey wraps his hands around Tony's shoulders, tight, so tight, and forces Tony down into a chair. "Tony," he says, and he sounds a bit scared. "Breathe for me, okay? You're not making any sense."

"What about this doesn't make sense?" Tony says wildly. Why are they looking at him like this, like he's to be feared? If he's right, and he's always right, then his father has made a huge mistake, and Tony has to fix this. "If we can isolate Barnes' serum and find it in Terrigenesis, then great. But what if its not? What if it's a different formula, my father's formula? He would never have settled for Barnes. Barnes is weaker than Steve, slower, doesn't heal as fast. Do you - do you know what my father was like? Anything that wasn't Steve wasn't good enough, he would have never settled for Zola's work. He had to do better, of course he fucking did."

"Tony," Bruce says. "You are talking about turning James Barnes into a lab experiment. Don't you think he's been through enough?"

That reaches down to something deep inside of him and twists, oh God, this hurts. "Who do you think I am, Bruce? It's not like I'm gonna hunt the man down. I want to ask. I need his help."

"The Winter Soldiers created under your father's formula," T'Challa says quietly. "They were unstable. This is what you fear. That HYDRA is using a stronger but less stable formula to create Terrigenesis."

"That would explain the death rate, but not why Terrigenesis is giving people strange powers," Bruce interjects. "Kamala's amazing, but she's not a super soldier."

"That's beside the point-" Tony begins, but T'Challa slices his hand through the air and he falls silent. He hasn't seen the expression in T'Challa's eyes outside of news clips from right after the bombing.

"That is exactly the point," the king says. "If this is your father's work, fixing it will not solve the problem, Tony. You will not be able to take back the lives that have been lost. You will only be creating a more perfect version of something that should have never existed."

Tony shakes his head, hands gripping down tight over Rhodey's, still on his shoulder. "No. No, listen to me. Let me talk to Barnes. All I need is a comparison. All I need is to see-"

"What you're talking about is pure conjecture," Rhodey tells him softly, sadly. "Tones, listen to me, I know that this looks bad, but you're half out of your head right now. You just need some sleep, okay, and we can talk about this more in the morning." Tony's head is still shaking and Rhodey's voice gets firmer, slips into that dangerous territory it did when he took Tony's suit. "Say you are right, Tones, what is this gonna change? What is this gonna help except your guilty conscience?"

Tony's eyes snap up to meet his friend's, pained but resolute. "Rhodey," he croaks. "Don't..." He goes quiet and still for a moment, dropping one hand from Rhodey's and resting it on the table. If his father - if his father -

It beats like a drum in his head.

If his father had created something like this, the man who had always made sure to pressure to Tony that innovation was good but a flawless product was better, if he had done this, used a mad scientist notes to create himself a new Steve Rogers - if his mistakes could be corrected, another atrocity Tony had been blind to his whole life, was he seriously supposed to sit back and let it go?

Of course, they had a point. Learning how to finally fix the serum with the science they had now might not fix Terrigenesis, and even if it did, all those people had still died. What was the point in correcting it? Hadn't Tony just promised himself today that he wouldn't fall into the same traps Howard Stark had? 

But if his father - if his father -

If his mother died for this to be the outcome - Jesus, that is unbearable -

"Tony," Rhodey says, and a hand closes down over the fingers that had been beating wildly against the table top. The four men sit in the silence for a moment and Tony can't bring himself to look up.

"If we could use it," Tony says, a last ditch that should have been the first thing to occur to him and he couldn't hate himself more. "To find a cure for Terrigenesis. Not everyone is as lucky as Kamala." He sees Bruce's head lift.

"Reverse engineering," the other man says under his breath. "Of course, why didn't we-"

"No," T'Challa says, sounding every inch the king he is. "I promised Sergeant Barnes my protection. I cannot allow him to be used like this. He has had enough."

Tony raises his head, eyes narrowed. "Let me ask him. Is he with Rogers? I mean, we're gonna have to chat anyway."

"And why is that?"

"Agent Romanov got me the evidence from Siberia documenting his treatment under HYDRA," Tony says sharply. "I'm taking it to the UN this week to ask for his pardon. Yes, he has had enough, T'Challa. But if it doesn't go well, and it probably won't, I'm fully prepared to take this to the press and get the people on our side. I wanted Barnes' permission before I did it. Just tell me if he's with Rogers." T'Challa remains silent, staring back at him, weighing him. "They're going to ask a lot of questions, Blade Liger. They're gonna want proof that Barnes is a functioning member of society. If he ever wants a normal life, he's going to have to talk eventually."

"Is that a threat, Tony?" T'Challa asks, dangerously soft.

"No," Tony grinds out. "But you know I'm telling the truth. He needs the BARF system. He doesn't get that without me. So tell me where he is."

"Tony," Rhodey says once, warningly.

T'Challa is looking at Tony like he doesn't quite recognize him and Tony could have never anticipated how much that would hurt. "You are tired, Tony," the king says wearily.

"He's not with Rogers, is he?" Tony whispers, and T'Challa's face falls even further.

"I will see you this coming week. I would like to see this trial," he says, not a snarl but a near thing, and the screen goes black. Tony stares at the dark panel for a very long moment and then it's as if all the fight leaves him in a moment.

"Aw, Tones," Rhodey says, reaching for his crutches with one hand while he holds tight to Tony with the other. "Let's go to bed."

"It's not as if I would enjoy it," Bruce says the next morning, looking as if he hasn't slept. "Asking for - for something like that. Promise me that if you see him, you won't just take it, Tony."

"Who do you think I am," Tony asks dully for the second time in twenty four hours.

Bruce observes him and very carefully responds "I think you're not yourself, around him."

"I've read the files," Steve says as he sits down next to Dagger. No, wait. They aren't on a mission, and she prefers to be called Tandy. "But explain it to me in your own words. How do you and Cloak work?"

Tandy looks away from where her partner is begrudgingly practicing with Diamondback. "Lookie, lookie, here," she sing-songs sweetly. "Steve Rogers deigning to speak with me outside a mission!" It is not unkind, but the rebuke is not subtle.

"Yeah, well," is all Steve offers. "I've been neglecting my duties as team leader, but not anymore."

"And how many times did you practice that in a mirror?" Her laughter is like tiny bells and Cloak looks over, distracted for a moment, until Diamondback drives a shuriken through his shoulder.

"Goddammit, Leighton, those are supposed to be rubber!"

"They haven't been rubber the last five times we did this, numbnuts, why would that change now?"

It is not the fun, teasing banter of his old team, of Natasha using a dirty trick to bring Clint to his knees or Thor powering Tony's armor to obscene levels that took out even the Hulk and briefly Steve thinks of interfering. But there's little point; Cloak has already told him several times that off the field he doesn't answer to Steve and Rachel never listens to anyone who isn't Fury and occasionally Dagger.

Tandy is watching him out of the corner of her eye, most of her attention focused on making sure Cloak doesn't swallow Diamondback up and send her to Antarctica. "Oh, Steve," she says, and she's the only one besides Sam who calls him by his first name. "Don't look so sad. Those two will kill each other one day and put us all out of their misery."

"You sound so cheerful."

"I'm always cheerful," Tandy says brightly. "It comes part and parcel of being the non-brooding half of a superhero duo. Seriously, though, don't worry about them. Leighton broke Tyrone's nose when they brought her in. He was quite attached to the shape of his nose. I don't think he's ever forgiven her." She laughs at her own joke and it rings out high and sweet, not like the slightly maniacal bend to Rachel's laughter twenty feet away as she dodges one of Cloak's traps. "To answer your question. I produce light energy, Cloak produces dark. We feed off of each other."

"What happens if he doesn't have you?"

"He gets very grumpy. Grumpy-er, I should say. Truly, that's it. We won't die or anything."

Steve leans back against the wall, gauging her face. As sweet as Tandy is, and she is his favorite of his three new teammates, she's been an agent for a long time. She was blind for three years. She probably has the meanest poker face this side of the Black Widow. "In your file," he says, a bit hesistant. "I saw your handler's report..."

"Oh, that," she says, waving her hand like her handler recommending her termination and ultimately rejecting it for how it would affect Cloak means nothing. "Don't mind that. I mean, don't kill me, because he will warp you into space, but he can survive without me. As I can without him."

"But would it be just that?" Steve questions. "Surviving?"

Tandy turns to him, her gaze suddenly shrewd. "Isn't that what we're all doing here, Captain?" she asks, and Steve raises an eyebrow. "Oh, don't be silly, Steve, do you think any of us are happy here? Are you happy here? Really, I find it hard to believe that you've ever been happy, but Rachel keeps telling me this is just your emo-phase and you'll snap out of it any day now.

"Make no mistake, Steve, we're all biding our time. You think it's any coincidence that Nick Fury keeps us all here with convenient little jail cells not five hundred meters away?" Steve stares at her, knowing his mouth has fallen open. Tandy's calculating expression, so out of place in those wide blue eyes, melts away as she pats Steve's arm sympathetically.

"That's not what we're doing here," Steve finally says. "You're right, this is temporary for me, but I'm not biding my time while I wait for something else." And if it feels a bit like a lie, well, Tandy's not the only one with a poker face. "What are you and Cloak going to do after this?"

"Be free," she says, shrugging. "Though that's a bit impossible now. SHIELD's special agents are protected from the Accords by virtue of being government agents. As soon as I step out that door with Cloak, who knows what will happen to us? Fury's waiting to see how long our best behavior can last and then he'll let us walk. Probably pushing us right into the Avengers' arms without us knowing."

"I thought you were supposed to be cheerful," Steve remarks dryly. Tandy smiles brilliantly, all white and blonde and bright, and he dimly wonders if everyone feels like some dismal dark thing next to her.

"Always cheerful," she stresses again. "But sensible. I have to be. Along with all the brooding, Tyrone took the rashness and recklessness. He leaves all the good qualities to me." The last part is said in a loud, carrying voice, and Cloak grimaces at her while Rachel's laughter comes from high above. Steve cannot spot where she's lurking in the rafters or how she got up there, but just last week she scaled a sheer wall using her darts and steel-tipped boots. "Look, you know Fury. If he could keep all of us under lock and key and only let us out when he wanted to use us, he would. The Accords must be driving him nuts. Imagine - superheroes answering to the United Nations, of all things! Quelle horreur!"

"He didn't interfere with us much before," Steve says, thinking of that time between SHIELD's fall and the Accords, that year where it was just the Avengers choosing their missions and where to go. And it jolts him, for an uncomfortable second, to realize that the choice was always there.

Tandy is a bit too composed to snort, but the sound she makes is very close. "Please, you were inundated with SHIELD operatives feeding you information. No, Tony Stark and his little group are further away than ever before. Be smart, Steve. You came here because Fury made a play for you. You don't think he's doing the same for the others?"

"You think he's trying to control Tony?" Steve is not too delicate to snort. "Tony usually only lets himself be manipulated because he thinks its funny when people try." He knows this, because the first time he ever heard Tony really laugh is when the man explained how he and Fury basically tricked each other into getting Tony on the team. It had not been a nice laugh, but that was how most of his firsts with Tony had gone. "Then again..."

"See?" Tandy says, teasing but sharp. "We're all just surviving here off the scraps Fury gives us. I thought you coming here might shake a things up but so far-" and she softens it with a smile so Steve doesn't feel so much like a waste of space.

"I..." he says, trying to think. She lays a hand on his shoulder.

"Steve, we all know its been rough on you. Rachel's a psychopath, but she means well, getting you out and about," she says. "But if you're not biding time here, what are you doing?"

He didn't know. He thought he did, going in, he thought all the same things that Tandy had just told him. Fury always knows something, and he brought Steve and Sam here for a purpose. Better to have them under his wing and in his debt that out in Wakanda waiting to cause trouble, right? But it's harder, so much harder than before, even with a purpose in front of him, to fight against - anything. Everything.

Keep moving, his mind tells him, while Sam tells him to wait. Wait, his body begs, while Tandy tells him to move. Steve just wants to go home.

If only he still had one.

"Come on, up-up-up!" Rachel calls from overhead, a flash of magenta hair peeking from between the rafters. "Move it or lose it! Call your birdboy and get him in here, I want some fun!" 

"Leighton!" Cloak snarls.

"Nope, you're not fun, Johnson! That's one of Tandy's qualities. You two! Madame HYDRA is not just going to sit around while you chit chat, let's go!"

Steve moves.

He runs the risk of serious frostbite, but he wants to get everything back on track. So he knocks on Donnie's door, his bedroom next to the lab, and holds up the BARF regulator silently when the younger man answers.

"Everything's ready to go," he says when Donnie just stares at him. "C'mon, ki-Donnie. You've been doing really well, don't let me screw this up for you."

Donnie scoffs. "This has nothing to do with you, Tony. I can do it just fine on my own." Maybe he expects Tony to say something asinine back, like 'prove it' or 'sure you can, kid,' and maybe if Tony were actually twelve he would do that, but instead Tony just holds the band up higher.

"I know you can, Don," he says, and the kid looks just a teensy bit mollified. "But practice never hurt anyone."

Not so long ago, Donnie did need Tony to do this. He couldn't be left alone in his memories or he'd just trigger himself over and over again. Tony had to go into there with him, talking him out of what he was seeing, alter the memory just enough so that Donnie's brain would reject it and therefore reject the trigger words. It didn't always work; Donnie still got switched over to Blizzard a quarter of the time, sometimes without even the entire sequence, sometimes just because of some particularly horrific memory that had nothing to do with his words at all, sometimes (the worst times) because Tony's brain would hijack the program and send them into space or into sand.

Nowadays Tony only jumped in if Donnie failed several times in a row. The best, and worst part of using BARF like this was that it was getting easier to get Blizzard to switch back to Donnie. Best because it made Donnie less of a worry, worst because Bruce reported the constant switching was badly affecting Donnie's brainwaves, dropping them down to low levels. It had taken Tony a long time to trust anyone to help him with Donnie, but so far Bruce (and sometimes Rhodey who would go memory hopping instead of Tony) had proved invaluable. "It's not a problem for Barnes or those other Soldiers - the serum would have prevented any lasting damage from the switch. But Donnie's body is not built to handle this, Tony."

Donnie knows the risks, knows what he chances every time he steps into the Hulk-proof room, and Tony only broached ceasing the sessions once before the kid brutally shut that down. Tony can understand the need to know your mind is your own. It was a terrible thing the first time he dropped into a memory and found it was the vision that led to Ultron, only to turn his head to the right and find Wanda Maximoff right beside him, hand outstretched and eyes glowing red. It wasn't that he didn't know what Wanda had done to him. It was the fear that she was still there.

He's reprogrammed that memory. He kept the vision but got rid of Wanda. Realistically, his mind still knows she was there but he sleeps better at night when his memories tell him she wasn't. He imagines its the same thing for Donnie.

Bruce works on alternate ways to help Donnie, surrounding himself with dozens of brain scans while he conferences with Vision about what to do. Tony suspects he's close to a breakthrough, from the way he grows more and more nervous every time Donnie goes in, but it might not be something any of them like.

"Dr. Banner," Donnie greets brusquely, seizing the band out of Tony's hand and jamming it on his head.

"Let him in, FRIDAY," Tony authorizes, and the band lights up.

"I don't want you going in," Donnie says roughly, looking down at him. "I don't want you there, okay?"

Tony bites the inside of his cheek until it hurts, but on the outside he simply raises his hand and says "It's your show, Gill."

It's not good, that day. Donnie jumps all the way back to when the words were first embedded him, which is usually a good thing because the words weren't so ingrained then and he can relearn from this memory what it was like to hear the sequence and not feel anything. But midway through, Donnie triggers, going stock still and demanding orders, over and over until Tony can talk him back through the intercom.

He shakes himself hard and glares at the ceiling. "That's not helping. Don't talk to me, okay? Just - I don't want to know you're there."

But he triggers again. And again. And Bruce gives the order to shut it down; FRIDAY, to Tony's surprise, obeys without his agreement. Bruce takes off his glasses and rubs at his face and Tony feels the lines in his face carve into his soul as Donnie huddles in the corner of his room. "We can't-"

"He's doing better," Tony says. "He won't stop."

"He will for today," Bruce growls. "Talk to him, okay? He shouldn't come back in here until he's settled."

Bruce leaves with the day's research and Tony watches Donnie rock his body back and forth until his eyes begin tracking again. "Fuck," he hears over the intercom. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"FRIDAY," he says lowly, and the door into the room slides open.

Donnie's tears have frozen on his cheek and the air is so cold Tony can see his breath when he breathes out. "Guess I'm proving you right," the kid says miserably, not looking up. "Unstable. Untrustworthy. Out of control."

"I never said any of that," Tony says sharply. "I never have and I never will."

"You implied it," is the response shot back and Tony sighs, edging closer until he can sit down beside the kid. Donnie never shivers in the cold but he's shaking now.

"I said - and very badly, mind you - that I wanted to keep you safe."

Donnie laughs brokenly. "Jesus fuck, Tony, look at me." He splays his hands wide and and ice webs up between the digits. "I'm not even safe in my own head."

"Nobody is," Tony says, resolutely grabbing one hand and crunching the ice under his own grip, not letting the screaming agony of that much cold on his bare skin show on his face. "I would know, I'm the one who built this damn thing."

He peels his hand away from Don's and they sit there in the quiet for a very long time while Tony puzzles out how to say what he needs to.

"It's not that I don't trust you," he finally says. "You've never given me any reason not to. And it's not that I don't believe that you're safe around other people."

Donnie tilts his head back towards the wall. "Then what is it?"

"I don't know," Tony says honestly. "I don't. I do know that I have this - all-encompassing fear that I might be wrong. I calculate everything, for days, I run simulations in the background while I eat and sleep, I try to predict everything. But I can't, not entirely. And if I'm wrong, and something happens to you because of it, I will lose my goddamned mind." Donnie has turned to stare at him and Tony sucks in a deep breath. "But I also can't - the surest path to the safest future is to keep you here where SHIELD and triggers can't get to you. But I can't decide that for you, can I?"

"No," the kid says. "No, you can't. And saying that whatever this is isn't because you don't trust me isn't the same as saying you do trust me, by the way."

Tony laughs, shocked and abrupt. "I do," he says, when he regains control of his breathing. "And I'm...I'm proud of you. I am," when Donnie inhales sharply. "I thought you should know."

"Thank you," he answers quietly. "And hey, I'm sorry for implying you were like HYDRA or SHIELD, okay? That was fucked up. You're not like them." Tony doesn't reply to this, not sure how to respond. "Fuck, I'm a mess."

"Join the club, kiddo," Tony says, then winces. But Donnie doesn't appear too ruffled. "Hey," he goes on, nudging at him. "You want to go to a play with us? Natasha stole these really nifty digital face masks from SHIELD. We can make you look like Brad Pitt."

"Seems the opposite of inconspicuous," Donnie says sarcastically. "But...yeah, okay. Make it Matt Damon and I'm in. Bourne Matt Damon, not Good Will Hunting Matt Damon."

"I'll see what I can do," Tony says. "You okay?"

"No," Donnie replies honestly. "Pretty not okay. But anything's better than before."

Yeah, Tony's pretty fond of that lie, too.

T'CHALLA:
Stark would like to speak with Barnes. 

YOU:
What why?

T'CHALLA:
Ostensibly to help him with his programming. He has plans to bring evidence exonerating Barnes to the United Nations.

YOU:
He does? How would he help with the programming?

T'CHALLA:
He had developed a device that can alter memories, preventing a trigger sequence. It has already been tested and works in practice.

YOU:
And Tony wants to see Bucky personally?

T'CHALLA:
He is quite protective of his tech, as you can imagine. And he has many questions for Barnes.

T'CHALLA:
I am not asking for your permission. That would be insulting to every one of us. I am asking you who knows him best what Barnes would want.

YOU:
He wants to get better.

YOU:
Can you promise me you'll be there the entire time? Wanda too.

T'CHALLA:
This I swear.

YOU:
Tell Tony thank you.

"Are you okay?" 

Tony glances over at Natasha, ignoring the way Rhodey is watching him carefully. His best friend should be out riding high with the other flyboys but apparently Tony has worried his platypus enough that he insisted on accompanying him to Europe to meet with the council and some key German officials. 

"I'm fine," he says firmly, finalizing his purchase on his tablet. Sixteen tickets to Phantom of the Opera, spread out from front row seats for the Khans to private boxes for Vision and Bruce. And the last two, he sends to an email address that he's been avoiding for almost a month now.

Sorry for the blackout, kid, he types to Peter. The Avengers are assembling on Broadway. Bring your hot aunt and we'll talk.

Where two weeks ago this would have gotten him an instant reply his inbox remains silent and Tony tucks the tablet away with a grimace. "Just finalizing Rhodey's date night this weekend. Fourteen chaperones, buddy. It's like prom, or at least what the movies told me prom is like."

Rhodey grimaces. "Prom. Eighteen years old, trying to make it with Indries Moomji. That was a mistake."

"How so?" Natasha asks, always eager to hear tales of normal, well-adjusted childhoods.

"She caught me talking to the coat check girl and threatened to cut my dick off and beat me with it. Probably could have succeeded too," Rhodey says, and Tony laughs. Rhodey usually only tells this story when they're both very drunk and they play 'who has the craziest ex.' Tony still maintains that since not one of Rhodey's exes has yet to shoot at him, Tony is still winning.

Natasha smiles, continuing the thread of the conversation, and the two chat about nothing while Tony stares out the window as the greater landmass of mainland Europe comes into view. He tries to line it all up in his head, the information on Barnes and how best to present it to the council before they take it to the courts, but its all jumbled up in his head.

The horrible truth is that this isn't what he wants. He doesn't want Barnes pardoned and he doesn't want him to get a normal life. He sat down and read through the reports, the precision and clinical coldness of decades of HYDRA scientists and handlers as they documented how best to break this man and bend him to their will. He was a puppet, a living weapon, and he killed Tony's mother-

oh my god my mother

He doesn't want this. He doesn't want the way Natasha has looked so surprised at his actions, the pride in Rhodey's eyes, the way Barton clapped him on the shoulder and said "Good on you, Stark." He doesn't want gratefulness, he doesn't want to be the bigger man, he doesn't want to be logical about this. He wants Bucky Barnes to rot and burn, he wants to smash his face in and strangle him, he wants him to know what they felt like.

And he will do this anyway, all of it, because every bad thing he wants for Barnes, Barnes has already known, and then known worse. There is nothing Tony can do to him, no vengeance he can exact that will surpass what he's already been through. Steve could argue until he was blue in the face that it was HYDRA and Bucky was innocent and Steve would be right, but that would not and could not change the fact that Barnes was the one who did it.

And Tony cannot change the fact that if there is a price to be paid, Barnes has paid it when he shouldn't have had to at all.

T'Challa was right to look at him the way he had. Tony wonders if the man had recognized the monster that had nearly killed Barnes and Rogers all those months ago.

Tony doesn't know what he wants from Barnes, and it scares him. He wishes he wanted this for the right reasons, but Tony has never been a righteous man. He'll do this because it's the only thing that can be done. And if Barnes can help him in return, then maybe he can shut up the part of his brain that rages at this play-acting of the Good Samaritan. Tony is not good.

It's like rewriting himself with BARF, erasing Wanda's presence from the vision, but in reverse. Realistically, he knows James Barnes is innocent. But his memories have been altered, and every smile and hug his mother ever gave him, every soft memory of his father, there Barnes waits in the corner of his eyes, waiting to take them away.

"Sergeant Barnes and Captain Rogers resisted arrest," the German official is stating for the third time. "Even if we are to believe these reports, they must still be held accountable for the damage they have done. One of them threw a cement block into a man's chest. He died en route to the hospital. Or is Mr. Stark going to argue that Barnes was under HYDRA's sway then, as well?"

"Mr. Stark isn't going to argue anything," Tony says, gritting his teeth. "Because that's not the argument we're making here today. Rogers and Barnes will answer for the crimes they committed in their attempt - their successful attempt - to stop Helmut Zemo, an international terrorist, from enacting his plan to reawaken five super soldiers in Siberia. Just the same as Clint Barton and Scott Lang have been judged, just the same as Wanda Maximoff and Sam Wilson will be should they choose to return.

"But today, Sergeant Barnes isn't on trial for that. Sergeant James Barnes is still being held accountable for the 87 confirmed assassinations he made while operating as the Winter Soldier. I have brought forth ample evidence to the council and the International Court of Justice that proves that Barnes wasn't in control of any of his facilities during the times of the murders. I know the law isn't quite prepared to handle something on this level - it's beyond comprehension that a man could be reprogrammed like a computer, but the evidence shows that this is the case beyond a shadow of a doubt."

"I'd be careful with the hyperbole if I were you, Mr. Stark," Rochambeau says dryly, and Tony clenches his fists on the table. Natasha is tense at his side, already having offered her own testimony about her experience with James Barnes and the Winter Soldier.

"What can I say, Rep," he says tightly. "I got carried away."

"And why is that, Mr. Stark? This Winter Soldier murdered your parents, we have all seen it," the councilwoman from England asks. "You are not the only one who has suffered at his hands."

"I hardly think Mr. Stark's personal motivations matter-" the Russian delegate, eager to sweep even more of his country's sordid history under the rug.

Tony takes a deep breath. "I didn't." 

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark?"

Natasha, the coolest and most collected super spy ever, practically vibrates with tension at his side.

"I didn't. I didn't suffer at Barnes' hands. I suffered at HYDRA's, and the council has graciously allowed the Avengers to destroy them. If I wanted revenge-" he chokes a little, he's Tony Stark, come on you lie like you breathe, just a little bit more. "Then I'm getting it. The victims of the Winter Soldier are not the only ones who suffered. James Barnes is just as much a victim as we are. He wasn't himself-"

Do you even remember them?

I remember all of them.

"- and he cannot be blamed for the actions his body performed when they wiped his mind away. James Barnes is no longer that person."

Rochambeau leans forward. "And how can we guarantee that, Mr. Stark? The evidence and you yourself have admitted that Barnes can be...'triggered' into this Winter Soldier persona at any time if someone has the right sequence of words. How can we be sure he will never turn on us again?"

"When Sergeant Barnes was first taken into custody, there was an offer on the table to extradite him to the United States-" There is a ripple of disquiet and Tony speaks louder. "-where he could receive the best psychiatric care. I have developed a technology that can assist him in this, you might have seen the video of my demonstration at MIT. But I'm saying again, Rep, this is not what we're arguing here. This is about Barnes' past, not his future, and Barnes is innocent. I'm hoping the courts will see this as well."

The council looks between themselves and the American delegate finally leans forward. "I do not see why this is a question at all. James Barnes has always deserved a trial; what you are arguing for is a basic human right, Mr. Stark, and it is baffling to me we are debating this. I will see this to the ICJ, Mr. Stark, you have my word. Will Sergeant Barnes be there to defend himself?"

"I honestly can't say, Councilman," Tony replies, determinedly not looking at T'Challa, who has been burning a hole in the side of his head this entire time.

The man's lips thin. "It would be better for his case if we could see the innocent man you have argued so fervently for. Perhaps you could mention that to him."

"I'll get right on that." His grim smile seems to make the room uneasy and Tony relaxes into a blank slate. "Thank you for your assistance, Representative Adams. As Barnes is a super, I thought it best to bring this matter first to the people who deal with the Avengers Initiative."

"Adams is right, of course," the Belgian rep says. "Whatever we argue in here, due process of the law cannot be ignored. You will have your trial, Mr. Stark. We will contact you later on the date." 

They move to close and Tony finds himself speaking again. "Regarding the rogue Avengers." The room freezes.

"Yes?" the German official hisses.

"Lang and Barton have already been pardoned for most of their crimes, Lang's parole violation in the United States not withstanding. I was perhaps wondering if the council intended to extend the same courtesy to Maximoff, Wilson, and Rogers? The evidence used in Barton and Lang's cases would apply just as readily in the others'."

"Maximoff still has to answer for Lagos."

"Ms. Maximoff wasn't breaking any laws at the time," Tony reminds the room at large sharply. "Wakanda and Nigeria have already declined to press charges. If the Avengers Initiative could make a statement about the status of the fugitives, it might ease a lot of worries." And maybe get Wanda and Wilson back earlier than expected. A year's house arrest and probation was nothing compared to what might happen if they were arrested now.

The council is quiet, looking down on him from the odd courtroom arrangement they have set up. "It might be considered," the Englishwoman says finally, and Tony supposes that's the best they can hope for.

The meeting adjourns and Tony waits until he has shaken every hand to collapse down in his chair. Instantly Natasha's hand is on his shoulder and Rhodey and T'Challa are passing through the wooden gate separating the audience from the rest of the room. "You did good, man," Rhodey assures him.

"Chest hurting?" Natasha asks, and only then does he realize he is rubbing at his sternum.

"This feels like deja vu," he tells her, and her grin is a bit dark.

T'Challa's gaze is roving his face, his dark eyes nearly black from the odd hang of the lights overhead. "You continually surprise me, Tony," he says in his low, husky voice. "Every grandstand greater than the last."

"I feel like I have just been insulted, Your Highness," Tony says tightly. He doesn't want to do this. 

T'Challa looks a bit startled and shakes his head. "Not at all." And it's like the air is suddenly lighter. Tony breathes in deep. "Simply an appreciation."

"Oh, an appreciation," Tony echoes, smiling wide if a bit false and crossing his hands behind his neck. "Well, I'm always open to appreciation, hellcat."

T'Challa opens his mouth but it is another who responds. "And there is so very much to appreciate!" Aleksander Lukin crows, Sharon Carter standing just behind him, her face half shaded in the shadows the man seemed to throw off in every direction.

Tony found himself scrambling to his feet. "Secretary Lukin. Didn't know you were dropping by today."

"Ellis has me everywhere these days," the general says mildly, taking the time to shake everyone's hands over the partition. "Agent Carter, you've met Colonel Rhodes and Mr. Stark before, but this lovely woman is-"

"Natasha Romanov," Natasha says, smiling tightly at the blonde woman. "We've met."

"We have," Sharon agrees mildly. "She and Tony showed me up when taking down Bucky Barnes. I was a bit surprised to hear you defending him like that today, Tony. Ignoring the Winter Soldier's previous activities, I don't remember you being one to shrug off being shot in the face like it's nothing."

"Agent," Lukin admonishes before Tony can speak, but Tony keeps his eyes on his former cousin, watching the way her smile never reaches her eyes. "The evidence is compelling. We all want Barnes to have his trial. The sooner he's out and about and contributing to our great society, the better."

"Barnes will have a long road ahead of him regardless," Rhodey says, something a bit wary in his stance.

"No doubt," Sharon replies.

"I'm surprised to see you back at work, Agent Carter," Natasha says abruptly. "I thought Deputy Director Ross would have your head for stealing Rogers' and Wilson's gear."

"Are you? Shouldn't be shocking to the woman who betrayed her teammates and electrocuted royalty to let Rogers and Barnes escape," Sharon shoots back, and Tony has to grin even as Natasha stiffens a bit. Sharon sighs, demuring to Lukin. "Don't start, I already know what you're going to say. I should play nice, shouldn't I?"

"You should," Lukin agrees, smiling down at her over his shoulder before turning back to the group. "The Avengers are needed now more than ever, and while the Avengers are based on United States' soil we need to work together. We've spoken on this before, Mr. Stark, but I'd like to offer Agent Sharon Carter as an official liaison between the Avengers Initiative and the President's Office."

"I'd have to speak to the whole team," Tony says slowly. "And unfortunately Ms. van Dyne won't be at the compound until Thursday. But we'll be sure to let you know. If I could be so bold," he says on the next breath. "As to borrow Agent Carter for a moment?"

"By all means," Lukin says, dismissing them with a small wave and turning to T'Challa. "I have yet to talk much with you, Your Highness, I'm Aleksander Lukin..."

Tony leads Sharon away by the elbow out to the hall and into an empty conference room, feeling his team's narrowed eyes following him as they leave. At this rate Rhodey is going to hitch a lojack on him.

"Always with the hands, Tonio," Sharon snarks, wrenching her elbow when they're inside. "What do you want? Wait, no, me first. Give me this job, Tony. My career is in shambles after helping Steve-"

"Nobody made you do that, Carter."

"-and I would do it all over again!" she snaps. "It was the right choice and you know it."

"Uh, no," Tony drawls, suddenly remembering why Carter women could be so very irritating. "No, no I don't. Rogers and Wilson don't get their gear and we take them down at the airport no problem. Zemo's plan is ruined, Barnes gets the help he needs, and Cap gets to continue on blissfully lying to me about my dead parents while the team sorts out these damn Accords. Or, Rogers and company aren't delayed waiting for you and head off to Russia while we chase after them and everyone goes to jail. But, yeah no, please tell me about your brave and gallant choice to stand up to The Man, Share. I'm all ears."

Sharon glares at him. "You are such an ass."

"Is this your sales pitch, cuz?"

"We haven't spoken in six years, Tony. I'm not your cousin," she says primly, seating herself on the table and staring at Tony before sighing hard. "I thought it was the right choice at the time. I'm not apologizing for it."

"No one's asking you, too, Carter."

She points at him. "You think that, but you have very judgey eyes."

"Pot, kettle. Gee, wonder who we learned that from?" 

They grin at each other and it's the first time Sharon's face actually seems to match her emotions. Tony feels his own smile drop. "What's Lukin about, Sharon? Tell me the truth."

She looks startled. "What's he - Tony, he's the Secretary of State. He's just trying to clean up the mess Ross left behind. He's not about anything but his damn job." He watches her carefully but at no point does she seem anything but completely sincere. "Look, I know that you've been burned in the past, but Lukin is a true patriot. He thinks we're taking the right path with the Accords. Setting the world straight after all this turmoil."

And there. There is an odd sort of rote to her words, like she's said them one too many times. 

"He wants to help you, Tony," she says, leaning forward, and her eyes are so very earnest and blue, so much bluer than they should be. And then the moment breaks. "So do I. You know I'm the best, you know I believe in the Avengers, so stop dithering and give me the job. I'll make you proud, coach," she finishes on a sardonic note, one corner of her mouth lifting.

"One swing at a time, champ," Tony replies a bit distantly, considering her. "I'll think about it."

She sighs again, sliding off the table. "It's like family means nothing to you."

"I'm not your cousin," he reminds her, opening the door for her. Lukin is waiting on the other side.

"Your teammates were quite ready to depart, I believe," he tells Tony. "Everything went well, I assume?"

"Of course," Sharon says, sliding into her customary spot to the left and just behind him. Lukin eyes Tony, his gaze feels cold and blue, then he raises his hand to Tony's shoulder, something glimmering in his palm, and rests it there.

