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Tony had almost forgotten the stupid flip phone by the time the world could need a Captain America again, and when the moment came it shook him hard for a moment, just how long it had been. Since he had last seen Steve, last talked to him, just how long it had been since he had even thought about him.
He had built up a new team of Avengers, a good team. New players and old, working together under the guidance of the UN and the leadership of a not so retired Iron Man. There wasn't a way out for him, never truly had been, he was Iron Man and Iron Man was him. Stepping away had meant losing a part of himself and Tony was done with losing things.
Natasha had returned, with conditions, no word ever spoken about Barton, no one allowed to ever ask where he was, no one allowed to even mention his family. Tony accepted. Scott Lang had redeemed himself, and with Hope van Dyne at his side, Ant-Man and Wasp were smart players that Tony had needed.
Wanda had turned up a year ago, agreed to sign the Accords and be put upon the list, and it had taken time but Tony had come to trust her. Not her powers, not her capabilities, but her.
Vision and Rhodey had been at his side all this time, especially Rhodey. Who had given so much, who had lost even more. Who still would never think about leaving Tony's side again, who had saved him more than once from just ending it all.
Peter, not so skinny anymore, grown into a good young man, who still gave Tony more reason to worry than moments to be really proud. Reckless kid, taking too many risks, but Tony was starting to relax when he was around in a fight.
Not in this one though.
Fucking Infinity Stones.
--
Tony hated magic, he hated magic and everything out of space past Moon and Mars. He couldn't even describe how much he hated magic. Jane freaking Foster could tell him oh so many times that it was just science they couldn't explain yet, Tony hated magic.
Tony Stark hated aliens and witchy space people most of all.
Fucking Time Stone.
Fucking time travelling nightmares.
Rubbing his temples, he kept on pacing in the big conference room on the third floor of the facility. Fourth time this week that the stupid timeline had been ripped open and greeted them with a nightmare from the past, and Tony seriously by now preferred another Chitauri invasion than one more week of real Civil War soldiers fighting out their troubles in the middle of New York City.
Fucking magic.
And why always New York? Why, why, why.
And now fucking Hydra. Fucking Nazis, fucking Hydra. Fucking WWII everywhere. But that wouldn't have been too bad, they would have been able to take that, knock them out, collect them, shove them back into the portals and send them on their merry way back to their own timeline, but nope. Life hated Tony Stark when he was daring to think about vacation.
Two days ago, the Time Stone had blinked again.
And brought back the new Hydra. The twenty first century one. And now they were fucking organising themselves with each other. As if Tony didn't have enough stuff for nightmares already.
If Vision, Jane and Wanda weren't figuring out how to stop this damn stone anytime soon, he would blast the bloody thing into a bazillion pieces and then feed it all to the sharks. You know, those giant killer ones from two weeks ago that got too homey in the Mississippi.
The public was going crazy, scared, terrified and losing hope in about every kind of authority.
"You're gonna give yourself headaches again." A gentle voice from the direction of the door had him pause and look over, catching sight of Rhodey and that little smile immediately. The angry voices in his head disappeared and he took a deep breath, relaxed his shoulders and whined, "I know." Rhodey agreed and walked over, pulling him against his chest and letting him drop his forehead against his shoulder.
"I saw a jet land." Tony mumbled and Rhodey hummed, "Did he come alone? Is someone debriefing him?" He wanted to know and pulled back despite the gentle hand stroking through the hair at the back of his head.
"T'Calla brought some Dora Milaje warriors and Barnes." Rhodey explained and Tony took another deep breath, finding the ground under his feet again.
"Well, at least someone around who knows what we're fucking up against. Let's talk to them." When he was already moving to get out of the room and down to the other conference room, Rhodey pulled him back and crashed his lips to Tony's. It was deep and hungry, but still sweet, and he really fucking wanted this vacation, to go away, to take Rhodey and just be with him and no one else around to be a disturbance for just one week.
"I love you." Rhodey whispered when they broke apart again, foreheads resting against each other, and Tony smiled, just for one moment he could forget the exhaustion.
"I love you, too."
--
"There is two of me right now?"
Tony might actually feel a little sorry for James Barnes, the guy had just managed to find his place in this new world, worked through what happened and become someone he was proud to be. The world had already been a lot to take in without time travelling greetings from your own bloody past from over seventy years ago.
