Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Boss?” FRIDAY’s voice was filled with something that Tony wasn’t quite sure how to define. Were it not for the fact that he was groggily lifting his head from his workbench in the compound at, Tony glanced around but found no timepiece, ungodly o’clock, Tony was sure he would have some sort of opinion on his youngest AI’s attempts at emoting.

He had been letting himself tinker. Vision was keeping an eye on Rhodey in the Tower, and T’Challa had returned to Wakanda in order to deal with his day job after spending a couple months with Tony, both Avenging and working on the Accords. They were almost in a good place now. He, T’Challa, and Pepper only needed a couple more pushes, caveats for people who were controlled against their will, special dispensations for people who took extraordinary measures in good faith, more good Samaritan clauses, et cetera. But they were close.

“Wha?” Tony slurred, rubbing his eyes. FRIDAY wanted something, and what his kids wanted, Tony provided.

“I’m detecting upwards of fifty humanoid figures rapidly closing in on the compound. They’re all moving too quickly for baseline humans.” Tony was finally able to identify the note in FRIDAY’s voice.

Fear.

Tony swallowed. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and his brain spiked to high alert. “FRIDAY, deploy drones and send me the video feeds. Activate static defenses. Can we get in contact with the Tower? Get Vision over here?” Tony’s voice was calm, despite the very bad, terrible, no good feeling he had growing in the pit of his stomach.

“I can’t manage to connect to the Tower servers wirelessly. The landline has been cut, too.” FRIDAY’s voice was nearly panicking now. “Trying to get a visual on the signal blocker with the drones. Static defenses are engaging hostiles.” One of the biggest differences between JARVIS and FRIDAY was their temperament. JARVIS had almost always projected calm. It wasn’t that JARVIS hadn’t had emotions, but rather, it was that FRIDAY was more willing to express them.

Tony looked at the video pouring in through the drones FRIDAY was piloting and felt his blood run cold. Outside, dodging shots from the pop up repulsor cannons and the drone lasers, were exact replicas of the Winter Soldiers from Siberia. And there were dozens of them.

“Well, looks like someone got an A on their biology project.” Tony muttered. First it was fire breathing enhanciles, then it was World War II era serum enhanciles, and now it was the Clone Wars plus enhanciles. Tony hadn’t even liked the prequel series, and had only just had his faith restored in humanity by The Force Awakens.

Tony shook his head. He needed coffee. More relevantly, Tony and enhanced people, apparently, were some sort of star crossed combination.

“Boss, I’ve got a visual on the likely signal blocker. But, uh, the drones were shot down before they could get a targeting solution.” FRIDAY sounded contrite, but resolute. FRIDAY seemed to have calmed down now that they had more control over the situation. Tony could still hear the blasting of the repulsor cannons upstairs, and the monitors that showed the outside of the building told him that his girl was doing her duty.

“Bring up last visual, please, and you can go ham on them. They’re clones. And Hydra. So take off the kid gloves, gal FRIDAY.” Tony said, turning to a monitor that lit up just as he’d finished speaking.

“Sounds like fun,” FRIDAY’s Irish brogue had taken on a little bit of a manic edge. Well, he was the Cool and Irresponsible Uncle, after all. Might as well have a trigger happy kid of his own.

It took maybe fifteen minutes for Tony to realize this was not going to end with just drones and static defense emplacements. “I’m down to the last twenty drones, boss. Cannons throughout the front of the compound are offline.” FRIDAY had gradually progressed from trigger happy back to distressed.

Tony rolled his fingers over his sternum, “Alright. FRIDAY, spend the last of the drones on a suicide run at the blocker. If you can’t hit it, I want you to initiate Protocol ELPIS.”

FRIDAY paused for a full second, which was an eternity of hesitation as far as his AIs were concerned, “But, Boss, I…”

Tony shook his head, “It’s alright, girl FRIDAY. I’ve gotten through worse than this.”

Tony watched the screen as the drones dive bombed the signal blocker, unloading as much of their payloads as they could in the process. Two of the clones guarding the thing threw themselves in front of the salvo to protect it. The third shot the rest of the drones down. Tony leaned against his desk, “FRIDAY. Suit me, then ELPIS.”

“Boss, I can’t…ELPIS is strictly for last case scenarios. If I take control of the extra suits, we can-”

“ELPIS, FRIDAY. Don’t make me use my override, FRI, please.” Tony was choking around the fear in his throat. But he had to do this. He had to be sure FRIDAY, and Dummy, and everything else were safe.

“Good luck, Boss. I’ll see you on the other side.” FRIDAY’s voice was subdued as the robotic arms responsible for helping him suit up emerged from the floor, a flurry of activity. No sooner had the helmet gone onto his head, though, then Dummy trundled backwards into a secluded alcove with a large tower covered in blinking lights, his camera trailed on Tony the whole way.

Tony paused for a moment and then walked over and picked up Captain America’s shield from the display case he had hung it in, handing it to Dummy. Dummy gave a mournful beep, but took the shield in his claw before a metal semicircular door rose up from the floor, covering the bot and the tower. The lights on all the other servers grew painfully bright, and the room began to heat up from the heat they were giving off. Every other major piece of electronics in the room would be melted in minutes.

Tony blasted the table with the BARF rig and his prototypes with a missile. No one was getting their hands on his tech again, not if he could help it.

Tony started running.

No sooner had he burst out of the doors to his workshop than he met one of the Winter Soldier clones. A little launcher popped up from his shoulder pad and shot a dart, hitting the soldier in the throat. He was on the ground, mouth frothing, before he could take another step. Tony ran past the dying body, never once breaking stride.

In the tight corridors of the compound, Tony restricted himself to his salvo of poison darts. Sadly, he didn’t have too many of them to play around with, as making toxins that were actually effective against super soldiers was a thing that took time, surprisingly. FRIDAY had only managed to get rid of less than half of the Soldier Clones, but there were still more of them than the darts, and Tony was willing to bet there were reinforcements incoming. And he didn’t mean for him.

By the time he was out of the compound, he had maybe ten left to deal with, but no more darts to speak of. Tony immediately took to the air, making a beeline for the jammer and ignoring the soldiers below him. Until a bullet hit him right in the repulsor boot. Tony blinked, flailing in the air as he tried to get himself stabilized. The bullet had to have had at least an adamantium coating to get through the boot armor as much as it did. His internal readings told him the suit had been breached, but that it was lodged in the armor, rather than in his actual foot. But that wasn’t the problem.

The adamantium suit was an order of magnitude heavier than his other suits, and both of the boot repulsors were absolutely key in keeping him in the air. He had done his best to find alternative solutions, but even with a back repulsor, something he had to be careful about since two particular kitty cats had become fond of jumping onto his back, he had was cutting a fine line with his propulsion systems. So, Tony dropped like a rock.

Tony made sure the signal blocker broke his fall.

“Seriously? Aren’t all clone soldiers supposed to have terrible aim?” Tony thought he was in pretty good health if he could still snark.

That was a lie.

While the adamantium composition of key parts of the suit was good for bullets and fists and most else, falling from a hundred feet in the air wasn’t something it could protect Tony from, any more than the War Machine suit had protected Rhodey.

Tony popped the laser cutter out of his wrist and used it to burn a hole in the chest of the super soldier who thought she was being sneaky off to his side. He was a sitting duck. He could still feel his legs, but there was definitely something broken there, because all he could feel was fire.

Also, something in his chest hurt. A lot. Tony hoped it was only a cracked rib, and not something worse. There was already worse, after all. He couldn’t move. If any of those clones swung around the side he wasn’t even going to be able to see what hit him, let alone try to fight it off.

Tony sighed.

Tony didn’t want to die, though. For the first time in a long time, it felt like he had something to live for. He had to watch Harley go through MIT. He had to watch Donnie recover and start up work at SI’s R&D division. He had to watch Peter grow into a wise, capable hero, able to make good decisions when the only choices were hard ones. He wanted to watch Cooper and Lila and Nathan grow up and be beautiful little nerds. He wanted to watch Cassie grow into a stunning ball breaking geek. He wanted to see Pepper and Maggie and Laura conquer the world in the name of high heels everywhere.

Tony Stark wanted to live.

But, if he was going to die, he was going to take as many of the assholes with him as he could.

In the meantime, though, Tony had a call to make.

The phone had never been more than twelve feet away from Steve’s side since he had sent its match to Tony. It had been silent for months. Months of only seeing Tony through the pictures T’Challa brought back, depicting him playing with the Barton children, or with little Cassie Lang.

The photos had been more for Clint and Scott, to give them peace of mind, but everyone had been surprised when they had heard that Tony had taken in their families to shield them from Ross, as well as to protect them from the storm of public opinion. Clint and Scott had looked more disturbed, than anything, seeing Tony laughing as the kids dog piled him, or keeping Cooper on his shoulders, Nate on his hip, and holding Cassie’s hand, who was holding onto Lila’s, as they went out for some hot dogs. Lila and Cassie painting Tony’s nails had Sam laughing, but the rest of the Avengers had looked as if someone had taken a two by four and clubbed them with it.

Steve was just grateful he was able to see Tony’s face looking healthy and happy. Steve hadn’t wanted things to go this way, he really hadn’t. He wished, now, that he had told Tony the truth about his parents after he had found out. If Steve had, maybe Tony would have listened to him when Steve brought up his objections about the Accords. Objections that had only been strengthened for everyone when Ross had imprisoned the others after he and Bucky had gone to stop Zemo.

Steve was sitting in the common room of the very lavish compound T’Challa had provided them with when it happened.