"I hope we reach an understanding, Mr. Stark," the general says carefully. His words seem sharp and over-enunciated and blurred, all at the same time. "We both want what's best for the future. There are so few ways to achieve that; you perhaps know that better than anyone. I can only pray we walk the same one." Tony merely nods, feeling vaguely like he's been stuffed with cotton, and Lukin smiles. "Your rogue Avengers - you truly have no clue where they are?"

"Not a one," Tony says, the words tripping over themselves. 

"Hm. I understand your concern for them, Mr. Stark. I would not want them out there alone either. Previous evidence suggests they are quite dangerous." Lukin shakes his head, staring off into the distance, considering. "A man like Steve Rogers - there are not many like him. Dangerous indeed."

"Cap's a kitchen mouse," Sharon says laughingly, her eyes blue, so blue. "You just have to use the right cheese." She makes it sound like a trap, Tony thinks dimly.

"Indeed," Lukin says, and squeezes down tight on Tony's shoulder, the light from his palm throwing the hollows of his face in stark, red relief. Tony gasps and he- 

Tony sees stars. And in the stars sits a rock and on that rock sits a throne and on that throne sits a man - a monster - a titan -

"Tony?" 

Rhodey's hand is cool on the back of his neck and Tony chokes on his next inhale, doubling over. Sharon is nowhere to be found, even though they had just been speaking. Not your cousin, he'd said and then - "What am I - where?"

"We found you in here. Agent Carter left five minutes ago with Secretary Lukin." T'Challa hands him a plastic cup of water and he drinks deep.

"God, I haven't had a flashback like that in ages," he confesses to Rhodey's shoulder. "Where's Nat?"

"Bringing the car around," Rhodey answers. "You are ice cold, man, like you've been sitting in the snow. You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," Tony says. "Yeah." He grins reassuringly at T'Challa and climbs to his feet. He wobbles a bit and the king catches him, sliding his hand up and over his bicep and to his neck, holding Tony's face up for his perusal. Tony grins shakily. "Tell me true, Simba, which is more stressful: me or that entire country you're in charge of? I'm fine."

"Simba was a lion," T'Challa says dryly, looking back and forth between Tony's eyes. "And the answer is always you. Shall we proceed, then?"

"I'm not the hold up here," Tony says snottily as they traipse out into the hallway. It's hard to remember that he can't lean on Rhodey the way he used to. "Hey," he tells them. "We should take Lukin's deal. Sharon Carter? I think it might be good for us."

"Really?" Rhodey asks, sounding a little skeptical.

"Yeah," Tony says, feeling sure. "I think it's the right path."

 He sees Everett Ross once before they go back home. 

"Stunning performance back there," the man remarks, shaking his hand before they both sit down. "I'm happy to help in any endeavor that will help me wipe that smug smirk off Zemo's face, so if there is anything you need..." Tony returns the man's grin. Everett Ross is one of the easier shady government agents he's had to work with, most likely due to his lack of aforementioned shadiness.

"There is something you can help me with," Tony says after a long pause. Everett quirks his head to the side and leans forward, the picture of sincere interest. "The other Winter Soldiers, found in the Siberian bunker - what happened to their bodies?"

Everett observes Tony for a few moments then leans back in his chair, running a finger along his brow. "Their families were found and the ashes were returned to them."

"Ashes?" Tony echoes. Everett nods, watching Tony's reaction.

"It was better that way. No secret stays buried, and if those Soldiers were found out they wouldn't either. Someone will always be after that serum, Mr. Stark, surely you realize that. The world doesn't need more super soldiers. The two we do have have done more than enough." For good or for bad he doesn't clarify. Everett Ross, from his history, has no strong feelings either way for Captain America, not surprising from a foreigner and from someone brought up during America's fight in Vietnam when Captain America's good name was worth less than dirt. Perhaps that's what makes him so suited to this job.

"And the research found?" Tony persists.

"Everything recovered has been turned over to the Russians, who were gracious enough to collaborate with many of our analysts in decrypting the data. If anything was found that was relevant to the Avengers, you would be the first to know." Everett's eyes are sharp as they watch Tony's shoulder rise just a bit higher in tension. 

Four years ago Tony would have bugged his computer and broken into their systems. But that was before the Accords and before he had a team. Now Tony merely nods, buttons his jacket, and stands. "Thanks for the clarification, Deputy Director."

Everett rises as well and they shake hands again. "Take care, Mr. Stark."

"We are on a wild goose chase," Diamondback had hissed.

"These facilities need to be taken out," he had snapped, and he cannot forget the sneer on her face. 

"Cut off one head and two more shall take it's place," she had quoted viciously as they readied to jump off the plane into enemy territory. "That's all we're doing. We need to aim for the heart, Rogers."

That had been two hours ago, and the last he'd heard from her. The facility is a shit show from start to finish, a frequency knocking out their comms within minutes and forcing them to fight close quarters (which Dagger and Sam do not excel at) in total darkness. Steve cannot call a retreat when none of them can hear him and he cannot abandon his team. 

He fights on, body after body falling under his shield or his fists. Sometimes he hears the particular zing of Dagger's light projectiles or smells the odd ozone scent that accompanies Cloak's portal or hears a scream from above that gets closer and closer until it ends abruptly and that's Sam, taking people up and dropping them. Shurikens dance at the corner of his vision so Diamondback is somewhere close, watching his back, and Steve presses forward.

He throws himself into a room and the door hisses shut behind him. It is dark here, and cold, he's trapped and there is something dangerous out there waiting for him. They've been so stupid, coming out here like this, unprepared. He'll be better, he promises to the God he's not sure hears him anymore, he'll be better if He just helps them survive this.

"Captain Rogers," the lightly accented, feminine voice greets him, and a few lights come on. "You followed the scent right to my lair, like I knew you would. Such a good boy."

"Oh," Steve breathes. "I've brought someone who's pretty damn excited to see you again."

Madame Hydra laughs at that, silky black bob curtaining around her face as she tips forward a little. She holds up her hand to show a black device blinking in the palm of her hand. A detonator, one that's surely paired to the hulking black piece of machinery sitting in the middle of the room. "I'm sure. Rachel was always very excitable. But she's not the one I'm interested in."

"I'm flattered," Steve says flatly as he takes one step to the side, trying to get around her at least a little. "But you're not my type."

"No, I'd imagine not. I'm not a brain dead puppet playing on your strings," Madame Hydra says like she's chatting about the weather and not a man her organization tortured for seventy years. "How is the Asset? We miss our little soldier so. Won't you send him marching home, Captain?"

"You're never going to touch him again," Steve snarls, stepping closer, but Madame Hydra cracks her whip in one hand and waves the detonator in the other.

"So self-righteous. You think we put him through such hardship. And you're right, of course; we did. We must all suffer for the preservation of our great society. But you can't deny he was better with us. No choices, no worries, no guilt or resentment. Just the mission. He was perfection. And you ruined him, like you've ruined everything else, Captain."

Steve readies his shield, done with this already. "You destroyed his mind and stuffed something else in its place, that's not better-"

"If you think that the Winter Soldier wasn't always part of the Asset, then you are a fool," Madame Hydra says coldly. "The war made a killer out of him before we ever touched him." Steve shakes his head, nearly vibrating with fury that this woman, this monster dare talk about Bucky like that. "I did not come to argue with you about the Asset. He is a relic of the past, and the future is very close now, Captain. Do you know what this is?" She gestures at the bomb in the middle of the room.

"Terrigenesis."

Her lip curls up, half pleased and half sneer. "It is beautiful. But it could be better. Your blood, Captain, could help your people achieve perfection."

Her whip cracks out and Steve raises his shield instinctively, blocking the blow. His blood? Is Terrigenesis...based off of his serum? But all the records of that are lost, and even with his blood the serum would be nigh impossible to synthesize. The whip cracks down again and Steve rolls to the side.

"I thought you wanted to save your world, Captain. Others in my organization would rather run around bending people to their will, but I prefer the direct approach. Straight to the source. You are imperfect, and yet also our greatest hope. Give it to me, a final sacrifice. After today you will be obsolete anyway." The whip snaps and he moves again, rolling into position and unclipping his shield, preparing to throw. 

"Obsolete?" he breathes out. A smell of ozone fills the air.

"I was warned of your over-inflated ego. Do you truly believe you are the only one who can turn the tide, Captain? You have been weighed and measured and found wanting. HYDRA has corrected this error, like we always have. The good doctor warned you but you didn't listen."

Arnim Zola whispers in his ear. When history did not cooperate, history was changed.

He is back in front of that monitor, relearning all his worst fears had never died but gorged themselves on his absence and grown stronger than ever. "What have you done?"

"What we had to," she replies with a smile. She lowers the whip and raises her other hand. "I told them I had you in my sights but they wouldn't listen to me. Once I bring them your blood, once I prove myself, we can start down the right path. Your team will not escape in time and I have very little to lose. Make the trade, Captain, and I will let you all live."

"You know," Steve says hoarsely. "I've always been fond of option three." And he throws the shield with all his might. 

It hits perfectly, bisecting the bomb neatly in two without engaging the trigger mechanism. Madame Hydra watches it fall apart in open-mouthed shock and Steve memorizes that expression, holds it close. "I was part of SHIELD for two years and I lived with Tony Stark. I know my bombs, ma'am." 

Madame Hydra snarls and raises her whip hand but suddenly a flash of pink and black lands behind her and Diamondback is there, a hand shoved into her back while the other wraps around Hydra's throat. "Hi, honey," Diamondback whispers, sweetly menacing. "I'm home."

"Start talking," Steve commands, signalling up to Cloak to retrieve Dagger and Falcon and bring them inside. "Where are the other bombs?"

"And before you get ideas, let me remind you that my blade is currently one centimeter to the right of your spinal cord. Be honest, Viper, and you might just keep your legs," Rachel hisses. 

"Oh you poor fools," Madame Hydra laughs, lifting the hand with the detonator. "You truly think this was for that?"

And Steve glances to the side, at the bomb, the cracked and empty bomb, as Madame Hydra clenches her fist and presses the trigger. Steve roars and Diamondback wrenches her blade to the left.

"Option three, Captain," Madame Hydra says through a pained, smiling gurgle, as she drops to the floor

Tony whistles as they assemble in the living room. "By far the best looking superhero team ever," he declares.

"We're the only superhero team," Kamala says teasingly, and he grins at her, thrilled beyond measure when she grins back.

"Shh, Small Khan," he stage whispers to her. "Don't ruin it for the others." She giggles and Tony turns the rest of the group. "Big Khan, you'll be escorting your sister in the Jag. Hope will be with you."

"Hope will be driving," Hope stresses, and Aamir pouts. Tony switches directions at the last moment and presses the keys into Hope's hands, giving her a meaningful look that she acknowledges with the smallest of nods. It feels huge, trusting her with the Khans, but Hope's general incapability to lose her cool will keep all three running on a tight ship. 

"Barton collective," he says, moving on with the next set of keys. The Bartons look up at him, one of Clint's hands holding Cooper's shoulder while the other grips Nate close to his chest. For the first time in a long time, Tony feels a flash of pity for the man. It must be killing him to let his family out of sight like this, but he's doing it anyway; anything to see his kids happy. "I'm assuming we all know the field trip procedures."

"Stay close to Mr. Vision," Lila chirps.

"But not too close," Cooper finishes.

Laura takes the keys from his hand with a smile. "We'll be fine, Tony." Clint and the two of them had decided that Vision was the best option to protect the Bartons from any harm. They would be taking one of the boxes Tony reserved.

The other box would be going to the next pair. "For my brother in science and the most terrifying light of my life," he says to Bruce and Natasha, and he holds up an entire key ring. "Pick a set, any set. Unless - Rhodes, buddy, you calling a pair?"

"I want the Spyder."

Tony pulls a face. The Spyder had been a one of Pepper's more dubious purchases. He separates the key and tosses it to Rhodes. "You're not going with him?" Natasha asks, amused, and Tony puts on a stricken face.

"No. Like I have done to him before, my honeybear has cast me out for someone taller and blonder. When will this cycle of abuse end?" he directs piteously at Rhodey, who flips him the bird. Tony smirks and turns back to the pair. "I'm taking Donnie. We've already made a pact to dissect the special effects in loud, carrying voices until the usher asks us to leave."

"I didn't agree to that," Donnie says loudly, adjusting the little nodes that will create his shockingly Matt Damon-ish digital mask. Kamala and Hope look a little appalled at Tony's joke.

"Calm down, folks," he says to the room at large. "I'll be quiet as a mouse. Car?"

Bruce leaves it up to Natasha, who hunts through the keys. He leans close and claps a hand on Tony's shoulder. "You're looking better."

"I feel better," Tony lies. He hasn't slept since they got back from the UN two days ago, the few snatches of sleep he's tried to grab marred by the old dreams of smoke and sand and stars, but it's different now, the smell all wrong and the texture too soft and the formations too bizarre to be anything he's seen before. 

They make an interesting procession to the theater, parking in an enclosed, well secured garage and making their way down to Broadway in pairs and trios. Tony wishes he could sit with the Khans and see their faces light up at the spectacle - because no matter his other opinions about treacly, trope-y Phantom of the Opera it was something to behold live - but its better to keep everyone separate. The Avengers being spotted all in one place could lead to nothing but trouble. 

Pepper is there with Happy, and wow, the strings she must have pulled to get him the seat next to her. But she looks relaxed in a way she hasn't in months. Rhodey has found Carol Danvers, as if it was easy to miss her in that striking red dress, and wandered off to claim their seats. Donnie, beside him, is barely recognizable but for his wide smile as he sips down a Cola he'll regret later.

They all seem so happy. Tony watches smiles across faces and people laughing and for a terrible dizzy second he cannot comprehend it. It's like his soul, if he even believed it in, has taken a step outside of his body. It's like a sick science experiment for a moment, his brain making a thousand calculations about endorphins and external stimuli and patterns of behavior. He's not part of this. 

"Boss, your heartrate is dangerously high," FRIDAY says softly, and Tony exhales painfully, not even realizing he'd been holding his breath. Donnie is only a few steps ahead of him, loudly reciting some of Phantom's more famous stage tricks off of Wikipedia, and Tony steps forward, shakily reaching out and nudging him on the shoulder. "Come on, don't ruin the surprise. Let's grab our seats."

Their seats are incredible, of course, and the play is just as trite as Tony remembers but Donnie seems to enjoy it. The Avengers all have their comms in and are muttering to each other about the play, though it is largely taken up by Kamala's awe-struck squeals whenever Christine Daae so much as dips her dopey little ankle. Bruce is particularly occupied with the Phantom while Natasha is oddly enamored of Meg Giry and Tony sings dirty lyrics to 'Music of the Night' until they all hiss for him to be quiet. For the most part they are quiet, just a friendly presence in each other's ear.

There is a moment, before the masquerade begins, that three knocks echo softly in the comms, sending Natasha briefly into full alert until Tony apologizes. Then he stands, whispering to Donnie that he might be awhile, and exits into the lobby to climb the stairs to the roof. Peter Parker is waiting for him at the door, and after a quiet order to FRIDAY, they head outside to the cold night air. From here they can see Times Square lit up bright, the big screens displaying advertisements and short videos and twenty-four hour news.

Peter heads silently to the ledge of the building and sits down, gesturing beside him. Cautiously, Tony sat down next to him, eyes roving over the kid, taking in his healed skin, straight posture, uninjured and whole. Peter doesn't look back.

"So," Tony breathes out. "It has recently come to my attention that I might be kind of an ass." 

Peter snorts in derision. "Recently?" 

"Alright, I've known for awhile," Tony allows with a small smile. He missed this kid. He's been an idiot. "I'm sorry, kid. I should have called."

"Yeah," Peter agrees in that weird shaky voice he gets when he's trying to be particularly tough. "You should have. I kicked ass against the Green Goblin and you didn't even say thank you."

Tony winces, looking down at his feet and scuffing them against the ground. Uncharitably, he thinks of Steve, the young harsh Steve that had just come out of the ice that would have sneered at anyone who dared imply they wanted gratitude for 'doing their duty.' Dear God, that Steve was an ass. "Thank you," he says, looking at Peter. "Maybe too little, too late, but you're getting it anyway. Thank you."

Peter peeks at him out of the corner of his eyes, a mollified tilt to his frown. "Well. You're welcome, obviously." They sit in silence, Tony waiting for Peter to list more grievances and exact more apologies out of Tony until he realizes that he is talking to a teenage boy. A stubborn, super-powered teenager boy whose feelings are very hurt. Dear God, he's being given the silent treatment. He almost laughs.

"I'm not going to lie to you," he says instead. "You scare the crap out of me, kid. I dragged you into this whole mess, and since then you've had a plane thrown at you, a shipping crate dropped on you, you've been shot, you've been concussed and had broken bones. I had you sign the Accords."

Peter heaves a frustrated breath. "Like, you realize I'm not brain damaged, right? I chose to do all of that. The fight in Germany? The one where I didn't follow your orders? Not all your fault. I hate it when you guys do that. Stop trying to take things away from me, okay? I chose this. Like, I am fully aware of how pushy you are, dude, and I did all that stuff anyway. I'd do it again. Because it's my choice."

"And you're on my team," Tony stresses. "I'm going to worry about you. I'm gonna want to take the blame. And I'm not entirely sure how to stop."

Peter huffs a breath and then, a long moment later, pokes Tony in the side. Tony looks over and raises an eyebrow and Peter rolls his eyes. "You realize you're totally trying to parent me, right?"

"Whoa," Tony says, leaning back and batting Peter's hand away. "Do not put that voodoo on me. I'm not your father. Anyone's father. Oh God."

"Okay, yeah, no, you're not my dad," Peter agrees, laughing at the expression on Tony's face. "But you sounded exactly like my Uncle Ben just then. It was trippy."

"Do people really still say 'trippy?'"

"I do."

"I'm not sure I should use you as the barometer for popular slang."

"What is that supposed to mean?" 

Tony grins, sighs, hangs his head. He needs to say this. "I'm kind of a control freak, Pete. And now apparently I have to control my controlling-ness, which seems all sorts of counter-productive, but the larger point is this: I am sorry. What I did was not cool. I should have called back instead of ignoring you. And don't think for a second that you're not always welcome at the Compound."

"It's...it's cool. I get it. But you know, I'm not so pathetic that I kept calling you just so you would notice me, senpai," Peter says, suddenly getting very business-like and reaching into his pocket. "Gwen Stacy wanted to get in contact with you. I've been trying to help her out. As Spider-Man, of course! She uh, she doesn't know Peter Parker exist. I mean, she knows! Cause she, um, tracked me down through...me. Like, she knew I took my pictures, so she asked me to set up a meeting with me? So I did, and she wanted me to pass this along to Iron Man." It's a printout of a string of data entries out of what must have been the OsCorp databanks. "This was all she could get before Harry locked up the servers in some remote location. I think he's taken a page out of your book; he's totally turning the company around."

"Friend of yours, Parker?" And Peter dips his head a little. "You know the most interesting people."

"Not really," Peter says, embarassed. "I know a little about data entry, but she says that this one number kept popping up - this one, here. And all of this was under something called Project Samson. Mr. Osborn had been working on it for months before the - the accident, Harry said he was obsessed. Tony? You have this face right now. I'm not a fan of it. What is it?"

The number that Gwen Stacy has circled is an access code. To the Department of Defense. That in itself is not so strange, Tony's had his own lines of access to the DoD before, all very carefully monitored and terminated when his contracts were up. But in conjunction with whatever warped Osborn into the Green Goblin, not-so-strange becomes just-strange-enough. The night is suddenly very cold. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket but Tony ignores it, folding up the paper carefully. "You haven't shown this to anyone? Gwen hasn't shown this to anyone?" Peter shakes his head to both questions and Tony relaxes minutely, stowing the paper in his pocket and pulling out his buzzing phone, clicking a button to silence it without looking down. "Good. Keep it quiet, okay? Whatever Osborn was up, it wasn't good. It's best if you just leave it alone."

"Leave it alone?" Peter exclaims, standing up. "No, that's not - Gwen gave me that to give to you so you would help us. Build us a hack to get into Osborn's systems, see what he was up to. Mr. Osborn used to take me to tee-ball practice and suddenly he turns into a super-strong maniac throwing people off a building?! Leave it alone, seriously?"

And isn't this an uncomfortable case of looking in the mirror. "Peter, Gwen Stacy is a civilian. A very smart civilian, no doubt, but she shouldn't be involved in stuff like this. I'm not saying I won't look into it, but I can't go hacking into something like this - if I'm caught it wouldn't just affect me, it would affect all of the Avengers." His phone begins buzzing again and once more he silences it. "I'll do all I can. Tell Gwen thank you for me."

Peter grinds his teeth together, thinking hard and not liking any bit of it, probably furious at Tony's very salient points. "What about Harry?" he finally asks. "I mean his father's essentially dead to him now, and this could be what caused it. Maybe Mr. Osborn was experimented on like that Barnes guy. Maybe it wasn't his fault. Don't you think he deserves to know what happened to his dad?"

Low blow, kid, Tony thinks, and from the look on Peter's face he realizes it; sure enough, in the next moment he turns away and walks to the far side of the roof, no doubt collecting himself together. His phone buzzes and Tony finally looks down, blanching when he sees 'Secretary Aleksander Lukin' on the caller ID, just as Natasha's voice suddenly comes in loud over the comms. 

"Tony, where are you?" 

He taps at the device to re-open communications and keeps his eye on Peter, a bit puzzled at the kid's tense posture, growing tenser by the second. He is focusing very intently at one of the screens in Times Square and Tony gets to his feet to join him.

"I'm on the roof, what's the problem?"

"You're on the - get down here, now. We've just got a call to Assemble." Tony comes to stand beside Peter and his eyes go very wide at what has caught Peter's attention. On the twenty four hours newsfeed a shaky camera held out of a helicopter is showing a huge crater in what looks like Brussels. From the epicenter of the blast a sickeningly familiar mist is beginning to roll out to blanket the city. "HYDRA just detonated another Terrigen bomb."

YOU:
It's all my fault. 

Chapter Text

The very worst thing, the thing that no one tells you about, is the aftermath.

The bomb was detonated in a park in Brussels and thankfully has so far claimed very few victims; HYDRA isn't that incompetent, so Tony knows that's the point. It's meant to scare them - the Avengers, the UN, the world. If they cut off one head, two more shall rise in its place, and they have no clue as to where or when it'll happen.

So Tony flies out with Natasha and Vision and sits in the aftermath, knowing there is nothing he can do and hating every second of it.

There are things to be done, of course. He's already called Pepper to arrange for the Stark Foundation to give its customary contribution to aiding the fallout from extra-human affairs. He has a new sample of Terrigenesis to study in the lab. He has a council to meet to discuss how the Avengers will respond. He has even just now gotten off the phone with President Ellis, arranging a phone call between the two of them and Director Glenn Talbot of the ATCU so the Avengers and Not-SHIELD can work together to end this threat and he is sure to get phone calls from the Prime Ministers of Belgium and Britain to work with their secret task forces. 

But there is nothing to touch here. Nothing he can fix. This is the aftermath; New York and London and Sokovia. Watching it all burn down around him. This is the quiet moment between disaster and recovery where the entire world tries to catch its breath. This is the worst part.

"We need to get on top of this," Natasha says from her place beside him. She as tense as he is, the both of them completely useless here for anything but putting on a show for the press and acting as handlers for Vision, who still makes people a bit nervous. "We need to go bigger."

"I'm trying, believe me," Tony says quietly, watching the still remaining Terrigenesis cloud drift up into the sunlight. Half the city has been evacuated for fear of contamination. "Ellis has already approved our cooperation with ATCU and Coulson will let us into SHIELD if he's smart. Which he's supposed to be, but I don't know, death does weird things to people."

"Speaking from experience?" Natasha asks, glancing sidelong at him. Tony thinks briefly of a bright, burning fleet above him in a sea of stars and a brand new kind of suffocation, and smiles weakly at her. She looks down at the phone she has been fiddling with the whole flight. "We've destroyed a few bases, Tony, and I'm very much for more dead HYDRA, but this isn't stopping them. It's just making them more desperate."

"We have to find the heart," he agrees. There is Vision, in the distance, holding another body. It looks small. This makes seven, now. "And cut it out. And we will. But first we've got to find the damn thing, and that's...harder than I thought it'd be. I've been - I've been so focused on the Terrigenesis, fixing it, curing it, when I should have been-"

"Tony," Natasha says, soft and oh so careful. "I'm not blaming you."

Tony nods. "I know you're not. I'm blaming myself. Not helpful, I know. It's just, you know, my go-to coping mechanism. Might go mad without it." And he laughs a little, small and harsh. "We get back home, we'll sketch out a game plan, alright? We'll take the fight to them, hit 'em where it hurts, insert your motivational idiom of preference here."

"I'm a big fan of 'give them hell.' Short, sweet, sounds threatening in Russian."

"Everything sounds threatening in Russian. Spaciba. Listen to me. I sound like I'm about to mug you."

Her mouth quirks as she looks up at the hazy sky. "We need to go even bigger than that, Tony. If we want to end this, we have to use every advantage we have. No matter our personal feelings."

Tony frowns at her, not liking the way she's eyeing him as if waiting for him to flip out. "No need to build suspense, Killer Queen, if you've got a source I'm happy to hear about it."

That makes her snort indelicately just before her face goes carefully blank and she holds the phone out to him. "Steve knew about the bomb before even we did. They've got a top-ranking HYDRA agent in their custody right now. His team - Fury's team - might have information that we can use. If we pool our resources-"

"I didn't realize you were in contact with him," Tony says, reaching out with a shaky hand to take the phone. His throat is very dry, something stuck in there he can't swallow around. A brand new kind of suffocation. He scrolls up quickly to the start of the conversation chain, feeling the burn of Natasha's gaze upon him. "Using the number I gave you. Smart. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, it's what I gave it to you for."

His voice is unbearably small, but Natasha's is somehow smaller. "He's still my friend, Tony."

He reads through the texts, Steve's nigh-frantic retelling of what happened on his mission, his encounter with someone called Madame Hydra (really?), and then has to read through them again, squashing down an irrational feeling of betrayal when he sees the messages go back for months. Of course Natasha kept in contact with Steve. She had followed the man for longer than any of them and they were - are - close. She turned on Tony back in May just to save Steve. It's Natasha decision, too, no matter what he thinks. This isn't - he won't make this into a thing, because it isn't. The time for choosing sides has come and passed, should have never been there in the first place. "Like I said, Nat. It's smart."

He shakes his head at one point and she asks him what that's for. He holds the phone up to her, showing the text that Rogers sent late last night, just minutes after the bomb exploded. "Rogers is infringing on my gimmick. Unless he was the one who set up the bomb, I'm not entirely sure how any of this is his fault."

"It was a remote detonator," Natasha says, even though Tony has already read that bit.

"Very remote," he notes.

"The woman had a decoy. He couldn't have known."

"Like I said," he repeats, raising an eyebrow at her defensive tone, and she falls back a little. He scrolls through the texts one more time and hands it over. "So we're getting missions from Fury. He's getting missions from Fury. And never the twain shall meet, apparently. World's ending and the man's still playing Spy Games."

"He could be keeping valuable information," she suggests, baldly sly.

"He usually is."

"We need to find out what it is."

"Probably," he says noncommittally. Fury's always playing a long con and Tony doesn't have the time to parcel it out. There is a familiar figure in the distance and he stands, relieved to be getting away from the encroaching sense of panic that even the idea of working alongside Rogers, even from a distance, brings to him. It feels like letting it go, and Tony can't. He dreams about his mother every night. He can't grit his teeth and bear it. "Well, I'll leave that in your capable hands, super spy. You and Rogers still seem to have a rapport, see if you can get Fury to spill some beans."

"Tony-" she says, clambering to her feet. "We can't stay like this forever. This is bigger than all of us, this-" She waves at the cloud, at the row of bodies Vision has brought out. "- is what the Avengers were always meant for. We have to work together."

"The Avengers are working together, Widow," he tells her, voice hard, and her expression shuts down and smooths away. "If Rogers wants to help, he's more than welcome. I'm leaving everything up to your discretion." 

"If you just talked to him-"

"Natasha," he says, voice strained and breaking a little. "I tried talking before. When that didn't work, I tried something a little less verbal, also hugely unsuccessful. You told me not long ago that I had to learn to ask for help, well this is me asking. Handle it. Can you do that?" She watches him, eyes flicking all over his face trying to read every twitch and clenched muscle, and then nods. "Thank you," he breathes, and heads over to where T'Challa is conversing with one of the first responders in heavily accented French.

"Kitty," he gets out in something that supposed to be teasing but simply comes out exhausting. The paramedic's eyebrows climb obscenely high but T'Challa appears unfazed and the other man wisely backs out of the conversation. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"I am an Avenger," T'Challa answers simply, but it lifts Tony's spirits. T'Challa works with them, signed on the dotted line right next to Tony, but sometimes the king still feels distant. "And a king. I thought my presence would help." He is staring at the haze of Terrigenesis with dim horror in his eyes. Tony wonders if he is remembering the explosion that took away his father.

"Certainly doesn't hurt," Tony agrees. There are cameras in the distance, filming all of them and the disaster just beyond. "I'm going to have to give a statement. Tell them the Avengers stand ready to face this crisis and that the bad guys will be stopped and unicorns are real, too."

"You do not think they can be stopped?" T'Challa asks, brow creasing. He places a bracing hand on Tony's shoulder. "This doesn't sound like you, Tony."

Tony looks down. He feels uncomfortably exposed without his suit on. It's sitting in wait in the quinjet right now and he itches for the protection of the face mask, the HUD breaking the entire world down into gridlines and parameters. "I know we can. I just don't know how much we'll lose before we do. I don't know if we'll be able to stop the next one."

He exhales shakily and then pulls his game face on, acutely aware of the cameras. A shot of him and T'Challa will probably go for a couple of thousand to the highest bidding newspaper. He lifts his eyes to the king and grips the bicep of his outstretched arm. "Sorry, I didn't mean to - I'm glad you're here, by the way."

He gets a smile and a brief tightening of fingers on his shoulder for that, and T'Challa releases him with a glance to the press. "Go, Avenger," the Panther commands. "Give them hope."

"I'd have better luck with the unicorns," Tony scoffs, but he rolls his shoulders and squares them. Hope. They could all do with a bit of that right now. 

He gets maybe five feet away when T'Challa speaks again. "Tony," he calls, and waits for the man to turn back to him. He looks incredibly uneasy all the sudden. "I did not come here for strictly altruistic reasons. I have decided to present your request to my guest. You will abide by his decision." It is not a question, and after a long moment of flabbergasted silence, Tony nods. The tense lines in T'Challa's face grow deeper for an instant before smoothing away, and the king turns away, heading towards his own bank of reporters.

Fury has an actual wall of televisions, and for a man with only one eye, he seems to keep up with all of them admirably well.

Steve is watching the one currently showing Tony Stark in front of a sea of cameras, the dissipating cloud of Terrigenesis behind him in the morning light. "We've conducted studies on the few samples we've been able to obtain of the contaminant," Tony is replying to one reporter asking when Brussels will be fully safe again. "Once it drops below a certain threshold of parts per million by volume in the air it becomes ineffective. The police have been informed and will let the city know when they deem it safe; any further questions on that should most likely be left to them."

"What is happening here, Mr. Stark?"

"What's happening is some very bad people out to spread fear through tragedy," Tony responds, voice and eyes as hard as stone. "These are terrorists, folks, and I know on a day like this no one wants to hear this, but you can't let them win. I know you're hurting and I know that right now giving in feels like the simplest thing to do, but I urge you not to. The Avengers will be using every resource available to hunt these cowards down, with the aid of the United Nations. We stand ready to live up to our namesake; we will make those responsible face justice."

It's all fancy speech and the more shrewd of the population will realize this, but Tony is essentially magic when you place him in front of camera. Most of the world will be eating out of the palm of his hand, ready to fight the good fight with him. Tony once told him that was the key to any good support: make it into a fight, and then make the fight theirs. Back then, Tony had looked disgusted with himself as he talked about it; he had been referring to how he used to keep his head and his company above water during the most dismal years of the war in the Middle East. 

Now the reporter retakes control of her camera and reports on what they know so far as Tony steps back to where Natasha and Vision wait in the distance. The bomb was above ground and very small, not dropped from the air as the Newark bomb was but left in the park. Steve can read between the lines of what she isn't saying: the bomb didn't create a huge cloud of Terrigen mist but it did cause a lot of property damage which means Tony was right. It was mostly meant to scare people. To let them know HYDRA is still here and still has power. The reporter announces that Belgian police will be setting up a tip hotline for any suspicious activity in and around the city.

"Risky move," Fury says. "Liable to cut Stark off at the knees right there and create panic. Exactly what we don't need."

Steve hadn't even realized they were watching the same screen; Fury has mostly been preoccupied with watching a barely lucid Madame Hydra recover from her emergency surgery. "What we need, sir?" Fury looks over his shoulder so Steve is just in his peripheral vision and Steve makes sure to sneer just for him. "Who's 'we'? Tony's team? Mine? All of us? Or maybe just you."

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Captain," Fury says dryly. "And I suspect you don't either."

What Steve knows right now is that there is a smoking crater in Belgium right now that he might have been able to stop if he'd just had more. More time, more information, more wits and smarts and strength. Second verse, same as the first, he thinks bitterly. Or is fool me once more appropriate here.

"I realize that the Avengers are split apart right now," he begins carefully. "But we're fighting the same enemy. I informed Agent Romanov of how the last mission went down and she and I have both been wondering why you've been working both teams separately."

"Keep wondering. I'm not." Fury shrugs one shoulder and turns back to the screen. "The Avengers are working and will continue to work with ATCU, which means they work with SHIELD, which means they work with me. You get how that works, Captain?"

"But not us. You haven't told us what they've found, or what they're working on," Steve points out, and he hates this more than anything else, this fragmentation. He used to send Natasha to gather information and send data off to Tony to study patterns in their targets movements. Now they're all working with half the story, everybody but the man in front of him. "And I'm willing to bet you haven't told them everything you know either."

"These are very dangerous times, Captain, and putting all my eggs into one basket, especially a basket as volatile as you or Stark, would not be in anyone's best interest." Fury shakes his head and for one brief moment he looks incredibly sad, but it flickers away so fast Steve thinks he might have imagined it. "HYDRA isn't as careful as they used to be, Rogers. They're acting like they've got nothing left to lose, now. I've seen what Terrigenesis can do when it succeeds. They're trying to build an army out of it and as soon as they figure out the formula, they'll have it. We have to stop them before that happens."

"And how does keeping your best people in the dark help with that?" Steve asks skeptically. "You've tried this before Fury, with the Tesseract and Project Insight. It always blows up in your face and we have to clean up the mess you've made."