Judging by the whiteness of his face, he was just about ready to hide away again.
"Well, if we want to get technical and really into the details." Tony announced as he stepped into the room and drew the attention of the people sitting around the table, "There isn't, you know. We've got you and we've got the Winter Soldier from five years ago."
It was still awkward between them, but they had learned to work together if the need arose and the Avengers needed added strength. Barnes lived his own life, away from them, away from most things, but Tony appreciated that he was always quick to pick up the call if someone of them called. Usually Natasha.
"So, we've got the good Winter Soldier and the really bad one?" One of the Dora Milaje warriors asked, Tony thought it was Naomi, and patted Barnes's head like you would a child. He glowered at her but said nothing just turned his head back towards the security footage of the Winter Soldier in Pennsylvania. The old old one? New old one? The original one? The not-copied copy?
Fucking time travel. Fucking magic.
"And it is very important we don't kill the major players, or even more than absolutely necessary. If we don't deliver them back to their timelines, we might really fuck with the future...our past." Rhodey corrected at the end and then looked so adorably confused for a moment that Tony smiled.
"So we can't just kill the Soldier, as much trouble as he causing right now, or Barnes might just cease to exist." Natasha brought it to the point, Barnes paled even more, "Just as well as we can't just kill Rumlow, as beautiful as the idea might be, he still needs to play his part. As does Pierce, the Red Skull, Zola, even goddamn Hitler."
Barnes looked ready to pass out and Tony chose to look over to the man next to him while Barnes swallowed that heavy piece of news. T'Challa noticed his look and raised an eyebrow, as if he already knew what Tony was about to ask him.
"I don't have a solution, Stark. I'm very much still busy trying to come to terms with this myself. When we ran into those aligator's last week, I was just as clueless as you." T'Challa explained and Tony saw his arm move, hand probably squeezing Barnes's thigh under the table, grounding him. Tony wouldn't say he understood their relationship, or how they worked, but it did, and it noticably made them both very happy, if the way Barnes relaxed again was any indication.
Royalty gave him headaches, he normally preferred to stay far away from them, those stiff rules and traditions gave him hives on a good day. T'Challa was the exception, Tony even dared to call them friends by now...well, then again, he wasn't king anymore. Tony didn't think often about Wakanda, things were complicated when Wakanda got involved, and Tony gladly threw all responsibility and leadership into T'Challa's hands when a villain called for the Avenger's presence anywhere close to the country's borders.
He didn't know how exactly it had gone down, who had made what decision, people had tried to explain it to him, but he had never listened well when things were not of great interest to him. T'Challa's sister Shuri was sitting on the throne, she was Queen, ruling Wakanda, rumored to be close to engaged to a renowned doctor of Wakanda's leading neuroligical science department. T'Challa himself was his country's best ambassador, representing Wakanda wherever he was needed, a loud voice when it came to defending Africa's entire position among the big players in the world's economy and politics.
And he still was the Black Panther, Wakanda's most feared protector and warrior, who on his downtime spend time with Barnes in his little house in Romania, probably proofreading his boyfriend's college essays, or travelling with him to one of the many many places he owned all over the world.
"That was a fun walk to the library." Barnes grumbled and pulled Tony out of his thoughts again, "Alright, Stark, what do you need?"
"Hands? Lots of hands? We need to herd them back into the portals, sniff them out in their little holes and chase them out. And we're running a little thin on Hydra experts these days. Especially those from the first time around." Tony offered and Barnes sighed, dragged both hands over his face, "Listen, I know you don't want to fight anymore and I respect that decision. But what I need today is your head, I need the knowledge in there to get these bastards back into their own time. Peter can do your homework."
Said other college student whipped up his head at the end of the table where he had been in fact reading in his own books, turning to glare at the smirk Tony's face.
"He will not. He totally will not." Peter protested quickly, flushing quickly when the Dora Milaje women chuckled, "I'm not sitting here while you go out and fight the bad guys, doing someone else's homework." He worked himself up, Rhodey slung an arm around Tony's waist and hid his grinning face in the smaller man's neck, Natasha face-palmed where she was still standing next to the screens at the wall.
"And how am I supposed to do them anyway? His books are in Romanian, I am not learning another language just to make someone's homework, and wasn't it you who always told me to do my exercices myself because otherwise I wouldn't learn them properly? I am not..."