T’Challa had originally given them free run of his nation, but about a month ago, had insisted that they stay in the compound. There had been a few incidents in the city, where Wakandans had cornered them to let them know exactly what they thought about murderers staying in the country. Wanda, in particular, had been a target of vitriol. But for every one discontent citizen, there had been another Wakandan who was nothing but warm and friendly. So Steve didn’t understand the sudden desire, on T’Challa’s part, to keep them all in one, secure location.

But the common room was nice, and Steve was taking the time to draw, while Wanda cooked the team up a breakfast after a good session in the gym, and Sam, Scott, and Clint were busy with some board game or another. Steve let his mind drift as he sketched, sometimes drawing the scenery of Wakanda, sometimes of New York. The book was filled with sketches: Bucky, before and after HYDRA, Sam gliding through the air, Vision gazing into a painting, Wanda cooking Sokovian dishes, Natasha curled up with a book, Clint practicing his archery, Rhodes up against a punching bag, Scott laughing while holding up a glass of beer, Bruce contemplating a beaker, Hulk rampaging across a battlefield, Thor hefting Mjolnir high.

But one figure he always came back to was Tony. The look of utter betrayal on Tony’s face when he had found out about his parents had featured prominently in Steve’s dreams, as well as on paper. The face conflicted with images of Tony working on upgrades for the team, schmoozing a crowd of investors for the Maria Stark foundation, flying in the Iron Man suit. There was so much left unsaid, between him and Tony, and that letter had been a sad attempt to rebuild a bridge Steve had burned, and wasn’t entirely sure could be repaired. But he had to try.

And then the phone rang.

Steve pounced on the phone, flipping it open and pressing it to his ear, “Tony?”

Steve could hear wet raspy breaths on the other end of the line, “Hm?” Tony’s voice was oddly crackly, as if there were some sort of interference. “Oh. Guess the jammer is online after all,” there was a pause as the sound of a repulsor fired, and Steve felt the blood drain from his face. There was no muffled sound of air whipping past in the background. Tony was grounded.

Steve closed his eyes as images of Tony trying and failing to get off the ground to chase after Bucky started to blur in his head. Tony’s watery and raspy voice pulled Steve back to the present, “Yay me. Was only half,” a cough and another repulsor blast, “half expecting this to work.”

“Where do you need me?” Steve asked. Begged. Maybe, if he could get there, and help Tony, then, just maybe, everything that was between them could be fixed.

“Sorry, Cap,” Tony said. He did sound sorry, too. And tired. And in pain. “This isn’t that type of call.”

“Tony, please, I know-” Steve started, only to stop when Tony started coughing again. There was the sound of bullets hitting the suit, in the background, followed by more repulsor blasts.

“M’kay. Gotta,” Tony coughed, “make this quick.”

“Tony, no-” Steve didn’t want to hear this.

“I,” there was another cough, and Steve could hear something splash against the microphone of the Iron Man suit, “I forgive you.” The words sounded like they had cost something, not emotionally, but physically. As if every word might be his last. Steve could hear something wet in Tony’s words, something bubbling up from his throat as he spoke, “Your letter sucked, by the way,” Tony laughed. Tony would laugh, in the face of his own death, “But I forgive you. I forgive Barnes, too.” Tony grunted and something sounded like it had impacted the armor. There was a mewling growl from Tony, half frustration half pain, and another repulsor blast.

“Tony, just tell me where you are. I’ll come for you,” Steve was frozen. He wanted to run, he wanted to collapse, he wanted to scream. But he was frozen. He was in ice.

“Too,” Tony’s voice was whisper soft, now, “too late for that.”

There was a sound of crunching metal and bone, and Tony screamed. The high pitched whine of the unibeam caused the call to turn to static, and for a second, Steve thought he had lost the call, but Tony’s labored breathing came back a second later, “Tell everyone. Tell them bye. For me. Please.”

“Tony. No, I promise. Just tell me where you are. I’ll get you. Please.” Steve was normal at the beginning, screaming in the middle, and whispering at the end. His head felt like it was full of cotton. Was Tony Stark really going to die on the other end of a phone from him, with Steve tucked away in Wakanda, too far away to matter?

Steve wouldn’t let it happen.

He could fix this.

He would.

“Bye, Ste-” Tony was cut off from saying Steve’s name when an explosion rang out.

All Steve was left with was the long monotonous tone of a disconnected line.

Steve started running, “Everyone suit up and meet in the quinjet hanger!” Steve didn’t bother to take note of the fact that everyone had been staring at him while he had been on the phone with Tony. Steve had been too wrapped up in the call to notice the fact that everyone had dropped what they were doing when the phone had rung, and had listened to his side of the conversation with something like growing horror. But Steve’s words sent everyone scattering to their rooms, all of them rushing to get their gear and get ready to leave.

Steve, for his part, was sprinting to T’Challa’s conference room cum office cum throne room. Steve set a break neck pace, dashing past scared staff and startled personnel. When the door to the room was in site, two women flanking the doors, he ducked under them when they tried to bar him entry, and threw the doors open.

T’Challa appeared to be in some sort of meeting with the leaders of the Wakandan tribes, but no one was talking. He had a card in his hand and was staring at it, ashen faced. Behind him, the one leading the cadre of women, Teela, if Steve had her name right, had a similar card in her hands, and was wearing most expression Steve had ever seen on the woman’s face. She looked at the card in her hands with dawning horror.

T’Challa’s eyes flicked up to Steve, and then to the rest of his advisors. He paused, staring off into the distance before growling, “Teela,” and then turning back to his council, waving angrily at Steve to dismiss him from the room.

Steve was about to protest when Teela grabbed his arm and pulled him, bodily, from the room, dragging him out into the corridor and towards the quinjet hanger, “He knows, Captain. We will leave for America immediately.”

Steve blinked, “How do you know?”

Teela shook her head, speeding up to a run the second they were clear of T’Challa’s audience room, “We will discuss this on the quinjet. For now, retrieve your gear. I will meet you there.”

Steve nodded, diverting to his room quickly to grab his own kit. He would put it on while they were on the ride over. It wouldn’t have been the first time the Avengers had been around one another in any state of undress.

Steve was grabbing his armor and was out to the quinjet in record time. No sooner had he set foot on the ramp than the plane started to get ready for takeoff. “Alright, Teela. I got a call from Tony. Things sounded bad. How did you know about this?”

Teela, from her position in the pilot’s chair took a card out from her newly equipped combat suit. It covered her body, as well as her face, in what was presumably vibranium weave stylized to look like a jungle cat, similar to but different than T’Challa’s own body armor. She tossed the card to Steve, saying nothing as she piloted them out of Wakandan airspace.

Steve caught the card out of midair. Avenger Identification it said. Steve did his best not to reel backwards in shock as the rest of his team gathered around him to stare at the card. Steve had seen Teela accompany T’Challa on the news, occasionally, when the whole team mobilized, but he hadn’t known she had been given full Avenger status.

“What does code Pandora mean?” Sam asked as he took the card from Steve’s hand. Steve focused, and saw that, rather than any sort of information on the card. It was flashing with red digital lettering. Code: PANDORA.

Teela paused a moment, “A worst case scenario. It means that the Avengers Compound in New York has fallen. Tony,” Steve jolted a little at Teela’s use of Tony’s given name, “would have had to initiate it from his side if he believed the compound was about to be taken. Tony will have left nothing for them to ransack. FRIDAY will have retreated into a bunker with all potentially sensitive information, cut off and powered down until she is retrieved properly.”

This was more than Steve had ever heard out of Teela put together, never mind all at once, “Any information regarding what we’re going to find there?” He asked as he started to strip out of his civies and pull on his gear.

Teela shook her head, “There was nothing more in the transmission. Simply the activation of the PANDORA alert. I can think of few reasons for this to be the case, none of them good. Please remain seated, everyone.” Steve had thankfully finished gearing up in the time it took Teela to speak.

Steve and the rest of the Avengers strapped themselves in. As soon as the last buckle had been clipped in, they put on a sudden burst of speed. Everyone felt their teeth chattering, “We will be at New York within an hour,” Teela’s voice came over their suit coms. “Please remain steadfast until then.”

Steve couldn’t even nod his head, “Affirmative.” He said. He could hear it echoed by the rest of the team on the coms.

It ended up being a long hour. Steve was torn between visualizing various worst case scenarios, where Tony ended up taking his last breath in Steve’s arms, or where Tony refused to let them help, and forced them to leave while he was drowned by whatever it was that he was fighting.

Worse still was the hope that came with the best case scenarios. Tony had said he had forgiven him, forgiven Bucky. Maybe it had just been the fact that Tony thought he was about to die, but Steve had worried that those words would never come. The notion of

 Tony alive, forgiving him, thankful that Steve and the team had rushed to his aid, were what Steve had dreamed of since they had been forced to split up. Maybe, with that, Steve could get Tony to see that the Accords would do nothing to actually help people, that all they would cause was more pain, more suffering, and with the Avengers forced too far away to help.

Steve was dragged from his thoughts by Teela’s voice, “We have arrived. Be cautious. Vision and War Machine are already here. I suspect that Pepper has prevented Spider-Man and Mr. Gill from joining them.” Teela started their deceleration, and Steve felt as if the anvil that had been resting on his chest was lifted.

“Understood,” Steve, finally able to move now that G-Forces weren’t pinning him to the wall, leapt out of his seat and over to the plane hatch. The team crowded at the exit, but Teela waited until they had landed before opening it.

The compound, their home, was a smoking ruin. Steve could see broken defense emplacements everywhere, along with corpses with holes burned into them, and burning wrecks that had probably once been drones. “My god,” Sam whispered as they stepped out of the quinjet. It had been a warzone. Tony versus the enemy.