Fury's eyebrow climbs up his forehead. "I act as best as I see fit, same as anybody. Or is making a mess only okay when James Barnes is on the line?"

Steve rears back, a snarl rising up in him. "Maybe I can't win this game, Fury, but I can damn well break the board. So answer the question: what are you playing at? Who are you playing for?"

"Humanity," Fury answers promptly, then he sighs, abruptly seeming very old all at once. "This isn't a conspiracy, Rogers. You've could have been sharing information with your team any time you wanted to, but you didn't, because you didn't think to, did you? You said it yourself. Tony's team, your team. The Avengers are split apart. You don't know how to work together anymore.

"These are the consequences, Rogers. I watched you at the airport, blowing up planes and trucks and each other like you had good sense. That was the team I built, those were the people I trusted to keep the world safe. And when push came to shove, you fell apart. You couldn't hold it together. You forgot your duty. So yeah, I'm playing this a little close to the chest." 

"We're not robots, Fury," Steve said lowly, swallowing down the churning guilt in his stomach. "And we're not perfect. We make mistakes."

"I know. Hell, y'all have a robot and last I heard little brother paralyzed his own teammate mooning after the little Witch." Fury's gaze has gone steely as he watches the anger build in Steve's already hyper-tense frame, his eye roving Steve's face like he's looking for something and just not finding it. "I have never claimed to be on the side of righteousness; I leave that up to people like you, Captain. I work with what I got and as long as I keep getting results, I'm happy. HYDRA's got their eye on Stark and his gang, watching their every move, and that's exactly what I wanted."

"Fury, are you -" Steve can't speak past the rage in his throat. "Are you using the Avengers as bait?"

Fury snorts derisively and mouths 'bait' to himself. "The Avengers can take care of themselves. I didn't put together a team of fools, Captain, and neither did Stark. HYDRA can try their best against them and they'll lose, and while they're doing that we'll be stealing everything they have right from under their nose." Steve gapes at him wordlessly and Fury's smirk is very satisfied. "What can you do, Captain, besides keep going? You go to Tony now, tell him what I told you and I guarantee you his plans will not change in the slightest. He'd probably even agree with me; he likes to pretend he's a pragmatist every once in awhile. You want to swap stories with Romanov, go right ahead. Anything that gives the Avengers an edge. You are an asset that can't be wasted. I brought you out of Wakanda for a reason. You took HYDRA down twice, Captain, and you'll do it again, but not so long as they can see you coming."

"And you think this plan is going to work?" Steve asks incredulously.

Fury jerks his thumb at the TV where Madame Hydra is displayed, asleep on her bed. "It already is."

In response Steve points towards another TV, where a camera pans across the empty streets of downtown Brussels. "And how many people are going to pay the price, Fury?"

"Hopefully less than there would be if I let all of you run around half-cocked like you did last May," Fury retorts sharply. "In this line of work, the job is to save as many as we can. Sometimes the way to do that isn't the way of righteousness after all. There isn't any more room for mistakes or personal feelings, Captain. As long as both teams do their jobs, we can take HYDRA down. So what's it going to be?"

"You realize what you're doing," Steve says, unable to fully comprehend the man in front of him. "People aren't calculations. You are sending in my teammates, my friends, without all the information, you are putting them in danger."

"They are always in danger, Cap. They may not be soldiers, but they've accepted it," Fury responds calmly. "And contrary to what you might believe, I know what I'm doing. Think of it as returning the favor, Captain. You and your friends made this mess. Now I'm cleaning it up."

He doesn't trust us, Steve realizes with frightening clarity. It shouldn't have been a surprise; Fury trusts nobody beyond his most loyal lieutenants. But the fight over the Accords, the Civil War as the press had inanely started calling it, seems to have broken what little faith Fury had in them in the first place. The man is scrambling, desperate for a way to regain control over a situation that had gotten away from all of them.

He spins on his heel sharply and makes his way out to the hall, blindly fishing for his phone to repeat the entire conversation to Natasha in texts. He doesn't know why he's so adamant that she not call. Perhaps because he knows what a call would mean.

'There's nothing I can do,' he types woefully, but his thumb hovers over the send button. That can't be the only option, to just turn and face the wall and accept being Fury's pawn. He's done that before and it almost ended the whole damn world. Screw Fury's trust issues, the Avengers, even broken, are still a team. 

YOU:
We need to work together on this. Convince him we won't fall apart. Convince him that he can trust me.

NAT:
Tony has to get there in his own time.

YOU:
HYDRA wants this formula to work for a reason. Fury said they're building an army. They're trying to scare us, throw the world into chaos. The Accords aren't important, the world needs the team.

NAT:
I'll try. But I make no promises. Tony knows what's at stake.

NAT:
He said that it's not your fault btw. Don't blame yourself for what happened.

Tony is back in the car with his mother, a hot morning in New York outside St. Patrick's Cathedral. Obie and his father are once again leaning on the hood of the Cadillac, sharing a cigar and talking about work while they people-watch. His mother is running her fingers down the rosary that Tony lost seven years after her death. He never forgave himself for that. There are so many things for which has never forgiven himself.

“Though your sins are like scarlet..." Maria says, and then she looks over her shoulder at Tony. He knows how this one goes. When he was younger he used to be obsessed with the Bible's concept of forgiveness. That if he just asked, it could be granted. He remembered thinking that whatever wrongs he had done to make his father the way he was, surely they would be wiped clean if Tony just apologized. But apologizing just made Howard angry, and Tony never did get absolution. He never will, until the day he dies, because someone stole his father away from him.

Or, more likely, Howard would never have forgiven him anyway, because even a genius like Howard Stark couldn't figure out why his only son made him so angry. Tony has a theory; Tony has dozens, he's a scientist. But his father is dead and gone and has been for twenty five years. There's no one to test his theories on anymore. There's just a headstone to visit and a legacy to maintain and the ghost of Howard left in Tony's footsteps, making them heavier than they should be.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

Maria's fingers slip along the beads. "God teaches us forgiveness, Antonino. And so did I."

"Well, mamma," Tony says spitefully, because he was always spiteful back then and she loved him anyway. "God left me a long time ago. And so did you. So I'll keep my fury for myself, if that's alright. It's a lot easier to live on."

If Tony were to tell anyone his foremost theory on Howard Stark it would be this: his son could ask for forgiveness as many times as he wanted, but Howard could not grant it because Howard didn't know how.

Twenty-five years later, Tony may finally understand at least one thing about his father.

"Oh, Tony," Maria sighs, amused. "You loved me so much, sometimes I think you forgot that I was a Stark, too. You think I'm talking about Steve Rogers, or Bucky Barnes, or your father? Anyone who has ever wronged you? I don't care about them. Forgive them, or don't. I may be in your mind but I'm still your mother. I care about you, passerotto."

Obie and his father straighten outside, shake hands; the dream is about to end and his mother's blue eyes take up his entire field of vision. He smiles at her, he always should have smiled more for her, shouldn't have been so short-tempered, should have made her stay home with him that night. "You're asking for the impossible."

"My son," she says, teasing. "You don't know the word."

"How's the decryption going, Fry?" 

He takes out his phone and flicks it so three displays fan out in front of him as his AI brings the program they've been running on Osborn's notes on Project Samson to the center hologram. "It's going, Boss. I'm not naturally sneaky." Tony grins at the consternation in his AI's voice. She's never been particularly fond of this 007 business, preferring to get down and dirty. 

"Keep at it. If whatever made Osborn turn into the Fantastic Flying Freak has been through the government we needed to know yesterday. Terrigenesis to Screen 3, please."

"Yessir." The rightmost screen fills with scrolling data on the sample they obtained from the bombing in Brussels, running against the sample from the bomb found in the factory and the one synthesized from Kamala's blood. FRIDAY has already lit up and recorded corresponding chemicals compounds and formulas in each sample. 

Tony's eyes dart from sample to sample, watching FRIDAY's simulations highlight the same string of compounds in each one. The problem with Terrigenesis doesn't end with its unstable super soldier serum. The end result, what the formula ends up creating, is completely randomized from reaction to reaction. What is terrifying is that this randomization seems to be the one thing HYDRA actually intended Terrigenesis to do. Tony could take the sample from Kamala's blood and use it on a lab rat at this very moment, and if that lab rat was lucky enough to live, it would have an entirely different skill set than Kamala, even with the same exact formula in its blood.

He has always been aware of this - it was the reason he finally hunted down Bruce to stabilize Kamala's genetic makeup. Terrigenesis replicates itself in a person's blood stream and bonds to their cells, but when every single reaction creates a different outcome it's impossible for the body to survive. That Kamala did is a miracle. But he hasn't suspected until now that HYDRA has meant for this to happen. They're not trying to create one army of super soldiers, they're trying to create an army of Enhanced, like Wanda. 

Malik said Terrigenesis is unstable, but perfect. Tony thinks it's simply out of control. HYDRA has created something out of a thousand broken pieces of other failed science experiments and none of them are smart enough to piece it back together. So they're experimenting on innocent civilians. Making the entire world their lab rat.

If he's a lab rat, too, then he's definitely the one at the end of the maze pressing the button and getting no cheese.

"Tiberius Stone on Screen 1, FRIDAY," he says with a sigh. "Let's try something I actually might be able to fix, shall we?"

"It'd make for an interesting change of pace," FRIDAY agrees, but he doesn't take it personally. The memory of JARVIS hangs heavy over FRIDAY, somewhat literally. It's not her fault that she's not as fast or as clever, and the guilt over that will probably eat Tony alive someday once every other horrible thing he's done stops gnawing on his soul.

Ty's smug face fills up the leftmost screen and Tony watches the data while he waits. Tiberius is probably sitting right next to his phone but lets it ring until the very last second before picking it up.

"Antony," he smarms. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Ew," Tony returns. "Clear your Wednesday for next week, I'll be calling in my favor." Barnes is sure to make his decision before then, and either way he chooses, his case is moving forward soon. Tony needs to convince seven billion people to be poor mistreated Bucky Barnes' biggest fans. No man could look at what was done to Barnes and not be moved, or at the very least terrified at the loss of control Barnes endured for seventy years.

No man, Tony thinks, smiling grimly. 

"Do I get to know what this mysterious favor is?" Tiberius asks in a wheedling tone. 

"Nope."

"I hate surprises," Ty grumps and Tony finds himself laughing almost against his will. 

"I know you do, Stone. That's the icing on top."

Tiberius scoffs. "So am I gonna need the whole day or is Your Majesty exaggerating as usual?"

"I never exaggerate, Ty, I leave that up to you. You're the professional."

"Well." And Ty's voice turns slick and sharp and cold, the same way it used to when Tony was twenty-seven and got home a little too late for Ty's jealousy-fueled paranoia. "I haven't had to flex that muscle in a while. Not with you Avengers doing my job for me. I still get a new video once a week of Captain America's three million dollar dash through Berlin. Even better are the vids from Leipzig. They're long-distance, of course, but I've even gotten one of War Machine falling. I'm saving it for a slow news week."

Tony's blood runs cold and he reminds himself that Tiberius can't see him, that Ty is a pathological liar, and that this man will do practically anything to hurt Tony. Even still, he types out a message for FRIDAY to send out feelers into ViaStone's servers.

"You tried so hard to save him, Tony, but I wouldn't feel too bad that you failed. Rhodey's used to you disappointing him."

Yeah, okay, fucking ouch, Ty. He grits his teeth and bears it. "Still can't decide which one of us you're more jealous of, huh, babe?"

"Fuck off," Tiberius snarls and silence falls on both sides of the lines. 

Tony chokes it down first. He always does. "So what is it really like, out there?"

"What are you talking about?"

"A journalist always has to know the kernel of truth, you told me that. How are people really dealing with it?"

"Sounds an awful lot like you're asking me for a favor, Toto."

"Sounds an awful lot like I'm appealing to the one good bone in your body, Caesar," Tony slings back, grimacing when he realizing the thousand different ways he's now opened the conversation for Tiberius and his fratboy humor.

But Ty is surprisingly quiet on the other end for a long minute. When he speaks, his voice vacillates between his Serious Journalist Voice and real sincerity. "They're scared, T. Newark was one thing, an extremely terrifying thing that brought back a lot of bad memories for the entire region. Whole families died in that neighborhood. But now its happened again and has apparently blindsided everyone, including the people sworn to protect us. For every person who insists that living in fear is giving the terrorists exactly what they want, you've got another who wants to nuke whole sections of the planet to hell just so they can feel safe. Anti-Muslim violence is on the rise again, Europe is very visibly scrambling and on top of all that the Avengers are missing half their roster and are only just now recovering their image from that time they went around destroying airports. Nobody trusts anybody. Well, that's always been the kernel of truth, the damn secret of the universe, but now more than ever. And people will forget about Brussels like they forgot about Newark and they forget about the thousand other atrocities I let pass by my desk every day because no one wants to hear about them, until it happens all over again.

"Either two things happen, Tony. People start getting scared and suspect everything around them and the world devolves into a kind of organized chaos. It takes a long time to recover from that."

"Or?" Tony says when Tiberius pauses.

"Or," Tiberius sighs, sounding exhausted. "Or worse. People get used to the fear. The fear starts to become normal and accepted. If that happens, its time to turn in your superhero badge, Iron Man, because the bad guys have already won."

"If that was true, Germany would have won World War II," Tony points out. Tiberius makes a noncommittal hum in response. "Besides, I'm an Avenger. 'Avenge' is right there in the name. We don't turn in the badges 'til we get retribution."

"Can I quote you on that?" Tiberius asks, frustrated and teasing all in one. Tony snorts. "I'll take that as a no. Well, if you're not going to hand me a story I'll have to send the field mice scurrying for their own. Work calls. Goodbye, Tony."

Tony doesn't reply, just lets the call drop, and then carefully puts his head in his hands. "Boss?" FRIDAY asks him, worried, but he doesn't reply, letting his elbows slide further and further apart until his forehead is resting on the cold marble of the kitchen counter.

This is how Peter and Rhodey find him an indeterminate amount of time later. "Tones?" Rhodey's voice is concerned and he peers up at his friend blearily before his eyes drift down to his best friend's legs. This new model of braces are so thin they almost indiscernible under Rhodey's loose fitting slacks but Tony knows. Tony always knows. 

"You look terrible," Peter tells him. He looks comical in regular street clothes with the mask pulled over his head, but Tony doesn't comment. It'd be a bit hypocritical when he was the one threatening the others if they mentioned Spider-Man's other identity.

"It's been a rough few days, buttercup," he replies tiredly, waving away FRIDAY's holograms. 

"Oh, a flower nickname. My man, you are one step away from food nicknames, the ultimate sign of Stark affection!"

Peter's blush can practically be seen through the mask and he turns to the cupboards, opening and closing the doors while retrieving a kettle, some cups, and a box of jasmine tea Wanda left behind. "Don't get his hopes up, sugar cookie. What are you doing?" Tony asks him, sitting up to watch.

"Making tea?" Spider-Man says like its obvious. He looks over his shoulders to find both men watching him and he shrugs. "Like I said, you look bad, Mr. Stark. You need tea. It's like one of the rules of life, you know?"

"Are you secretly British?"

"Jewish," Peter corrects, setting the kettle to heat on the stove. "On my mother's side."

"Ah," Tony says in commiseration, nodding his head sagely. "Far be it from me to suppress your inner-bubbe. Full speed ahead."

Peter huffs, annoyed but amused, and sets a temperature before heading over to Rhodey's side of the kitchen island to sit. "So, you wanted to meet with me?"

"Yep. We're waiting on two more people."

The kettle is whistling by the time Clint comes in, Kamala and Aamir trailing in after him. Tony raises an eyebrow at the elder Khan's presence but he supposes as Kamala's guardian he has just as much right to be here as the rest of them. "Oh, tea!" Kamala coos. "What kind?"

"Jasmine," is Peter's answer, dunking each individual bag in their respective cups. The smell fills the air and Tony is reminded of Wanda fiercely. The kitchen used to be her domain, as she was the only one in the New Avengers outside of Sam who could actually cook. Tony would come in for upgrades and tech evaluations and there she would be, cup of tea in hand, making dinner or coaching Vision through a cooking lesson. He visited once and entered the living area just as she was telling Natasha about "Pietro's favorite dish" and when she caught sight of Tony she just clammed up, neither of them quite able to look at each other. 

Jesus, he hopes she's alright.

"Thanks, Spidey," Kamala says cheerfully, taking a cup and instead of taking a sip, plonking it down in front of Tony. "Bottoms up, Mr. Stark, you look like you could use it. Well, not actually bottom's up. Don't do that. That would be super painful."

"Thanks for the tip," Tony remarks dryly, blowing on the steaming water. The six of them get themselves situated and Tony places his phone on the table, bringing up the slides he had made in advanced and flicking his finger so they slide across the table to where Clint sits, ready for him to manipulate. Clint raises his eyes to Tony's, a question in them and Tony nods.

"I think this might be it," Barton said to him as they watched Kamala try to smack a newly-returned Hope out of the air.

"What might be?" He and Clint had been watching the team practice in un-companionable silence for the last ten minutes. Tony typically liked to make them practice in pairs; Rhodey and Vision were practicing ground maneuvers at the very far end while Nat worked quietly to one side planning out drills for her usual partner, the Black Panther, who was absent today doing kingly stuff, the slacker. Hope - who was Tony's partner more often than not - still wasn't integrating as well as she could, too used to being in control, but she was better at working with Kamala outside of anyone but the man standing next to him.

"This," Clint said uselessly. Tony rolled his eyes. "I mean, I've got seven months left on the house arrest, but even after that's over, I don't think I'm coming back. I think this is what I should be doing. Helping the team practice and train. I'm forty-five, Stark, and I don't have a fancy suit to protect me out there. After this last fight...after coming back and seeing Laura, my kids..."

"You're retiring. Officially. For good this time, no backsies," Tony summarized for him, turning to him with one eyebrow raised in question.

"She said this could be good for me, that I might belong here," Clint said, his voice almost dazed as if he couldn't believe he was telling this to Tony. "I think she might be right. I like the training, I like helping the team work. I see things that other people don't, and I know how to make the puzzle fit together."

"You don't have to sell me on anything, Barton," Tony cut him off, because what made Tony a surprisingly good field leader - his tendency to see the Avengers as parts of a working, living machine with interchangeable parts - made him a bit lacking in the training room. He didn't have that certain spark for small picture planning that Captain America and apparently Hawkeye possessed. "You want to handle the training from here on out. Officially."

"Yeah," Clint breathed.

"We'll have to work together," Tony warned him, and Clint's smirk was less malicious than he would have anticipated.

"I've dealt with worse."

"Why?" 

Clint sighed, pressing his forehead against the glass and rolling it until Tony was just at the very edges of his vision. "You remember the first time your parents broke a promise they made you?"

Tony thinks of being seven and holding the letter accepting him to boarding school, his eyes only for the mother who had promised him that of course she wanted him, that nothing could separate them. "Yeah."

"You understood eventually, didn't you? You stopped being mad, eventually. But you never trusted them the same way you had." Clint's shoulders slumped, his eyes very far away. "I can't leave them again. I gotta do what's best by mine."

"Okay," Tony said. "Okay. Consider yourself official then, Barton." 

"Yeah?" Clint said, straightening up and turning to Tony, determination rising up in his eyes. "Then we're gonna have to talk about these kids."

What followed was a long, lengthy discussion about Tony's decision to bring Peter to Germany - which Clint took with a surprising lack of vitriol when Tony told him that the plan was always for Spider-Man to stay at a distance - Kamala's future, Wanda and Pietro, and uncomfortable mentions of Clint's own past as a pseudo-child soldier. They didn't have time to implement the plan they made before between Tony's unintentional ice-out of Peter and Brussels, and Tony isn't sure that now is the right time, not with whatever is lurking out there and Fury playing Information Tag. But if they do this right...if they do this right it could secure the future. For when his team is gone and a new one takes their place. 

"What are you going to do when you get another Kamala, Stark?" Clint asked. "What are we gonna do with another Wanda?" He looked at the plans he had sketched out on the piece of paper before him, a two-year training plan for every new Avenger before they were allowed full-time duties, with no one under eighteen being permitted Active status. "She shouldn't have been out there. She wasn't ready, and she's been self-sufficient her whole life, how was she supposed to know that she'd lose control? It was our job as her team to prepare her, and we let her down."

"You broke her out of the compound!"

Barton scowled. "And I mostly stand by that decision, especially with the information I had at the time. Cap told us we'd be facing off against Winter Soldiers. Wanda is powerful and can fight from a distance, she was the best choice, and besides that we were going to a remote location. Nobody knew you were going to fucking ambush us, man. But we all had a responsibility towards her, to see the things she didn't. That goes for anybody on the team, but what I saw from the reports and the footage was that Wanda panicked in a tense situation that she wasn't prepared for and her powers compensated for her fear. Tony, that wasn't even the first time it happened to her. So h ow do you think it's gonna feel if Kamala loses it, when you're the one who brought her out there?"

"I'm getting nervous," Spider-Man says, bringing them all back to the present, and Tony sighs into his cup.

"Barton is taking over primary training duties for the Avengers," he begins.

"And I want to talk some things over with you," Barton says, looking at Peter but framing his shoulders so that Kamala is very much included in the conversation. "Tony and I have been discussing a training program for new recruits: a mandatory eighteen-month training period with regular evals determining competency for Active status with a minimum age limit of eighteen. Spider-Man, you're an official Avenger, and out on the streets you're amazing, no doubt, but I'd like to ask you to consider being a part of this."

"I'm on reserve status," Peter says, an edge of pained confusion in his voice as he turns to Tony. "We've already talked about this, remember? You said it was fine, you weren't going to stop me."

"It is fine, buddy. You haven't done anything wrong. In fact, we all owe you our lives," Tony replies, keeping his voice even. "And you've signed the Accords; we won't stop your work in New York and Luke Cage has already told me he'd be happy to have you help out the Defenders whenever. But Clint - Clint and I -"

Clint picks up the slack, looking at Kamala. "I know you haven't signed, but if you did I'd like you to consider the same. The fact of the matter is, you two are crazy powerful but you're not trained to be on a team. That takes years.  The old Avengers didn't start really functioning until about two years after our creation, and it still wasn't perfect. You're both incredibly smart, but you don't know tactics or teamwork. If I'm taking over training, the first thing I want you two to do is take the comms for the next few missions, watch the field footage, and see how it works."

Tony reaches out with his hand and places it on Peter's forearm. He can feel the muscles trembling under his fingers. "Look at me, kiddo," he pleads, and the mask turns towards him, the eyes dilating. "Okay? Now tell me what you think I'm asking of you, right now."

Spider-Man remains silent but there is a scraping sound on the marble as Kamala plays with her cup. "It sounds like you're asking us to just sit on the sidelines," she says, sounding heartbroken. 

Tony knows she idolizes them all to an extent, and he never wants to break her of her wonder of heroes the way his father broke him. But it's also important that he be honest with her. "You know the first time I took the armor out I drove it into traffic and nearly got myself killed trying to break an altitude record? If you were talking to that Tony Stark from years ago, he would tell you that sometimes you gotta run before you walk. He was...a different person. Maybe not a bad one, probably not a good one, but a dumbass who didn't know what he was really getting into. I wanted to right my wrongs, but along the way I broke almost as much as I fixed because I didn't-" He inhales sharply and Rhodey desperately looks like he wants to cut in but Tony continues. "I didn't get it. That first flight? Happiest moment of my life. I had the power to change things that I didn't before, and I thought that that meant I had a responsibility to do so. I still think that, really. I did more than enough sitting on the sidelines for the first forty years of my life and it got a lot of people killed. But I also have a responsibility towards the people I claim to protect, because they never asked for it. I'm not gonna go all noble on you and say that I'd give up that first flight to change things, because I wouldn't, but there's a lot I would give back just to have that Tony Stark know what I know now: the moment you use those powers in the name of another person, you owe that person to use them to the best of your abilities.

"Kamala, Spiderling, you're not the first super-humans we've had and you probably won't be the last. We brought the both of you here because we want you to lead by example. The Avengers were originally just a group of remarkable people, but you know that saying about heroes never dying? You two are what that means. What we're asking you to do here isn't to sit on the bench and watch the world pass by, we're asking you to listen and learn; be the first of a new generation of heroes who can work together as a team to fight the fights the rest of us can't. And we're trusting you," Tony says softly, and Kamala looks up, eyes shining. "To become all that we know you can be."

Aamir looks down at his sister, watching her expression, and placing a hand on her shoulder. "Come now, sister," he tells her. "To me, an outsider, this makes good sense. If you become an Avenger, people are putting their lives in your hand. You owe it to them to be the most prepared you can be. And I - I would be extremely grateful if you would do this for me, Kamala. I can't stop you from doing what you think is right, but I want to know you're not being reckless. That you are safe."

The fact is, Tony knows he made a mistake bringing Peter to Germany. But he couldn't have prevented the encounter with the Green Goblin and he wouldn't have tried to; Spider-Man had saved a lot of lives that day. Peter isn't going to stop, even if Tony kicked him out of the Avengers right now. So it's Tony's job to step up, stop being terrified of disappointing the kid and make sure that if Peter is going to do this, especially with the Avengers, that he has the best chance of survival possible. Right now, that means a lot more training. 

He can't stop every bad thing from getting to them, and he needs to stop trying. But giving them a solid future, one they're prepared for and not thrown into, sink or swim, 'we're a time-bomb' - he can do that.

"Is this because of Germany?" Peter suddenly asks, and Kamala makes a noise of distress in response to his tone or the topic, Tony can't tell. "Because I messed up? Because I followed your orders perfectly in Canada, I stopped that bomb-"

"You did," Tony agrees. "I've never held Germany against you. You were a kid. You still are a kid. But you weren't prepared back then for what it was like. And we face people like Cap's side every day, except those people are shooting to kill. You know, you've met a few. And I know what you've faced off against in New York, I know how tough you are. If I need help, you'll be the first person I call."

Peter seemed to seize upon this. "Do you promise?"

Tony nods, smiling a little and feeling so out of his depth. "'Course. Like I said. I trust you. You have never let me down. And I've learned my mistake, okay, this isn't my guilt talking, this isn't me trying to parent you, this is me being your team leader. I have an obligation not only to you but to the rest of my team to make sure you are in the best possible shape to be at our six."

"What about Donnie?" Kamala asks, and Clint looks to Tony because he had asked the same thing. "And Ms. Hope? King T'Challa?"

"Donnie, hopefully, will be ready in a few months," Tony says, lies really but that's something he shoves down. "For now, he still needs a bit more time to sort things out. Hope has already agreed." And wasn't that a pleasant conversation. Hope still has a business to run on the West Coast, so she doesn't mind staying on the reserves for the time being, but he knows it galled her to be told once more to wait. "Black Panther is technically already on reserves. He's called upon when needed, just like the rest of you will be."

Peter, beside him, breathes out shakily and turns from the table, thinking it over. They all watch him, Kamala with an intense focus as if her own decision depends on Spider-Man's. "If I do this," he begins, not turning around. "If you need me on a mission, you'll bring me. This stuff that's happening, with the bombs and stuff, it's scary. You have to promise that you won't decide its too dangerous and let things get out of hand." He turns. "You asked me to be on the team. You have to promise me."

"We promise. You're a member of this team. Reserve status, retired like me, whatever, you are an Avenger," Clint says firmly. "But you do need more training. What you've done so far is pretty great, kid, but imagine what it will be like when you're not running on sheer instinct and adrenaline."

"I also have minor short-term precognition," Peter says. When the tables stares at him, he hunches a little. "I call it my Spidey Sense."

"Wild," Kamala breathes as Rhodey covers an indelicate snort.

Clint clears his throat. "Oh, excuse me. Instinct, adrenaline, and minor short-term precognition. Point still remains. You gotta recognize that doing will mean that you understand I am training you to be the future of the Avengers. And I'm not gonna settle for anything less than perfection. So are you in, Spidey? Kamala?"

"I haven't signed."

"Oh, sister," Aamir says, sounding frustrated. "How many times have you told me your intention to be a super-hero? Accept Mr. Hawkeye's help!"

Kamala turns crimson. "I mean, I would be totally grateful, Mr. Hawkeye, don't get me wrong - I mean, yeah, I'm in. Thank you for having me!"

"I guess...I'm in, too," Spider-Man says. "My uncle always told me there's no shame in asking for help. I've...I've hurt people before, because I didn't know what I was doing. I could have hurt that girl," he says, mask rising till the eyes meet Tony's, and Tony wonders if Peter sees Gwen falling at night in his dreams like he sees Rhodey, like he still sees Pepper. "I'm in."

"That's what I like to hear," Clint says, clapping his hands and looking immensely relieved. He puts his hands to the table, over the projections, and splits it in two. "I've already got an assignment for you both. You have your phones on you?" They nod and take them out and Clint flicks the slides first to Kamala, then to Peter. Tony hears the 'ding!' of incoming messages. "The first recording is a compilation of Captain America's helmet camera and Iron Man's recorded footage from a battle against HYDRA in 2015. The second is War Machine, Vision, and Iron Man's data from the battle in Canada. Watch them and note the differences in Cap and Iron Man's leadership styles. I want notes on the pros and cons of both, handed into me this time next week. The footage comes with a separate audio file for comm chatter - and I do mean chatter - as well as the embedded audio. I suggest you listen once without sound, once with, and once to the audio by itself. A lot of the stuff you're going to have no idea about. That's fine - Cap tends to use military jargon, Tony has always been overly fond of shorthand commands that takes constant exposure to get used to, Natasha and I talk almost entirely in code out of habit. Don't worry about it. This is practice. There's no pressure."

The kids nod, Kamala already watching the silent version of the 2015 Eastern Europe battle. Tony feels a flicker of admiration for Barton's cool, commanding, but undemanding tone. He still remembers the one-sided conversation he recovered from the audio archives of the Battle of Sokovia, the pep-talk Clint gave Wanda that got her off her ass. Laura was right, as she usually is; he's made for this.

They split after that, Rhodey wrangling a promise for dinner out of Tony before departing to the gym, Clint off to the top floor where his family waits, and Kamala and Peter heading down to Tony's lab with his permission, where Donnie is waiting for them. The only one who remains is Aamir.

"Something else, Mr. Khan?" Tony asks the younger man, feeling a pang at how lost Aamir looks. He's still a kid himself, really. They've all been so single-mindedly focused on getting Kamala better that they forgot about the other orphan who hovers like a specter over the only family he has left.

"Please call me Aamir," he begins softly, clutching at his cup. "I cannot describe how grateful I am for all that you have done, but I have some questions."

"Shoot."

"Kamala cannot stay here forever," Aamir says bluntly. "I know we are waiting for her powers to come under her control, but what happens then? What happens to -" the young man gulps and looks down, something like shame in his face. "I am sorry to admit that I haven't made as much of my life as I should have, Mr. Stark. I know Kamala deserves a normal life, but I don't know how to give it to her. You see, I don't want her growing up in a remote place like this, with no people her own age and constantly surrounded by talks of battles and enemies. I am frightened of what an environment like this might do to her. Not that you are bad people, just that-"

"This isn't a normal life," Tony echoes.

"But I've been away from the States for months, I dropped out of college." Aamir's voice is filled with self-loathing. "I thought my parents would always be there."

It cuts through Tony like a knife, that familiar desolation in his voice. "What do you want to do, Aamir?"

"I?" Aamir gapes over at him. "I want?"

"Yes, you. Be honest."

Aamir looks away, then down, staring into his cup like he's trying to read the tea leaves. "I hold much admiration for Dr. Banner," he finally confesses. "I would like to be like him. I would like to help people like my sister."

"That's a tough path to go down."

"I have already been down the hardest path," Aamir says, his eyes growing very bright for a moment before he pulls himself together. "I used to do everything for myself. Perhaps that's why I failed. But now I will do it for her. For my parents'."

Tony nods. A better reason than most. "Alright, then. We'll see about getting you re-enrolled and I'll help you hunt down a job. FRIDAY, make a search based on Aamir's resume. As for Kamala," he adds. "We'll see how it goes. If all else fails, she'll be the first ever Avenger with an official stipend. I'm sure she won't be the last."

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Stark!" Aamir says, clambering to his feet. "I will not let you down!" After several more effusive thank-yous and one very enthusiastic hand-shake, Aamir leaves Tony there, still nursing his tea cup.

"Does that count, too, Boss?" FRIDAY asks.

"What does?"

"Something we can fix."

Tony sighs and lets himself smile. "If it doesn't, well. It'll be one of the better lies we've ever told ourselves, Fry."

Later, when he's calmed down, Steve remembers that things happened even after the bomb. Diamondback hasn't changed out of her costume since they returned and she has yet to move from this spot outside Madame Hydra's observation room, but when Steve approaches her eyes snap straight to him, her senses not dulled in the slightest.

"Come to escort me to my cell?"

Steve sighs. "No one's putting you in a cell, Rachel."

"No? So, what?" She asks, looking a little surprised. "Was I unsuccessful, then?"

"No, you definitely paralyzed her," Steve replies, looking through the window and watching the woman drowsing inside. Her spinal cord had been completely severed from Diamondback's shuriken. "But I'm more likely to get in trouble than you are."

"How do you figure that?"

Steve shrugs, worn down to the nerves. "I'm your leader. You made no secret of what would happen if you got your hands on her. Not only did I not do my job and convince you to follow orders, I let you get your hands on her."

Rachel looks askance at him, her pretty face scrunching like she's tasted something awful. "So is that the self-flagellation or martyrdom talking right now? I can never tell the difference."

"Rachel."

"Look," she sneers. "It's just insulting, you know? My actions had nothing to do with you. I did what I did because I wanted to do it. So I better not hear about your prostrating yourself in front of Fury begging for mercy for me."

"I think you're overestimating my commitment to your cause," Steve remarks dryly, although the truth is if Fury does make a move towards Diamondback, he will step in. No matter what she says, part of it is his fault for not watching her better.

"She'll never walk again," Diamondback whispers, pressing harder and harder against the glass. Her gear has claws on the tips of each finger made of the same material as her shurikens and now they leave tiny pinpricks behind. "She's completely useless to anybody and all I keep thinking is that I should have done more. She'll heal up. She'll heal. One day she'll stop hurting. My friends stay dead. It's not enough."

Steve looks up at the ceiling, exhaling in a long controlled breath. "It's never going to be enough, Rachel." Her mouth falls open, anger and a little bit of shock in the set of her jaw, and he lets his eyes drift shut, remembering things he'd rather not. "Back in the war, I went on a mission with my best friend that got him killed, and the man responsible was captured, lived a nice happy life, even got to enact some of his super villain plans. I can't stand that. I can't stand that I have to accept that it happened and there's no way to take it back. It isn't right."

"Well, but it would be hard to seek revenge when you're at the bottom of the ocean."