"Pete." Tony spoke out quietly, barely able to keep a straight face himself, Peter clapped his mouth shut, "It was a joke."
"Oh."
--
One day later, they were a little smarter but not really closer to getting rid of the newest Hydra infestation, Tony mused as he dropped the ice pack into Natasha's hands and then moved further down the corridor in the medical wing of the facility, past where Scott was batting a nurse away who wanted to take a look at the cut on his cheek.
"Fuck!" He heard when he approached the last room at the end of the corridor, whose entrance door was half open only.
"Two more, I'm sorry." T'Challa spoke next, worried and pissed off at the same time, Tony chose to remain outside for a moment, to just listen in. A dull pop and a muffled scream followed. Tony winced in sympathy, discolated fingers and shoulder in a body that healed too quickly, not a joy.
Turns out, when your past self alter ego gets hurt, you get hurt as well.
Barnes had to find out the hard way.
One more pop and Barnes cursed fluently in at least three languages, but then he was silent, only the sound of his elavated breathing coming from the room behind the door.
"What are we doing here?" T'Challa questioned after a few seconds of quiet between them, "Why are we here, Bucky? This is hurting you more than it is helping them..."
"I can't just walk away from this. They need our help, they need someone who knows Hydra and..." Barnes went on the defense but Tony could hear how strained it was, how shaken up he was.
"Then call him." T'Challa called out, outside the door Tony winced, fingers twitching against his hip, where a small ugly freaking old flip phone had been burning a fictional hole into his suit pants for three days now. Of course the idea had been there, he just couldn't bring himself to go through with it, it had been years, who knew if someone was still going to pick up.
"It's not my call to make." Bucky cut back, with way less power behind his words than he could and had used in the past, "This is not my team, Chall, this isn't even my world anymore. If there was a way, I would gladly leave this all behind and live a life without Avengers, without villains-of-the-month, without problems and disasters. But I can't, yes it hurts sometimes, yes it feels great to fly back home once this is over and fret over end of year exams again, but if there is a chance I can help, then I will. Do I think we need him? Fuck yeah, we could, but this is Stark's team. Stark has the shield, Stark has the phone, Stark calls Cap in."
"Do you think they know? About what's going on?" T'Challa changed the topic slightly and Tony could hear Barnes snort.
"There was a shark the size of a truck stranded on their pier last Thursday. I think they pieced together that something is fishy." Barnes deadpanned and then squeaked before laughing, and Tony knew the sounds of people making out good enough to know when to back off.
--
That evening, Rhodey found him glaring at the shield down in the hidden, locked away part of the armory, the room was more like a lair. Weapons locked and sealed away in glass fronted lockers. Hawkeye's bow and arrows, the arsenal on knives. Falcon's wings and guns. Hulk pants.
And Captain America's shield.
Rhodey announced his presence by slipping a hand into his and pulling it up until he could kiss the back of it.
"Wanda and Vision are making dinner, it's supposed to be ready in a few minutes." He started up quietly and Tony nodded, leaning into the arms that got wrapped around him from behind next, "Talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking of."
"Calling him." Tony got right to the point, simple honesty, "I think we need him, Rhodey."
"I think you're right." Rhodey surprised him with his answer and Tony wriggled around until he could look up into his lover's face, "I don't have to like it to know that it's what we need. I don't want him here, I don't ever want him anywhere near you again, I don't ever want him in a position again where he could hurt you, but that's my heart talking. My head knows the importance, the symbol that Captain America is." And while he talked, he let one hand stroke down Tony's waist to his hip, sliding easily into the left pocket.
Rhodey pulled out the phone and then pressed it gently into Tony's hand, "It's your call to make."
"You'll be with me?" Tony asked, looking up after he had flipped open the phone.
"Always and forever."
Duty calls.
One simple message sent later, Tony took a very deep breath and then turned around to unlock the glass door. The shield felt heavy in his hands, heavy and cold, but somehow it also brought hope.
"Let's go eat."
They walked up into the team kitchen, and everyone turned completely silent upon seeing him, Rhodey's arm around his shoulders. Barnes slowly got to his feet where he had been sitting at the table, going over traffic cam videos with Natasha and Maria. Tony swung his arm and hand and Barnes caught the shield in his metal hand with a familiarity that sent shivers down his back.
"I made my call."
--
Plans were plans, reality looked different most of the time.