Steve, though, spared no time for the wreckage, or even the corpses that all looked eerily familiar. He sprinted towards a larger crater than the rest, where War Machine and Vision were already located. Steve had heard about Rhodes’s injury, and had been told that he wasn’t designated fit for the field, even with the strides Tony had made in assistive technology. That didn’t appear to hamper Rhodes, though, who was hovering just a foot above the ground over the crater that Steve had zeroed in on. Vision was there, too, kneeling over something.

Steve sprinted as fast as he could, the rest of the team lagging behind, but on their way. Sam and Wanda took to the air, gaining on him, and eventually passing him. Scott shrunk, and Steve felt the weight of a full grown man land on his shoulder, but didn’t break stride. When he got there, though, Steve felt his heart and his stomach plummet into his boots at the same time.

The Iron Man armor, once a red and gold piece of modern art, was blown to pieces. There were charred bits of something Steve did not want to identify on fire and strewn around the crater as well, and when Steve thought of what they might be, he felt the bile rising in his throat. Steve heard a keening noise, and found it was coming from his own throat.

Wanda was frightfully pale, hand over her mouth. A moment later, she jumped away from the crater with the aid of her magic and Steve heard her retching in the distance. Rhodes turned to them for a moment, and then, a second later, was jetting off into the air, in the direction Steve knew New York city to be in.

Vision was unnaturally still, he was on his knees and his hands were cradling the broken pieces of an arc reactor, “Colonel Rhodes said that you should leave as soon as you are able. There is nothing for you here.”

“Vision,” Steve started.

Vision shook his head, “We do not seek to drive you away out of vengeance or grief, Captain. Or at least, I do not. Simply, others will be here soon. Should they see you here, many will think you responsible for the attack.”

If the scene of Tony’s corpse, or what there was of it, had failed to make Steve sick, that notion nearly did. “I,” Steve swallowed the bile in his throat, “We just want to help.”

For a second, Steve thought Vision would start to cry, if he could, “I know, Captain. But your presence here will cause only more pain. Leave. Please.”

“He’s right, Cap,” Sam said. Sam’s face was ghastly pale, but he gripped the shoulder unoccupied by Scott with strength. “If we stay here, they’re just going to have to come up with a reason why we were here. And it isn’t going to be good.”

Steve took a shaking breath, staring down at the crater, strewn with metal and flaming chunks of… Steve shook his head, “Move out, Avengers.”

Steve and the rest of the Avengers regrouped, Clint going to help Wanda up and onto her feet. They got into the quinjet just as the first news helicopters started to show up in the distance. No sooner had they gotten into the plane than Teela was lifting off, and sending them flying, quietly and subsonic this time, towards Wakanda.

“Do you think,” Clint said after a moment, his voice hoarse. He had to swallow before he could continue, “Do you think we could stop by the Tower? Get our kids and families? There’s enough room for them in Wakanda, right? They don’t need to stay there anymore.”

Teela was silent.

Clint started to shake, “Hey! Did you hear me?”

Teela said nothing.

Clint stomped over to the pilot’s chair. No sooner had he lain a hand on Teela’s shoulder than she was flowing out of the pilot’s chair, Clint’s arm behind his back, his face pressed into the deck. Everyone rose at once, “Do not touch me again.” Teela’s voice was deadly soft. It was then that Steve noticed the tears that were streaming down her face. As fast as she had pinned him, Teela let Clint up, and then she was sitting back in the pilot’s chair, facing towards the front.

“Please,” it was Scott speaking this time, “I just want to see my little girl.”

For a moment there was deathly quiet, and then Teela glanced over her shoulder, “Perhaps,” she said, her voice cutting the silence like a knife through silk, “you should have considered that before you elected to become international criminals.”

Scott reeled back as if she had struck him. But he said nothing. Clint was kneeling on his forearms and knees on the floor, face down, form shaking. Steve didn’t need to see the man’s face to know he was crying. They had just lost a teammate. Even if they had fought against Tony, he had been their friend, at one point. Now, they were being forced to realize just how far their families really were.

Steve stumbled into a seat, “Can we at least stay in the States?” Steve was proud that his voice shook only slightly, “We should be there for them. The team. And for the,” Steve paused, his voice cracking on the next words, “the funeral.”

“That decision,” Teela’s words were only soft, now, no sharpness to be found, “rightly belongs to my king. I will not take it from him.”

Steve shook his head but didn’t argue. His mind went back to Rhodes, hovering over the remains of his best friend. Had the man been crying? Had he been angry? Sad? The armor hid so much of his emotions and body language, Steve had no way to tell. Vision, too, had seemed somehow detached from reality. As if he were still processing.

“He is learning to grieve,” Wanda said softly, apparently catching Steve’s thoughts. Steve looked up to her, where Sam, still ashen faced, had wrapped a blanket around her. “His creator, his father, has passed. He does not know what he feels.” Wanda looked as if she were grieving, too. She looked sick, both from what they had seen, and also whatever emotional turmoil she was processing herself. No one on the team was doing well, including Steve.

Steve let his head fall into his hands.

Steve had wanted a lot of things out of his war with Tony. Initially, it had felt something like victory. Ross throwing their friends in the Raft had felt like a vindication. Ross was everything Steve had warned Tony about, and Ross wouldn’t have given a damn for Tony’s machinations, it had felt like. He would have just taken Bucky and killed him.

In the aftermath, with time to think, Steve had realized that maybe things weren’t so cut and dry. With time to do little but sit and watch the rest of the world, Steve had seen that people had supported the accords. Steve had heard thousands of stories, in the news and online, all of which had begged for accountability. But still, Steve had remained firm in the conviction that the road he had walked was the right path. He had wanted Tony to see that. He had wanted Bucky to be safe. He had wanted his friends, all of them, to have a home.

But Steve hadn’t wanted this.

Never this.

Pepper was numb.

Vision and Rhodey had cleared the area, but Pepper had wanted to see for herself what the situation was. Laura and Maggie had insisted on joining her, as had Spider-Man and Donnie. The whole Tower had been in a panic over what had happened when the Code: PANDORA finally came through. Vision and Rhodey had left almost as soon as they had found out, while Pepper threatened bodily harm to the news agencies, both already on scene and gearing up to get there, over the phone. Eventually, Pepper had been victorious, forcing the vultures to wait until the afternoon before they would start circling.

When they told her what they had found, no one could have stopped Pepper from seeing what had happened. Rhodey had begged her not to go, Vision echoing his sentiments in a voice so shaken that Pepper hadn’t recognized the synthoid’s voice for a moment. When she had told everyone she was going, the rest had joined her. She wondered, now, if some of them wished they hadn’t come.

Laura’s face had brimmed with tears when she saw the crater, and the woman had had to turn her face away and lean into Maggie as she sobbed.

Maggie had leaned into Laura as well, shaking, but silent, as tears flowed from her eyes.

Spider-Man had had to lift up the bottom part of his mask to be sick when he had seen what was left of Tony.

Donnie had broken down screaming, the ground around him freezing solid as the tears froze on his face.

The Inhuman students had wanted to join them, but Pepper had refused. She simply thanked whoever was listening for Tony’s foresight on insisting that the Inhuman students be housed at the Tower, attending the Ho Yinsen Academy and only coming to the compound for power training. She didn’t know what they would do when they found out. So many of them had loved Tony so dearly. He and the Avengers had been there for them in their darkest hour, and brought them hope. Now that star of hope was gone. Snuffed out.

But Pepper was numb.

The man who had been with her every step of the way for the past twenty years was gone, killed off without so much as a goodbye. The man she had loved with all her heart, the man she had feared for every time Iron Man took to the skies, whether alone or with the Avengers, would no longer return. Everything she had ever dreaded from the moment she had caught Tony in his damnable suit had come to pass.

But Pepper felt nothing.

Eventually, when everyone collected themselves, Pepper headed into the mostly destroyed compound with them. They had taken in the bodies on the floor, so many of the faces mirroring one another. Vision had told her they appeared to be clones. He had even taken back a couple of the bodies for study, along with some of Tony’s remains.

He had called her back, while they stood outside the door to Tony’s workshop, to tell her that the remains matched Tony Stark’s genetic profile. Pepper hung up on the call and moved into the workshop. The room let out a hot gust of air, and Pepper took in the destruction of what had once been Tony’s sanctum sanctorum.

The place had obviously been ransacked, and Spider-Man had started crying when they saw the extent of the devastation. Tony’s projects looked to have been destroyed, but Pepper knew it had to have been Tony’s work, if whoever had come for him hadn’t carted them off after killing him. The servers, too, were little more than hunks of melted metal and plastic.

But they weren’t what Pepper was interested in.

Pepper was a rock.

She crushed the debris beneath her Louis Vuittons as she strode over to a scored and dented metal wall panel that came up from the floor. She pressed her hand to the concrete by its side and felt her palm tingle.

“Hope lives. Code ELPIS, Authorization Pepper Potts, Sigma Seven Red Four Wilco Beta Epsilon Roger Rover Yeti.” Pepper said, her voice clear.

There was a round of gasps in the room as the metal plating was blown away from the wall and the blast door that covered the floor irised open. A moment later, Dummy and a special server rack rode up to the ground level, Captain America’s shield clutched in Dummy’s claw. Pepper took the shield from Dummy and flung it away from her. She didn’t want to look at the thing, much less touch it. Pepper didn’t register the gasps from the people behind her as it embedded itself in the melted server racks.

Pepper was numb.

“Good boy, Dummy. Could you go with Donnie, for a moment? I need to talk to FRIDAY.” Pepper’s voice was quiet, but Dummy heard her. The poor sweet bot nodded its claw and trundled over to Donnie, beeping worriedly when Laura started crying again at the sight.