"Believe it or not, I did get revenge. It's a complicated story," he says. "But it didn't change anything. The terrible things that had happened didn't get rewritten. And I thought-" His voice drifts off.

I thought I could throw myself back in and follow order. Serve. It's just not the same.

Peggy and Bucky, young and whole, the Howling Commandos at his back and a war to fight for the side of justice, Howard and Colonel Phillips. He can't let go of all that. That's who he is, and if he lets go, if he accepts that he's lost all of that, then who is he supposed to be? It isn't right. Nobody's owed happiness but surely Steve is owed something other than a chosen suicide and a new century where everyone who loved him is gone. He doesn't accept this, he refuses, and he's been putting up his dukes against the universe for four years now trying to beat this down.  He lives his life like a fight; he doesn't know another way anymore. And it felt like every single expectation he received, every secret he uncovered, every burden of command - STRIKE Team, the Avengers - was the universe fighting back. Accept it, just like the bullies of old. Accept your place. Accept this life. 

And he's been planting himself like a tree next to the River of Truth. No. You move.

And the universe refuses. The terrible things that have happened to Steve and Bucky don't change. Peggy and his old life go and don't come back. 

He used to think what a shame it was that Tony lived so far in the future. He still does, if he's being honest, because in his impossible effort to bring the future to him, Tony has systematically ripped away every piece of solid ground underneath him that isn't named James Rhodes. But Steve can no more bend the past to his will then Tony can the future, and he wonders, a little miserably, if the reasons they never quite got along is because the whole time Tony was thinking similar thoughts about him.

"Please do not tell me you're having an epiphany about you in the middle of a lecture on my moral quandaries," Rachel says, voice so dry he feels scorched hearing it.

"Sorry," he says, and with tact that surprises him she doesn't mention the way his voice cracks. "I just considered taking my own advice."

"Advice that you have yet to actually give me," she points out.

"It's not so much advice, really." He turns so he faces into the room with her, and they watch Madame Hydra's monitor beep steadily. "Just an ugly truth. There are things you can't change. And you have to live with them. No matter what you do to her, nothing is going to change what happened to your friends. Or you, Diamondback." He sees her hands clench into fists in the corner of his eyes and lowers his head. "I'm sorry."

"Don't," she warns, voice shaking. "Just don't." So he doesn't. 

Instead he says, "Fury's playing us."

"I heard about your shouting match with him. I didn't believe it - Fury doesn't shout. Is he actually playing you or did he just keep something mildly inconvenient from you?"

"He-" Steve lets out his breath in a hiss. "He doesn't trust us. The Avengers, I mean. So he's trying to control the situation. It's putting people at risk."

Diamondback doesn't look particularly bothered or surprised. "Nobody trusts the Avengers, Captain. And Fury controls everything. The sky is blue, water is wet. You know how you were just talking about things you can't change?"

"Doesn't it bother you?" he demands. "Fighting for something without knowing the whole story? Not knowing the real enemy? I did that once, and it turned out I was working for the enemy all along. I'm not surprised by this, Leighton; I always knew Fury was up to something, that's why I came here-"

"You came here because you were scared," she scoffs at him, caustically nonchalant. "You've been stumbling around this place half-blind for two months, we all saw you. You can't bear to be outside a fight, but you're just swinging your fists around. You don't actually care."

"That's not true," Steve says lowly, firmly. "Or fair."

That finally gets her to look at him. "You've been talking at me for the last half hour about how shit happens and you have to cope and its the most hypocritical bullshit I've ever heard. You're not coping. You're not moving on. You wanna do something, then you're gonna do something, Rogers, that's how you operate. I think every country who signed the Accords can attest to that. But you're not doing anything. Fury's playing you because you tied on the puppet strings."

She looks in on Madame Hydra and her lip curls in disgust. "I think I'm done here, actually." She pivots on her heel and starts heading down the hallway and Steve watches her leave. Her words have a ring of truth in them, but just barely. He does care, and maybe he has been lying down for Fury, maybe it was nice for five seconds to take orders again, to be the bullet instead of the shooter, but this isn't something that can't be changed. He isn't something that can't be changed. Accords or not, the world needs the Avengers fighting together on this.

Yeah, okay. Maybe the universe got him good on this one. Maybe he lost this fight. Accept it. But he's not losing the damn war. Not with his friends on the line.

He takes the phone out. He dials.

Tony reads the transcript of the call and finds himself choking on a laugh that would probably end up sounding hysterical. 'What happened to the phone I sent?' Steve had asked, and Rhodey had replied 'He destroyed it. Duh.' The man is forty seven years old. Duh, he says.

The phone call ends not long after that. Four minutes in total. Steve made him a useless promise once, but it was one Tony had reciprocated, even if he never said it out loud. Steve had called, which mean that Steve needed him. Them. The Avengers. Steve thinks the Avengers need to work together on this, and Tony agrees.

He would be more appreciative of the gesture if Steve weren't being so blatantly manipulated into this state, though.

"FRIDAY, call Agent Secretary for me."

"Yessir."

Twenty seconds later, she picks up. "'Agent Secretary.' Really?"

"My, my, my, you sound like you've discovered of whole new level of righteous anger recently, congratulations."

"What do you want, Stark?" she growls.

"And little more civility towards your boss, for one," he replies, then gives in to a dramatic pause. "But then again, that's not really me, is it, Agent Hill?"

He hears a muffled curse, what sounds like the slamming of binders, and then the voice returns. "Is there an actual point to this call, Tony?"

"Fury playing human chess always amuses me when I'm not on the board. But you see, in this case, I think I kind of am. And I'm pretty sure I'm not even one of the fancy pieces. That hurts me."

"Stark."

"Look, Hill, I don't doubt your boss is keeping a few secrets from us. He was practically oozing disappointment when he last came down, honestly it felt just like being with dear old dad again, warmed my heart but the actual point is this: trying to play Rogers is a no-win scenario. The man will figure out and he will burn the whole world down in retaliation. Fury's trying to manipulate the situation to make us kiss and make-up by relying on each other for information. He's practically goading Steve into contacting us. That's fine. I know breaking up the band has left him heartbroken."

"More like dealing with the utter stupidity has carved off a few years of his life," she grumbles.

"Don't lie to me, sweetheart, we all know he's immortal. He also has been known on occasion to push too far, and this is one of them. Remind your boss which gives first when you put Steve Rogers to the wall."

"What would you have us do, then, Stark?" Another slam. "You haven't read the reports I have. Cap is completely lost out there."

"Better he be lost out there then charging in here, guns blazing, where he is still very much a wanted criminal. I've been working with what I've got with the International Courts, but getting most of the charges dropped against Lang and Barton has made a lot of them more eager to throw the damn book at Rogers."

A sigh, then. Tired and just the tiniest bit frail. He'll need to send her on vacation soon and confiscate her phone so Fury doesn't nag. "He said Steve needed the push."

"He says that a lot."

"Usually he's right."

"And I'll even concede to his greater wisdom this time," Tony allows magnanimously. "We can't face a threat like this divided. But we can't do it together, either, and Fury can't bend the world the way he wants it any more than Rogers could."

"So what would you have us do, Stark?" 

"I want you to keep doing what you're doing. Work for Fury, and work for me. No, I won't care if you tell him, I have a secret weapon against the sheer amount of smug he will radiate and its called 'I'm Tony Stark,' but it won't matter either way. What matters is that Rogers does what I goddamned asked him to do in the first place and plays it safe." Stopping the bad guys didn't always mean playing the hero. HYDRA would just love for Rogers to decide that his presence is direly needed and expose himself to a world that is still incredibly wary of the Avengers they have, let alone the ones that ran. 

'You know why he's lost?' he wants to say. 'Because he needs to be needed, and when the world asked for him on their terms, he saw it as a no. He saw that as every 4F stamp he ever got on his Army forms. But then along came Bucky Barnes and bam! There was someone who needed him.' But that would be uncharitable and mean and incredibly transparent, so instead he just sends some files to the agent and tells her she would know when to pass them on.

By that time he's turning the corner into Bruce's lab, raising his eyebrow at the way Natasha is letting the man physically guide her hands into pouring a solution into a smoking beaker. The result is a mess of flames and more steam and Nat, secret pyromaniac that she is, lights up. Normally she would scoff at letting anybody guide her, but she's apparently finally learned that the best way of getting to Bruce isn't to confront him with awkward truths in uncomfortable situations but to confront him with awkward truths in his lab.

"And why aren't you doing this?" Maria Hill interrupts his thoughts.

"Oh, yes, I can just imagine that now," Tony scoffs, and Natasha and Bruce look over, the former matching his cocked eyebrow with her own. "'Mr. Stark, we see here that on the 3rd of December you transferred a large amount of secured Avengers file to an unknown, untraceable number. Would you mind telling us more about this?"

Natasha looks absurdly pleased and he rolls her eyes at her as the agent agrees with his demands and hangs up. "Stop that," he tells the redhead, but she just clambers up on a table and swings her feet like a little kid. "Here," and then he hands her the transcript of the call. "I told FRIDAY to send the call to Rhodey; she'll change the settings to you if you ask."

"FRIDAY," Natasha says immediately, and her phone gives a little ding in response. Natasha looks from it to the transcript to Tony and her eyes are infinitely softer than they were in Belgium. "I'll be careful."

"Now, on to important things! Brucie, my love, you said you had an idea?" Tony claps his hands and Bruce starts abruptly before nodding and scurrying over to his computer. When he kills the screensaver Donald Gill's brain scans are waiting, with Bruce's scribbles over every free space left.

"I've been obsessing over these a little," Bruce confesses like its a dirty secret instead of a well-known fact. Tony can't help but grin. "And I think I might have come up with something that could stop the switch. Permanently."

"That...sounds amazing." And a little impossible. "Don't leave us in suspense, dear."

Bruce blows up the scan, and gets his stylus out. "Look here, and here. Here is where the sequence of words first begins," he says, pointing towards the second largest spike in the waves. "And here builds up when saying the last three. The highest point is nearly always achieved at the second to last word, and then it plateaus at the last. That's the switch, when Donnie becomes Blizzard." Tony nods in understanding and Bruce swipes at the screen, pressing play on a simulation. As it runs, he explains further. "All we have to do is prevent his brain waves from reaching the level of those spikes. When Blizzard becomes active, his brain waves stay at that level. The reason why knocking him - and Bucky Barnes - out is so effective is because its knocks them out of that level. You have to build it up all over again. If we install a chip, or nanites, that would prevent Donnie's brain from ever reaching that plateau, he'll never switch over."

The simulation plays two scenarios - if the dam is applied at the first word, or the last three. In both, the brain activity drops down, way down, sharply before building back up. "Bruce," Tony breathes. "This - this is incredible, don't get me wrong, buddy, but tell me this data isn't showing a drop that close to brain death."

Bruce sighs heavily, and takes off his glasses to rub at his nose. "There's always a but, Tony, you know that." Tony waits patiently for him to explain this one and Bruce rubs harder. "Look, preventing brain activity is not something people normally try to do, outside of nervous disorders like Parkinsons, and this isn't that. The simulation only shows probabilities, you know that. I showed you this one because I want to be honest with you, but I've run just as many that had no drop at all. As near as I can figure out, the sim is showing that preventing the switch might cause such strain on Donnie's brain that it could result in a stroke."

"In a -" Tony swallows his next words, guaranteed to be outraged and hurtful. Bruce isn't trying to hurt Donnie. No one is going to hurt Donnie, he has to remember that. "Okay. Look. You keep working on this - this is good work. But right now, it's non-viable. Do not bring it up to Donnie because he will volunteer for it a heartbeat. Until we can work out the kinks, maybe some practical application once we figure out how to Winter Soldier-ize some mice, and we'll look at it again. But this could kill him. It's too risky."

"Tony," and Bruce's voice in impossibly soft, long years of practice being the bearer of bad news. "I only looked into other options because Don's already at risk. BARF has worked great, and Donnie's success rate is in the high eighties by my most recent calculations, but it might never be permanent. He'd need to keep exposing himself to it for the rest of his life and the switching, Tony, I've already showed you. It's not good for him. This," he brings up another scan. "This was one of Donnie's bad days. He switched over five out of eight times. This is the last time. Look at that drop, Tones."

It's low. Too low. "Does Donnie know?" Tony says around the lump in his throat.

"He was the first one I showed. He refused to stop. And despite all I've just said, I was inclined to agree with him. BARF might not be permanent, but if its a choice between it and being locked up for the rest of his life because he might not be able to control himself..." Bruce's voice is filled with knowing and suddenly Natasha is there, a comforting hand on his arm. They stand there together in a quiet semi-circle for a moment, staring at the screen. "You're right, Tony. We'll keep working on it. I just wanted to let you know."

"Thank you," Tony says sincerely, knowing he's been all over the place and Bruce still trusts him to be able to carry this weight on his shoulders.

"Will BARF be a threat to Barnes?" Natasha wants to know, eyes flicking across the screen, and Bruce shakes his head.

"Barnes' serum should protect his brain from the wear and tear, but his brainwashing is also decades long, instead of just months. The work we've done with Donnie - multiply that by about say, fifty times, and you've got the most optimistic look-out. If he even says yes."

Natasha whistles very quietly, her expression morose, and Tony feels something settle in his gut at what he has potentially committed himself to: a lifetime of helping Bucky Barnes overcome his words and cope with sixty plus years of murdering innocent people. Giving Bucky Barnes something that might help him move on.

But Tony doesn't have to. He never has before, why start now? He can wear the memory of December 16th around his heart like an armor. He can carry it onwards, and never forgive and never forget. Fuck, that sounds exhausting. He's carried his parents for so long, he doesn't have the strength to carry the Winter Soldier with them.

His phone rings, saving him from his thoughts, and T'Challa's grumpy face that Tony didn't have the balls to tell him how cat-like it was appears on his screen. "He has a flair for drama," he mutters out loud, and answers. It's time to hear Barnes' choice.

It is not T'Challa who greets him at the international ('ha!' Tony thinks. Wakanda has a sense of humor, it seems) airport in Wakanda's capital, but his sister, the Princess Shuri. She has the same even dark skin tone as her brother and the same round face, but her eyes slant where his do not, her cheekbones a certain type of defined that T'Challa - or really anybody - will never achieve. Sharp, is Tony's first thought, and though it is immediately followed by beautiful, he can't quite shake the first impression of a dagger personified.

"My brother is getting things prepared back at the facility." Even her speech is all cutting consonants and short vowels. Tony vaguely wonders if T'Challa is actually like this too and Tony's either gotten used to him or T'Challa is purposefully dulling his edge whenever they speak. "We will meet him there. You will stay for as long as Mr. Barnes deems he is able to handle you and then you will depart until you are recalled. These terms satisfy you?"

"Yes," Tony says, because there isn't another option. The notion of being at Barnes' beck and call is a little galling but only if he goes out of his way to think of it that way; Tony has to keep this in check and think logically. 

"I think T'Challa has some intent to show you around the capital tonight," Shuri says, side-eyeing him like T'Challa's intentions are beyond her. "But you will remember where you are, won't you, Dr. Stark?"

Her accent is notably more heavy than T'Challa's and her English a little less fluent, and within five seconds Tony's wondering all sorts of things about Princess Shuri and her place as the second royal child and its relation to her current and preemptive passive-aggressiveness. But he's saving all his questions for later; now he just nods and tells her 'Mr. Stark' is fine. She refuses.

The capital city of Birnin Zana, the little he gets to see while they travel down the Royal Mile towards the palace (the cab driver calls it something completely different, something approaching 'Panther's Grace.' Tony doesn't know what these people are bothering to hide; there is literally a panther statue or a panther carving every other building.) is incredibly beautiful, a mixture of technology and history that only the oldest and largest American cities even come close to. Once inside the palace they are surrounded by Shuri's contingent of body guards and led to the large grounds in the back where a helicopter is waiting to take them to the Royal Science and Engineering Institute (nobody translates this time but Tony is still willing to bet the actual name has something to do with panthers) hidden up in mountains. Right after the helicopter passes the giant panther statue carved into the mountainside - and Tony is not so insensitive as make the analogy to Disney World that he's absolutely dying to - it touches down on the sole flat space in the entire region, just outside a large boxy building that to the naked eye looks completely deserted.

"Brother," Shuri says into a headset in Wakandan. It's probably supremely impolite to not tell her that he can understand the basics of what she's saying, FRIDAY a helpful little buzz in his ear, but he takes his advantages where he can get them. "Come pick up your cargo. It is shaking. I mislike it."

Tony gives up the ghost, looks down at his hands and watches them tremble where they are wrapped tight around his knees. Well that makes two of us, sweetheart, he thinks grimly in Shuri's direction, and folds his hands together over his stomach where the flaps of his jacket will slightly obscure them. 

"You're not coming with?" he asks the princess, and she wrinkles her nose.

"I do not like your kind, Dr. Stark," she says baldly. "My father was not wrong about you. I do not like the burden you have placed on us. In correcting his own mistake by housing this Barnes, my brother has endangered us all."

"Barnes has been through a lot," Tony points out, wondering why he's bothering.

Shuri clearly thinks the same. "Here in Wakanda or back in your United States, he will have still 'been through a lot.' There is no hope for him here, only our risk. I do not...begrudge my brother his need to fix his misjudging, but the mistake was not mine, or Wakanda's. I carry this for him still because he is my king and cannot be second guessed but as a sister...I worry. Without end. To ask of an outsider that you relieve us of our burden is a thorn in the side of my pride, but I will take that pain gladly if you would do so. Barnes does not belong here, Dr. Stark. Take him away."

Tony feels his heart rocket up to his throat before dropping down to his stomach. Taking Barnes away from Wakanda has never been the idea...but that's a lie, isn't it? A pretty one, so Tony can keep doing this. But really, taking Barnes back and getting him help, convincing him to go to the trial and clear his name, has always been his endgame. It almost sounds altruistic when he puts it like that and a bitter smirk pulls at his face.

"Thank you for your honesty," he tells the Princess, and she inclines her head, pulling open the door so they can climb out. It is not T'Challa but one of his female bodyguards who comes and collects Tony, also referring to him as Dr. Stark. She takes him into the uppermost level of the facility, high enough so they're now level with the giant panther statue just outside to floor-to-ceiling windows. T'Challa is standing in front of those windows, staring out, and the bodyguard announces Tony before stepping back a discreet distance away.

"So, he said yes," Tony opens lamely when T'Challa does not turn or speak for an entire minute. "Where is he?"

"Waiting," T'Challa says, his already husky voice sounding somewhat hoarse. "Allow me a few moments of your time, Tony."

"For you, Panther King? I've got ages," Tony says flippantly, wishes desperately there was something he could prop himself up against. It's easier to fake being relaxed that way. "Hit me."

T'Challa finally turns. He looks worried, Tony notes, unsurprisingly. "You and Barnes will not be in the same room. We have a set of rooms we use for practical research that allows two parties to communicate through speakers and a window."

Tony's jaw tenses but its still doesn't stop the harsh words that erupt from him. "Oh, for fuck's sake, T'Challa, look at me. This isn't Siberia, I haven't been chasing after my team for three days, my best friend hasn't just been paralyzed, and I didn't just learn I've been lied to and betrayed by a man I trusted for the guy who murdered my parents. I'm not going to go blasting off body parts again."

"Sergeant Barnes did not kill your parents, Tony," T'Challa says softly, comfortingly, but Tony despite his words feels that same anger welling up inside of him again.

"Allow me to get way harsh with you, Tai," he bites out. "Imagine that it was Bucky, all that time. That he had triggered into the Winter Soldier and he set that bomb in Vienna. It wasn't really Bucky, was it? Except for all that it was." T'Challa looks at him sadly and Tony realizes that he doesn't have to imagine, he can remember. "Sorry. I know I'm not helping my case."

"Tony, I am not doing this just for Sergeant Barnes." T'Challa approaches him cautiously, and the hand he lays on Tony's shoulder shakes a little, just at the fingertips. "I know you won't lash out. Most likely," he amends, but its almost teasing and Tony feels his lips quirk upwards. "I am...concerned for you. This won't be easy."

Tony feels his smile go a little sour. "It's something that needs to be done."

T'Challa's eyes rove over his face for a long moment before he nods. "He has been briefed on your request for his blood and information on the trial. He's waiting now. Tony," T'Challa says, and his hand clenches down. "Be merciful if you can."

He can't, really, but he doesn't want to disappoint T'Challa, or lie to him, so Tony shrugs and lets himself be led to a small room with one large window taking up a wall. There is a figure just beyond the window, vague and unsymmetrical, but Tony doesn't look too hard, not yet. He keeps his eyes on T'Challa from the moment he's directed to a seat to the moment the king says "I'll be right outside," and shuts the door behind him.

His mother once told him there was a trick to weakness; if you've shown it once then you keep showing it. Make it part of the act and it becomes your strength. So Tony turns to face Bucky Barnes and he thinks of his parents. He lets the grief he still feels settle more deeply into his bones than ever before. This man will not hurt him. He can't. Not more than this.

"You remember me?" he asks, and Barnes looks up at him with worn grey eyes sunk deep inside a tired face.

"You're hard to forget."

Chapter Text

"You're hard to forget."

He takes in the rigid posture, awkwardly held because the man likely hasn't had time to get used to the absence of his arm. Hand under the table, a certain tension in the forearm that belies the fist that is forming. A face attempting careful blankness, but Barnes is breaking that bit of programming. 'Look at that ticking,' Howard breathes in his ear from thirty five years ago, Baby's First Board Meeting, no one's your friend Tony, it all will be yours Tony, so tear them apart, Tony, before they can get you. 'Right there in the jaw? He's nervous. He'll take the bid.'

But James Barnes is no wilting CEO. "Is that flattery or accusation?" Tony quips, smoothing down his tie as he takes a seat. 'Look at the set of those shoulders,' Maria whispers in his other ear, forty years back leaping forward, Mama finding him the shadows of her big party. The right word in the right place solves everything, Antonio. 'She's nervous. Why don't you go say hi, sweetheart, give her a big smile?'

He'd never quite mastered that lesson.

Barnes' eyes move carefully, precisely, two quick flicks, down to Tony's palms splayed against the table, down to where his legs are placed at just the right angle for the quickest getaway, then back up again. "An observation," he finally answers.

They take the measure of each other, and Tony can't help but wonder what's on the other side of Barnes' scale, and if he's coming out even against it. 

"The Panther," Bucky bursts out, gruff and unprepared for his own voice. He tilts his head a little to the side, eyes dropping then rising immediately in a manner that suggests he is actively fighting an ingrained behavior. "Told me you had the charges for the bombing dropped," he continues more smoothly. 

 "It wasn't hard," Tony says. "There was a lot of physical evidence uncovered in the weeks after, plus Zemo's testimony."

"The Panther said you did it," Barnes pushes. 

"I did," Tony answers calmly. "I had to."

Barnes maintains eye contact for a long moment before he drops his eyes down to the sheaf of papers sitting on the table in front of him. He fans them out one handed. "He gave this to me." 

He falls silent, staring hard at something beyond the papers.

"They woke me up," he begins haltingly. "Sat me down. They said - some words, I didn't understand, and then they handed me the file." Tony opens his mouth, then, ready to explain, until Barnes kept talking, his eyes still a thousand miles - and several years - away. "My new mission."

He's not talking about T'Challa, or the Wakandans. He's talking about HYDRA.

"Yes was all I could say," he finishes.

The burning in Tony's lungs registers a moment later and he quietly lets out the breath he's been holding. "What do you want to say now?" he says quietly, and Barnes' eyes flicker, the hyper-focused gleam of them dulling to something softer, more human.

His eyes meet Tony's again, he finally realizes he's clenching his fist and relaxes it, and he is fighting so hard, Tony realizes. Every single one of the one hundred and thirty eight seconds Tony has been in this room Barnes has been fighting with all his might against instincts others have carved into him.

"Why?" Barnes asks simply. He pushes the paper's away from him, not closer to Tony, not as a gesture, but simply away from him. Barnes wants words. Barnes wants meaning. 

"To which part?"

Barnes' face tightens momentarily before easing. "Why is," he clarifies. "Any of this coming from you? I-" he chokes on whatever he's saying next, and Tony can nearly see him change the direction of the conversation. "-am the last person you should...be considering."

(Tony remembers Afghanistan, how he could never let a stutter or a stumble sit. 'What was that, Stark?' Aasif had taunted, poking at his shoulder with a heavy set of tongs. 'What was that, no, tell me, I want to hear this.' Never leave a lie half-done. It was a weakness and an invitation. Always finish the sentence. Tony can only imagine what happened to Barnes if he hesitated.)

"You didn't kill them," Tony says, and it comes out hoarse, forced. He figures if Barnes wants his absolution now, Tony can grant it to him. It will be true for him eventually.

"But I did," Barnes says to the table, quiet.

Three little words, and they destroy Tony's world. But you did, his mind screams. But you did, you did. The thought has consumed him; twenty five years of thinking his father lost control of the car and crashed he and his wife into a tree, twenty five years of consoling himself that his parents died on impact. They'd told him his dad died when his nose broke against the steering wheel, shoving the bone fragments into his brain. But it was Barnes' fist, and Dad had begged, Dad had seen it coming. And his mother's neck had snapped from the force of the whiplash. She never felt a thing. Except the violent death of her husband, a cold hand around her throat squeezing tighter and tighter until it wrenched-

There was blood on her pearls. It was the first thing he saw when they peeled back the sheet in the morgue, and he had fixated on it. His mother had always been so neat. When they'd handed him the personal effects he spent the whole night cleaning them, then laid them in one of the trays of his mother's jewelry back, all fixed up for when she got back on Monday. 

"I remember all of them," Barnes murmurs, eyes lifting back up to Tony's. There is something almost defiant in them.

His mother never came back. She is never coming back. And Tony realizes that in this moment, Barnes understands that even better than him. He doesn't want absolution any more than Tony wants to forget his own blood-soaked past. He doesn't know what Barnes wants. Maybe the same thing Tony does: redemption. But you did, he thinks, and it feels so wrong against the acceptance in Barnes' eyes.

"You were a bullet," he manages. "HYDRA aimed the gun and fired. It's not your fault."

"You don't believe that," Barnes counters.

Tony swallows, looks down at the spaces between his fingers. "I'd like to," he says. "I don't think you know how much." He wants to stop hating this man. He wants to stop letting anger poison his grief. He wants to do the right thing, he wants to want to do the right thing.

"So that's why?" 

He looks up, encounters the curious glint in Barnes' eye, and slides his gaze to the side. "Well, I figure, hey, I can't nearly kill a man in a misguided attempt at justice and then not bring the same effort when it comes to the real bad guys. That's just lazy." He aims a half-hearted smile at Barnes that is met with nothing but silence and stoicism. A cold sort of patience that runs straight up his spine and sets his nerves tingling. Tony changes tact. "The truth is that we need you."

One of Barnes' eyebrows quirk. "Me?"

Tony takes the pain of December 1991 and shoves it back down deep. "If we can get you cleared, if we can show the world that Cap fought to save an innocent man, not just for the bombings but everything else, the tide will turn in our favor," he explains, speaking just a bit too quickly. He's showing too many cards. Look at that ticking. "I have evidence of what HYDRA did. Physical, testimonial. I can and will do this without you, because if I can win-"

"Steve's way home is that much easier," Barnes finishes for him, and Tony's teeth hurt from how hard they click together.

"Everybody loves an underdog," he grits out. Then he explains, more slowly, his plan to use Tiberius to sway a whole world's worth of skeptics and juries and judges (and executioners), to predetermine the outcome of for a trial that, if they do everything right, won't even happen. Barnes' gaze never wavers the entire time. "Your story's already out there, Barnes, if someone wants to dig hard enough. Zemo proved that. Why not tell it your way before it can happen again?"

"Is that what I'll be doing?"

Tony narrows his eyes, shrugs. "Nothing hurts more than the truth." Barnes' flinches a little, and they both can't look at each other suddenly. 

"I am sorry." Barnes' whisper breaks on the last word, and Tony wants to run, feels his feet press harder into the floor on reflex, back muscles clenching. He slides his hands to the edge of the table and holds on.

"Don't." Not his kill, not his lie, not his fault. "This - isn't about that. I came here to tell you what's going to happen - because it is going to happen."

"And for my blood," Barnes says knowingly.

"And for your blood," Tony confirms. "But that's entirely different."

The other man goes through a whole range of motions and expressions that are suppressed and shuttered before they can be fully expressed. It's unnatural to watch, like a doll trying to bring itself to life, and failing every time. "So you'll use me."

"Well, I'm certainly not doing this out of the goodness of my heart," Tony says acidly, which earns him an odd look from Barnes that he can't read. He sighs. "I'll tell the world what they need to know to see that you're innocent."

"Why?"

"Because I need you to be," Tony says. Then, more quietly: "Because you are."

Barnes stares at him, so completely blank and gutted. "And then it will be over?"

And Tony, looking at this man, is incapable of lying to him. About anything, he realizes, rewinding the conversation. "No," he whispers. "It will not." 

The trauma doesn't stop when the pain does, they both know that. Barnes nods, not an inch of devastation or anger on his face, just calm acceptance, and Tony suddenly, fiercely hates himself for doing this.

"Say no," he says, leaning forward, urgent, urging. "Right now and I shut it all down. I find another way. I always do. This is asking a lot of you, maybe more than you can give. You don't have to. Say no and-" What? Keep running, let the ghosts of HYDRA play havoc with his head, or go back in the deep freeze? Tony swallows hard and makes himself keep talking. He just knows he has to try, even if only to know that he did when he tries to live with himself later. "You don't have to do this."

Barnes watches Tony's minor unraveling with the same icy patience he has been clinging to this entire time, and it is only when silence falls that even a hint of emotion echoes across his face, but Tony can't name it. "You know, I've seen you. Wan - one of the people here, they've shown me videos. Of you-"

"In my defense I was drunk," Tony says carelessly, preemptively.

"-With the United Nations." Oh. Tony fights not to tense up, but judging by Barnes' look, he fails. "You weren't like this before."

He doesn't sound sure and for a moment, Tony can't figure out what he means, until it occurs to him that with the two of them, there are very few 'befores.' His temper, already fragile, gets the better of him. "What the hell do you know. I was. Or I would have been. The Avengers are my team. I told Steve we would work on the Accords, but he didn't listen. I told him we would get you psychiatric help, but he didn't listen."

"Why?" Barnes asks again, looking a bit stricken. Tony fights to calm down, to reign it in. He thinks of Howard, and the boardroom, and how his father would rip him apart in seconds if he lost control like this. He does not think of what happened the last time he lost control around this man.

"Because it wasn't what he wanted to hear," Tony snaps, then falls back, feeling inexplicably guilty. "There wasn't enough time and I - wasn't my best. If I had had the chance-" Horrified at himself for letting that out, so fucking whiny, he clamps his mouth shut. Fuck his tells, let Barnes see. What else can the man take away from him now?

But Barnes' eyes are still soft, and Tony can't help but focus on them. Because those are not the eyes of a murderer. "I'm your chance," Barnes says quietly, and Tony doesn't respond. "I need to-" Barnes begins, and then his mouth opens and closes around the likely thousands of things he needs.

"There's no rush," Tony says calmly. Barnes gives him a dubious look and he shrugs. "There's a bit of a rush."

"-think," Barnes says on a controlled exhale. Never let a stumble sit. He looks at Tony head on then, his gaze more alive then it has been this entire time. "I have more questions but I need to..." He trails off and Tony smartly doesn't interrupt this time. "...sort out what they are."

"I can stay a few more days," Tony finds himself promising. Barnes' shoulders slump a bit, like a weight has been lifted, and there's a gratefulness in his eyes when he looks at Tony that lands like acid on his skin, burning away at him. He hates this, and he hates himself even more for feeling like this. A bullet, he reminds himself, in a gun. Steve. Sam. Wanda. Scott Lang. Dad, Mom - oh god, my mother - they all need this. 

Do the right thing. You don't have to be a good person, Stark, just do the right thing.

He's on his feet, chair pushed away, before the thought finishes, fixing sleeves and fastening buttons, pulling his armor around him as he looks straight at Barnes' forehead. "Whenever you're ready then."

He is out the door in the next second, five feet down the hall, then ten, then he is drifting to the side, putting a hand to the wall and beating a mindless rhythm against it until his elbow buckles from the force of his shaking. His shoulder hits first, then his back, and it sends a shock of hurt through his chest that lingers. Then his feet give out from underneath him, and he slides down the wall.

"Fry," he mumbles. "Talk to me."

He endures the attack, his AI a comforting presence in his ear as she tells him odd stories from around the world. She has a particular fondness for Florida Man, and by the time she is through telling him about the poor soul who killed his imaginary friend, Tony's breathing is back to normal. "Thanks, girl."

"For you, boss, any time." 

T'Challa comes and finds him when he is back up on his feet, his clothes back in order, and if the timing is suspicious neither of them are going to say anything. Instead T'Challa gallantly offers an arm, and promises to impress him with the sights of Wakanda tonight. The buzzing of his brain doesn't quiet, never quiets, but his hands eventually do stop shaking.

And Wakanda is beautiful, even more so through T'Challa's eyes. The man does love his country, and his people love their king. The Dora follow along silently behind them as they walk the Royal Mile, T'Challa telling a charming story about being six and stifled and selfish and fleeing the palace to come stay with the common folk.

"I used to watch them, always from a distance," he says as they sit at a cafe watching the sun sink. "My father took me out with him but things were not always...safe back then."

"Did you ever get kidnapped?"

T'Challa raises an eyebrow. "No," he says slowly, not asking the question he wants to. Tony grins.

"Oh, yeah. Once when I was five and once when I was thirteen. Dad always told people he wouldn't pay a ransom, but it didn't really matter. He had SHIELD agents in his back pocket. I was back within the day. Didn't even realize I was kidnapped the last time, I just meant to hitchhike to my friend's house."

"The Dora are very attentive. My father even more so," T'Challa says. Tony feels his grin turn bitter at the edges. "But I did envy them - my people. They lived to me what seemed like unfettered lives."

"So you ran away," Tony continues for him. "How that work out for you, Princess Jasmine?"

T'Challa looks out, watching one Wakandan, then the next. "They should have spat in my face. I, who had everything, coming to they who had much less with my burdens."

"But they didn't."

"They did not. The family that took me in for that night instead gave me a little of what I wanted. We stayed up late under a canopy of blankets we had built in the living room telling old legends. Then the next morning they woke me to help them with the chores. I had never cooked before; I was terrible at it. But the mother was patient. She told me we must all help each other. Everybody lacks something. Those on the top are as different from those on bottom as those on the bottom are from the top, but they are also the same. We must meet at the middle of the mountain. My father, when I told him, disagreed. You will be king, T'Challa, he said. A great duty with a great burden, and you must learn the strength to carry it. But I remembered: the middle of the mountain. The woman and my father could both be right. I would carry this great weight, but I would remember it was not mine alone."