Tony's plan had been to greet Steve at the gates of the facility, debrief him and then get right down to creating a strategy to get rid of this Hydra nightmare.
Reality looked more like this: Alarms blasting about three minutes after sunrise while Rhodey had just slipped his hands into Tony's shorts, scrambling to suit up, flying out to freaking Manhattan where Hydra soldiers with support of Nazi battalions had taken half the city council hostage.
Maria was left behind at the facility, all other agents sent out to take back Manhattan from the blast from the past. Even Barnes came out, if reluctantly so, everyone had gotten a good debrief on not hurting Hydra's Winter Soldier at all, and to only knock him out after warning Barnes and giving T'Challa a chance to get to him first.
Good new plan.
So far, so good.
Until a new portal opened.
Releasing a shit load of those giant flying dinosaurs.
Tony Stark hated magic.
The next hour or two was just flying and shooting, flying and shooting, Tony lost himself in that mundane task for a long while. And didn't really snap out of it until a red, white and blue shield whooshed by his head and took out one of those winged lizard that had snuck up on the suit.
He let the suit make a beautiful pirouette in mid air, trying to catch sight of the man behind the shield, but the rooftops didn't show any sign of him. Behind the helmet, Tony frowned, the only people out on the rooftops around him right now were Barnes and Wanda, with him securing her back while she focused on closing the portal in the air.
No point in sending dinosaurs back in their time, Tony could get with that strategy, just kill the damn beasts and be done with it.
"Thanks, Cap." He spoke into the comm line a little belatedly and then got ready to get back into the shooting business again, only to hear laughter in his ear that he had never really heard before.
The shield whooshed once more past his head, up into the air above him and Tony wrenched the suit around so quickly he nearly gave himself a whiplash. There he was.
Stepping out from behind a water tank just in time to slam the shield into a dinosaur's back who had gotten a little too excited with the entrance door to the apartment building's staircase. The shield bounced off to Barnes on the other end of the roof, who used it without really looking to catch it, to take out one crowding Wanda closer to the edge while roundhouse kicking another one off the roof.
Tony watched it unfold like a movie.
How Cap caught the shield again, and wondered a little confused if downtime had made Steve lose weight, because that red-white-and-blue looked a little ill fitting on that body, but maybe that was just the distance, Tony was still high up above them. Hovering in mid air like an idiot, but he couldn't stop watching.
Across the street, a woman screamed on the rooftop of her own building, god only knew what she had gone out where the Iron Legion had made it quite loudly clear to stay inside and lock windows and doors. Cap saw, of course he did, raced towards the edge of the roof he was standing on and Tony opened his mouth, got ready to scream because that was a jump too far, someone was seriously suffering from a bout of being too long out of the field. Cap would never be able to make that, he was pushing the suit already into motion when Cap jumped.
Turned out, he didn't need to.
Twisting his body into the air, Cap launched himself off the roof and then up into the air as the wings unfolded from the pack on his back, shield already flying again to shake off the beast screeching at the woman.
What the...
"Rhodey, are you seeing what I am seeing?" He called out, not able to take his eyes off the man landing perfectly in front of the screaming woman, unloading half a clip of bullets into the dinosaur before rushing the now silent woman back into the house.
"Clear as day, Toney, clear as day." Rhodey's reply came back and Tony was glad to notice that he hadn't started to hallucinate mid battle, in his ear someone snickered.
"Oh, of course you knew." He snarled, shaking off the surprise and swinging himself back into the game, "A little warning would have been nice, Barnes."
"Let me have a little fun, Stark." Barnes answered him and Tony muttered some curses of choice under his breath, his head still trying to wrap itself around a flying Captain America.
Holy. Shit.
--
They took care of the dinosaurs and solved the hostage situation, all in one day, Tony was almost willing to call it a total success, there hadn't been much damage to buildings, almost no civilians hurts and absolutely no casualties. They got some more Hydra and Nazi soldiers prisoners and sent directly back into their timeline, got two more portals secured to stop anyone from coming back again.
Maybe it was just putting a dent in their Hydra problem, but a dent was still better than nothing.
But once Iron Man touched down on the facility tarmac, Tony had completely different things on his mind, he was back later, had needed to coordinate clean up with the CIA and had wanted to talk to Vision shortly who had chosen to stay behind at one of the portals for further investigations for the moment.