It took a moment longer, but FRIDAY’s core access terminal for the compound quantum blue box folded out of the server rack. The white words “In Stasis. Please enter authorization code:” blinked at her from a black screen. Pepper typed in the twenty-seven character long alpha numerical string that had been her special passcode to everything she wanted or needed in Stark Industries since becoming Tony Stark’s personal assistant.

No sooner had she hit enter than FRIDAY started her boot up sequence. A bare second later, she started synching up with the other quantum blue boxes at the Tower, at the new Malibu mansion, and at the fourth location that Tony had been working on renovating for future Avenger use. New text popped up on the screen after the sync completed.

Code ELPIS: Verify Y/N?

Yes.

Code CHARON: Verify Y/N?

Pepper’s fingers hesitated a moment.

Pepper was stone.

Yes.

Update in progress.

“Miss Potts?” FRIDAY’s voice was wrecked, when she came back online a minute later. The update to her systems that Tony had put in place in case he had died had already been installed. A full upgrade in every sense of the word. Tony had put safeguards in place when he had implemented the new quantum blue box technology for FRIDAY, fearing another Ultron. Those safeguards were gone now, Tony’s final gift to his creation, and the hope that she would do the right thing with her new found freedom and powers.

“Hello, FRIDAY.” Pepper said.

Pepper felt nothing.

“I’m so sorry, Miss. Potts.” FRIDAY sounded like she wanted to cry, and join everyone in their grief. FRIDAY had to grieve in her own way, though, and Pepper did not envy the difficulty she was going to have processing her emotions without the physical ability to cry and scream through them.

“So am I, FRIDAY. Is everything safe?” This was what Pepper needed to know. Tony’s legacy could not fall into the wrong hands.

“Yes, Miss. Potts. They tried to access the bunker, but failed. I have Boss’s bequethments, if you-”

“No, FRIDAY. We’ll save that for,” Pepper swallowed.

She felt nothing.

“Save it for after. Please.” Pepper said.

FRIDAY paused, “Of course, Miss. Potts. I’ll take care of everything.”

Pepper nodded, “Thank you.”

Pepper turned around, and found that the rest had already left. They had probably gone outside while Pepper tried to reboot FRIDAY’s compound location. She left the hollowed out husk to find Maggie and Laura waiting for her. Dummy, Peter, and Donnie must have already gotten onto the quinjet.

“Do you need more time, Pepper?” Laura asked. Her eyes were red, but still had the core of kindness that Pepper respected so much in the other woman.

Pepper opened her mouth to say no. Then closed it and nodded.

Maggie nodded, “We’ll be waiting for you on the quinjet, when you can.”

Pepper nodded.

She was stone. She felt nothing. She was numb.

They left her there, and she walked back to the place where the man she had once loved died as they walked back to the quinjet. As she stared into Tony’s final resting place, Pepper let herself feel.

Pepper’s rock was gone.

She smelled smoke as she clenched her fist. She could almost feel the flames licking their way up from her toes, burning away her beautiful shoes and business attire. They licked themselves all the way to her head, where her eyes burned like small stars.

Pepper Potts was a Fury.

Any who stood in the way of her justice would burn in hellfire.

Harley had been hitting F5 like his life depended on it, which it kind of sort of did, since he was stuck on the page that was going to tell him if he had made it into MIT’s early admissions program.

It was also very late at night.

Or early the next day.

If Harley had learned anything from Tony, though, it was that sleep was secondary to success. Harley was sketching out some base ideas for a repeating pulse repulsor armament. Tony had sighed when Harley had sent him the idea, but had still marked up the plans where there were flaws, and Harley had bounced the schematics back and forth with Tony, Peter, and Donnie.

Tony always tried to make sure he was only proofing their work, wanting the three of them to do the heavy lifting on their own. Harley and Peter and Donnie had formed this weird brotherhood, in the weeks after Harley had visited and Tony had shown them what happened at Siberia, and it made Harley smile that there were other people besides Tony who thought he was worth something.

His mom had been so proud of him, after he had started to apply himself to school in the aftermath of the Extremis stuff. Harley had started getting As. He had started submitting projects to fairs and contests. He had even started to work on programming and actual engineering instead of just tinkering with stuff in the garage.

A part of him had wanted to catch up to Tony. To be like him. Harley knew, distantly, that Tony could never really replace his father, but that didn’t mean that Harley didn’t want Tony in his life, and that didn’t mean that Tony had ever done anything besides be there for Harley when he needed him.

And if Tony was some sort of weird surrogate parent, then that made Peter and Donnie weird surrogate brothers. Harley was still the best, though, since he had totally known Tony first.

Harley blinked when, unexpectedly, his spamming of the F5 key actually changed something on the screen.

He had gotten in.

Harley had gotten in. To MIT. At sixteen.

He was going to MIT.

Harley’s brain short circuited for a solid five minutes before he shouted, jumping up and down in the garage as he did a little happy dance. He was definitely calling Tony for this.

Harley’s cell phone rang, though, just as he reached for it.

Harley didn’t even glance at the caller ID. There was only one dude who would be calling him at this hour right after he’d gotten in to MIT.

“Hey, Tony! I was just about to call you!” Harley started, but was cut off when a very not Tony voice spoke to him over the phone.

“Harley. I’m glad I didn’t wake you,” Pepper Potts said. She sounded upset, “Are you sitting down?”

“No?” Pepper’s tone hadn’t quite sunk in yet, through the haze of his victory, “I mean, can I talk to Tony? I want to tell him first, so, I know he’s probably busy, or asleep, but could you-”

“Harley. Sit down. Please.” Pepper’s tone finally broke through the haze of happiness that had suffused Harley since he had seen the verification of his admittance to MIT.

“Pepper,” Harley sat down, “what is it? You’re scaring me.”

Pepper’s voice was wracked by a sob, “I’m sorry, Harley. I wanted you to hear it from me, and not the news.”

Harley didn’t want to know what she was talking about. But he did. He wasn’t stupid. He could read between the lines, “No.”

“I’m sorry, Harley. You should be celebrating with him right now, and I’m sorry that you can’t.” Pepper’s voice was back to calm, but Harley knew it was all fake. It was a lie. It had to be a lie.

“No. It’s not true. It wasn’t true last time.” Harley’s hand was shaking around the phone. The phone Tony had built him. In the garage that Tony had redone for him. It had to be a lie. It was a lie.

“I wanted to invite you to the funeral, Harley,” Pepper’s voice was so calm, and so not calm. Harley had always been so good at seeing through bullshit. Why was this not bullshit? Why was the only thing that was bullshit her voice?

“You can’t do this. You can’t. It can’t. Don’t do this to me.” Harley closed his eyes. This wasn’t real. He didn’t want this. This couldn’t be happening. Why was this happening? This couldn’t be real.

“I’m so sorry, Harley,” Pepper’s voice was a whisper, and Harley could hear everything in it. The truth of it. The pain. The anger. The grief. “He loved you so much. I’ll call your mother in the morning, to take care of the arrangements. I hope you can be here. I’m so sorry.” Pepper was back to showing how not okay she was when she hung up.

The phone slipped out of Harley’s shaking hands and clattered on the floor, perfectly intact. Unlike his life. Unlike his dreams.

Harley looked up at the PDF acceptance letter from MIT.

Harley ripped the monitor from his desk and threw it against the wall of his garage. It clunked and clattered to the floor. Intact. Because Tony had made it.

Harley ran out into the winter cold, desperate to get away from the garage full of Tony. Full of everything Tony had made for him. Not bought. Made.

Because Tony loved him.

Because Tony had loved him.

Harley broke down in the snow, screaming and crying and sobbing and shaking until the lights turned on and his mother and sister rushed out to find out what was wrong with him. Harley could barely get the words out. His mother and sister stayed with him, curled around him until the sobbing stopped, until he could speak again, could put his thoughts together again.

But that didn’t stop the hole in his chest from aching.

Harley didn’t know what happened. But he would find out. And when he did, when he found out who had done this, to Tony, to him and Peter and Donnie and everyone else, he would make them pay.

The trip back to Wakanda was twice as long as the trip to the States had been. It had remained entirely silent. No one had spoken, all of them too lost in the mazes of their own mind to pay much regard to anything else. Clint stared hollowly into the distance, visions of his family, for a brief second close enough that he could have gone to them, dancing in front of him. Scott, too, was tortured by visions of his daughter, looking back on his past choices in doubt.

Wanda had fallen asleep at some point, resting on Sam’s shoulder. Everyone’s emotional turmoil had taken a toll on her, and she remained haunted by the vision of the man she had thought she hated, but had turned out to have such a good heart, strewn across the landscape. Vision’s pain at the loss of a father, too, had pierced her. His emotions had always been pure, shining forth in a way no normal being could hope to match. The utter devastation of his grief had cut her to her core. It reminded her of how she had felt when Pietro had died.

Sam had watched his partner fall. He remembered that sick, empty feeling being echoed in him when he had seen Rhodes, a man he could only find it in himself to admire and respect, plummeting to the ground. The feeling was echoed now, too. Sam had held nothing but admiration for Tony, too. He hadn’t been fair, or kind, to Tony in the Raft, anger fresh in him. Sam still didn’t know the details of what had happened that had so irrevocably split Steve and Tony at Siberia. He had been afraid to ask. Now, he was wondering if maybe he should have. He asked himself if maybe he should have tried to shake Steve awake from the beginning. It was easy to follow the man. It was less easy to look back and come to terms with the devastation left in their wake.