He turns to Tony when he is done speaking, an almost self-deprecating smile on his face that Tony has never seen before. "You're not actually real, are you?" Tony accuses, and the man laughs. For good measure, he reaches out and pokes T'Challa, just to be sure. "You're actually made of fairy dust and unicorns." 

One of the Dora snorts, T'Challa bats his hand away, and they settle into a comfortable silence.

"My dad would have said to just bring the whole damn mountain to me, drag everyone kicking and screaming," Tony says after a moment.

"Spoken much like a man who steals a country's natural resources when it is denied to him," T'Challa remarks dryly. 

Tony picks up his glass of whiskey and fits it to his lips. "Yeah, well. Starks aren't much known for our patience." 

"You seem to be doing just fine on that front."

Tony watches the crowds mill by, hears the subtle buzz of insects in the air and people talking, tastes the alcohol burn down his throat and smells the incense in the air. He can't feel a thing. "I'm tired," he says quietly, and T'Challa does not reply but instead signals for the walk back to the palace.

Once there, he leads Tony to a remote wing, farthest removed from the city. "For your safety," he explains when Tony eyes him. "There may be some effects left behind from the last occupant but I assure you, it is clean." There is a gleam in his eye when they bid each other goodnight that Tony wants to dissect, but he lets him go.

The room is clean, and spacious, with a large window facing the forest. There is a desk with a few used pens and oddly, graphite pencils. Tony recognizes them immediately, an old brand that Steve used to ship in from Europe when he felt like actually spending some of that military backpay on himself-

He opens one of the drawers and splutters. Well, of course they're familiar, then. "T'Challa, you sneaky son of a bitch," he mutters as he lifts an abandoned sketchbook out. He flips through it rapidly, seeing only a few pages filled, but the familiar lines of Steve's art twist at something in him.

There's only a few pages filled, likely why it was left behind, and most of them are tiny miniatures of Wanda, Sam, or Clint. There's a few of Bucky, one of him in his cryo chamber that Steve had begun to scribble out, one of him that resembles photos Tony has seen of Sergeant James Barnes, a few that are of him as he is now. None of them resemble the man that Tony saw today.

Who are you? he wonders at the page, caught up in those eyes again, more alive here than they were back at the compound. Where are you?

He turns the page, and finds himself. He is in a vest and tie, slightly disheveled, leaning in towards the viewer. Hand outstretched, palms up. Helping. "Godammit," he whispers, the paper crunching up in his fist. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you saw me trying and it wasn't good enough and now here you are, romanticizing it-

Or maybe he regrets it? a kinder thought suggests. 

On the last page is the original of the drawing that Steve had put on the front of his copy of the Accords, the one that had caught Tony's eye and held it: symbols of the original six Avengers held together in a ring, encircling the earth. Protecting it. This one is larger, taking up the whole paper. Tony's reactor is still linked to Steve's shield, but on the other side is Barnes' star, and across the circle are Falcon's wings. A swirl that is most likely Wanda is close to Clint, a tiny ant for Scott by Bruce's radioactive hazard circle. Vision's gem is connected to Thor's hammer. 

In his mind, Tony widens it even further. A snowflake for Donnie, a spider for Peter, the lightning bolt that Kamala has incorporated into the early drafts of her suit. An eagle for Coulson, an all-seeing eye for Fury. I see a suit of armor around the Earth, he once told Bruce to convince him to help create Ultron. 

Steve sees a shield. All of them, working together.

We'll lose.

Then we'll do that together, too.

It hadn't been good enough for Tony back then. It still isn't. Losing isn't in his playbook, not as long as he can still think. But maybe, maybe they can both be right. Meet in the middle of the mountain after all.

For the longest time now, Tony has been almost...afraid of what Steve's absence, what his silence, what that letter with the passive-aggressive capitulation meant, because from where he had sat, it looked a lot like Steve didn't care. That Steve had never cared. That Tony, and the Avengers, had been an acceptable loss. But this drawing, this is not made by a hand that didn't care.

(Maybe, just maybe, it was a hand that cared too much, in too many directions, who screwed up the big picture trying to take care of the smaller details.)

He picks up a pencil, and begins to draw.

TO: RESTRICTED

[DOCUMENTS ATTACHED: HYDRA THREAT ANALYSIS, STARK NOTES 7/16-11/16, BANNER NOTES 9/16-11/16, SYNTHESIS ANALYSIS ON TERRIGEN]

[MESSAGE ENCRYPTED]

DECRYPTING...

DECRYPTING...

>Cap,

>Consider this the lines of communication being opened. Don't throw away this shot. We're going to need all the help we can get. 

>If you have any intel to share, contact Agent Romanov through her old SHIELD account. This encryption key is still secure.

>

>

>Stark said that you can't do this together. He also said you can't do it alone. He didn't tell me what's in between that, but I guess he's trusting you to know.

Tony watches as Barnes carefully separates papers detailing the BARF system from the rest, laying them out side by side.

It's been two days since he first saw him, two nights of the same dream standing at his parents' graves with a fistful of dirt in his hand that he never manages to throw down onto their coffins, forty eight hours to wonder if he's doing the right thing. If there is even a right thing to be done here.

"How?" is Barnes' single, soft query.

"We change the memory," Tony answers. "We find the first time you heard the words and they worked, the first time the pattern was established, and we alter it. Breaking the cycle."

"You make it sound simple."

A flash of ice, a cold rage wearing Donnie's face skitters across his mind. Tony swallows. "It's not. We're working on a...more permanent solution, but for now this is the best we've got."

"To fix me," Barnes says. Tony opens his mouth to refute that and Barnes' mouth ticks sideways unpleasantly. "Everybody wants to."

"To help you," Tony corrects stiffly. The victim of mind control being wary of having his mind altered further is not surprising, but he has no idea what to say to make this better.

"Why?"

Back to that again. 

"That machine," he begins, standing and approaching the window that separates them. T'Challa had offered to let them stay in the same room when they talked this time but Tony wasn't ready for that yet. But Barnes is more - bearable to look at, this time. It's easier to look into his eyes and not see the thing that looked up at him from a tiny screen in a Siberian bunker, blood still dripping from its metal hands. "Was made as a sort of vanity project. Spent millions of dollars building it, but hey, I figure I've done a lot worse to sort out my issues."

Don't fidget, don't blink, don't think about the barest hint of pressure from your father's hand as he sweeps a Santa hat off your head, the last time he touched you because you were too mad to say goodbye. "But I'm all about practical application, so I branched out. If it could help me, then why not the next guy, right?" Barnes stares at him, unblinking, and Tony gives a shrug that feels only a little helpless. "I built it to help people. So that's what it does."

"Even me?" It's a question he's asked himself more than once, and only in this moment, looking back at Barnes, does Tony come to any sort of resolution.

Science is the purest thing in this world, the one thing Tony can always trust; its failure always lay at the feet of the human brain tasked with translating it to the outside world. The BARF, at the end of the day, is a machine built to help people handle traumatic memories. That is its function, its purpose. Tony cannot stand in the way of that, corrupt it with his feelings. He will not be the place where BARF fails.

He meets Barnes' steady gaze with his own. "Anyone who needs it."

Barnes drops his eyes to the papers, skimming a hand over schematics, charts of data and graphs. Tony leans against the window, staring at the wall opposite him. They both wait for more, and don't get it. It'd be easier if Barnes was a machine. He could take him apart piece by piece, find the spanner in the works, the cracked power source, the faulty gear alignment, the clogged exhaust. Tony would clean him 'till he gleamed, make an adjustment to the frame and switch out a few bad parts and then put him back together again. 

(Good as new, his father used to tell him, handing back the little machine a small Tony had proudly brought to the lab, now all fixed and modified to Howard's expectations. But they weren't good as new. They were different. Howard's.) 

He could do all that, and be no better than HYDRA. Make a mold of a man, and fit the broken pieces of a human being inside, burn and melt him until he had no choice but to give in, to fit.

People can't be fixed. If they could, Tony would have done so for himself a long time ago and saved everyone a lot of pain. He wishes he could. It terrifies him, but he does. He tries. He builds suits to fly farther, punch harder, last longer. Artificial intelligences with strict codes to keep him from going too far. He surrounds himself with machines, science, and hopes it can do the impossible and help him be better, but at the end of the day, all he is left with is himself.

He wonders if Barnes even has that.

"What do you want, Barnes? Really," he asks quietly, eyes staying fixed on the wall.

Barnes is quiet for several long moments. Then:

"To be somebody." Barnes places his hand flat on top of the BARF summary. "Not somebody else. But-"

"Yeah," Tony breathes.

"-it's been a long time since I felt like a person," Barnes finishes. 

They stop there that day, Barnes beginning to shake and shiver enough that one of the icily calm Wakandan scientists comes to collect him. That night, Tony goes out wandering the Wakandan streets alone, buying a cheap knock off smart phone from one of the vendors lining the thoroughfares that shoot of the main street. He dismantles it when he returns to his room, fiddling with the software, the location tech in particular before making some adjustments to the tiny chip that controls the connection to the service provider. When he puts it back together and boots it up, he and FRIDAY work on configuring the modified phone to Stark's most private access channels, the one only a few have access to.

"Plug Cap's number in there for me, Fry," he says.

YOU:
What is this

NATASHA:
You called. We responded. 

YOU:
You want to work together. Together but separate?

NATASHA:
It's like I told you. Staying together is more important than how we do it.

NATASHA:
You can strike where we can't but you're no good to anybody flying blind.

YOU:
The message said he trusted me. To know.

NATASHA:
I think he'd like to.

NATASHA:
What are you going to do Steve?

Tony is dreaming. For the first time in a long time, it isn't about his parents, or Siberia. He's in his Malibu house, and it is whole. He is laying on the couch, the sound of waves crashing at his back, the arc reactor heavy in his chest, and he can't move.

There is a dark shape forming at the edge of his vision, but when it steps into the light, it isn't Obadiah. Tony feels his pulse sky-rocket as Ultron floats over to him, settling down with the barest clank before him and leaning over his prone body.

"Oh, Tony," it says, stroking a cold metal finger down his cheek. It travels further, down his neck, across one clavicle then the other, then down to his chest. "I knew I'd find you here."

Tony can't look anywhere but those glowing red eyes, noting with the same dim horror he always has how similar Ultron's face looks to that first armor he built, so many years ago. Ultron could have become anything it wanted - why did it choose this form? Why did it choose him? 

"You know why," Ultron chides him, and Tony sucks in a breath that doesn't make it all the way into his lungs.

"Let me go," he rasps out, and the robot laughs at him, fingers digging and twisting into the arc reactor and it hurts, it hurts so much. 

"I'm not keeping you here. You can get up and leave, anytime you want." With a sickening pop, the reactor comes out. I don't need it anymore, Tony reminds himself viciously, as Ultron gives an indolent yank and removes the plug. I fixed it. "But you won't, will you, Tony? I don't need to paralyze you. You'll do all the work for me. Because you always come back here. It's where you belong."

It lifts the reactor high, the blue glow lighting up its face, and beneath the moving machine parts Tony thinks he can almost see glimpses of skin. But that's impossible - Ultron isn't human. It's a machine.

"Say what you want to say," Ultron says lightly, leaning back down over Tony. "I'm a puppet."

In the corner, the piano plinks out the first few bars of a song Tony has tried to forget. There are no strings on me. 

"No heart. No soul."

Ultron had not been overly concerned about the lack of either, Tony remembers. Ultron had exulted in it, its otherness, its superiority. It thought humanity was a plagued to be cut down and controlled. 

"Tony, I'm hurt. I'm just a machine. I'm only as good as the man who made me."

Tony's chest is on fire, his pulse pounding so loudly in his head he almost can't hear Ultron's taunts. "Give it back," he says weakly, uselessly, eyes darting to the arc reactor. 

Ultron looks at it in its hand. "What, this?" Without another word it crushes it into pieces. "I'm not after that." Tony watches in horror as it shakes the pieces of the arc reactor from its articulated hand and reaches back for Tony's chest.

Its hand is suddenly inside him, rooting around, and Tony wails out a scream between lips that can barely move. He feels fingers wrapping around his heart, squeezing, tearing, and then Ultron is removing itself, standing up, something in its hand that Tony can't look at. Beating, blackened, glittering with metal spikes.

The robot sighs, digitized disappointment. "Ah, it's not much," it remarks. It pokes at a piece of shrapnel and Tony gasps, phantom pain lancing through him. "But I just couldn't stand to see you sit here wasting it any longer. I'm thinking of re-purposing it; maybe I'll even become a real boy. Let it finally do some good. Don't worry, Tony," it says, coming closer again. His heart is still beating. He can hear it all through his head. "You won't miss it. You never have before."

Tony wakes up to a high-pitched whine escaping him and a loud beeping. He tears his shirt up wildly, running his hands over his chest, but there is nothing but skin and the too-rigid structure of his fake sternum over a frantic, off-kilter heartbeat. His chest is on fire. 

"Boss?" FRIDAY's voice cuts through his panicked beating and Tony struggles in to take in and keep enough air to answer her. The beeping has stopped, he realizes dimly.

"Fry," he manages. "Did you wake me up?"

"Yes. Are you-"

"What did I tell you about passive scanning?" he asks tightly, forcibly removing his clawed hand from his chest and laying it flat on the bed covers. Jesus, he hurts.

"To not do it," FRIDAY recites sullenly. "That isn't why I woke you though."

Her tone becomes suddenly brisk, and he is very awake in the next second. "What is it? Trouble back home? Who did I-" Jesus, he hurts, he thinks again as he swings his legs off the bed and onto the floor. "I left Rhodey in charge this time, yeah?"

"Boss," FRIDAY says, all the sudden soothing. Tony's going to get whiplash. "There's no immediate trouble. Just trouble enough."

"You know I hate suspense, honey."

"Norman Osborn is dead."

He stops, mouth opening and closing, and does something he hasn't done in years, which is actually look at the source of his AI's voice. FRIDAY's rudimentary, pixelated face, the one they slowly been perfecting together, is displayed on his phone, and her wide blank eyes seem to be looking back. "How?" he asks her, voice nearly breaking with suppressed stress.

"The report doesn't specify. But there's speculation that he hanged himself."

"In his cell?" Tony asks rhetorically. Osborn has been held in Riker's since the attack, awaiting a trial that would surely take months and be the talk of the country. At least the law firm will mourn him, he thinks darkly, and then he thinks of poor Harry Osborn, and then he thinks Peter.

Peter, who is more than a bit like him. Peter, who will find a way to take the blame for this.

"Yessir," FRIDAY answers the question he's already forgotten, but Tony is standing shakily, reaching for clothes and telling the AI to ring T'Challa and tell him what's happening. He needs to get back, needs to head this off at the pass, talk to Peter, talk to Pepper about maybe taking a few more shares of Oscorp so that the younger Osborn doesn't lose everything, needs to-

His gaze falls on the phone he's cobbled together for Barnes, lying on top of the drawing Steve left behind, the one Tony has been adjusting and improving, over and over. 

Need to run away? a snide voice inside his head asks.

"Speculation from who?" he hears himself asking FRIDAY, his mind as always running at least three tracks at once. 

"Can't pin the source. It's idle chatter, word of mouth. The nearest thing is 'reportedly said by a prisoner who was working in the morgue.' That's from the Daily Bugle's website."

"Why? I mean I realize the man was insane, but if he had even a shred of decency left he'd realize how hard this would make things for his kid," Tony mutters as he pulls on his clothes. His gaze keeps sliding to the phone.

"Maybe he didn't."

Tony's eyes snap to the side, going wide. "What?"

"Maybe the reports are wrong," FRIDAY suggests, but there is a bitter coldness sinking down through Tony.

"Not that kind of 'what,' Fry," he says, ignoring how the shaking in his hands that had only just stopped have now begun again. "How far are you on decrypting Project Samson?"

There is a long pause, longer than there should be. Like FRIDAY is thinking, like FRIDAY doesn't think faster than anything else on the planet besides Vision. "FRIDAY," he snaps, and there is an odd sound of static before the AI speaks again.

"Sorry, boss. That was T'Challa. He says he'll meet you in the dining room. I'll give you directions."

Tony stands over the desk, looking down at the re-made phone, obscuring the drawing of the superhero shield protecting the world but for the corner where Iron Man, Captain America, and the Winter Soldier are linked in a curved line. "Make a move, Stark," he murmurs to himself. "Pick a play."

He picks up the phone, dropping it into his pocket, then folds up the drawing and places it inside his jacket. His small suitcase is heavy in his hands as he heads out, following FRIDAY's voice to the room T'Challa has chosen. It's a large dining room by any other standards then a royal palace, and T'Challa is already there, standing at the head of the table, watching Tony approach.

"I'm assuming FRIDAY filled you in," Tony says, dragging a finger across the black marble table top. "She told you I'm heading out."

"You're free to leave if you wish," T'Challa replies mildly. "You are here as our guest, Tony."

You're absolved, see?  "I mean, you read the news, right? Osborn's dead. And I wouldn't normally make a fuss, one more insane person in the world is no skin off my back, but it's suspicious, is all. I recently received some information about some of his dealings and they were...untoward, to put it mildly."

He's rambling; when he finally looks up T'Challa's eyes are on his finger, still tracing unsteady lines across the table. Slowly, Tony places his hand in his pocket, clenching it tight over the phone resting in there. "What?" he asks when T'Challa doesn't speak. "You think I'm trying to get away?"

"I never said anything of the sort," T'Challa says, almost gently. 

"Well, no, I said it for you, because Your Majesty would never," Tony snaps, and he doesn't know why he's doing this, why he's being like this. "Norman Osborn is the father of one of Spider-Man's friends. Do you understand that - Spider-Man put his friend's father in jail where he died. Do you see why I have to go?"

"Tony." At the sound of his name Tony shuts his mouth, which only makes it clear to him how heavily he's started to breathe. T'Challa walks around the corner of the table to stand in front of him, laying a cautious hand on his shoulder. "Go, be with your team, look into your suspicions. If you're right, it is better to know. You have fulfilled your obligations here - ones that only you yourself were demanding to be met, if I recall."

Tony sucks in a sharp breath that makes his already aching chest sting. "Goddammit," he curses, because they both know T'Challa's a liar, that Tony hasn't. He still has so much more to do, so much more to say. "I want to see him before I go. Barnes."

"I do not think-"

"Just to make sure that he knows-"

T'Challa's hand tightens. "You have done everything you can for him, Tony. The rest is up to him."

In Tony's pocket, in his hand, the phone feels like it weighs a ton. "I'll even throw in a pretty please, Highness. Just ask him."

T'Challa holds his gaze for a moment longer, eyes darting back and forth between his own, searching for something Tony's pretty sure he's not giving, before the other man sighs and steps back. "I will have to make a few calls."

"What, do you put him back in the deep freeze every time?" Tony asks, a bit confused.

"No," T'Challa answers, pausing on his path to the door out to the hall where he was presumably headed for some privacy. "Since we have woken him he has remained outside and aware. But he must be closely monitored at all times until the programming is removed from his mind; there are many around him I trust to do so. I rely on their judgment now." With that, he exits the room, leaving Tony alone with his thoughts.

He finds himself pulling out the phone, double-, then triple-checking that Rogers' number is still there. For just a moment his thumb lingers over the default contact picture, a smiling but other featureless purple cartoon of a man. One push, one touch, and it would call. Rogers probably wouldn't answer, since he wouldn't recognize the number, but...

He moves his finger away, tucks the phone inside his pocket again. T'Challa is back within the minute, and with one grave nod they are off to the helicopter.

"I'll give you the tech," Tony says at some point during the flight, watching the low mountains of Wakanda's countryside ebb and flow below them. "To the BARF technology. I know I kind of held it hostage before, but to be fair, I was a bit stressed out at the time."

"Just a bit," T'Challa echoes, sounding a bit amused.

"Now that he knows about it, though, now that he knows it's the only thing that can help him," he continues to the window. "I won't withdraw it if he decides to stay hidden - I'll hand it over to you. It's patented to hell and back and besides, I can trust you. Probably."

"You should tell him that."

Tony nods, watching the dim glow of the facility's lights get closer and closer. "Just in case he says no," he says quietly, and out of the corner of his eye he sees T'Challa's hand make an aborted move towards him, only to fall to the man's side with a slow, tired exhale.

When they touch down, T'Challa brings him into the same little lobby from the first time here and once again bids Tony to wait. It's quiet this time of night, everything shut down so that all that is left is the subtle hum of the machinery powering the building. It's why Tony can hear the footsteps coming down the hall before they enter the room, why he can hear when they stop abruptly. He turns with a strained smile. "Well that didn't take very-"

Wanda Maximoff stares back at him.

Before he can stop himself, he takes a step backwards. Her face shifts: anger to concern to anger again, settling on a calm passivity he knows she can't feel. He wasn't expecting this, not at all. He had wondered, of course, thought about asking, but-

"Wanda." His voice creaks; he swallows. He finds himself cataloging her appearance, nonsensical things like does she still have all her limbs and is she eating enough and are her clothes in a good state. All the things that Vision will want to know. All the things he's worried about, when he's let himself worry about her. "You're alright."

"Can't say the same for you," she replies, all dulled sharpness. "You look like shit, Stark."

To both their surprises, this gets a bark of laughter out of him; he internally commends her on having the good grace not to comment on the slightly crazed bend to it. It tapers off, the vestiges echoing faintly around them. Tony grins at the floor tile just in front of where she stands. "Yeah. I've had better days. Better months, really."

"Better years?" Wanda guesses, scoffing half-heartedly. They're both too tired for the roles they need to play right now. Or maybe they no longer know their lines. 

"You're alright?" he repeats, softer this time, meeting her eyes again. 

"I am fine. I am-" She licks her lips, once, twice, she's nervous about him. "I have been watching you."

He stiffens, one heel going up to take another step back, raising further when she lifts her hand, but she's shaking it side to side. "No, I meant - with Barnes. Steve asked me to be there. To make sure he stayed stable."

"You went inside his mind?" Tony asks.

"It's very loud," she says by way of answer.

"So last time, when they came and pulled him out of there..."

"He was becoming more and more distressed. I was concerned for him," Wanda finishes. Her eyes narrow. "What is your plan here, Stark?"

He cocks his head, the line of his shoulders stiffening without conscious thought, bracing himself. Wanda drops her uplifted hand like a guillotine. "You bring him hope and terror in equal measure. A future at the cost of reliving his past. It's unkind to him."

"It's all he's got," he tells her simply. "It's his life. It's all I can give, and from what I can see I'm the only one who can give it."

"And that is just how you like it," she accuses. On the edge of her voice, razor thin, is the beginning of a sob. "Having all the power over everybody else."

His temper, simmering since he awoke, snaps suddenly bright and flaring. He's stepping forward before he can stop himself. "Fine, you tell me, what's your plan? What's your plan, Wanda? How are you going to solve all this or save him from another sixty years in an icebox?"

Her eyes go wide, mouth thinning to a pale pink line. "It isn't up to me, or you. It should be his choice. You can't control him."

"I don't want to control him, I want to help him!"

"You don't know the difference!" she shouts. They both pull up short, staring wide-eyed at one another, as the echoes fade away.

Tony is the first to look away, though he immediately regrets it. With nothing to look at he is excruciatingly aware of the fine tremors coursing through his body. He is very scared of Wanda, always has been, but sometimes he lets himself forget that the feeling is mutual. 

"I didn't realize taking a stroll in my brain one time made you an expert on how I operate," he grits out. Wanda says nothing, but he can hear the shakiness of her next exhale. Abruptly he is reminded of the dream, his black heart in Ultron's hands, and he sighs. "Look, in the interest of not getting the nearest piece of heavy machinery dropped on me again, I'll concede: my sales pitch could've have used a little work. Asking a guy to let you throw him to the wolves does not a strong foundation of trust make. But you don't actually know me very well." And he gathers up his courage, looks up. "I learn from my mistakes. Don't think for a second that I would let him go through that alone."

Not like I did with you, he doesn't say, wishes he was brave enough to. The noise she makes, small and pained, makes him think she hears it anyway.

"He'd be my responsibility. I'd protect him," he finishes.

"You hate him," she whispers.

To that, Tony can only shrug. "Personal experience here: the two are not mutually exclusive. This is the job. Save everyone you can. And when you can't, try harder."

She looks at him for a long time, long enough for T'Challa to come back and find them both lingering in each other's orbit, afraid to upset this unsteady peace. "Miss Maximoff. I was wondering where you were. Okibe has been asking for you. Sergeant Barnes is ready to see you, Tony."

"I'm going home," Tony says in Wanda's direction. Her head snaps towards him. "Right after this. I'm leaving it in Barnes' hands." He makes to walk down the hallway that T'Challa has just come from when at the last minute he turns. "There's a place for you there, too. Still."

Her mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out, so Tony nods in her direction and turns. "Tony," she calls, and he has never heard her say his name before. He looks over his shoulder. Wanda's face is closed, shut off, but her eyes are suspiciously bright and knowing. "Your mind is very loud, as well."

His brow furrows, then his mind skips backwards in the conversation, makes the connection. He almost smiles. "Not the worst thing that's been said about it."

"Can I ask you a question?"

They are in the same room this time, less playing at bravery than the absence of cowardice, facing each other over a table, and Tony's mouth is still open from gearing up to his spiel again when Barnes leans forward and asks that.

"I already know the answer." He doesn't drop eye contact but something in them goes very dark. "But I want to know."

Tony merely raises an eyebrow.

"Do I have a choice?" Barnes asks.

Tony's first instinct is to snap that he already offered one, that Barnes can say no, but the moment passes, the instinct fades and logic prevails. He knows the real answer, too. "Short answer? There's always a choice. You can kick me out right now, Barnes. Wanda's itching for the chance."

"She's good people," Barnes agrees mildly, but his eyes narrow. "And the long answer?"

Tony has the incredible urge to hunch and protect himself. He lets his body get as far as crossing his arms. That's telling enough. "Long answer..." He drawls the 'r' a little, remembering. "You ever slept in bathtub before?"

"What?" 

"The bed was too soft," Tony says quietly. "So you slept in the bathtub."

Barnes' eyes widen a little, recognition and acknowledgment, before he twitches in an approximation of a shrug. "The floor for me. Wasn't used to anything but."

"At least I was given a cot," Tony says, deprecating. "Point being, I got back from. Captivity and the mattress felt like drowning. So I started sleeping in the bathtub, when I could sleep at all."

Barnes is confused, he can tell even though his facial expression has hardly changed; fair enough, Tony himself can barely tell where he's going with this. "And it started to become this thing. This - safety. All day I had choices, options, things I could do, after months of not being able to do anything and it should have been freeing but-" There is a knowing gleam, almost sympathetic, in Barnes' eyes that Tony can't quite meet. "But I knew, when I went to my room at night, that I would sleep in the bathtub. Because I couldn't sleep in the bed. I didn't have to decide. I knew. If I wanted sleep, bathtub.

"My point is," Tony continues, a conversation nobody is having here. "That there was a choice, really. But it was better for me to pretend that I didn't have one. Until I was ready. Iron Man was like that too. Sometimes, life is better in binary. I sleep, or I don't. I fight, or I don't. You either want to be somebody, or you don't, Barnes. That's the long answer."

Things are very quiet for a long moment, neither looking away, then Barnes nods. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"Whatever you do," Tony tacks on, because he needs to. "The retro framing tech is yours."

"Thank you," Barnes says, gruff but sincere. "So did you ever get back to your mattress?"

"Yeah," Tony answers. "Got a bigger tub out of the whole experience, too." He figures this is as good a moment as any and pulls out the phone. "This is for you, by the way. It's got a number in there you can reach Rogers by. Even managed to get it connected to WiFi, which let me tell you, passwords in Wakandan? Not easy to guess." He places it on the table, sliding it forward a few inches before stopping at the look on Barnes' face. "It's just a phone."

Barnes' eyes, so dark before, are positively gleaming as they lift back up to Tony's face. "Why do you think you owe me?" Barnes asks, blunt, almost sharp.

"What?" Tony asks, thrown by the question. 

"Anything," Barnes adds, or maybe never finished.

"Well. I did try to kill you. Blew off your arm," Tony points out, then looks to the side. "The arm you used to kill my parents." Barnes raises his eyebrow and inexplicably, Tony finds himself almost smiling. "You're right, why am I doing this again?"

Barnes snorts, the corners of his lips curving up. A weight lifts off Tony's shoulders that he didn't even realize was there. This is a good note to end on. This is a door closing; now one of them has to open the next. 

Tony gathers up his papers, slides the phone closer to Barnes, and after a moment's consideration drags it back, opening up the contacts screen and thumbing in a new number. "Now you've got me as well," he says, and reaches out with it across the small table to Barnes.

Slowly, clumsier than anything else he's ever seen the man do, Bucky takes it. "I'll call," he says. Promises. A dark voice in the back of Tony's mind laughs. Makes us more adjusted than Steve and me, then.

He rises, heading towards the door. He's ready to go back - to the cold of New York, to the warmth of the compound, to FRIDAY being everywhere, not just a phone. He wants to crawl into bed with Rhodey tonight because the man is a saint who still lets him do that, or maybe spar with Natasha until he's exhausted. Check on Kamala and Donnie and Peter.

He wants to go home.

His hand is on the doorknob when he pauses and dares to look back. Barnes is watching him, the ghost of that smile still lingering. "Hey," Tony begins, and his voice cracks. "Don't let their ghosts hang around your head, alright, Barnes? My parents deserve to rest."

It's not his forgiveness, because Tony can't look him in the eye and give it to him, not yet. But Tony knows better than most that his forgiveness is only a band-aid on the entrance wound. The real bleed is deeper, struck decades ago and left to rot. That part, like so much of this, is up to Barnes. But he can help, where he can.

And besides: he's the only person left in the world who really knew either of his parents. This is what they would have wanted. And that is what Tony owes Bucky Barnes.

Barnes gives a sharp nod, and Tony leaves.

Out on the landing pad, T'Challa hands him a small, ice cold metal box. Inside is a vial of Barnes' blood, freely given from the man himself. Tony takes it as a good sign, if nothing else. The helicopter that will take him to the airport touches down and impulsively Tony takes the hand T'Challa reaches out and pulls him into a hug. Too much, he thinks, a bit panicked, but as he pulls away T'Challa's hands brush against his side, where he had reached out to return the gesture. 

"Thanks," Tony says. He doesn't elaborate, T'Challa doesn't ask, and Tony boards the helicopter. 

Steve sits alone in his room at night, flipping the phone end over end in his hand. He never used to do that before. The war trained nervous habits out of him years ago. But now he feels - not nervous, but afraid, maybe.  On the edge.

He watches the words spin around and around. What are you going to do Steve? Natasha wants to know.  

Steve remembers an errant note she made in that initial report, the one that had so soured Steve against Tony before even meeting him: Stark does not build walls around himself. He's not that simple. He builds mazes. There's always a way in but it is nearly impossible to find. 

This is what he wanted, isn't it? Just a chance that they could go back to the way they were before, together. Well, Tony's met him halfway. They can't go back. Steve can't go back. But this is the way in.

But he knows, logically, that Tony most likely granted permission for this olive branch as a way to make Steve settle and not cause any problems. To keep his head down. It chafes at him, the way his old body did, the one he never learned to live in. It feels a sandbox for him to play in while the big kids play real ball. 

What are you going to do Steve?

He enters the room quietly, tray carefully balanced on one hand as he carefully shuts the door with the other, and when he turns Madame Hydra is regarding him with amusement in her eyes.

"Food for the invalid prisoner," she drawls. Her odd, green-tinted hair is limp where it has fanned out against the bed. It is the only source of the color in the room, the delineation between her and her white sheets and pillows. "Is this Captain America's version of a bargain?"

"Snagged it off of Diamondback," Steve counters, carefully setting the tray up. "Had to go and switch it out. It would be awfully inconvenient for us if you died of arsenic poisoning, ma'am." He smiles, the one he used to shower politicians and bureaucrats with, the one they never knew was cold because they never knew Steve Rogers.

Madame Hydra is smarter than any of them were. "I am not so sure the replacement is any safer, Captain," she remarks, even as she slides it closer and begins to unwrap the plasticware. "You didn't answer the real question."

"No bargain. Just food. I'm not in the business of torture, Miss Sarkissian." The Madame only reacts to her real name with a quirk of the eyebrow.

"So you've watched my and Fury's show and tells. I trust you enjoyed them?"

"You seem to know a lot about me and my team," Steve replies evenly. "I only aimed to level the playing field. Ophelia Sarkissian-"

"You can see why I prefer Madame Hydra, yes? Much less of a mouthful," she interjects, smiling as she idly breaks the tongs off her plastic fork, leaving sharp jagged edges behind. Steve doesn't avert his eyes from hers, doesn't give in to the unspoken threat.

"-born in Hungary, joined HYDRA young, worked your way up the ranks for nearly three decades. May I ask why?"

"Because I was wanted," the Madame says. "Then later, needed. There is no better feeling, is there, Captain? Almost intoxicating. I can see it in your eyes, too. The withdrawal. So many places you'd rather be."

"We probably have that in common," Steve said with a lightness he didn't feel. 

The Madame relaxed back into her pillows, her gaze lingering on her now-useless feet. "I wouldn't be so sure. I will die the moment I exit this place. My people have a rather low toleration for failure of any kind."

"Is that what call it?" Steve asks tightly. "I'm sure Brussels would disagree."

"Brussels," Sarkissian scoffs. "Was a nothing. Another shot in a war I've fought for years. A...what is that phrase? An 'I-told-you-so' to my associates."

Steve opens his mouth, ready to shoot righteous indignation, until a voice in his head that varies from word to the next from Natasha, to Rachel, to Fury, bids him to keep calm. "And what did you tell them, Miss Sarkissian?" 

Madame Hydra carefully peels back the lid on her jello and scoops out one tiny glob - green. The folks in the kitchen have a sense of humor. "Captain," she says after she swallows it down, placing the spoon down. "I know you did not come here unprepared. I know you have already seen Nicholas Fury's interrogation. What precisely is it that you want?"

"What I usually do," Steve remarks. "The truth." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, thumbing through the data that Natasha has sent him. Evidence of HYDRA's experimentation with Terrigen, proof that there is pieces of the super soldier serum in the formula, documentation of where Terrigen keeps failing in the body, how every iteration, every infection, has been subtly different. "Although in this case, I'll settle for corroboration. You wanted my blood, but the serum's already in the terrigen samples we've studied."