So he walked into a room full of people talking all over each other, half of them surrounding the black man standing in the middle of it all with Barnes at his right side, out of the uniform again, but the shield still resting at his left side, caught in a conversation with Rhodey.
Tony remained standing by the door.
Cap had come. Steve hadn't.
--
The next morning though, more surprises were waiting for him, because when Tony made his way down to conference room number three on the second level of the facility to meet up with Maria for another debrief over their current situation. When he walked into the room, eyes fixed down on the readings on his tablet that Vision had sent last night, he didn't meet Maria.
It wasn't her sitting at the table.
Tony drew up short when he looked up, mouth falling open in a shocked surprised expression, brown eyes staring at the man sitting at the table, one hand rocking the baby carrier back and forth. The baby carrier that stood on the table and was filled with a babbling baby whose wild mob of black hair stood up in all directions.
"Surprise?"
Tony wrenched his head from the baby to Steve smiling up at him, but still couldn't form a single word. His head had gone completely blank.
The moment was broken when Barnes shouldered his way past him, hands already outstretched before he was any close to Steve and the boy in the blue onesie.
"Baby!" He called out and made those gimme-gimme hands gestures, Tony watched how Steve rolled his eyes but still leaned back so Barnes could reach past him into the carrier, pulling out the baby boy with hands that were very familiar in doing so.
"Hello, baby." He cooed and Tony pinched himself, staring at those blue eyes looking so fond and lovesick, looking at that little child even more loving than they did at T'Challa. And the child clearly knew him, babbling increased, tiny hands grabbed at strands of brunet hair. Tony felt like having stepped into the Twilight Zone, "Well, I'll let you two to talk." Barnes announced, looked to Steve and then to Tony, and then vanished back through the door he had come to.
"His name is Riley." Steve started up while Tony was still staring at the door Barnes had disappeared through, "He is five months old." He explained and grabbed the baby carrier, setting it down next to the diaper bag that stood next to his chair.
"I'm...Congratulations, man, that's...amazing."
Steve chuckled upon seeing his stunned face and slowly got to his feet, holding out a hand when he was standing, Tony shook off the surprise and grabbed the offered hand, but instead of just shaking it he used it to pull Steve into a hug. It was short, but not awkward at all and both of them were smiling when they pulled apart again, moving to sit down across from each other at the table without anyone having to say something.
"So...I see you made a decision concerning the shield." Tony began, Steve smiled, eyes flickering down at the ring on his right hand, from outside the door laughter filled the corridor.
"Yeah, it wasn't difficult in the end. I had to get out, really out." Steve explained and looked back up, "And not in the way that Bucky has. I really wanted a normal life, Tony."
"Did you get it? What you wanted?" Tony threw it right back as a question and Steve glanced down at the baby carrier.
"Yes, yes I did. And you? Are you happy?" Tony looked out of the window, zeroed in on Peter showing off to the Dora Milaje fighters sparring on the meadow outside, probably just achieving some adoring little cooing smiles, he thought of the team nights, of Wanda and Vision cooking, thought of Natasha passed out in the sun, book still held in her hand. Thought of waking up next to the man he loved every single day, of Rhodey's face being the first thing he saw each morning.
"I'm really happy."
Sam and Rhodey stepped into the conference room in the next moment, the latter laughing, the first scowling, pointing a finger at Steve the second he had caught sight of him.
"Godfather or not, you have got to stop letting him steal the baby!" He snapped, but it was easy to see that he was amused on the inside and not angry. Steve smiled, all softness and gentle love, letting Sam press a kiss to his lips before he sat down next to him, "Still happy you came, we could really use your experiences in this drama, even though I will have to fight Buck for my own son now."
Tony smiled at Rhodey as he slipped into the chair next to him, intertwining their hands on the table and leaning in for his own kiss.
Maria announced herself with a knock on the door, smiling into the round as she stepped up to the head of the table.
"If everyone is comfortable, we should not waste more time than necessary. Vision updated our files, we have a definite location on at least Rumlow, Zola and the Winter Soldier. Though Prince T'Challa has made it abundandly clear to me that sedating Barnes to find out if it will affect the Soldier is in no way an option, so we're back to zero strategies." She explained and caught the glare Tony sent her way, "I had to ask...but now, I am open to all suggestions. Any clues on how we should fight this battle?"
Tony felt Steve's eyes on himself and turned to look at him.
"Together?" Steve asked.
"Together." Tony answered.
--