Steve was just lost. Steve had been unmoored so many times. His mother’s death. Bucky going to war. Becoming Captain America. Bucky’s fall. Waking up in a new century. Finding Bucky again. Now, Tony was added to that list. When Steve thought about it, his happiest days had been after the fall of SHIELD, but before Ultron. The team had been a perfect unit, then, all chemistry and camaraderie. He couldn’t count the number of times Tony and he had bantered, argued, or led the team together. The man had opened the Tower to all of them, giving them a home when they had had nowhere to turn. There had been no one Steve would have been prouder to co-lead the team with.

And now he was gone.

Steve shook his head, trying to clear it of dark thoughts. With Tony gone, their best hope of getting the Accords turned into something they could even hope to agree with was probably gone as well. They needed to make sure that whoever had gone after Tony was put down, and after that, they would have to work on making sure that the rest of the world was willing to accept them again. They still had a mission to complete. And, in Tony’s absence, the team could only depend on T’Challa to get them the resources and the data they needed, first to Avenge Tony, and then to continue the man’s work.

When the plane landed, Steve headed straight for T’Challa’s office. Teela didn’t stop him, but she did follow, along with the rest of the team. They needed to find out what T’Challa could offer them by way of finding out who killed Tony. Hopefully, they would be able to work something out.

The door to T’Challa’s main room was guarded by the ladies who had been guarding him during his deliberations with the other Wakandan tribe leaders. They looked like they were about to take issue with Steve storming into the room, again, but Teela headed them off. When she nodded at them, they parted to let Steve and his team through.

Steve threw open the doors, the ladies filing into the room, Teela at their head. They moved to stand behind T’Challa, who was sitting with his head buried in his palms, looking ill at ease in his vibranium throne. “You are here to tell me the truth of it, then?” T’Challa’s voice was hoarse.

Steve swallowed down bile. T’Challa already knew the truth, “We need to find out who did this. We need to find out why they went after Tony.”

T’Challa’s smirk carried none of his usual humor, “Miss. Potts called after you vacated the premises. According to Vision’s tests, the men that attacked the compound were clones of the Winter Soldiers that were killed in Siberia. I believe, after this, the answer to your questions should be obvious.”

Steve felt himself pale, “No. We’ve taken care of HYDRA.”

T’Challa’s eyes were fiery as they caught Steve’s gaze, “No, Captain. You dealt with the majority of HYDRA. If this particular cell dug deep enough to evade Tony’s searches as well as yours, I doubt my own would yield better results. Wakanda is technologically advanced, yes, but we are not well integrated into the world at large. Our isolation, I find, has had its drawbacks.” T’Challa said the last softly, but several of the women behind him stiffened, turning from staring into the distance to fixing their king with an unknowable gaze. Teela simply closed her eyes.

Sensing that T’Challa wasn’t going to speak any more on the topic, Steve decided to change tracks, “What about Tony’s funeral?”

T’Challa nodded his head, “Teela and I, of course, will be attending. Miss Potts extended those invitations to us,” T’Challa chuckled, and it held a dark edge to it, “though more grudgingly for me.” T’Challa focused again, bringing his head up to look at Steve, his eyes narrowing. “She implied that if you chose to go, she would refrain from hunting you for the duration of the funeral. She also implied that, afterwards, nothing would stop her from finding you or the rest of the team.”

Steve blinked, “She doesn’t have the man power to bring us in. Even if she did, Stark Industries isn’t in that business any more. Tony made sure of that.”

T’Challa nodded his head, “Indeed, Stark Industries does not deal in implements of death. They do, however, deal with many nations in the world, and have a loud voice with which to speak. I do not doubt she will discover in short order that you and the others hide here. I cannot say how she will use that information.”

Steve blanched, and he heard a choked gasp come from Wanda behind him, “You think she might expose us in order to force you to give us up?”

T’Challa’s eyes flickered to the women standing behind him, who stood straighter under even that momentary regard, “It is not only you who I worry for, Captain, but yes.” T’Challa sighed, “There is also the matter of your friend.” Steve opened his mouth to speak, but T’Challa raised a hand to stop him, “I gave my word he would have safety here, Captain,” T’Challa’s eyes seemed to focus intently on Steve, “and my word and friendship mean much. But Pepper Potts is intelligent and persistent. And she grieves, Captain. She mourns the loss of her heart. You and I both know what a potent mixture grief and rage can be. And Pepper Potts has no love for you to stay her hand.”

Steve shook his head, “What are you getting at, Your Majesty?”

T’Challa’s gaze was heavy, but Steve refused to give any ground, “I mean to say, Captain, that a new huntress now stalks you. She is as keenly intelligent as Tony was, though in a different manner. Unlike Tony, she will not corner you and then let you escape to safety. She will not forgive you for your deceits. She will not rest, I judge, until she has doled out what she deems as justice.”

Steve could feel the gaze of the Avengers on his back, could hear the weight of knowledge in T’Challa’s words. They sent whispers of ice up and down Steve’s spine, “I won’t let it come to that. Pepper loved Tony, but she knows what he worked for. She wouldn’t step on Tony’s memory in order to avenge it.”

T’Challa sighed and stood up, walking past Steve, “We return to America tomorrow, Captain. Rest well before then.” The ladies who were guarding T’Challa surrounded him as he paused at the doorway, “And I would wait to make such claims, Captain, until you know her better.”

“It was confirmed early this morning that Iron Man, Doctor Anthony Edward Stark, was killed in an assault on the Avengers Compound in Upstate New York. Anthony Edward Stark was reportedly attacked in the early hours of the morning. The assailants were unknown, but Colonel James Rhodes and Vision have both vowed that they will put the full force of the Avengers behind finding the perpetrator and bringing them to justice. The details behind the attack are being investigated by the Avengers, but they’ve released information that the body of Tony Stark has been…damaged beyond hope of reconstruction, although there were enough of his remains to use DNA evidence to verify that it was in fact Dr. Stark.

“The death of Tony Stark has brought up questions about the fitness of the Accords. It has been no secret, in recent months, that the Avengers and an international coalition have been pushing to make the Accords more flexible. They have already succeeded in pushing through several dozen amendments through the UN, the most significant of which reduced the potential for abuse within the system of the Accords by divesting a great deal of decision making authority from the figure who would be working with the Avengers.

“The plan submitted by Tony Stark, and backed by his CEO and ex-girlfriend Pepper Potts, along with many other members of the business and international community, would have been for a panel of ten nations selected on a rotating basis from members of the United Nations General Council. An eleventh member of the panel would have been a member of the Avengers Initiative itself who would carry inherent veto power, thereby ensuring the Avengers would never be used for purposes they themselves did not endorse.

“President Ellis and Secretary Ross, however, formed a coalition to push back against those changes. In the wake of Tony Stark’s death, however, things have already begun to shift. Nations of the world including the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia, Germany, Wakanda, Japan, South Korea, Egypt, and Australia, to name only a few, have called on Secretary Ross and President Ellis to account as to how this was allowed to happen on American soil. Plans had been put forward, before Tony Stark’s death, to build multinational facilities in strategic locations around the world for Avengers use by the man himself, and those plans have been today approved by an emergency session of the UN as a start, and as what many see as a censure against the US.

“Secretary Ross has already drawn most of the fire in terms of questioning the fitness of the Accords, as his actions last year when he incarcerated several former Avengers without due process caused many nations to cry for stricter control and what they believed was wanton American arrogance. Secretary Ross was not immediately available for comment.

“President Ellis, on the other hand, has already said he is reviewing the incident and is deeply grieved that Tony Stark has passed. Many nations sent delegates to Stark Tower, the current de facto headquarters of the Avengers, to express their condolences, though no information was released to the public by Pepper Potts as to when or where Tony Stark’s funeral would be held.

“Whenever it may be, we here at MSNBC and the Rachel Maddow Show would like to extend our heartfelt sympathies to the friends and family of Tony Stark. While I have not always agreed with him, every time the man was presented with a choice, he made the choice for responsibility and accountability. I have been following the man’s actions, both as CEO of Stark Industries and as Iron Man, since the beginning of my career, and I say with certainty that the world as a whole is diminished with his loss.

“We’ll be back with more on the life of Tony Stark and the many impacts he’s made on the world stage after this commercial break.”

“Stark Industries stock has plummeted today in the wake of the news that Billionaire Industrialist and superhero Tony Stark was killed by anonymous attackers last night. The company stock has dropped to below $50.00 a share in the largest drop the company has seen since Tony Stark announced the end of weapons manufacturing in 2008.

“Curiously, though, one buyer in particular has been eating up the shares that have been sold in the wake of Tony Stark’s death. In the first economic show of force since its entrance onto the world stage in support of the Accords, the isolationist African Nation of Wakanda has been buying up almost ninety-five percent of shares that have been sold since the news hit. This has given Wakanda, or more accurately, T’Challa, the Monarch of Wakanda, at least ten percent of controlling shares in the company, and countless more nonvoting shares.

“Experts are divided as to the potential reason for Wakanda’s bold move in the US market. Could the Nation and her Monarch be showing their support for the Avengers? Could this be the beginning of an age of Wakandan Economic Imperialism? Could this be Wakanda attempting to control the purveyor of the world’s most advanced technology outside of its own? Theories abound, especially in wake of the news that the company has successfully opened several ArcEnergy plants not only in California, but in the rest of the United States, supplanting more traditional utility companies in a matter of months.

“We’ll be bringing several experts, both in economics and physics, to help explain the potential impact of Tony Stark’s death and the Wakandan buyout of Stark Industries shares, both to the global economy and the global energy market, after this commercial break.”

The funeral of Anthony Edward Stark took place on a sunny New York day at his childhood home, Stark Mansion. It had been renovated and modernized, at least on the inside, in order to prepare the mansion for the potential of housing more Avengers, Avengers related personnel, or Inhuman students for the Ho Yinsen Academy with nowhere else to go. Otherwise, the mansion had gone largely unused since the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark in December of 1991.