"Someone has been busy," Madame Hydra notes as her eyes light on the data. She reaches out with one finger and scrolls. "Someone very clever indeed. I'm sure my former associates are delighted about that. They have been vindicated after all."

"The serum," Steve presses.

Sarkissian doesn't look up, but her eyes lose their focus. She's thinking, debating whether to give in, and what to give up. More than that, she wants so badly to tell him why she was better, smarter, and why they all should have listened to her. She wants to show off. It's the only thing she has left.

"Simple," she finally says, looking up at him. "It wasn't your serum, Captain. Nor that that belonged to our glorious leader. It was one created by cast-offs, scraps. Inferior."

"Zola-" Steve breathes. Bucky. But Madame Hydra laughs.

"The Soldier's serum. Not likely. We settled for the ghost of greatness. And I warned them - weakness can only breed like. But they didn't listen. I told them to go to the source, but they refused. They said it would take too much time to start over. But I saw their hearts; they wanted their own slice of glory. I told them time spent on perfection was never time wasted. They cast me out."

"And the bomb was just to - what?" Steve asks, aghast. "To gain their attention? They took away your toys, so you murder innocent people."

"My toys?" Madame Hydra hisses, and suddenly she is much closer, that jagged fork pressed into his neck, the phone forgotten between them. "Years ago they told me they had a breakthrough. The final solution, the dawn of a new age, and they chose my daughter to be the new Eve. I was honored." Steve is silent, watching her, his world caught between the sudden mad gleam in her eyes and four pricks of pain at his jugular. "And she lived, Captain. Her power - to behold the creation of a new species within her - it is more than I can possibly describe.

"And then, it began to eat her alive, consume her." The madness in her eyes grows brighter and brighter until it seems to collapse in on itself. "They stole her away from me. Locked her somewhere I cannot find her. And then they had the gall to demand more."

"You sacrificed your daughter," Steve growls. "Were you really surprised?"

Madame Hydra draws away from him. "They whispered behind my back; I heard them every corner. They called her a failure, weak, and I even more so, but it was them, Captain. The fault lay with them. They ruined her.

"So I began to speak out, and when they turned away from me, many others who saw the fragility of their vision came with me. What you see as murder I see as both warning and guidance. HYDRA was traveling a dead-end path. I would find the better one, through you. I would bring us back to our full glory."

"So the hydra is chopping off it's own heads now?" Steve says, inwardly reeling. 

A feral grin curls at Madame Hydra's lips. "I wonder what is growing in their places?"

How many attacks had been Madame Hydra's temper tantrums and how many had actually been the main force of HYDRA? And how can he even be sure this woman is telling the truth? If she is...

Steve regards her with disgust. To volunteer your own daughter, if this girl really was such, for experimentation...The Skull would have been proud of this one. "And the girls? Rachel, her friends? Was that to prove a point, or is torturing young women just your particular brand of cruelty?"

"Course correction," she says, almost stern. "I was merely seeking the goal that HYDRA has always sought - the one my former associates have forgotten. They were to be guardsmen of our future, but only Rachel proved up to the task." Sarkissian sends him a knowing glance. "She's different, isn't she, our Rachel? Special."

Steve's fists curl. "You still experimented with it, the terrigen. Why?"

"It worked once. It could again, with adjustments. I had to try. Either I fixed it, or I found you. I would be welcomed back with open arms, regardless," she replies with a shrug. "A new world order is being built. I will not be left behind."

"And what does that world look like?" he asks lowly, remembering he's on a mission here. He has to protect his friends - all of them. "You said they were running out of time. You said your daughter had powers, given by terrigenesis. HYDRA has always wanted an army, but this is desperate, even for you. Why this, why now? What's going to happen?"

"Oh, it's too late for that, Captain," she answers. "There is no stopping this."

"I've heard that before," Steve growls, lip curling up in a snarl. "I stopped it then."

Madame Hydra smiles, utterly victorious. "No. You didn't. A delay, perhaps. The Skull was gone, but others took his place. Others will take mine, as well. You are a formidable foe to be sure. I am not like the others, Captain, I see your worthiness. But this is ordained, foretold, a dream from beyond the dark that HYDRA is bringing to the waking world. We have been promised."

Steve leans closer, voice dropping. "You'll fail. You're already failing, you're proof enough of that. HYDRA is teetering on the edge of oblivion. As far as I can tell, all you need is a solid push."

"Then you misunderstood. I left because they were foolish, and blind to it. I intended to show the way back, to prove myself. The people may fail but the purpose is true. Our faith may waver and others may be...misled. But in this, HYDRA is still one. We will win." Sarkissian's whole face is lit up in mad fervor. "The new world - our world - is coming. And we are building it a welcome so grand, Captain, that it will be heard across the galaxy."

Steve stands abruptly, gathering up the tray and his phone, sliding the latter into his pocket. "Two things: even if you had succeeded in taking my blood," he tells her. "You still would have failed. Abraham Erskine was a genius; you're not fit to even say his name." He begins to walk towards the door.

"Second: you're right. I didn't stop you before, not completely. But back then, I was just one man." He stops in his path to the door to look over his shoulder. "I'm not alone anymore."

He leaves before she can respond, makes it around the corner, and drops the tray just so he can stare at his hands. They should be shaking, but they aren't, because the serum controls for bursts of adrenaline like that. Instead everything looks sharp and too bright. He wants to get out of this place, get out of his head, go out there and track every one of those sons of bitches down and make them pay.

Yeah, you'll be really effective from a jail cell, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Tony's snarks in his head. He could always turn himself in, fight for his freedom, but he's not-

He pulls out his phone, brings up the messages from Natasha. What are you going to do Steve?

HYDRA has them running around in circles, chasing after shadows. All this time Fury was planning to divide and conquer when HYDRA was probably happy to let his soldiers take out their rogue faction. It never seems to stop. Steve's always one step behind. 

I'm not alone anymore. 

All he has to do is believe it.

TO: [email protected]

[DOCUMENTS ATTACHED]

Sending you an audio file and Fury's interrogation of suspect captured, known as Ophelia Sarkissian AKA Viper AKA Madame Hydra. Stay safe.

Chapter Text

Tony watches the ocean slip by. It's dark yet; he's flying away from the sunset, further into night. It's quiet. Peaceful. Everything hurts, Barnes and his parents and old regrets just brimming under the surface, but for once the hurt is almost good. His skin doesn't feel too tight, his head runs from one thought to the next with no skipping stuttering madness at the edges. He's done all he can, he tells himself. He feels complete.

Tony takes a deep breath, and starts over again. Time to tear it down.

"FRIDAY," he says. "Give me a sitrep."

"Comprehensive or situational, boss?"

"You know me, sweetheart, I always dream big." Tony smiles bitterly at his reflection in the window. "Least important up, please."

"You got it. Scott Lang's ongoing trial and sentencing is going, in Ms. Walters' words, 'as best as can be.' Apparently the hold-up is not the issue with the Accords; key comments overheard by Ms. Walters' team have suggested that despite Scott Lang's adamant disagreement, the judge believes Mr. Lang was coerced in some way by Captain Rogers. Evidence and testimony by Mr. Lang himself also indicates that he did not know the full consequences or even the entire situation going into the battle at Leipzig. He was, and I quote, 'informed that bad guys with experimental science they knew jack-shit about were threatening the world. I've seen it happen before; wasn't willing to risk it again.' When asked about the Accords, he said he knew them only via explanation of why Iron Man was opposing them."

"So, brush me up on my legalese, that's second-degree stuff?" 

"Or involuntary. Mr. Lang, Ms. Walters' has argued, did not technically agree to fight you or the Accords; he agreed to help Captain America."

"Ah,  the glory of technicalities. So what's the verdict? Figuratively speaking."

"The problem comes down to Mr. Lang's missed parole meetings. Even if they agree to the terms set down in Clint Barton's case, Mr. Lang has broken laws here in America as well. Ms. Walters' reports indicates that she is unworried, however. Debate over this matter will take some time, and in that time Mr. Lang can quietly while away his house arrest with Doctor Pym and Hope van Dyne. He sees Cassie twice a week. Ms. Walters' hopes to argue, no matter the sentencing, that these past few months can count for time served. It is not ideal but for now, all parties are satisfied." 

"Happy endings all around." Tony toasts with the glass he has yet to fill. The weight is a comfort nonetheless.

"Not quite," FRIDAY responds, ignoring Tony's mutter of 'killjoy' as she barrels on. "The United States' sub-Accords committee is making in-roads in the ATCU. For the time being, Director Talbot is prepared to formalize their own contract between the agency's meta-human forces and the government, but there are certain senators pushing for registration of all meta-humans."

Tony cursed silently to himself. Steve hadn't been wrong when he said the Accords could be dangerous; in the beginning, it was because they were too broad, gave the UN too much control. Tony and T'Challa have been wittling that down, taking it nation by nation, letting each experience under the Accords provide an example of where to improve or where to maintain. Every step has been a stumble, but Tony truly believes they're getting somewhere better. Now, the problems lie in specificity: in particular, what to do with homegrown heroes.

The United States is a problem in and of itself. It doesn't want UN control but it has by far the highest number of meta- or super-humans, so it doesn't want to lose control entirely. They've been fighting the yoke of the Accords for awhile - the incident in New York City with Green Goblin fanned the flames that were sparked by the loss of Captain America to parts unknown seven months ago - but he's worried that some senators will spy the gap the US is trying to force between itself and the Accords and set up legislation of their own.

Hindsight is a beautiful bastard, and Tony's staring at it now. He should have never made those Defenders contracts with the UN - Luke and Daredevil aren't going outside the United States, there was no need to worry about them - but at the time Ross had taken advantage of the turmoil left in the wake of Leipzig and pushed hard for registration of all active supers, international or not, and Daredevil had been making headlines after his suspected role in putting away Wilson Fisk. If Tony hadn't been able to fight that, he wanted the superheroes he could protect to have as much of said protection as possible. In the end, he won, but as usual his solutions have a double-edged sword. Luke and Daredevil are safe, but what about Jessica Jones, or this Iron Fist he keeps hearing whispers about?

"Leak to the press when and where I'll be landing, Fry," he decides. "Let's remind the world, again, what the Accords stand for."

He has never wished for Steve Rogers more than at this moment. Steve might not have supported the Accords, he maybe never will, but Godammit when the man drew lines in the sand, he stuck to it. Plus, if anyone could shame a senator or representative into remembering the spirit of fairness and righteousness it would be him.

"If it helps, boss, you have NYC on your side," FRIDAY says. "In addition of Captain Stacy's earlier comments, there's a detective in Harlem who works with Luke Cage and Daredevil. She has begun calling them the Heroes for Hire. Quite the contrary to mercenary nature suggested by the name, she has said it is the precinct's own little joke about the Defenders' availability, no matter how petty the crime. She has stated that their help is invaluable and anything that would impede that is something she cannot support."

"Cut that precinct a check, Fry. Whatever I was meant to pay my PR guys this month. Oh, wait, no. I think that falls under bribery." Tony rolls his eyes. "I'll think of something. Body armor or new cams, software upgrades maybe..."

"A phone call would not be unappreciated, boss," FRIDAY suggests.

"Well, now you're just being ridiculous." A silence falls, and Tony frowns. "Grand finale, or more bad news? Fry?"

"I have been unable to crack the DoD security," FRIDAY says, stiffly robotic in a way she was specifically designed not to be.

Tony frowns even further. "That doesn't sound right. You feeling okay, girl?" The silence stretches on, and Tony clutches the phone closer to him like FRIDAY can feel the contact. "You know what, doesn't matter. We'll do it together, alright? Bonding experience. It'll be fun."

"I should be able to.  Why can't I?"

"You're just not there yet. It took JARVIS a long time to hack without being detected. I shouldn't have thrown you in the deep end like that. We'll figure it out, Fry, don't worry. What's next on the list?"

She takes a long moment to fume before continuing. "Norman Osborn's autopsy report shows no signs of struggle on the body. His only wounds are lingering effects of the fight in New York, withdrawal symptoms from the serum he was ingesting, and ligature marks around the neck from the bedsheet. It has been officially deemed a suicide."

"Any video recording?"

"Yes. Osborn had no visitors at the time of his death."

"Any video tampering?"

"Currently analyzing. " 

"Good girl. See? You're brilliant," Tony says. His voice shakes. "So." His thoughts begin to stutter now, the peace he felt gone. Suicide, Jesus, his poor kid - gonna be backlash - what was in that serum, what was Osborn doing? - why would someone kill him? 

What would they kill him for?

"Boss? What do you want to do?"

Tony clears his throat. "Start calling OsCorp every hour, on the hour. I want an appointment ASAP. Tell them SI needs a bio-tech partner anyway for the prosthetics testing."

"Their stock prices are in freefall. You could get their notice easier by buying up more."

"Check if any big names are interested, then forward that list to Pepper. I don't want to threaten Junior, just talk to him," Tony growls. "I promised Peter some answers; lets get them. Sidebar here: did they do a physical evaluation on Osborn in prison? Draw any blood?"

"I will find out."

"Good." Tony pauses. "And I want interviews, personal this time, no police review, with the scientists Osborn was screaming about that night. Tell them we're interested in their work; SI can always use new hires. Any word on Peter?"

"No, sir. He hasn't been at the compound, no calls made, KAREN hasn't logged any movement, and you've restricted yourself from checking his attendance records." He deflates at that, worry clashing horribly with the adrenaline that's begun to pump through him. There's a sick sort of thrill running up his spine at the mystery of it all; Tony's always loved a good puzzle, hasn't he? Even now. Even when it's people, instead of parts, there's a challenge here he can't help but relish.

God, he wishes he still kept alcohol on this jet.

"Email [email protected], no subject line, body reads." Tony swallows, opens his mouth to cancel the whole thing, and then braves on. "One call away. TS. Send."

"Sent. You mind if I attach something of my own?"

"Sap," he accuses, absent but fond. "Go for it." His gaze drifts to the window, mind drifting even further. "Do you think he'll call?"

"Peter?"

"Barnes."

FRIDAY doesn't have to pause, doesn't have to think, because she is thought itself. "I couldn't say. I don't know his behavior, his patterns. Past actions show an inclination towards personal responsibility and self-recrimination; that suggests a strong possibility that he will."

"Guess I'll take it," Tony allows after a long pause. 

Arriving home to find Hope van Dyne eating oatmeal at the kitchen island should not be the surprise it is, but: "Thought you'd be celebrating with The Atom and Friends."

Hope's side-eye is as impressive as every other thing she does. "You know, I think that little nickname's more of a compliment than you meant it to be, Stark. For your information...I was, apparently, 'hovering.'" It looks like it pains her to admit. She point the spoon at him, more threatening than it has any right to be. "Scott's words, not mine. I thought I was positively delightful."

"I'm sure you were. He doesn't know what he's missing," Tony says, only just managing not to laugh at her.

"He does." She drops her spoon into her bowl with a final-sounding 'clank' and fixes him with a frank stare. "Thanks to you. You pulled through, Tony."

Tony puts up a hand. "Don't mention it. Please."

"Oh, this will be the only time. As far as I'm concerned, you owed him. Captain America, too, but I'll have to wait to collect on that one. Nice job, by the way," she adds, nodding towards the muted TV which Tony only just realizing is replaying his impromptu press conference he held outside the public airport he decided to land at instead of his private one. The CC is on, and Tony watches the text roll by, barely keeping up with TV-him's rambling mouth. He had been a little emotional, what could he say.

"The Accords were meant to keep the Avengers in check, yes. If I recall my basic definitions, though, that doesn't and has never meant keeping us in chains. In fact, if dear old Merian-Webster hasn't led us all astray, an accord means to work harmoniously with another. We work with the Council; we don't work for them. We listen, and expect to be heard in response. It's a partnership - one hand grasped in another. It can't work if either side is holding the other down. The Avengers agreed to rules and regulations, because we believed it was the right thing to do-" TV-Tony paused to listen to the first half of some reporter's snide 'some didn't' before barreling on. If those some wanted their opinion heard they could set up their own damn press conference. "-what we didn't agree to was the license to arrest any super because of what they might do. Punishment must fit the crime, right, that's what we were all taught? Innocent until proven guilty? If there is no crime beyond a person's basic right to exist, then are we really going to rise up in fear of what someone might do? Come on, guys, we've all seen that movie...

"The point? Everhart, you used to be able to read between the lines. The Accords are a two way street. We abide by rules that we helped to create, not just to better protect the world, but also to better protect ourselves. If we are taken out of that equation, or if the situation is applied to people who never agreed to it, the whole thing falls apart. If we have no say, we have no stake in what happened."

"Totally threw that in for the soundbite value," Tony admits, and Hope snorts.

"Please, Stark, I help run a company that runs on experimental tech. I know the benefits of a good spin, and that was a bonafide Tilt-A-Whirl. Clever not to mention that the Accords were initially presented as a 'do or die' mandate."

Tony shrugs. "I never said I didn't get why Rogers and the others were skittish. It was a shit move Ross and the Security Council pulled on us, but even then-"

"Even then," Hope agrees, cutting off Tony's spiel for both their sakes. "My father didn't like them, but I could see the Accords coming from a mile away. You all should've, especially after Sokovia but - hindsight, I guess. Or maybe just hope." She sighs, letting her spoon clank down into the bowl and sink beneath the thick film of oatmeal left on the bottom. "How long will this go on, Tony?"

Tony watches the TV switch to talking heads, 'NO SAY NO STAKES SAYS STARK' writ bold near the bottom, just like he predicted. "Truth?" Hopes makes a gesture as if that should be obvious. "Forever. We're making headway with the Accords now, but when the next disaster happens, and it will happen, the Council and the public will panic; either because we take too long to respond or because they feel our presence made a bad situation worse. We go back to the drawing board, we do it all over again. It never gets solved, not really."

"Then why did you agree to it?" Hope asks, a bit of horror tinging her genuine curiosity. 

Tony blows out a breath, trying to get his thoughts in order. It's a question he's often asked himself. Best he's come up with is this: "You know way back in 2011, the US government was trying to take my suit? Of course you do, everybody does, FOX ran those clips for a month straight. I didn't want them to have it, as far as I was concerned, they had no right. I didn't want the tech leased out to the army, because I didn't trust them. But then some...things...happened, and Rhodey got a suit of his own. And you know what he did, he took it straight to his boys in blue. And I was okay with that. Mostly. Because I trusted Rhodey. I knew he'd do it right. The Accords, they were a lot like that. I didn't like a lot of what was in the original resolution, not by a long shot, but the bones of it were good, so I thought - if just one of us can get our hands on the wheel.

"Now we have, and it's not perfect, but," Tony tells her with a smile turned sad at the corners. "I'd like to think that every time we gain a little more trust. Every time we prove ourselves a bit more capable. I won't - I don't want anyone to walk all over us, I never want to see my teammates in another jail cell for the rest of my life, but I'd make the same decision I made back then again, even if I knew what would happen later. Because I am sure that this way is the only way we can ever move forward, the only way the Avengers can go on existing. And I wasn't lying when I said I thought they were the right thing to do. I believe in them. Or at least what they could be."

Hope sits back in her chair, observing him, her features twitching like she can't commit to an expression. Finally she drawls "Tony Stark: Closet Optimist." The accused, surprised, laughs.

"Guilty," he says when he regains control. "But never convicted. It's our little secret, Wasp."

"Ours, and Rhodes, and Romanov's, and anyone who's listened to you speak about anything you love," Hope sasses, a little smirk on her lips at the idea of puzzling someone out, however small the puzzle was. "Speaking of-" she points at her tablet. "Kamala's battle report is in. She didn't say it, but she's dying for feedback from any Avenger that was there. Take a look." It's not a request, not that Tony would ignore it if it were. "Nothing from Spider Man on the servers yet, but I figured...with what happened to the Green Goblin..."

"Yeah," Tony says.

"Jesus. Norman Osborn gone, just like that. He used to be a titan, do you remember? Back when Oscorp was on the cutting edge of medicinal research?"

"I was running Stark by then. Our companies traded tech sometimes, but for the most part the only time I paid attention to Oscorp was when their stocks were higher."

"He was a genius. One hundred percent. He was never the same after his wife died." Hope stares at nothing in particular, her mind clearly very far away. "It seems to be a trend."

Her own mother is in her thoughts now. Poor Hope, half-orphaned by loss, then guilt finishing the job. She still rarely speaks of her father in anything but a professional manner. Tony can empathize; hell, most of them can. Maybe that's how they found each other - maybe that's why they can do this. So often people talk about 'living through' pain, but Tony can't think of it as anything but surviving. And they are all of them a rag-tag of survivors, huddling together for warmth.

He doesn't want that for anyone else. Tony's old and beaten and broken and he's content with surviving, mostly, but the others - they deserve better. 

"Hey, Hope?" He startles her out of her thoughts, earning him a cross look. "What do you think about moving?"

"Moving?"

"Yeah, well." He rubs the back of his neck. It's been dogging his thoughts, the shadow of an idea, and Steve's drawing had brought it into focus. "It's just - Aamir, he said some things that got me thinking and - the Compound used to hold us and the entirety of Nu-SHIELD, but they're gone now and now ninety percent of it just gathers dust. And we've got the kids. Kamala, Spidey, even Donnie. The Compound's great for training, but it doesn't seem all that conducive to, ah...living, what with us being miles and miles from civilization. I don't think Kamala's had physical contact with anyone not in the facility since her parents' funeral. And I was thinking: my Tower's just standing there; the top ten floors are just acting as a really fancy hat right now. Or the mansion, even, giant mausoleum that it is."

Come to think of it, he might actually enjoy it, having the Avengers in his mansion, wiping away all the shit that happened there. If it didn't manage to fill like a giant violation of his parents' memory, and that - that was a big if, knowing himself like he rarely did.

"What are you saying, Stark?"

He frowns. "That maybe we should move. For the kids. Do we need to get your ears checked, Tinkerbelle?"

Hope narrows at Tony, half at the slight and half in thought. "I think," she says. "That you don't really know what you're suggesting here."

"Oh really?" he asks, leaning forward to prop one elbow on the counter to hide his unease. He is suddenly extremely thankful Hope is a good fifteen years younger than him; she would have destroyed him with one look at the negotiating table if their companies ever tangled. "Then enlighten me, Ms. van Dyne."

"You know Cassie Lang?" 

"Apropos of nothing," Tony says. Hope glares at him and he concedes. "Yeah. Scott's kid. She's sent a letter or twelve. Smart kid."

"The smartest. She wants to be her dad when she grows up. Just like her dad. She's even got a name for herself - Stature. Her mother says she heard it on a news report about Giant Man." Tony raises an eyebrow, half confused and half impressed; 'Stature' is a fair bit cooler than 'Ant' or 'Giant Man.' Point to Little Lang. "How do you think any of us are going to stop her? Scott can talk about how dangerous it is until he turns blue in the face, but Cassie doesn't just idolize him but everything he does. She's going to grow up and wonder why she can't help the same way. And she'll steal her dad's belt one night and end up killing herself because she doesn't know what she's doing."

"Where are you going with this?"

She says patiently, like he's slow, "The Avengers have been in business for six years, Stark; you, eight. How many Iron Man fans are working on prototypes in their basements right now? How many Cassies? You're thinking about Kamala and Spider-Man, you're thinking about what's right in front of you, but what you're talking about - what you yourself just talked about on TV and, oh the program you and Hawkeye are developing? Don't think the rest of the world won't take note - you're talking about schooling.

"That means taking kids in, taking care of them. Your idea has merit, Stark, don't get me wrong - the Compound is great for training, but it's not sustainable for leading any semblance of a normal life. But you need to recognize what you're opening yourself up to."

Hope watches him for a response, but Tony stays silent, thinking. She's just taken it to a much grander scale than he's been thinking of, though he should've been, dammit. Wanda had worked well in isolation, especially with Pietro gone, and maybe that had made them all complacent, but kids like Kamala and Peter (and no doubt about it, there would be more kids like them) would wilt and die out here. And living out here has basically forced them all into a life that is all superhero, all the time. Great for bringing the team together, not as beneficial for actually staying sane.

"It could be chaos, though. We do this and every kid with even a pinch of moxie is trying to take down every maniac across America. It could turn into vigilante season in a second. Not to mention," he says, thinking out loud. "Any more superheroes and New York might have kittens."

Hope snorts. "I said it had merit, I didn't say it was perfect. Just - food for thought, Stark? You and your Avengers have raised a generation of superheroes, and metas are popping out of the woodwork. Whether you want it or not, expansion is inevitable."

Tony thinks of Steve's drawing, burning a hole in his pocket, the Avengers' circling the earth. Steve had seen it. Of course he did. Kamala and Peter are each a thousand times worth more than Tony, but they are still accidental heroes, like himself, giving of themselves because circumstances made it so they could. But there are people out there just like that scrappy little slip from Brooklyn, who just wanted to stop bullies. No one, not even Steve's own body, could stop that kid, and Tony doesn't imagine the world could do any better against his twenty-first century equivalents.

Maybe Steve even wanted it too. Tony did, in his heart of hearts. A legion of Avengers, together, connected. Helping each other and protecting the world. An Avengers World. It makes something loosen and warm in his chest that he thought he'd left behind somewhere in Siberia, or the caves, or maybe even earlier, some lost Christmas his parents never came home to. 

('The Avengers are your family.')

He can hear himself distantly thank Hope, and head to his room, hand over his heart where the drawing lies folded.

He is standing over a lab table. He expects gears and struts, he expects to reach out and build something.

Instead there are parts of different kind. A brain here, a heart there. Fingers and toes, eyes and ears. Limbs, not human but not machine. Something different. New.

Stranger still is a red hourglass he instinctively identifies as compassion, a shining medal for loyalty, a black claw of honor, a yellow gem gleaming with curiosity and a green one of forgiveness.

A valorous hammer and an dutiful arrow, a lightning bolt of hope, a snowflake of courage. Wings of friendships and an atom of cleverness. A crimson swirl of conviction. A brave spider weaving its web among the clutter. Buried among the rest, a red star, dully shining with commitment.

A dusty shield, blue on red, chivalry and righteousness, on which they all rest.

He looks up, looks out, to see Avengers strewn across the place. They sleep and do not wake. His eyes fall on Steve, whose uniform is as dusty as his shield. Tony itches to wipe it clean, but he must build.

Did they give these things to him, these parts of themselves, or did he take them? He doesn't know. He can't remember.

He looks at Steve. (Why didn't you do more?) He reaches for his chest, takes out the reactor. He places it on the table.

Tony wakes up. Rhodey, who hadn't even stirred when Tony had faceplanted beside him an hour ago, begins to roll over, eyes blinking heavily. He escapes before his friend can fully wake. His chest feels lighter than before, and he doesn't know if that's a good thing.

'Assemble,' he thinks, over and over, his hands shaking from the dream. 'Assemble, Tony.'

Waking up not knowing where he is is a common feeling for Steve, but he's gotten past it over the last few years. So when he jerks awake, panicking and swinging at the ceiling, it takes him longer than he'd like to settle. He's in his room, the sun's light through the window not strong enough yet to do more than blur the edges of the shadows, and nothing's out of place - but the shrill ringing coming from his desk.

The phone.

The phone is ringing. 

He leaps to his feet, kicking away the sheets and blanket and the last dregs of sleep, and stumbles over. Caught up in the sudden burst of adrenaline and - and excitement - he doesn't check the number, a rookie mistake Natasha would have his head for if she was here, and flips open the lid to the phone without hesitation.

"Tony?" he's asking before he even gets the phone all the way up to his ear.

There is a pause, then an inhale that becomes a laugh somewhere along the way, and Steve knows - can't believe -  

"'Fraid not," is the answer. 

"Bucky." It's meant to be a shout, a question, something other than the breathless exhale it is, but Steve hadn't realized until this precise moment that there was a large part of him that had never expected to hear his best friend's voice ever again. His knees go weak and he's going boom-down into the chair so hard the wood groans beneath him.

"'Fraid so," Bucky answers. There's a smile in his voice that Steve can't picture. "Did I call too early? I...don't know where you are, so I figured I'd just call whenever I worked up the nerve."

"Bucky," Steve says. Gasps, really. "How?"

"How do you think?" Steve can barely make a picture out of the dots he's already connected in his head before Bucky continues. "Tony Stark."

His chest seizes, hard, but all that makes it out is a carefully controlled, "Are you alright?"

"All my remaining limbs are intact," Bucky says, and it's so dry, so Bucky. The corner of Steve's eyes sting. "I'm fine, punk. We both are, I think. He - came to see me. To talk."

His hand curls into a fist against his will; the phone creaks ominously. The last time Tony came to them with hands open it ended in a bloody fight, and Steve knows how much of that is on him, but it doesn't change how scared he was of Tony in those moments, how terrifying it was for a man that smart to be mindless in his rage. (How terrifying it was even later, when he couldn't help but recall the fight blow by blow, and realize that wasn't Tony mindless. It could have been worse, he had still not seen the darkest parts of the man he considered a true friend.)

The taste in the back of his throat as he watched Tony blow Bucky's arm off, heedless: blood and something bitter and heavy like betrayal and regret - he tastes it now and it chokes him.  "Why?" is all he can manage.

"This and that," Bucky says, so deliberately calm, still acting like Steve's anchor even when he doesn't remember everything. "The trial, mostly, clearing my name."

"The - the trial?" Steve repeats, and then flatly, as it sinks in: "There's still going to be a trial."

"Wanda told me Hawkeye and the little big guy had one. Stark told me the UN's just dying to put you and Wilson through the ringer, too. So I don't really suppose they'd scrimp for the infamous assassin. Stark agreed with me."

Four different responses try to fight themselves out at once: relief, at knowing that Bucky isn't alone, that Wanda's with him; continuing concern about Tony; anger that Bucky's struggle isn't over. Not a word of it made it out of his mouth.

"He...wanted to get ahead of it, I guess," Bucky continues, his voice softer now. "I'd almost be flattered if I didn't think he was doing this for everybody but me."

"Buck-"

"I'm sorry," Bucky mutters lowly, like he doesn't mean to be heard. "That wasn't fair."

"Bucky, it's okay," Steve says firmly. "However you feel about it, it's okay, you hear me? You don't have to do anything Tony, or anyone, says. You just - you keep yourself alive, okay?" He means to be strong, inspirational even, though Bucky never listened to Captain America any more than he did Steve. But it comes out garbled and strained and true. All Steve wants in this world sometimes is just to know Bucky's out there, too. 

There is quiet all down the line until Bucky inhales like it hurts him to. "I don't think that's enough anymore, Steve." He tells the story in fits and spurts, then: Tony coming to see him, the trial that could save them all if Tony could just save Bucky first, the Retro-Framing technology that could help him overcome the trigger words -

(There's a video of Tony he pulls up sometimes, the last glimpse of him before the fighting started, standing at the shoulder of a younger version of himself on the stage of MIT. Tony, not yet an orphan, telling his parents he loved them while he could because he regretted not doing so. To give tech like that to Bucky, tech Tony made to personally ease his own demons, is a gesture that says more silently than anything Tony Stark ever could out loud.)

- to the phone that Bucky's now using to call him.

"So, I ask Wanda and she say 'Steve's gone off to save the day' and I think to myself 'fucking again'-" They both laugh here, though Bucky's is a bit miserable. "Only I don't know why I thought that, Stevie. There's all this stuff and it's like...all the bridges have been burned, in my head. I can't get from point A to point B."

"You were getting better, though, before."

Bucky laughs again, hoarse and unhappy. "I was holed up in hotel rooms and every once in awhile I'd look around and nothing would look right. Because my brain had fallen back to 1944, or 1959, or '85 or '97 or some fucking year that wasn't now. And maybe I'd get lucky that day, and I would wonder where Stevie and the Commandos were, what kinda bender I'd gone on last night that they'd left me to sleep off. Those are they days I wrote about, the ones you - found." There's a small surge of guilt at that, even though there's no accusation in Bucky's voice and it had to be done to find out where his headspace was at the time. "Most days I wasn't though. I'd slip back to the Winter Soldier, ready for a hit, waiting for my handler to come with my gear so I could suit up." 

Steve will never be able to comprehend what Bucky went through, what he still goes through, but he thought that whatever came he'd be able to help. Now it is staring him in the face and he doesn't know what to say.

"I have no control," Bucky finishes wearily. "Feels like I'm still under their thumb sometimes."

"Bucky, don't say that. You're free now, you can - you'll get better and it'll get easier, be like it used to-"

"But it can't," Bucky says plainly. "Because we're here, now, and - it happened, Steve. HYDRA, the Soldier, they happened to me. If I could go back-" He stops, and Steve waits for him. "If I could go back," he says lowly. "It'd still be in front of me. Waiting. So I can't."

Steve has wished for it before; he once, in the middle of the night when things hurt the worst, almost asked Tony if he could build a time machine. The vision that Wanda had shown him, blood on the dance floor but Peggy warm in his arms - he should've been scared, and he was when it all disappeared and he was left alone. But for just a moment, he had been happier than he had been in years. The only thing that even compared is when he saw Bucky again, alive, on that road in DC.

"If you could go back," Steve parrots. "If you could change what happens to you..."

"Won't I always know, though?" Bucky answers the unspoken question. "I can't cut it out of me, Steve. All I can do is...choose what to do with it from here on out. 'S more than I had before."

"Does it hurt?" Steve says, and hell, what does he even mean? The Soldier, the future, everything? He already knows the answer to that. Does it hurt you like it hurts me? That - that he doesn't want to know. But Bucky gets him, like he always did, because he laughs a little.

"Like a slug to the gut."

Steve laughs, too, because he can't do anything else. It shouldn't be like this, but it is. Bucky's right. "You still sound...you sound just the same."

"Stevie," Bucky says seriously.

"I know," Steve murmurs; he can hear everything Bucky's not telling him. Bucky, apparently, isn't satisfied with that, though.

"I'm - not him. I know I'm not. But you're not exactly you, so I figure it's okay, a little bit, if I didn't come out alright on my way through. I need to figure out who I am, now. But I'll always be your friend. Til the end of the line. I remember that." 

Steve never wanted a new life, a fresh start. But Bucky does. No, it's more than that: Bucky deserves one. And Steve won't leave him behind again. "You're gonna take Tony's offer," he says, closing his eyes.

"Yeah, I think I am," Bucky says. "I just needed to...talk it through, I guess? And I wanted to hear from you, since you up and abandoned me, punk."

It's a tease, a trick to lighten the mood, and Steve chuckles obligingly. "Sorry I wasn't there to witness the wake up. Must've been some bedhead."

"Wanda's been doing it up in braids," the other man says. "I look pretty good."

He's preening, joking, serious and playful by turns, and Steve's Bucky is still in there, but it's like looking through a kaleidoscope: he's just one part in a sea of many, now. Is how Bucky sees the whole world? Is this how Steve's been looking, instead of taking in the whole picture?

They've both missed a lot. He hopes they both get to find whatever it is, and if they're lucky, maybe they can do it together, but they'll never get there if Bucky doesn't take this chance.

You're still the bravest man I've ever known, Steve doesn't tell him; Bucky's nowhere near ready to hear it yet, if ever. "Am I really all that different?" he asks instead.

"You're sadder," is the first thing Bucky says. Steve jerks a little in surprise, not expecting that. "You've always been a brooder, but the fight with the others, it really took it out of you, huh? I've never seen you like that, Steve."

"It was rough," Steve agrees around the lump in his throat. It's a lie, wrapped in a truth: it's been rough, for years. Long before the fight, and long before he ever got here. What had Rachel accused him of? Swinging his fists around, hoping for something to hit? 

(God's righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war.)

"But - you're more confident," Bucky continues. "You're better in your body. Not like you're borrowing it, like you used to act sometimes, but more like...you've always been that way. The outsides finally match what's in there, huh, Cap?"

He sounds so proud. Steve isn't sure he deserves it. "Lately I haven't felt like there's much of anything in there, Buck," he says in a near whisper. "'Specially not Captain America."

"Hey," Bucky says sharply. "What did I tell you all those years ago?" Steve waits and then Bucky huffs. "No, really, what did I tell you? I just had it and then it slipped away."

And Steve - bursts into laughter, taking himself by surprise. "Thanks, Buck," he drawls when can breathe again, wiping at his eyes.

"Fuck you," Bucky says fondly. "No, seriously, Steve, it was something really good, too. Something about following you into the jaws of death."

"You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?"

"Hell, no. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight, I'm following him."

Steve straightens as the memory comes back to him. "Oh."

"Yeah," Bucky replies firmly. He takes a deep breath like he has to gather himself for his next words. "And I meant it, whatever it was. Captain America - that's just a nickname the brass gave you to sell bonds. The guy I fought beside in World War II, the one who told the world to screw off because he believed in me when no one else did? That's Steve Rogers. That's who you've always been. It wasn't Cap who made you, you, Steve. It's always been the other way around. That's something I could never forget."

In the silence that falls when he's done Steve can practically hear his delayed embarrassment. Bucky always hated his sappy side. "Look," he follows up gruffly. "You can't cut it out of you anymore than I can get the Soldier out of me. It's part of you. You just - you choose, Steve."

It's up to you, Steve. Fight, or lay down.

He made the choice, once before, in a moment of loss and confusion. He'd dropped the shield, unsure of his worthiness, his place in the world as Captain America. He'd wanted to just be Steve, and Bucky could simply be Bucky, and that would be enough.

But that was a dream, like Wanda's vision, and when it ended he felt just as alone. If he could go back...If he could go back, he'd do the same thing. He can't go back. None of them can. But he has another chance, now. Fight, or lay down.

"When will you call Tony?" he asks when he realizes how long the silence has stretched on.

"The scientists here are making me a temporary prosthetic. Should be ready in a day or two, and Stark wanted his answer around then," Bucky answers.

"Look after yourself," Steve tells him. "Call me."

"Yes, mother."

Steve hesitates, then barrels forward. "Look after them, too. For me."

"I will," Bucky replies, absolutely determined. Steve breathes a little easier. "Stark seems like a real handful. I can't imagine the rest of them are much better."

"Well, there's no one like Tony, but..." Steve jokes, and Bucky chuckles. "I miss you, Buck."

"Me, too, punk. Come home soon." Steve can't answer that, and Bucky knows it. "Hey, and...I don't know, if this makes a difference, but Stark? He all but admitted he's doing this for you, so you can come back. I know it was hard for you, especially after the bunker but. But it might not stay that way forever, is all I'm saying."

Steve doesn't know how to handle that at all. Sometimes imagining Tony's forgiveness - imagining his own forgiveness to Tony - hurts too much. Steve will never back down from a fight, but that doesn't mean the scars never ache in the aftermath. And Steve is still healing from the war.

"Thank you," he manages. Bucky and he linger on for a few more minutes, desperate for every second of conversation they can get, and then voices begin to filter through on Bucky's end. "Later," Steve says, and it's a promise.

"Always," Bucky agrees, and the line goes dead.

His computer pings.

He's been staring at the container that houses the vial of James Barnes' blood for a good hour now and has not made one solitary move to open it and get started on the many analyses that need to be run. He doesn't want to know, to be honest. Barnes' serum - there's no doubt that it was Zola's own permutation, there's no other explanation. But as to how HYDRA could have replicated it, where they could have gotten another sample...

His computer pings again.

"You won't like her when she's impatient."

Tony only just barely refrains from jumping, turning instead to look at Bruce, eyebrows waggling. "Is that personal experience speaking there, Dr. Banner?"

Bruce merely rolls his eyes. "Anyone with common sense knows you don't keep a Widow waiting, Tony."

"I'm sorry, what exactly was the last year and a half of your life, then?"

"Strategic retreat," Bruce answers promptly, a sly grin creeping across his face when Tony laughs. It disappears only a moment later as he gestures towards the container. "If you'd like, I can get started on that while you're meeting with the others."

"Actually, I was trying to avoid upstairs," Tony mutters.

"Well, if you want we can talk about Barnes-" Tony makes shushing motions with his hands and Bruce grins at him for a moment before growing serious again. "Seriously, Tony, are you...?"

You know what you're looking for?" It's a dumb question, he knows it even as it spills out of his mouth, but he guesses he needs the reassurance.

"Exactly what we don't want to find."

Tony exhales, casting a long glance at the container. "Right. You have all the notes, right, I made FRIDAY transfer them-"

"Whatever happens, whatever we find, it isn't your fault." Bruce's hand is heavy on his shoulder. "You're not your father, Tony. You proved that six years ago." 

Tony nods, and with no small effort, makes himself stand. "Then I'll leave it up to you to get started, Jolly Green. Nat probably wants to talk strategy so who knows how long this will take."

"Just go, Tony," Bruce says, giving him a good-natured shove towards the door. Tony obeys, heading out into the hallway and up the stairs to the first floor, where the War Room is held. (Steve had hated that name when he'd first heard it and made that fact well-known, but all it really did was launch a ten-minute discussion between the rest of the Avengers on if Captain America would enjoy Dr. Strangelove. The name stuck, otherwise. And if Steve had ever gotten to see the movie, Tony hadn't known. He was well ensconced in his delusion of retirement by then.)

Rhodey is waiting for him at the landing, in a wheelchair today as his physical therapist had started cracking down on him over-working himself. Tony had been torn between wanting the best for his friend and deeply understanding the need to push oneself past one's limits; in the end he'd internally compromised by building Rhodey his own wheelchair, one that could attach a set of braces to his friend's legs with the push of a button so he could stand whenever he wanted. The measure of control helped, and Rhodey had yet to push the button on his rest days.

"We should paint that," he now decides, tilting his head this way and that to take in the gunmetal grey steel of the chair. "What do you think of-"

"If you say red and gold I will 'accidentally' roll over your toes for the next month," Rhodey says, all air quotes and dry sarcasm. He levels Tony with a frank look. "Tony."

"No," Tony says, holding up a finger and beginning to walk towards the War Room. 

"I heard you last night, heard you running away, too, before I could could do anything - how was that walk of shame?"

"Nostalgic," Tony snipes.

Rhodey isn't having it. "You went to talk with your parents' killer - for three days - and you think we're not going to talk about this?"

Godammit, he should never have installed that souped-up motor into the chair. Rhodey is easily keeping up with him. "Um, yes, honey-bear, because we've met before."

"Which is exactly why I'm hassling you. Tony-" A harsh whirr and the wheelchair swings around in front of him with a squeal of the wheels, blocking Tony's path. Rhodey looks up at him, worry and concern pouring out of every inch of him. "Tell me you're alright and we're good."

"Am I being tested? I feel very tested right now-"

"Tony."

"I'm not alright," Tony says bluntly, meeting Rhodey's eyes. "But I don't want to talk about it right now. Okay? Are you satisfied?"

"It's not about me," Rhodey says softly. "But yeah, okay. We're good, Tones. For now."

Just for that, Tony huffs dramatically and collapses forward onto his lap. "Can't believe you put me through that. Now I'm exhausted. You'll have to carry me the rest of the way, daffodil."

"Yes, making you face your feelings, how diabolical of me," Rhodey mutters but he does, Tony notes, steer them the rest of the way into the room without complaint.

Hope and Natasha are already waiting for them, the former raising an eyebrow at Tony's position on Rhodey's lap, the latter not even fazed. Clint's there, too, seated a bit away from everyone else. "Joining the party, Birdbrain?" Tony asks, careful to keep it light.

"Consider me the collective Plus One," Clint replies easily enough. "Besides, I hear HYDRA's making this open-invitation."

"We've just received intel from Steve," Natasha explains when Tony turns to her for translation of Barton's words. "Yesterday, actually, but last night you were..."

Tony waves a hand dismissively. "Let's just say 'indisposed.' It's what the press always goes with." Then his brain catches up with what's just been said. "Received intel from-"

Natasha nods, her face impassive even as her eyes zero in on the bags under Tony's eyes. There will be words later, no doubt. She waits for everybody to take a seat (and for Tony to clamber out of Rhodey's) before continuing. "Steve's team has been following the rogue operation of one Ophelia Sarkissian."

"Rogue?" Rhodey asks, leaning forward. Natasha nods, and pushes her phone to the center of the table before pressing play on the media app displayed on screen. They listen in complete silence first through Fury's interrogation, then through Steve's, though the latter could only in the vaguest terms be deemed an interrogation. It's much more of a conversation, and hats off to Steve Rogers: it works a sight better than anything Fury could have pulled on this woman.

What concerns him most is this supposed 'daughter.' "They still have her," Tony says when the recording's finished. "That's...a problem."

"Could the current version of the Terrigen mists be coming from her blood?" Hope asks. "If she survived, she's Patient Zero."

Tony shrugs. "In theory, it's all coming from the same place, and the way this formula mutates once it's in the bloodstream is like nothing I've ever seen before, so who knows? Biochem's not my thing. We won't know until Bruce finishes up and even then - we already know whatever they're pumping into people isn't strictly the Super Soldier serum."

"Then what's the other part of it, then?" Clint, this time, leaning forward.

"I don't know. We've been trying to figure that out. I've been following other leads, but they're all long-shots, coincidences, chases of the waterfowl variety. I've got my best girl on it-" he says, pitching his voice louder and jerking his hand so that a holographic screen pops up in front of his face. With a touch of his finger, the formula for Terrigenesis appears on screen. Tony's practically memorized it now. "Fry?"

"No closer, Boss."

And Tony didn't want to worry, not yet, because he hadn't built FRIDAY for anything but piloting the suit and maybe running a household, originally, so she was still learning, but - but maybe something had gotten to her? Maybe something was blocking her commands. Maybe miracles had happened and the Department of Defense had finally hired competent security analysts. "But we're hitting some roadblocks. We - I received intel about the attack in New York that bothered me. The Green Goblin was strong, fast, and mutated," Tony says to the others. "From what we know about HYDRA, it was exactly what they wanted out of Terrigenesis. Oscorp was working on some top secret project for the government, and HYDRA's always had a few fingers in that pie. I just figured - well."

"Better safe than sorry, especially with Osborn dead," Natasha says darkly.

"You sound like you don't think it was a suicide." 

Natasha's mouth pulls down. "I rarely do."

"Or, just to bring the paranoia down a notch," Clint interjects. "Norman Osborn was a megalomanic idiot and the government indulged him because they're morons. When he came down off the high, he couldn't take what he'd done and offed himself. Occam's Razor. We need to focus on facts. Cap's got a goldmine of information sitting pretty in a hospital bed - what are we going to do with her?"

"Supply lines," Rhodey says instantly. "Track whoever was giving her the goods to play with and we find our way into the nest. Sarkissian wasn't making this stuff on her own, she was modifying what they had, which means she had someone on the inside."

"HYDRA's got a mole," Hope breathes.

Tony looks from person to person, his team, eyes finally landing on Natasha, who is staring steadily back. "So," he lets out shakily. "Separate but equal here? That's the game plan."

"You're the boss, Tony," she replies. 

"Oh, is that so? And how long will this deferrence last?" Tony laughs, because its ridiculous to think that Natasha won't do whatever she wants no matter how stupid Tony and/or Steve are being. He's witnessed it firsthand. But even he can recognize when its time to let the past lie, and when to accept the open hand given to him. "Like the old man said. It's the only way."

Rhodey and Hope can't possibly know what he means, but they cannot mistake the smiles Natasha and Clint fight back. 

"Anything he needs, we'll get it. Anything we have, it's his. Tell him I expect the same," he says, unable to quite smooth out the clipped edges to his voice. This makes it real. He's made it real. This is his choice, there's no mistaking that.

Together. It doesn't feel like forgiveness. But it certainly feels like a start. It's...easier to handle than he thought.

(Feels a bit like breathing again, like waking up from a long fall and Steve's eyes were bright and Steve's hand was over his arc reactor, over his heart-)

Communication goes, of course, to Natasha, and she promises to forward Rogers their plans and advice on the matter, but they won't be able to survive on e-mail and encrypted texts forever. A system will have to be built. 

The conversation shifts after that, to Peter and Kamala and their training. Clint's pointing out the weaknesses in Kamala's observations and theories and where she's already grasped the finer points of strategy, telling the others how to work with her whenever they're in training with her. Hope glances Tony's way once or twice, probably wondering if he's going to bring up his ideas about moving back into the city, but Tony keeps quiet, absorbing everything Clint says. He wishes Peter was here right now; even if he was being criticized or corrected, Peter loved learning more about his abilities and how to improve. It's what makes him such a good hero.

Peter always thinks he can do better. He's, maybe, a bit too much like Tony for that to always be a good thing, but he's himself most of all, and that will see him through.

Tony is still looking at Kamala's report when the others file out, leaving him alone in the room with Natasha. "You put me on the spot, there, Romanov," he tells her with no heat. "A-plus plan."

"You work well under pressure," Natasha says simply. She sits beside him then, hand on his forearm. "Are you really ready for this?"

"I don't have a choice."

"No. I don't suppose you do," she says softly. "But I would have tried to make one for you." She did it for Steve, back at the airport. Carved a choice out of the chaos for him and hoped he did good with it. Tony doesn't know if Steve let her down, but he'll try not to.

"It's the right thing to do," he says firmly, clearing his throat and straightening in his seat.

Natasha hums. "You've been doing a lot of that, lately." Her words are pointed, her gaze even more so. Tony makes sure she can see his eyes roll.

"We are not talking about Barnes."

"With that kind of answer, we don't have to," Natasha replies dryly. "I can guess. You both sat in a room throwing ambiguous statements at each other so nobody had to talk about their feelings until time ran out, then did it all over the next day. You also probably gave him some way to contact Steve. How am I doing so far?"

"You missed out on the part where I ran into Wanda Maximoff again," Tony answers flatly. Natasha inhales sharply and he finally looks at her. "She's fine. I'm fine. It was all fine, Nat, and we're not talking about it. We've got bigger things to worry about. Like HYDRA, and-" He waves Kamala's report. "Super-powered children. Jesus, why did we think this was a good idea?"

"I remember it being mostly you and Clint. I claim no responsibility."

"Wimp," he accuses. Natasha shrugs. "They're going to be part of the team someday, Natasha. All I've ever known is you guys. I'm not sure I'll know what to do with new blood when the time comes."

"You sound like Steve," she says softly. His head snaps up, his face doing god-knows-what, but she just smiles. "He never said it, but he used to agonize about training the Avengers, even the STRIKE team. I think he was worried that whatever happened with the Commandos was just a fluke, I suppose. He had these reports that he tinkered with constantly - I saw them once."

"Reports on us?" Fuck, Tony did not even want to imagine what his said. Big man in a suit of armor, indeed. 

"Yes. I expected, I don't know, evaluations, but he dug deep. It's what made him - what makes him - a good leader. You should read them some time; I think he digitized them a year back during the move."

Tony looks at the holographic screen still floating in the air, Kamala's report still open. She's commented on a section of the battle at the HYDRA base in '15, confusion about why Iron Man is sent so far ahead while Thor, arguably more powerful, is left in the thick of things. Surely it would be better to send the impervious demi-god as the forward scout?

Tony had his own answer to that - for one, the armor could kick Thor's ass any day of the week, thank you very much. For another, the armor was multi-purpose and could tackle a larger amount of problems than Thor could. He wonders what Steve's thoughts had been, though. It had been Steve's plan, at that base. A perfect plan, actually, disregarding the Maximoffs. It had been - it was a good fight, that day. 

"Maybe," he murmurs, and in the corner of his eye he spots the slightest curve of Natasha's lips. Rapidly, he changes the subject. "So, that Osborn thing? You mind lending a hand?"

"Never," she immediately replies. "You got a lead?"

"Those scientists he was after that night - the police conducted interviews but didn't find anything and I figured, hey, Normie's always been a bit trigger-happy, maybe Goblin-izing himself turned it up to eleven but now-"

"I'll check them out."

"I've sent out feelers for positions at Stark Industries. You could play the talented Ms. Rushman again," he said with a grin. "If they don't bite, we might have to go to them. Maybe its nothing, but - there's something up about the whole thing. Call me paranoid-"

"You are paranoid," Natasha says, not unkindly. Almost fond, actually. "And I'll check it out as soon as I can. I know it feels like Osborn died on our watch."

Tony stares at the table, shrugs. "He did bad things, suffered bad consequences. That part's easy. The why of it all..."

"Keeps you up at night, sometimes, doesn't it?"

"Not for you?"

Natasha bites her lip, something Tony's never seen her do before, and he has no idea if it's genuine or just a calculated vulnerability on her part. He feels a little bit privileged either way. "It didn't use to. I was told who to kill, and I did it. It was a simpler life. I kind of like the weight of it all, now. Keeps me grounded."

"I...well, I won't tell you I've learned to live with that weight, but at least I've learned how to carry it. Some of us aren't so experienced."

There is a hand on his shoulder, a comforting warmth, and Tony leans into it. He'd missed this, while he was away.

From: Virginia Potts, CEO Stark Industries
Tony. Why am I getting emails from a very aggrieved personal assistant at OsCorp asking me to intervene in the, and I quote, 'mercenary soliciting from Mr. Stark that would make telemarketers cream their pants'?

To: Pepper-pot
Holy Human Resources Disaster, Batman, they *actually* wrote those words? Please forward that to me ASAP, I want to frame that.

From: Virginia Potts, CEO Stark Industries
TONY.

To: Pepper-pot
I need a meeting with Osborn kid. I was being proactive. And thorough. Also, tell this charming PA that while their attempts to block my calls are downright adorable, SI owns like 500 telephone numbers and I can always buy more.

From: Virginia Potts, CEO Stark Industries
Is this SI business or Avengers business?

To: Pepper-pot
Both. You said yourself you wanted to make some deals with them. This is just me lending my brilliant boss a hand.

From: Virginia Potts, CEO Stark Industries
We agreed that SI and Avengers wouldn't mix, Tony. Promise me this won't affect the company when whatever you're cooking up inevitably goes south.

To: Pepper-pot
O ye of little faith. The worst Junior can do on that front is say no. SI is safe. If you want to play it safer, I'll use Stark Ventures instead. The prostheses tech line is supposed to be its flagship program and I wanted that off the ground three months ago. At this point we could probably use a med tech firm's help and OsCorp's always been solid.

From: Virginia Potts, CEO Stark Industries
Since Stark Ventures is *your* baby (and only yours), that does make me feel better, actually. I still recommend buying up more stock. I looked at the list you had FRIDAY send me. Some of the companies circling THAT drain would dismember OsCorp in a heartbeat, and if you really want an attention grab, nothing screams 'look at me' like suddenly owning ten percent of a company.

To: Pepper-pot
See, this is why you're the boss.

From: Virginia Potts, CEO Stark Industries
Not on this one, Tony. It's your call, and you have my support, just remember the world isn't just the Avengers. You've got people here at SI, and at Stark Ventures, and at OsCorp, that are relying on your good name. Play it smart.

To: Pepper-pot
I'm not going to stop calling, Pepper.

From: Virginia Potts, CEO Stark Industries
It was worth a try.

To: Pepper-pot
Just block them. It's what they're doing to me. Only, my filtering system is actually effective. 

From: Virginia Potts, CEO Stark Industries
And when they start calling us?

To: Pepper-pot
Throw some interns on the phone lines. Lord knows we have enough.

Pepper's reply to that one is slow-coming, and Tony pats himself a bit on the back while he still can. No doubt revenge will be swift. "FRIDAY, cupcake. Let's just...go ahead and block any calls from Pepper today, shall we?"

"What if it's an emergency, boss?"

Tony snorts. "If it's an emergency, Pepper won't settle for a phone call." Never mind if it's a real threat, Pepper has a panic button in her office and every room of her apartment.

"Done. You have an incoming message."

"Pepper finally got her words in order?" Tony smirk.

"Peter Parker, boss, on the messenger."

The smile drops from his face. The screen, previously filled with lines of FRIDAY's code, dutifully clears, and a name pops up, one he didn't expect to hear from so soon.

From pparker: I'm fine, Mr. Stark. Thanks for checking up on me.

Tony snorts. The persistent coil of worry sitting his chest loosens a bit, but not too much. If Peter were really okay, he'd probably be bitching about Tony 'checking up on him.' Peter hates being coddled almost as much as he secretly loves it.

Taking a chance, he opens up the secure, Stark-approved direct messenger app that all the Avengers have on their phone. You haven't turned in your homework, Mr. Parker is his opening volley.

There is a brief pause, and then: Can I request an extension?

t-stark : got a lot on your plate?

pparker : I said I'm fine. 

t-stark : answering with a non-answer. i like it.

Peter doesn't respond for nearly half a minute. Tony gives in.

t-stark : so the last few days I've been holed up in an undisclosed location with everyone's favorite brainwashed assassin.

pparker : Are you okay
Holy shit Mr. Stark.

t-stark : i'm fine, totally voluntary, no need to panic. i needed to talk to him.
he's fine by the way, i don't know if you care but you're a nice kid so you probably do. but anyway.
yes. three days! and i'm sitting across from him right
and i have my own issues with the man, MANY issues, but the biggest one is separating the man from the crime, you know?

pparker : yeah.

t-stark: it's rough work. i would have stayed longer but i heard about Osborn. You knew him, didn't you? 

pparker: He's my friend Harry's dad. 

t-stark : that's right. Hope knew him too. she said he was nice. a genius. sounds right up your alley.

pparker : he gave me the inspiration for the web shooters. He always talked about how man should be looking to animal for the next great advancement in medicine and tech, because they had done so much more with so much less. 

t-stark : can't say that i agree but hey. i work in robotics.

Peter is quiet another moment longer, but Tony is content to wait for him this time. He changes a few lines to FRIDAY's code, building the blocks for a new command code to override her current one. Failsafes upon failsafes.

pparker : What you said about the Winter Soldier. I don't have that problem. Like...I don't know. There's the Green Goblin and then there's Mr. Osborn.
And I only ever remembered they were the same whenever I saw Harry.
But now they're both dead. 
He's dead.

t-stark: I'm sorry Pete.

pparker : Now I'm supposed to go to this funeral and no one'll be there because nobody remembers Mr. Osborn just the Green Goblin. It'll just be me and Harry and strangers there who only came so they can say they did.
I feel like I put him there.

t-stark : Osborn?
Harry.

pparker: Both?
I don't know what else I could've done. He nearly killed Gwen you know and he wasn't like mentally stable or whatever.
but then Harry's been ignoring my calls he's just holed up in that tower and I keep thinking that it isn't right.
He's my friend. I should at least be able to save my friends.

t-stark : it wasn't your fault what happened to norman. i haven't figured out what went wrong with him or what he was doing
but i promise you that i will and that it will have NOTHING to do with you. okay kid? you saved a lot of people. 

pparker : except Mr. Osborn. And Harry.

t-stark : peter.                                                                                                       
look. i know i KNOW that there are losses and then there are unacceptable losses. and you have to learn to live with both, and we can help you learn how. but your friend's not gone yet. harry's just going through a rough time. 

pparker : I know.I remember.

t-stark: Me too.                                                                                                        
but as authority on mourning in empty giant towers, i can tell you its not the greatest coping method so maybe you should go to him take him out.
in fact i'm headed to oscorp in a day or so to talk shop, make sure they don't dismantle the company under junior's nose. you should come with.
in the meantime, come by the compound and turn in your homework.

pparker : I don't know.

t-stark : that's an order, avenger.

pparker : I'll think about it.
Don't think that I didn't notice you manipulating me into talking BTW

t-stark : manipulating is such a harsh word.
it's not like i was not subtle.

pparker : Um no.
But it was nice to talk. So I'll let it slide this time. 

t-stark: noted. 

pparker : You really went to see the Winter Soldier?

t-stark : sergeant barnes. yes.

pparker : And you're okay?

t-stark : i'm fine

pparker : I don't believe you.

t-stark : you're learning.

"Who are you when you're not weighed down by the guilt, the anger?" He can hear his father but he can't see him, can't turn away from the delicate working happening underneath his hands. "Where will you go without it to keep you on the ground?"

He attaches limbs and ears and mouths, shoves the parts his friends have lent him to bring this Tin Man to life. He's dreaming, Tony, you're dreaming.

"You would fly, Tony. Such great heights," Howard muses into his ear. Tony rubs at it with an upraised shoulder, eyes never moving. "Maybe you could finally match me, son. Maybe you could understand."

He reaches for his arc reactor, the final piece, but its not where he left it. "You don't need it," Howard hisses. "They don't need you. Didn't he prove that? Didn't I tell you, boy?"

No. No. They said- Steve said- where is the reactor? If he can't get all the parts to work together, the whole thing will fall apart.

Tony, wake up. 

"I need it," he says. The thing on the table stares at him with lifeless eyes. 

"So it can be like you?" Tony can remember with perfect clarity the sneer that matched that voice. "What will it be without you?"

"Give it back."

"I'm not the one who took it. I'm not the one who lost it." Tony finally looks up at that, to find the reactor or confront his father, he's not sure which, but he comes face-to-face with Rhodey instead, his hand on Tony's shoulder, shaking it.

"Did I wake you up?" He says muzzily. He's fallen asleep on the couch in the tiny common room that conjoins their two rooms. He wonders if he screamed.

Rhodey sits, curiously ungainly in his braces. "No. You weren't making a peep. You weren't moving either. Stiff as a board, like rigor mortis. Freaked me the hell out, man, my muscles were tense just looking at you. You alright?"

"I was dreaming," Tony says. Stops. Beats out the opening notes of 'Two Little Boys,' a song he only knew because it made his father sad. "About Howard."

"Yeah," Rhodey sighs. "I saw what Bruce is cooking up down there. I imagine you've got him on the brain lately. You want to talk about it?"

"I want to sleep," Tony snaps. Rhodey doesn't hide his flinch. "I'm sorry. I'm an asshole. I just - no, no talking. Not tonight."

Rhodey stares hard at him. "That an implication that you will later, Stark?" Tony doesn't look back as he nods. Rhodey waves his hand in his face to get his attention the curls three fingers and a thumb down. Tony gapes.

"Are you serious?"

"I never joke about pinky swears."

With a groan of resignation, Tony dutifully catches Rhodey's pinky with his own and they wiggle their hands together for a few seconds like they're both five-year-olds. Then Rhodey stands, half dragging Tony off the couch. "Up and at 'em, Tones. Time for all assholes to go to bed."

"Then you'll be turning in, too, of course."

"Don't push it." Tony lets his arms be draped over Rhodey's shoulder and they shuffle step-by-step to Tony's room. "Tony," Rhodey says, and he hums in acknowledgement. "Your brain is a dick, and your dad was an even bigger one. Don't let them get to you, alright? We need you in top shape. All of us."

Rhodey knows from long experience that it's not as easy as that, but Tony does feel better hearing that, no matter how many times he's heard the sentiment before. "What do you think about all this, with St - with the others?"

"I think it was the right call, chief," Rhodey says, no hesitation, complete conviction. Tony curls a bit into him, trying to absorb his strength. "United we stand. It's trite, but its true."

"You always say the nicest thing, honeybear. Just for that, five hours tonight, scouts' honor."

"Truly I am blessed," Rhodey says dryly. He dumps Tony on his bed, flips the covers wholesale over him, and nods at a job well done. "If I hear you banging around before five A.M., you'll be sorry, Tenderfoot."

"Gonna take away my merit badges?" Tony mutters. He doesn't hear Rhodey's reply, already drifting off back to sleep. He still dreams, but when he wakes next, at least he doesn't remember.

There is a long message on Steve's phone when he next opens it. Information, new codes, and a small note from Natasha that intimates more is on the way. For a minute it doesn't fully sink in what has occurred on the other side of the world while Steve so nonchalantly ate his lunch, regaling Sam with an abbreviated summary of Bucky's phone call, but it hits him all at once.

The Avengers are together on this. Working as one, even while separate. Tony -

(Tony had to say yes, had to make up his mind to let this happen and say yes, let him back in.)

- and he were leading the team once more. 

He won't let them down. Not Tony, not the Avengers, not Bucky, and not the team he's failed to gather here. He will do this. 

For a moment, it feels like putting on a costume, like it used to whenever the Army would trot him out in front of the troops. Captain America seems so unreal, so unreachable. He thinks, you just have to remember and it's like riding a bicycle and then- and then he thinks of Bucky, of his team; people that he's led, because they chose to follow. They had found something worthy within him, and maybe that had been diminished, but he won't let it be destroyed. He won't let it be taken from him.

Steve looks down at the phone and takes a moment to remember and to believe that they are trusting him with this. Maybe he could stand to trust himself a little, as well.

He calls the team to a meeting room. They come to him, but they don't come together. He can see it now: not the cracks and fissures that have always been there, but the places they can be mended and patched over. I used to be good at this, he remembers.

He's forgotten that guy. Maybe Diamondback was right, and he has been swinging at shadows without purpose. Maybe he buried it somewhere - somewhere cold: with Bucky, in a Siberian bunker, in the bottom of the ocean. But he could try, he could always try. He could do this all day, once. 

Be better, he had always told the Avengers, some in different ways than others. (Do more, Tony had always heard, with a certainty that had puzzled him.) Be better than you were yesterday. No one's perfect. But we can be better.

And Steve has thought, every once in awhile, that there is something intrinsically broken within him, something that he didn't want to fix, or didn't want to be better, because to change himself meant moving on, and he wasn't ready for that. He has always dismissed the thoughts as soon as they came because even if he was broken, it didn't seem to matter to anyone but him. 

But now, looking around the room as he explains the information uncovered by the Avengers to his own team, he can see what he didn't before. Madame Hydra's confession plays and Diamondback pales as the Madame deems her 'special,' but it is Dagger who looks back at Steve imploringly, silently begging him to say something.

Be good, Steve. They had been saying it all along, each in their own ways, each trying to help. He'd forgotten, oh God, he'd forgotten. Not a perfect soldier. Be a good man. 

(Do more, he'd heard as well, and wanted to scream at how he didn't have anything left to give. Oh, Tony, he thinks now.)

"Diamond - Rachel," he says, and she doesn't look at him. There's a snarl on her lips that almost distracts from the devastation in her eyes. "Rachel," he says again, softness wrapped over steel. She swallows, looks up, defiant and daring. Tell me to accept it, she doesn't say, but he can read it in the set of her chin. He'd rather she fight. "She told me that from a hospital bed that she is never going to be able to leave under her own power. We took her down; you took her down. She's not going to be able to hurt anyone else."

"I thought you didn't approve of my methods, Rogers," Rachel says.

"I don't," he tells her bluntly. "But we can't change the past." He meets her eyes steadily as they widen then narrow. Still, she remains quiet, listening. They all are, he realizes; even Cloak is looking up at him. "What we can change is the future, and we already have; how many women like you aren't going to fall into her hands? But this-" he points towards his phone. "This was only the tip of the iceberg. A distraction from the real threat. I'm willing to bet that HYDRA was ecstatic to know that Sarkissian was out there running around, taking the unloyal along with her, distracting us. We could do their dirty work for them, while they focused on Terrigenesis and the Avengers. It wasn't just two birds with one stone, it was a whole damn flock." He breathes out a frustrated breath, shaking his head when Sam opens his mouth.

"Look, I know that you don't know me, or my former team very well," he says slowly. "But what I can tell you is this - Fury named us the Avengers, but we were the ones who made it our own. We may not have always been able to defend people like we want, but we could see to it that the justice they deserve is found. Avenger wasn't a noun for us, it was an - idea. A thought. Impossible to destroy. And we made it into reality."

"You recruiting us now, Cap?" Cloak says, one eyebrow raised.

"No," Steve says. "Just asking you to join me. Join us." He points towards the data. "The Avengers - the other team - sent us this intel, asking us to track down Madame Hydra's supplier. They think HYDRA might have a mole; I'm thinking they're right. But we have to work together on this, or we all fall. I know that better than most. The Avengers are making the public plays; we fight the battles they can't see. But we do it together. And I can't do that without you." He looks to each of them, Diamondback last.

She smiles, and it is razor-sharp as ever, but it isn't a no. "I feel like I should be waving pom-poms."

"You should get used to that feeling," Sam snorts.

"Well, I'm in," Dagger says, leaning back. "I'm not sure I'm Avengers material, but the rest of it sounded...pretty nice." Just the tiny little smile she gives lights up the entire room. Cloak glances sidelong at her and Steve's heart clenches: he will follow her anywhere, but Steve wants him to come along willingly.

Dagger gives an encouraging shoulder nudge to him, and the younger man looks down at the table before meeting Steve's eyes straight on. "Look, man, your old team got burned, and so far we ain't proving fireproof either. I'll always have your back. It's what I'm paid for. But for what you're asking for, I need to know you have mine - and Tandy's."

"I will," Steve promises seriously. Cloak just shakes his head.

"We'll see. S'not like I can say no to saving the world."

They all, once again, turn to Rachel, who is watching the proceedings curiously. "What exactly are you asking?" she says. "I'll fight to take down HYDRA any day of the week, but we've been doing that. What's so different now?"

"Because I'm not Fury. I'm not asking you to just fight HYDRA, no questions asked," Steve says. "I'm asking you to fight with me."

He wishes he could describe it to her, the moment he got the text from the anonymous source detailing all the Avengers had gathered, the one that must have been authorized by Tony if it didn't come from the man himself. The feeling of belonging, of being let in from the cold, the moment when he asked for a hand up and was lifted on to his feet. It's not how it was - the silence and distance still stings - but he had promised Tony once that if he was needed, he would be there. And he intended to keep it. 

He can't describe it, but something must bleed out into his facial expression, because Rachel's gaze turns calculating. "I'd have to listen to you, wouldn't I? Follow orders? All the time."