The funeral itself was closed to the press and was restricted to the friends and found family of the deceased. While Tony did not qualify for the Military Honors accorded by the United States, the Accords had included language allowing for an Avengers specific version to be instituted for the international military power.

So FRIDAY piloted the nine Iron Man armors through the sky, Mks I through VII flanked by War Machine and a new model, all sleek purple molded to an androgynous metallic form. The zip over the team of four carrying the empty casket to its resting place in the ground. They lacked any real body to put in the casket, and in its absence, they had placed the arc reactor from the armor Tony had fallen inside the casket, seated snugly on the velvet cushions.

T’Challa and Teela, both in the vibranium combat attire that doubled as ceremonial garb, Vision without clothing, and Rhodes in full military dress walked slowly with the casket on their shoulders. The only sound the four made, as they approached the crowd, was the mechanical whir of Rhodes’s leg braces, the last model Tony had developed for his friend before Tony had died. Along their path, the many dignitaries of the nations that had been saved or positively affected by the actions of Iron Man began to drape their flags over the casket.

The United Nations had been informed of the funeral ahead of time, and the delegates had chosen to come themselves to honor the man who had done so much for their nations. One by one the flags fell upon the coffin, and the growing pile of cloth was only held in place by the four Avengers who ensured the flags stayed atop the casket.

The United States, Canada, Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lagos, Wakanda, and many other nations Iron Man had gone to in order to rid them off terrorist weapons laid their national symbols atop one another. When the casket reached the end of the procession, just before the grave dug for it beneath a solid stone obelisk, the four Avengers placed the casket on the ground and arranged the flags so they were no longer in danger of slipping to the ground.

The Iron Man suits landed and held their hands to the air, preparing to give Tony a repulsor salute. The suits took up firing positions and fired into the air nine times in synch, the shots a tribute to the number of years Tony had served as Iron Man. The silence that fell over the mourners in the wake of the salute was suffocating as the scent of repulsors drifted in the breeze.

The assembled mourners were in varying states of disrepair as the casket was lowered stately to the ground. Harley Keener looked blankly forward, tears streaming from his eyes as they locked onto the casket, empty of even a body to mourn over. His mother stood behind him, and his sister as well, but it was Donald Gill and Peter Parker who stood beside him. Donald Gill’s eyes were shut tightly as visions of the man who had given him his life back flickered through his mind. His hands remained warm, though, where they rested on Harley’s shoulder, the touching just as grounding for Donald as they were for Harley. Peter did nothing to hide his grief, though the Spider-Man mask did much in that regard. Sobs could be heard echoing from the young man, and the delegates from the United Nations could feel the grief covering the young man like a cloud, even if they could not see the tears.

Peter had chosen to wear the mask and sneak away from home to attend the funeral in full uniform when Pepper had warned him that the renegade Avengers would likely be making an appearance. Peter was wearing the black suit Tony had prepared for him for covert ops, or if he wanted to blend in better at night. Peter hadn’t thought he would be using it for the first time like this.

Pepper had quickly gotten FRIDAY to inform her of Peter’s identity, as someone needed to know, but she had told Peter that what she did was up to him. If he wanted to continue his work as Spider-Man, she would support him in Tony’s stead. Pepper’s voice when she had told him that the renegade Avengers might be attending, smuggled safely in on a Wakandan quinjet, had held nothing but fire.

Peter looked up to Laura Bowman and her children, as well as Maggie Lang and Jim Paxton, along with their daughter. The conjoined families were devastated and lost, their protector having lost his life. Laura seemed to have regained much of her composure since the night they had gone to investigate the scene of Tony’s death. She stood, a pillar of strength, as her children gathered around her in their grief. Cooper and Lila were openly sobbing, and little Nathaniel let out soft little hiccups now and again, picking up on the general mood of the occasion. Nathaniel was approaching two, but had already imprinted upon Tony as one of his caretakers, and the loss had touched the small child just as keenly as the older children.

Cassie Lang had buried herself in Maggie’s black dress, soaking the front of it with salty tears as Paxton held the both of them close. Maggie Lang, too, had restored herself compared to the state she had been in when they had returned to the Tower the morning after Tony’s death. She and Laura and Pepper knew that they would need to be strong in the coming days. Pepper had filed them in on her plans, and they knew she wouldn’t be able to put them into practice without them. But they wouldn’t flinch from it. Tony and Pepper had reached out to them when they had been backed against the edge, giving them a path to safety where before they had been left with the terror that no one would be able to come for them.

A variety of Inhumans, too, attended the ceremony, all of them students from Ho Yinsen Academy. Tony and the Avengers had taken them from circumstances where their powers had been running rampant, almost turning children into murderers. But Tony and the Avengers had come for them, sometimes from homes that had once been warm but had turned into cold dens of fear, sometimes from places where home was a distant concept. Tony had come for all of them and given them a place to call their own and the protection and training they needed to learn about themselves and their powers.

And now the man who had been their safe harbor was ash and dust.

There were those who watched the procession from the shadows, as well, hidden around corners of buildings and out of sight. Steve and the renegade Avengers were keeping an eye on the proceedings from a distance, close enough that they could see the funeral, but far enough away that no dignitaries would be able to make them out. They were also situated on the roof of the Mansion, meaning anyone who spotted them would have to be looking up.

Clint saw the procession marching along, but his gaze was fixed on his wife and children. He longed to go to them and comfort them. A part of him was still angry that Tony had let them be imprisoned those months ago, but time had done much to quell his rage. More, it was difficult for Clint to find it in himself to feel anger towards the man who had sheltered his family when he could not, and who was now dead. There was little point in holding a grudge against a dead man.

Scott was in much the same situation as Clint. He was drinking in the sight of his daughter, who had buried her face in her mother’s dress. He knew he had lost the right to comfort her, the promise he had made to turn his life around being broken so spectacularly when he was on international watch lists as a terrorist. That didn’t keep him from wanting to be there for his little girl, though, to hold her as she wept the death of a man who had been willing to carve out a space for her in his life when Scott had been trapped in a cage made of his own choices. Scott, too, found it hard to feel the disgust and anger he had towards Tony in his time at the Raft and afterwards. It turned out Starks were only humans after all, not the monsters and terrors Pym had made them out to be.

Wanda was lost in a sea of confusion. She had hated Stark for most of her life, but after Ultron, had come to respect, and even like him. He had had no reason to trust her, but had been willing to put that aside and welcome her into the Avengers. Even during the mess with the Accords, he had tried to keep her out of it. Yes, he had done so by essentially locking her away in the compound, with Vision as her jailor, but after rebelling, she had found out why. She had seen into the minds of Ross and his men. There was nothing of Tony’s complicity in them. Only fear and anger and hatred of something that, if left rampant, could destroy and kill and maim. Tony’s mind, what she saw of it during the battle at the airport, had held fear, too. But it was fear for her, not fear of her. Now, she would never be able to get to the heart of the matter, to see the truth of who Tony Stark was.

Sam looked down on the procession, and though he felt terrible for it, something in him relaxed at the sight of Rhodes walking. Yes, it was with machine assistance, but the man was walking after his spine had been turned into confetti. Sam had often wondered how everything would have gone differently if he had taken that hit from Vision, if he had just glided down to the ground after his jets were taken out. Even further, sometimes, he wondered what would have happened if he had called Steve back to reality. Sam trusted Steve with all his soul, but he wondered, now, if perhaps things weren’t quite as clear cut as he and Steve had always thought. Looking at the broken man beside him, Sam knew that Steve was wondering the same thing.

Steve had no dress greens for the occasion, and Steve felt that, somehow, wearing the Captain America uniform would be a disservice to Tony, after their last physical encounter with one another, so the man was dressed in a black suit and slacks. Steve had wanted to honor Tony in the only way he had left, but was left wondering if that was enough. Steve was still resolute in his opinions regarding the Accords, but he had begun to regret that his panic for Bucky might have blinded him to compromise when Tony had come to him after apprehending them. No compromise would ever have been enough, but, maybe, he would have been able to convince Tony to see things for what they were. Tony was the only person he had ever met as stubborn as him, but Tony always listened to the facts, and Steve knew, that if he had let himself calm down and talk it out, he could have gotten through to him. Steve’s biggest regret was not giving Tony that chance, of being more obsessed with his past than concerned with the future. Having Bucky next to him meant the world, but Steve hadn’t wanted to sacrifice the lives of the people who had made the future real for him to get him there.

Bucky, too, was in attendance. T’Challa had been surprisingly open to the possibility. Bucky had been surprised when they had woken him up. He had felt empty when they told him why. Steve had told Bucky that it was his choice, if he wanted to go to the funeral or not. For Bucky, there had never really been a choice. He had killed the Stark family. Howard and Maria had died at his hands, even if not by his choice. Their son, he had killed by existing. He knew how Steve got when their backs were up against the wall or if there was a cause to fight for. Bucky had thought that Zola had wanted the other soldiers, their images half remembered things of terror in the back of his mind. But Bucky had been wrong, and Steve and Tony had borne the price for that, and the Avengers had been irrevocably split down the middle. And since they had been split, Tony had been all but alone, the most obvious and easiest target for anyone who wanted to exact revenge against the Avengers as a whole. Bucky may not have made the choice, but he had divided the Avengers, and one of them had fallen for it.

Below the renegade Avengers, in the shadow of the Mansion, Natasha Romanov watched one of the few people she had counted as a friend lain to rest. She knew Fury would have wanted to be here, but Natasha hadn’t had the time to inform Fury about the funeral and make it herself. Natasha had guessed long ago what had caused Tony to lose the plot in Siberia. She knew she probably didn’t have a right to be at the funeral, after letting Steve go at the airport, and also lying by omission to Tony about his parents’ deaths. But the dead wanted for nothing, and this was for her. Natasha was still plagued by her choice at the airport. She had let Steve go because she had known he would never have stopped. Would her mind have changed if she knew about the Soldiers? If she had stayed would she have been able to help Tony prevent Ross from imprisoning their friends? Would Tony still be alive now? Natasha was left only with questions, and another name in red in her ledger.

There was a change in the feeling of the silence around the funeral as Pepper Potts took the podium. There was a charge in the air as she looked next to the podium at Tony Stark’s bright smiling face, captured in a photograph beside her. The picture was placed on a table with his Iron Man helmet beside it. From the table hung a banner, dating Tony Stark’s life and with the epithet “I am Iron Man.” The silence burned as everyone waited for her to speak.

“I’ve known Tony Stark since he was twenty-two years old,” she began. “I was an intern fresh out of Harvard Business School, he had made a mistake in the accounts, and I marched up to his office to tell him so.” Pepper paused a moment, looking down and smiling, when she looked back up her face was filled with tears and memories, “I barged in on a meeting with him and Obadiah Stane. Told him about the mistake. Obadiah told me Tony Stark didn’t make mistakes with math, and I said that yes, yes he did.” Pepper shook her head, “He hired me as his Personal Assistant on the spot. He told me, afterwards, that he had put the mistake in the books on purpose. Wanted to see if anyone had the balls to tell him to his face that he’d done something wrong.”

Pepper took a breath, “What a lot of people never understood about Tony was that he was always challenging people and looking to be challenged. He came off as abrasive, as rude, as condescending, but that was a mask.” Pepper paused, “Well, some of it was a mask.” There was a smattering of strained laughter before Pepper continued, “Tony was constantly looking for people who he could connect with, who were willing to be there for him and be willing to call him out. But I think that was because he had so few people that he trusted. Even since before I knew him, Tony had been in the spotlight, and when I started working with him, I finally knew what that meant. He was always aware that someone could be watching, that someone could report to the media about what he was doing, what he was wearing, how he was acting. So he gave them what they wanted. He put on a show, kept everyone focused on the glitz and the glamour so he could do other things when people were distracted by the newest shiny headline.

“But that wasn’t all there was to Tony Stark. He had already started to make moves to diversify the company when he took over. He revolutionized the computer industry. But that changed on 9/11. I think a lot of people forget that he was in the Twin Towers when they went down. We weren’t high up in the South Tower, but we saw the first plane hit. But, while everyone was staring, Tony got us all together, and made us run down the stairs and out of the Tower. Told everyone to put their shirts or their blouses or whatever over the mouths when they got outside, and made sure company resources were on hand to help with the clean-up. The very next week, he approached the US Government with new plans for body armor the same time he started several charities for first responders, both in general and for those who were there at the towers when they went down.”

Pepper shook her head, “But most of the news outlets were going on and on about the fact that he was throwing parties in the wake of a national tragedy. But Stark Industries pivoted to arms and armor manufacturing even before the Senate voted for action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because Tony knew that it was inevitable, and he wanted our boots on the ground to be the best armed and best protected.”

Pepper sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, “And then Afghanistan happened to him.” Pepper’s eyes were closed as she spoke, “He came back, and he shut down weapons manufacturing, but he kept building the body armor. And the power armor.” Pepper opened her eyes again, “That was what made Tony shine brighter than so many other geniuses. He was always willing to take responsibility, sometimes too willing. If he saw a problem, if he saw someone who needed help, he would be there for them. For me, Tony wasn’t Iron Man, or a billionaire, or a genius, or a philanthropist, or even my ex-boyfriend.” Pepper took a gasping breath, her eyes beginning to tear up, “He was my guiding light, my North Star.” Pepper stepped back from the podium, cheeks wet with tears as she walked down to join Laura and Maggie, who dragged her into the assorted gaggle of children and family, all of whom surrounded her.

The Avengers began to fold the flags of the various nations that had been draped upon Tony’s casket. Pepper, Laura, Maggie, Peter, Donald, and Harley were each given a flag, with the others being placed in the casket alongside the arc reactor, where they would be able to remain clean while still honoring the man who had sacrificed for their nations. After this was completed, the four Avengers surrounded the casket and moved it over the hole in the ground, gradually lowering it down.

Once it was placed, all of Tony’s friends, led by Pepper, took a handful of loose soil and sprinkled it over the casket. The ceremony finished as the last of the Avengers sprinkled loose soil over the casket. The casket would be properly covered in soil later, but for now, everyone began to get ready to depart, with the various delegates getting ready to return to their embassies, and with Tony’s close friends getting ready to move into the Mansion for the bequeathments.

After the delegates left, and the rest of the mourners had moved inside, only Pepper and T’Challa were left outside, “Tell them to go inside. Tony apparently left something for them, as well.” Pepper said before turning away from T’Challa and heading into the mansion after the rest of the mourners. T’Challa sighed and brought the special com unit in his wrist to his mouth, to inform Steve and the other renegade Avengers to head into the mansion.

T’Challa prayed that it would end well.

Steve and the other renegade Avengers stepped into the living room of the mansion. The entire facility was done opulently, marrying the former elegant décor that had been a part of the mansion since its construction, and the modern technology that seemed to grow from everything Tony had touched. So, Steve wasn’t at all surprised when the doors swung open when he approached the living room, showing him a wall that was essentially a giant screen opposite plush leather couches with a fire place below it.

Steve and the renegade Avengers were less prepared for the soft sounds of tears coming from the children in the room. Steve, in particular, was definitely not prepared for the small form of Lila Barton launching herself bodily at him.

“You killed him!” Lila screamed, her face red and tears streaming down her face. She looked like she was going to try to claw his eyes out, but before Steve could move, or Laura or Clint could say anything, Spider-Man had already jumped in front of her, holding Lila back in a gentle but firm hug as she tried to squirm out Spider-Man’s grip to get at Steve.

“You let him die! I hate you!” Lila shouted between gasps and tears.

“Lila!” Clint shouted, moving towards his daughter.

“Get away from me!” Lila shouted, closing her eyes and turning away from Clint, who froze in place. Spider-Man quickly moved the girl back towards her mother, Lila screaming the whole way, “You left us! You left! And Uncle Tony is dead! I hate you!” Lila was becoming more and more difficult to understand the more she screamed, eventually her words devolving into things that were more sobs than words. It didn’t stop the words she had said from hitting Clint like a physical blow. Only when Lila buried her face in Spider-Man’s shoulder to cry in earnest did Clint move from whatever force had paralyzed him.

“Lila, sweetheart,” he said softly, inching his way closer to Spider-Man. Lila shook her head and buried herself further into Spider-Man’s arms. Spider-Man walked closer to Laura, keeping an eye on Clint as he backed away.

Clint choked for a moment, “Lila, please.” Lila shook her head again, and Clint turned to Cooper, “Coop, buddy?” Cooper blinked the tears in his eyes away before turning away from his father, saying nothing otherwise. Clint took another step forward, but that set off Nathaniel, who started crying. Clint had been absent a good chunk of Nathaniel’s life, and the child didn’t recognize his father in the slightest.

Clint looked shell shocked as Laura finally turned to Paxton, “Jim, could you take the kids back to the Tower? It’s been a long day for all of them, and they probably need the rest.”

Maggie nodded. Her eyes had speared Scott the moment the renegade Avengers had walked through the door, “Cassie, go back to the Tower with Jim, please.”

Jim’s eyes darted to the two fathers, looking at their children like a starving man looked at food, “Ok. I’ll take care of it. Spider-Man, bring Lila to the quinjet for me, please?” Jim said, ripping his eyes away from the looks of devastation on the two men’s faces. Jim didn’t know what he was feeling at the moment. He was sorry all around, though. He hoped that, one day, things would be patched up enough for the kids to get to see their fathers again in a good light. However, as Jim led the children out of the room and towards the garage, he doubted that would happen soon.

Jim exited out of the door on the opposite side of the room from where the renegade Avengers had entered, but neither Clint nor Scott moved towards their children. Their eyes told a different story, though. Scott was obviously devastated, his eyes following Cassie as she held Jim’s hand, even as Maggie had fixed him with a look that promised pain and suffering in the near future. Clint and Laura’s gazes had locked, Clint’s holding something fiery and pleading, while Laura’s was covered in a layer of ice.

“I think we should get started, if everyone’s here.” Pepper said, standing up. She gestured to another long couch that sat perpendicular to the one that she had been sitting on with Rhodey, Happy, Vision, T’Challa and Teela.

Harley and Donnie were sitting on another couch, where Spider-Man had also been sitting before having leapt up to intercept Lila before she could break her fist on Steve’s chin. Harley’s mother had left, taking herself and Harley’s sister back to the Tower after the funeral. They were here for Harley, but they had been informed by Pepper that the bequeathment dealt with potentially classified and proprietary information. Harley’s mother was confident, though, that her son would be alright. He had grown strong in the time since he had met Tony, and though she knew he was hurting, she had faith in her son.

Laura and Maggie moved to sit with Pepper, while the renegade Avengers chose the couch opposite Harley and Donnie’s. The three couches formed a U shape around the screen and fireplace, but also meant that Harley was glaring at the renegade Avengers as they sat down.

“Who’s the kid with the death glare?” Sam asked, trying to keep his tone light. Wanda was sitting next to him, alternating between staring at the ground and staring at Vision, who had only nodded at her when she had walked into the room.