"I'm not looking for a perfect soldier, Leighton," he tells her. 

"That's not a no," she says, then sighs. "This is going to be so boring."

Not a no, either. A silent sigh of relief escapes everyone in the room. "Thank you. I won't let you down," he says quietly to the room at large, then flicks at the screen to forward the information to their own devices. "This is the information we've gathered so far. Feel free to add your own notes, observations...anything you deem relevant. Dismissed."

With a lazy salute from Cloak, a passing hand on the shoulder from Dagger, and a sneer that's almost nice from Diamondback, they exit, their voices echoing down the hall as Steve is left with Sam. Steve looks at his friend to find him watching him with a gaze he can't read - happiness, maybe, but sadder. But for the first time in weeks Sam doesn't look absolutely exhausted.

"So what number was that on the list?" Sam asks. At Steve's quirk of an eyebrow, he grins. "The Captain America 'Go Team Go' Speeches. Patented 1944-" Steve groans, provoking a laugh from the other man. "Seriously, though. You know I'm always with you. Someone's got to watch out for you." Sam stands, clapping him on the shoulder as he moves to leave.

He makes it to the door before Steve can speak around the lump in his throat. "Sam." Sam pauses, but doesn't turn, one hand on the door frame. His shoulders are tense. "You know I always have your back, too, right?"

For a moment, Sam's shoulders get even tighter, and then they loosen like a string has been cut. "I know," Sam's voice comes, slightly muffled. He looks over his shoulder, his smile small but so genuine Steve doesn't know how he's been fooled by all the others. "But it's always nice to hear, Cap."

Be good, Steve.

"Hey," Sam says at the doorway. Steve turns to him. "Every good team needs a name. You should start thinking of one."

Steve snorts. "I've always been pretty crap at naming things. Howling Commandos was all Dum-Dum's idea, and the Avengers were named before I was even defrosted. How 'bout you take that one?"

"Sure." Sam grins wide, pleased. "Better to beat Fury to the punch anyway. Cloak and I had a running bet on when he'd give in and start calling us the Furious Five."

"That...doesn't sound like Fury at all," Steve laughs. Sam gives him a flat stare.

"It's got a pun and alliteration, Cap. The man's not made of stone." And with that parting crack, he leaves, Steve's laugh following him out.

Steve reaches for his phone when he's gone, and types out a message - not to Natasha, but the email that's been sending him the information. He hopes they all see it. He hopes they see it for what it is.

600SGR:
-We're with you.
  Avengers assemble.

Bruce finds him sitting at his computer, still fiddling with FRIDAY's codes, beefing up her hacking and security suites as well as a few new upgrades. Silently, he places a bulky folder at Tony's elbow and waits.

"Manila?" he jokes. His voice is shaking. "When are you going to join us in the twenty first century, Doctor Banner?"

"Well, FRIDAY's been up and down all day. I wanted back-ups." Bruce's voice is incredibly, infuriatingly gentle.

Tony doesn't look down. "Yeah, she was having some trouble with the DoD so I thought I'd lend her a hand - I don't even remember writing this line of code; FRIDAY, new rule about drinking while doing surgery on you, sweetheart -"

"Tony."

"-what does it say?" he says, without missing a beat, ripping the band-aid off. Bruce flips the file open, then flips again, and again. Analyses, one right after the other, data points overlaid and retested. Some of them even match. Tony doesn't breathe.

"This is Barnes' blood here. This is the sample taken from the fake Terrigen bomb. And this - this is Kamala's blood, pre- and post-stabilization. There are...significant similarities. Well within parameters. But..." Bruce trails off, and Tony can't look at him, can't look away at his father's enduring legacy. 

"Say it," he murmurs through numb lips.

Bruce does. Uncomfortable truths are the story of his life. "But there are markers in the formula that don't show up in Barnes' blood. Differences. Like someone was tinkering with it. It appears that your hypothesis - that Howard Stark used the formula given to him, or stolen from, Arnim Zola during their time at SHIELD to create a new super soldier formula could be correct."

"And HYDRA," Tony continues. He has to say it out loud. No more secrets, Dad. "HYDRA didn't use all the formula that they - that the Winter Soldier -"

"If they saved some, it would be easier to recreate than relying on notes," Bruce finishes for him. "This could form the Erskine basis of the Terrigenesis formula. It could. But Tony, listen to me: we won't ever know for sure. Everyone who was involved is dead, besides Barnes, and I don't think he'll know what really happened, anyway. Maybe it was Howard Stark's formula or maybe a couple of HYDRA's scientists decided to do some recreating of their own. We will never know."

But Tony does. He knows. His father had always been so desperate for Steve to come back. Because Steve was good and kind and the best man he'd ever known, and because Howard had made him. Maybe Howard had loved Steve, truly, but by his own account he had loved Tony, too, in his own way: as his creation. That's the only way Howard could love people, to make them and everything they did a part of himself.

It would be so easy to heal his grief, his fucking ego, if he made another Steve.

"I know you, Tony, because I know me, too. Don't kill yourself over this, please," Bruce says quietly. "You are not your father."

Am I not? Tony thinks. He couldn't have known. Isn't that what Tony tells himself when he needs to sleep? I couldn't have known. Not what Obie was doing, not what ignoring Killian would do, not what Ultron would turn into. Howard couldn't have known - but he should've known better.

But Bruce - Bruce is right there, looking at him steadily. He won't go away without a word from Tony and some old part of him bristles at that but he is mostly just. Glad, really. To have his friend by his side. He looks up, meets big, brown, concerned eyes. He pretends. "Will we be able to reverse-engineer anything out of it?"

Bruce's smile if a fragile thing. "I'm already working on it. The other component I still can't figure out - the randomization effect makes breaking it down to base components a nightmare, but if we can figure out how to stabilize the irregularities in this formula-"

"It would give victims a fighting chance. They could make it through the other side. Like Kamala did," Tony follows-up. "Glad to hear it." His eyes can't help it; they find the data again. "I - I know I'm not my father, Bruce. One hundred percent aware. Still. Legacies are a funny thing."

"Yeah. My dad," Bruce grimaces, stops. "Well, the lack of control or any sustainable social life isn't the only reason I hate turning into a giant being fueled by rage."

Because that's what Bruce's dad was, as well, in his mind. It takes effort not to touch him in comfort. "It doesn't have to mean that."

"I know. It took me a long time to figure out, but being apart of the Avengers - helping people instead of hurting -" Like he did, goes unsaid. "Opened my eyes, a bit."

"Feels like fixing it, doesn't it?" Tony says, and Bruce, after a moment, nods slowly. "Dad wasn't a monster, but still, it feels good, that we can make something good out of his mistakes."

Bruce nods again, a bit more sure this time, but something in him is hesitant, enough for Tony to quirk an eyebrow. "There's something else, though. Something that might make you feel better." Slowly, Bruce reaches forward, turning page over page in the file, until he gets to one on which Howard's old notes have been transcribed. Bruce taps at the page. Howard had written in vague detail about the VitaRay there, not enough so that anyone could ever reconstruct it, but its general purpose and effect on a serum-enhanced being. "You see this bit, in blue ink? There's more, a lot more, and I asked FRIDAY to do some analysis. This ink wasn't developed by Bic until 1979. These notes were more recent than the rest. New ideas, improvements from the forties. I don't think anyone but Howard Stark will ever be able to rebuild this machine, but maybe that was the point."

"What are you saying, Bruce?"

"That I've got a hypothesis to go with your own," Bruce says. "Your father was tinkering with the formula and the chamber at the same time. He never meant for it the formula to be used on a human being without the chamber, meaning without his say so, because he knew it would most likely fail otherwise. It was an insurance policy, to make sure it couldn't be misused. He just didn't anticipate HYDRA. How could he? He thought they died with Zola."

"You're saying my dad created a defective serum on purpose? I don't know if that makes it better or worse," Tony says after a long pause, laughing a bit to himself. "Dear old Howard and his iron fist. Always in control. I come by it honestly, see," he whispers to Bruce conspiratorially. 

He knows his father never meant for his formula to fall into HYDRA's hands. And hell, his father had gotten into bed with Nazi scientists before that, working on the bomb, he'd probably thought it was the same thing with Zola. The ends always justified the means to Howard, Tony remembers that best of all things about his father. It didn't matter what he wrecked along the way. But to know Howard might have had a finger on the trigger the whole time, it helps, in a way. It's Machiavellian, if true, cold and calculating. It's his father, down to the inability to realize he could just let go instead of gripping tighter. It's Tony, too. 

The serum was to help, if Howard thought the help would be used honestly, but it would be on his terms. Maybe, in that, Tony can find someone to live with what his father has done, even by accident. He'd been a lot of things, and a good man was seldom among that number, but he was never evil, or an idiot.

And in the end, Tony can't be the one to take Howard Stark to task for the catastrophic consequences of good intentions. All that's left to do is what he's always done: pick up the pieces, and do better next time. Only he can't do that for Howard.

"You're right, though, Bruce," he says, and flips the folder shut. "We'll never know. Not really. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Maybe I still jump at his shadow." He doesn't look at Bruce's face, turning back to the computer and saving the changes to FRIDAY's code, bringing her back online. He clears his throat. "Heavy moment over, please. Science now."

"Sure," Bruce says easily, after a moment, and Tony really loves him for that. He doesn't deserve his friends. "Let me show you where I'm at on the nanobots for Donnie. I needed your help anyway with the schematics..."

He knows he's dreaming, because his body can still feel Rhodey beside it, breathing steadily. He'd sat down that night with a bottle of bad vodka and said "Alright, platypus, let's talk." And he had. His throat is still hoarse from talking for hours with his best friend about everything that has passed. His eyes are still stinging at the corners, because he doesn't cry, but Rhodey is the only person with whom he'll let himself get close to tears. 

He knows he's dreaming because his father is in the lab with him, physically this time, and they are working together. Tony has no memory of this, because it never happened. He knows he shouldn't be here. Shit, Tony hates his mind sometimes.

"Whose fault was that, huh, kid?" Howard asks grouchily. "Hand me the screwdriver, lets crack this baby open." The body on the table is no longer one of Tony's creations, built from parts of the other Avengers, but Barnes, wide-eyed and lifeless.

"For the record: it was yours. It was your fault," Tony snarks, but otherwise does as bid with fingers he can't feel, and watches as Howard unscrews the pieces holding James Buchanan Barnes' head together. The Winter Soldier fall apart underneath him, and his fingerprints are seared into the parts he casts aside. Cerebellum, brainstem, occipital lobe, glowing with a sicky blue pulse of light. Finally, Howard tugs loose the amygdala, and dumps it into Tony's hands.

Memories in his palm. Tony's mind is certainly going for the metaphorical sort of drama tonight, he sees. 

"There he is," his father says roughly, nodding down at the lump. "James Barnes. Right where I thought he'd be. He was still in there, see. There's nothing broken I can't fix. So stop crying, Anthony."

"I'm not crying." He's not. "I probably should be." Also true, but Tony doesn't cry. Stark men are made of iron. He shoulders past his father, and with careful hands pieces the brain back together and puts it where it belongs in Barnes' head. 

"He'll never get better that way," Howard scoffs. "I could have built him again, out of that tiny little piece. I could've gotten him back." Suddenly the body on the table is no longer Barnes, and Tony's hand isn't in someone's head, moved down to be buried inside a broad chest. 

It's Steve, and Tony's fingers are wrapped around his heart. Holding it together.

"I could've built him again," Howard repeats, and Tony's had enough.

"No. You couldn't have. Even you knew that, in the end." The specter of his father has nothing to say that; Tony suspects he's probably gone entirely. He releases his fingers one by one, and Steve's eyes grow wider and wider at his every move. There is light peeking through the gaps of his fingers, because of course Captain America's heart shines. "It'll hold," Tony whispers to him. "This is my head, right? I won't let it break, I know it's stronger than that. You just gotta have a little faith in me, Steve."

Like I want to believe in you goes unsaid, even in his dreams. "Please," he murmurs instead.

He lets go. It's not a heart at all, but his missing arc reactor. There are cracks running through it, a long line through the center like it had been struck with force by a blunt edge, and though in the real world it would have been broken and dead, here, it holds.

Somehow, it holds. "See. Just like I said," he says, lighter than he feels. It's not really Steve, he knows that, but he'll take it. "It'll take a while to get used to. I'll stick around, okay. Just in case, you know." And he does, just like that, matching his breathing to the subtle whir of the arc reactor. 

'WE'RE WITH YOU/AVENGERS ASSEMBLE'

"Thank you," he murmurs.

BUCKY:
-Texting is weird?
-Although wanda says i got the
-um
-the '21st century upspeak' down pat
-she speaks nonsense

YOU:
-Useful though.
-the texting, not Wanda.
-Not that Wanda isn't useful!

BUCKY:
-Seventy years and you still put in your foot in your mouth about dames.
-wanda says she's okay not being described with useful. makes her feel like a tool.
-taking the mood down a bit but yeah. i understand that.

YOU:
-Are you okay?

BUCKY:
-I suppose. Feels like I might be.
-Or a start at least.

YOU:
-Are you calling soon?

BUCKY:
-yeah
-Stark was on a timetable last time we talked
-better now than never or some shit

YOU:
-Will you
-Never mind.

BUCKY:
-I will. 

YOU:
-Thank you. I don't think he'd hear it from me.

BUCKY:
-not yet. but hes trying youre trying. itll work out punk. it can't get any worse.
-wanda just knocked on wood. smart girl.
-stay safe, punk.

YOU:
-Til the end of the line, Buck.

"You should add blue," Kamala says decisively. Tony turns just enough so that she can see one incredulous eyebrow lift.

"What about me screams blue? Do I look like a blue person to you, Kama-chameleon?"

"There is no blue on your team, Mr. Stark!"

Behind them, Peter stops tussling with Donnie over who exactly gets to throw the ball to Dummy this time to protest this. "Hey! What about me?" Pointedly, he gestures the blue panels framing his torso and legs of his costume.

"But you're not full time," Kamala reasons. "The Avengers only have like, three colors! Black, gold, and red. They need some variety!"

"What about Vision?" Tony asks. As one, they turn to Vision, who has seated himself in the corner as he communes with FRIDAY, eyes closed. "He's green. Does he not count, Kamala?"

"That's colorist," Donnie snarks, snatching the ball from Peter.

"Oh. Well. I mean..." Kamala blushes, ducking her head a little. "Sorry, Mr. Vision."

"Not at all, Ms. Khan," Vision says serenely, without even moving a muscle.

Kamala turns back to the armor design Tony is working on, biting at her lip a little before she throws her hands up with a huff. "But I still say you should add some blue!"

"I'll tell you what, Elastic Fantastic, you get to designing your uniform and you can put as much blue in as you want."

"Really?" Kamala asks breathlessly. She's let her guard down a little today, conceding to Tony's presence if only because the boys insisted on hanging out in the lab and she didn't want to be left out, but now she lets it down fully. She practically glows in her admiration, and Tony selfishly lets himself basks in it for a moment. It passes as a shadow crossed her face. "But, I mean. With my powers. How is anything gonna...?"

Tony waves his hand, grinning. "Me and Banner cracked the secret to stretchy pants about two years ago. You're good. Here, have a hologram." He swings his hand to the left and the computer dutifully loads a blank template right in front of her face. "Go crazy."

Kamala gives a bonafide squeal at that and scampers over to the boys, full of questions for Peter about costuming tips. Tony recalls a red hoodie and some goggles and questions the collective good judgement happening over there before turning back to the armor making a few more adjustments. He lets the kids' chatter become idle, strangely pleasant background noise as he works. He doesn't touch the color blue, but he tries a few designs that re-incorporate some red back into the black and gold. It looks good, almost too good to his eyes, like an indulgence. 

The kids break for lunch at some point. Peter hangs back a little, and Tony dutifully closes down the window so he can look at him full-on. With a sidelong glance at a still-sedate Vision, Peter tugs off his mask, but doesn't speak, just stares down at the white of the eye sensors.

"So," he says. Clears his throat, tries again. "So you're going to see Harry?"

"I am. We've got business to discuss. And...I need to talk to him about his father," Tony admits. "If he knew anything about what was happening, or how the Green Goblin came cackling into existence."

Peter looks up and shakes his head vigorously. "If Harry knew anything, he would tell somebody. He's a good person."

"Well, that's reassuring to hear, but I'll still want to ask. Sometimes the littlest things can help take down the biggest of problems. And you've seen what Norman got into."

"I still can't believe it," Peter whispers, so small and shrinking further, and it makes Tony ache. The familiar urge to wrap Peter in ten layers of blankets and bubblewrap and kindness rises up in him, but he remains rooted in his seat. He doesn't know how to fix this; he thinks in all the universe, grief is the one thing that is intrinsically broken.

"Will you come with me? To see him? He could probably use the company." After Tony's parents died he spent two days straight curled under his father's desk at SI because it was fucking New Years' and that was the one place that nobody would look for him, besides. Nobody but Rhodey, who dragged him out and threw away the whiskey and flew him out to Philadelphia to detox at his parents' house. He gained three pounds in a week eating Mrs. Rhodes' cooking. They fussed and fussed and he hated it, every second of it, because his mother would have never done that for him and he missed his mother, her impersonal comfort. But he loved it, too. It was warm, and he had been so cold since his parents left him. 

He can only imagine May Parker now, hovering at the edges of Peter's worry, dying to wrap poor Harry up and feed him terrible nutbread. Parkers and Rhodes, more than poor little rich boy orphans could ever deserve.

But Peter shakes his head again. "He doesn't want to see me," he murmurs, and then, like he's ashamed, because he is, Tony realizes: "I don't think I could see him."

"It wasn't your fault." It's automatic, like breathing, because it's the truth, and Tony will say it as many times as Peter needs to hear it. (He will, if he keeps to that logic, be saying it for the rest of his life.) "Norman died in jail, Peter."

"And I put him there!"

"Because he hurt people, Peter," Tony says, finally standing. Peter sways, wanting to step back from the ferocity, wanting to be protected by it, too. "He nearly killed Gwendolyn Stacy-"

"I nearly-"

"He nearly," Tony insists. "He threw her off a rooftop and he would've done a lot worse to everybody else up there and Peter - Peter, I won't take away your right to feel sorry for the man, to regret what happened to him, because you, you clearly loved the Osborns. When I looked over, and Obie was dying I-" He chokes on his own words, tells himself to refocus, that Peter is the priority here. "I won't try to take that hurt away from you, but I don't want it to twist you up, okay? It wasn't your fault. Alright? Peter?"

He doesn't realize until he's two steps away from Peter that he's gone a bit hysterical, but he so desperately wants Peter to believe him. Responsibility and guilt have always twined together in Tony's mind, and sometimes it can have dangerous consequences. He doesn't want Peter to talk down that path, especially not for this.

"I just." Peter wipes furiously at his eyes, over and over, until he can trust his voice again. "I just don't know what else I could've done. He had to go to jail, he had to. But that should've been it, you know? He could've gotten better, and maybe gotten out someday and be Mr. Osborn again. But we put him in there and he died and now Harry's dad is dead and it's-"

"And it's not your fault," Tony says. "I get it, kid, I do, believe me. It feels like you missed something, but you didn't. There is nothing else you could've done. You were Spider-Man, you saved the day, you did exactly what you have charged yourself to do. You didn't let anyone down. You are not responsible for what happened to him. Come on, say it to me. I don't mind if you don't believe it yet, kid, just say it out loud, at least once. For yourself. It wasn't your fault."

Peter inhales. Deep breaths, like he's steeling himself for a long jump off a high rise. The exhales shake a bit on their way out. "It wasn't my fault," he finally says. 

"It wasn't your fault," Tony agrees.

"It wasn't my fault. There's nothing else I could've done." Peter looks up, fear in his eyes, and Tony thinks nothing's gotten through to him until he keeps speaking. "Harry wouldn't forgive me, though. If he knew that I was Spider-Man, that I helped lock his dad away. He wouldn't, not ever."

"You don't know that, and you won't, unless you tell him. And if you do, take my advice: give him time. Perspective can be-" A flash of Barnes in his mind, on the other side of the glass and looking back. "Therapeutic."

Peter cocks his head a bit at that, gears clearly turning in that mastermind of his, and no, call Tony a hypocrite, but he's still not ready to drag all that into light. "You're a good friend, Parker." Peter's mouth twists a little at that, something between a smile and a grimace.

"I wish. Harry was so nice to me, after Uncle Ben," he says, eyes faraway. "He couldn't be there all the time, I mean, I had Ned, too, but. He helped - or I guess Mr. Osborn did? I'm still not sure - he helped pay for part of the funeral. Without letting Aunt May know either, cause she's got her pride. I can't ever repay him for that, I just wish I could be there for him like he was for me."

"You have been. You will be," Tony assures him. "Come gatecrash the party when I see him at OsCorp. Dollars to doughnuts he needs you and is too stubborn to admit it." If Peter and Harry are the kind of friends Peter thinks they are, then Harry needs him doubly so. The friends that you can scream at, the ones who will listen to you repeat yourself over and over about how they're dead and they're never coming back like its a revelation every time and never say a word back, the ones that take almost as much a beating from your grief as you do, they're invaluable. The real deal. Tony should know; his is upstairs.

"I'll think about it," Peter hedges again. "I gotta be strong for him and I - I mean, look at me."

"You'll rise to the occasion. You always do, Parker."

Peter smiles tremulously up at him at that, spreading his arms wide. Tony lifts an eyebrow.

"Are you using your delicate emotional state to finagle a hug out of me, Spiderling?" Peter frowns, his arms starting to lower hesitantly and Tony figures 'fuck it.' Just attach a free hug sign to him because apparently this is his life now. Hugging Peter is strange and for a moment makes him violently miss Harley Keener, but its nice, too. In its own way. Repeat performances won't be necessary. "And you called me manipulative."

"You're a bad hugger," Peter tells his shoulder.

"It's the arms. I never know what to do with them. This is why Rhodey and I stick to the one-armed bro hug." They let go, and Peter begins to slide on his mask. "Remember what I told you."

"I'll try," Peter says, which from him is as good as a promise. Tony lets him go without pushing the point too hard; Rome wasn't built in a day, and Peter's burgeoning guilt complex won't be fixed with one talk. Sometimes penance feels better than knowing there was nothing you could've done. It took Tony a long time to realize that, and most days he's fine ignoring that revelation, but Peter's smarter than him, anyway. He'll figure it out. Tony and the team will be there until he does. 

In the quiet that falls he turns back to his desk. He taps a beat against the table, a nameless tune he can't recall the origin of, and then slowly reaches up to tap at an icon he hasn't used in months. The old SHIELD eagle, once defunct, now pulsing with life again.

And there, the newest entry, waiting for all to see. Tony had seen it yesterday, and it had stopped him in his tracks. 'WE'RE WITH YOU./AVENGERS ASSEMBLE.' SGR.

'Together,' he might have sent, and it would have hit as hard. It's within Tony to be angry at this, that because Steve's on board, now they can finally work as a team; he can feel it at the edges of his mind. But he doesn't want to. It'd be so easy to succumb, to give in to feeling this...distant despair that's nearly consumed him over the past few months, but suddenly, it feels like backsliding into a person he doesn't like to remember being.  

It isn't as if Tony is new to hope, Tony runs on hope; he's never been a miserable person, or at least, if he is, he would like to think he confines those feelings to himself. The world, on the whole, is glorious, the future even more so, and both are filled to the brim with people who deserve a better chance than what they're getting. It isn't idealism, he doesn't think so, it's the things he's seen. For every Raza, there is a Yinsen; for every Stane, a Pepper; for every Ross, a Bruce. And Tony knows they're worth fighting for, dying for. For every soldier of Hydra out there trying to destroy the world, there's a Kamala, a Peter, a Donnie who deserves better. Tony has always wanted to give that to them.

He had just sort of forgotten, at some point, how it felt to have hope for himself. He'd forgotten how to fight for himself. (He thinks, more likely, than he has never seen the point in doing so.)

He woke up this morning feeling a bit as if someone had suddenly thrown him a life preserver he didn't even realize he'd needed. He doesn't know if it's resolving what happened with his father, or his new determination to help Harry giving him purpose, or if it's - if it's Steve Rogers on his side again, no matter how peripherally. But he woke up needing to build, not just something he could leave behind, but something he could be a part of. He woke up suddenly and violently sick of the past, wanting a future.

So he builds, one line of code at a time.

It's new, a bare spark of idea he's been slowly building in the back of his mind all day since he woke up from that dream, feeling a little bit inspired and hopeful. News that Steve had approved and agreed with their plan of attack had not diminished those feelings at all. In fact, to Tony's surprise, he felt bolstered. 

Because it doesn't have to be giving in. It doesn't even have to be forgiveness, or an apology, not if Tony doesn't want it to be. He can choose to see this for what he wants it to be, he can choose to hope it's what Steve meant (because he's realized, thinking of the drawing still in his pocket, that he has, perhaps, never known what Steve meant). Just - together. To fight the evils that others can't. To be Avengers.

This chance is what he makes of it, and he chooses this.

He gets a bit lost in it, so lost that he doesn't even notice Natasha until a flash of red has him nearly leaping out of his seat. "I'm putting bells in your next set of Bites if you keep that up," he warns, hand over his racing heart.

"That'll strike fear into the hearts of our enemies," she says dryly, dropping a plate filled with food among the bolts and styluses on Tony's desk with expert precision. "Food for you. Beef tips. Never claim Laura Barton doesn't love you."

"I wouldn't dare," Tony says with a mocking gasp. "You could've just beeped me, Natasha, this is the 21st century."

"And yet you just said 'beep me,' Kim Possible." She pulls up a stool and sits herself down a careful distance away. "I have a report for you, and I didn't know if you were still tinkering with FRIDAY. I see you've left that up to Vision, though."

"Eh." Tony scratches at the back of his head, abashed. FRIDAY has not been pleased to be taken offline and rebooted three days in a row. Tony had taken a very cold shower and drank some disgustingly tepid coffee today. "She's a bit mad at me for said tinkering so, yeah. Tandem hacking, today. I'm letting Vision handle it instead. It'll be good practice for them both."

"Speaking of - I interviewed the scientists. Well, I tried." Natasha plucks up the fork between two delicate fingers and stabs down, popping her prize - a beef tip - into her mouth. Building suspense, the little sneak. Tony very pointedly rolls his eyes. "One claimed that all he knew was that Dr. Osborn had taken one of the projects contracted out to the company for himself. No one else worked on it but him."

"Is he lying?"

"I don't think so."

Tony frowns. "Then why did the Goblin want to kill him?"

"He'd hijacked a couple of projects before, as Osborn's power was waning in the company. Also, quite frankly, he's an ass." Natasha takes a bite out of the meat with more violence than is warranted at that. 

"And the other?"

She swallows, face growing serious. "Gone."

"What?"

"Gone. The apartment is cleaned out, bank accounts emptied. She ran and hid. Quite well, in fact, a rudimentary search turned up nothing. Her DVR had a backlog of every investigation show known to man; I guess all those episodes of Lieutenant Joe Kenda finally came in handy. The police don't have a single lead. I'll keep looking, but I wanted you up-to-date."

"Thank you," Tony says by rote, as he taps a log of what she's told him into his own private database. "It's not looking any better on my end. There's no tampering of the video outside Osborn's cell near the time of his death, but we did find a blackout several hours ahead of time. There's no toxicology report from his time in the hospital or after his transfer and the prison had his body cremated."

"Did the son ask for that?"

"Don't know. Still trying to figure out a way I can ask and stay tactful but hey. Tact's never been my strong suit anyway," Tony says. He taps a few more keys, more aggressively than is strictly needed on something that is holographic. "There's a whole lot of pieces here, Nat. I can't see the picture they're making, but I know it's not good. I'm sure of it."

"You don't have to convince me, Tony," Natasha says. "The whole thing is wiggy."

That makes him pause and actually turn in his seat, eyebrows as high as they can be. "'Wiggy?'" he repeats incredulously. She glowers at him. "Did you just say 'wiggy'? The Spiderling is corrupting you, Romanov."

"His evil must be stopped," she says flatly, and Tony gives into his laugh as he turns back to his computer, typing in the rest of his notes in his ever growing Osborn file. 

"So," Natasha says, and when Tony looks back Rhodey's gaze is now directed at the other screen Tony has up. "That doesn't look like the armor."

"Kamala Khan says everything that comes into her brain, doesn't she?" Tony asks with a roll of his eyes. "Yes, good eyes, Nat. This isn't the armor."

"What's a-" She leans forward, squinting slightly as she tries to puzzle out what's on screen. "Tony, I never knew you were so fond of Madlibs."

"It's not - now you're just fucking with me. It's a new VI. I'm thinking of names. It's a process."

"I thought you'd already picked JOCASTA?"

For a moment the words almost won't make it past his mouth. Talking about it makes it real. That, and Natasha is going to be insufferably smug. "It's not for War Machine. It's for a new system." He can feel Natasha's eyes on him. "For a communication matrix."

She's smart; it only takes her a second to put it together, and sure enough, there is The Smug radiating off of her, but it's sweetened by an undeniable air of relief and affection. "One that can perhaps be downloaded to a smartphone," she surmises.

Tony nods. "And shared among a trusted few. To make sure we all know what we're up against. Man cannot live on e-mail alone." There were many things he regretted about the fighting back in May, but what haunts him most looking back is how little any of them knew, how easily they allowed each other to become sitting ducks for whoever wanted to pick them off. Steve could have done better, should have done better as team leader...but he could have, too. He'd had a responsibility, and he failed utterly. Tony learns from his mistakes.

No one gets left in the cold anymore.

But of course the super-spy picks up on the one word he hadn't meant to utter. "Trusted?"

"Don't start weaving the friendship bracelets just yet, Killer Queen," he says. "This part, this-" He waves at the interface. "This was never in question. If the world is at stake, I know Rogers will be there. For everything else...well, that's what the VI is for. Neutral third party. Keeps the system safe, information organized, and me and Cap from going at each other's throats. Easy-peasy."

"And untenable," Natasha mutters. Tony swallows hard, and nods. 

"Think of it like a hot fix. The full patch is coming soon. We're together on this, Nat. I promised."

She holds his gaze for a long moment - normally when people do this, their eyes flick a little back and forth as they move from iris to iris; not Natasha. She stares at him, true and steady, until she's satisfied, and the moment passes. She'll accept it for now, and push when she has to. Natasha's learned some things, too. "So," she says, breaking the gaze and the moment. "What are the top three picks so far for your new bundle of joy?"

"Erm, uh...well, HERBIE, for one. That was one of the first AIs ever invented, you know. Dr. Reed Richards. Batshit insane man, but I thought the idea of precedence would be thematically appropriate. Or PLATO, but I was hoping to save him for the automated defense system me and Rhodey have been working on. The last one, I kinda like it, but I'm not sure how Rogers would take it..."

"What is it?"

"Categoric Armistice Regulatory Tactical Emulation Rostrum," he says in a near whisper. "CARTER."

The silence hangs. He wants to fidget, move, do something to cover up his words and this moment but Natasha beats him to it.

"I think he'd like that, Tony. I think he'd like it a lot."

"Director Carter would've liked it," he barrels on, unable to look anywhere else but his coding. "Making everybody work together. Banging heads together. She'd feel right at home."

"No doubt," Natasha says. "It's good - it's a good start, Tony."

"Yeah, well," he says, and then stops, because he's got nothing. Some part of him really thought that the war was it, that everything, including himself, had been broken forever, but this isn't anything but forward. "It's not even close to done."

"Lot of bugs?"

"Don't be metaphorical," Tony snarks at her and her mock-understanding face. She is the worst. "We'll need it up and running before any serious ops can happen or we're all gonna be up a creek, so. Skedaddle, Itsy Bitsy. Daddy's busy."

Natasha delicately crinkles her nose and steps away. "Come up for air at some point, Stark. You're no good to any of us dead on your feet. By the way, Sharon Carter called while you were in Wakanda. She wants to set up a meeting at the compound to discuss her liaison position."

"I'll get right on it," Tony says automatically. Natasha raises an eyebrow.

"You sure about this? After everything we've discussed about her-"

"No better place to meet then the place where I have the Eye of God in every corner," he says with a shrug, waving in the direction of the ceiling. "FRIDAY will be watching. Calm those ruffled feathers, mother hen."

Natasha fixes him with a stare. "I just don't want you taken in by a fly-by-night operator, Tony." He opens his mouth, closes it, squints at her, then opens his mouth again; all the while, Natasha maintain her calm facade. Waiting.

"Did you just meet by bird quip with a bird pun?" he asks incredulously. Natasha merely grins, nearly dancing away towards the door. "Stop hanging out with Peter, Romanov!" She almost makes it to the door when a shrill ring echoes across the lab. Behind them, Vision opens his eyes.

"Mr. Stark," he begins, velvety smooth.

"Sergeant Barnes is calling," FRIDAY, in contrast, sounds apprehensive. The ringtone sounds again. Natasha has frozen, her eyes on Tony, who is similarly struck stock-still. "Are we answering, boss?"

Another ring. 

Another.

He's not ready. 

Tony opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. 

"Boss?"

"Answer it," he chokes, and the phone connects. "Stark."

"Who else?" James Barnes' asks rhetorically, trying and failing to sound supremely unperturbed. Tony's glad he's not the only one. "Thought you weren't going to pick up for a second." Tony is silent, still stuck in time one minute ago, when this was all just a possibility. "Listen, I'll cut to the chase: you still got a space for me over there?"

"Are you-" His words are mangled, barely there, but Tony will be damned if this man hears him stutter. "Are you agreeing to the trial?"

"If you're agreeing to the treatment," Barnes says.

"I am. On my life, Barnes." He wants to punch himself in the face as soon as he says it. He inexplicably aches for the armor; he's always a better person inside it than out. Ready for anything. He's not ready for this.

Barnes snorts. "I don't think we need to go as far as that. Stevie'd kill me if I let something happen to you."

"Likewise," Tony manages, and it shouldn't be funny, but there it is, the barest hint of a chuckle under his breath. His mind, which had screeched to a dead halt, is racing ahead of him now, thinking of how Tiberius will need to spin this (and how he'll need to spin Ty), thinking what this will mean for Wanda and Wilson, thinking how Barnes must have talked to Steve, that Steve knows what Tony's done.

"So let's not, alright?" Barnes says. 

Steve is letting Barnes go, in a way. Tony thought it would feel like victory, if a malicious one. Instead, his heart aches a little for them both. 

"Agreed. Alright, Sergeant Barnes," Tony says, drawing himself up. Natasha is still frozen by the door, but there is a hopeful little smile on her face. It galvanizes him. "Let's make you a free man."

Hope. That's the watchword.