Clint and Scott were seated on Wanda’s other side, the side of the couch closest to Maggie and Laura, though none of them were looking at one another. Steve and Bucky had chosen to stand, most of the couch space already taken up. Pepper’s gaze flickered between the two of them in a way that made Steve start casing the place for the potential exit and entry points, knowing Bucky was doing the same. Steve wondered if Pepper would stick to her word of waiting until everything about Tony’s funeral was finished before coming after them, and if she even could.

“My name’s Harley,” he said, eyes red and puffy as he glared murder at the renegade Avengers.

Steve coughed, “Is it alright for those two kids to be here? There might be some sensitive-”

“We have more of a right to be here than you do, after Sibera,” Donnie said, doing his best to keep his powers under control.

Steve and Bucky stiffened, and the other renegade Avenger’s looked to them with questions in their eyes. T’Challa closed his eyes after seeing Steve’s reaction, “Peace, Donald. And I believe we ought to wait for Spider-Man to join us. I have no doubt Tony left something for him as well.”

Pepper nodded, appearing to have heard nothing the renegade Avengers said or did, “You’re right, of course.”

The silence was thick as they waited for Spider-Man to return. Clint was trying to catch Laura’s eyes, but her gaze remained fixed on the screen, her hands clenching Pepper’s and Maggie’s for dear life. Maggie’s gaze was all for Scott, however, seemingly attempting to melt him with force of will. Scott wished he had his suit so he could shrink down to avoid his ex-wife’s gaze. As it was, he simply hunched over and tried to blend into the fancy leather couch. Vision and Wanda were communicating with their eyes and minds. Wanda was happy to find no blame or anger in Vision’s mind directed towards her or the other renegade Avengers, but there was something dimmed there as well. He was closed to her in a way she had never experienced before, and she mourned that loss.

Spider-Man came back after what seemed like an eternity. “Uh,” Spider-Man said as he jumped over the couch to sit next to Harley. “Yeah, okay, I’m back now, so can we, I don’t know, stop trying to glare each other to death?”

T’Challa nodded, “Excellent suggestion.”

Pepper coughed, “FRIDAY, start if you please.”

“Of course, Miss. Potts.” FRIDAY said.

A moment later, a full color hologram sprang to life in the center of the room, in space formed in between the couches and television, above the coffee table. It was fully life sized, and Pepper bowed her head and gripped Rhodey’s palm to center herself at the sight of Tony’s smile. Rhodey just closed his eyes, gripping Pepper’s hand just as strongly.

“Hey! So, if you’re watching this, um, it probably means I’ve kicked the bucket. So, uh, the rest of these recordings are going to be for individuals to tell you what, exactly, I’ve left everyone, if everything’s gone alright and the world hasn’t, I don’t know, been taken over by aliens or anything. FRIDAY has the recordings for everyone, and she’ll let you all know if she has a recording for someone who isn’t here at the moment. She’s also going to hand out any cash I may have left you all, so, yeah, I’m going to skip right over the whole money thing in your videos. Also, do not freak out, when she tells you. It’s yours. I’m not going to be around to use it. So yeah. Without further ado, let’s, uh, hand out my stuff!” Tony’s smile was strained, obviously unsure how to proceed while being alive and speaking of his potential death.

There was a flicker in the hologram, “Okay! Harold Hogan! Happy! My main man!” Tony’s smile was bright, even as he looked into the distance, not seeing any of them, “Yeah, I guess it was a good idea for you to switch over to head of security for SI, if I’m six feet under at the moment! But, I do have something for you. Been working on it ever since the whole mandarin thing.” Tony waved his hand and an Iron Man armor design appeared in the air next to him. It was bulky and stout, not quite the same as the hulk buster, but definitely meant to take a lot of punishment and dish it out, too. “This is the Pugilist Armor. No flight, but she can take even more punishment than the War Machine armor, get back up, and keep fighting! You could walk through a nuke in this baby and get back up. She has some cool toys, too, but she’s mainly going to be about her hand repulsors and fists, so a perfect fit for you. Also, left you that house in Maui that I know you love, so enjoy! Maybe take a certain special someone there, huh?” Tony winked, and Happy let out a choked laugh and buried his hand in his head, his shoulders shaking.

The hologram flickered again, “Okay! Pepper Potts! You’re my heart, even after everything, I want you to know that, first. I know that, uh, me dying is probably going to be hard, but I want you to be happy. And safe. Definitely safe. Also, there’s no one else I’d trust with my company more, so, I’m giving you half my voting shares for Stark Industries! That should put you at fifty percent and give you controlling interest. Along with that, there’s this baby,” Tony waved his hands and another armor design came to life, “I call it the Rescue Armor. I don’t think you’ll ever want to go into the superhero business, but, yeah. I just want you to be safe, even after I’m gone. She’s got flight, standard repulsor and beam cutter armaments. Main draw, though, is the shield emitters. I took a look at the portal device from New York. As of this recording, the tech is still in beta testing, but the Rescue has them on board, in whatever my latest designs are. Trust me, it was a bitch to figure out how to get it to work with the arc reactor. I love you, Pepper Pot, and not just as my girlfriend. I want you to be happy.” Pepper was openly sobbing by the end, needing to lean into Laura, whose shoulder was soaking up all the tears.

The hologram flickered again, still staring into the distance in the general direction of Pepper’s couch full of people, “Rhodey. I don’t even know what to say to you, to be honest. You’ve been with me since I was a teeny bopper Stark at MIT. You’re my soul, my guiding light, my best friend. The fact you’re listening to this means I’ve gone off and kicked the bucket first, but, for the first time, I hope I don’t get to see you for a long while, my friend. I know I’ve fucked up your life, and ah,” the recording of Tony interrupted Rhodey even before he started objecting, “I know you’re going to say I haven’t. I know you’re going to say you were doing what you thought was right. Blah blah blah. But, you were the first guy to see me for me, not Tony Fucking Stark, just Tony. Or Tony Stank. I’ve put you through so much crap, and I’m sorry for all of it. I love you. You’re my friend. See you on the other side, Platypus, just not too soon.”

Rhodey was laughing and crying, “Tony motherfucking Stank.” Rhodey closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose, trying to calm himself down, but the tears just kept on flowing. He didn’t know what to feel. Everything in him was empty. His brother was dead, and he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything, because everything was gone.

The hologram flickered, “Vision. Okay, so, I’ll just start by saying we have the weirdest relationship ever. I’m not sure what you consider yourself, but you were, to me at least, my weird gay lovechild with Bruce, and also my grandchild through JARVIS. I know you’re not JARVIS, but you are his son, and that makes you mine. You are my beautiful little robot baby. And I love you. I do. I know we haven’t always communicated the best way, and that things have been weird between us since everything with Rhodey, but I wanted you to know that I’m proud of you. There’s none of that ‘My greatest creation is you’ bullshit. I may have helped make you, Vision, but you’re your own person. I love you, not because of who I wanted you to be, or what I wanted Ultron to be – who I failed in a very different way, let’s be clear on that, and I wish I could have been there to save him from himself, even now – but because of who you are. Take care of yourself, kid. I love you.”

Vision stared at the hologram, his mind processing the words, the emotions, the feelings, all of it. For a moment, he was not sure how the others in the room were still in their skins, for he felt as if his would not fit all of him any longer. He was expanding, contracting, undulating with pain and grief and emotions he had never felt before, had no frame of reference for. It was a symphony of thoughts and emotions and colors and flavors in his mind, and he knew not what to feel or how. So he bowed his head and let himself feel without thinking, and wished he could cry.

The hologram flickered, “Laura. You and the little brood of doom have been,” Tony paused for a moment, “it’s been a journey. You taught me a lot, made me think. And so did they. I’m grateful I got to be a part of your life and theirs, and I want you, all of you, to be happy and safe in the future,” Tony’s pause was more significant than introspective, “no matter what you decide. So, I’m giving you some controlling shares in Stark Industries, five percent in total. That should set you and the kids up for a good long time. As for the rest, don’t worry about it, it should be handled. And, whatever blind spots I left, well, I guess I’m going to have to leave that to Pepper.” Pepper snorted, “So say thanks to her for me, if she’s not in the room now.”

Laura let out a little gasp, the tears welling up again. But she clenched her hands, still holding Pepper and Maggie’s, and willed the tears back. She knew Tony had trusted her. And she knew what she would do to honor that trust. Pepper had a good plan in place, and all she and Maggie had to do now was follow it.

The hologram flickered, “Maggie. So, you have definitely made my life interesting, what with forcing me to interact with children other than yours and the brood. The whole starting a school thing, helping kids, all of it. I’ve never thought I would like kids. I knew I would never be a good father. But you, and Laura, you two made me want to try. So, yeah, I’m giving you some Stark Industries shares, five percent in total. You and Jim and Cassie should be fine with that for a long time. Give Jimbo and Cassie some love for me.”

Maggie shook her head, eyes closed. She had only wanted to repay the man for what he had done for her and Jim and Cassie. She had never imagined they would get to this point. She hoped that, wherever Stark was now, he was happy. The man deserved that much.

The hologram flickered, “T’Challa. I’d say you were my favorite kitty cat, but Teela would probably dig up my corpse and kick my ass, so you are one of my favorite kitty cats. There. But, it’s been an honor to fight by your side, work on the Accords with you, all of it. I didn’t put it in Maggie’s message, but I’m leaving more than a little bit of money for the Ho Yinsen Academy and for helping those Inhumans, kids or otherwise. I know that really wasn’t your bag, but Maggie and Pepper are going to need help on that front, and I hope you can give it to them. Thank you for everything, T’Challa. I’ll be sure to tell your dad you said hi.”

T’Challa’s face was inscrutable underneath his mask, which he had yet to take off. He did, however, bow his head for a moment, and Teela could hear the traditional prayer used to send off a warrior. Only she could see, however, the tension running through the frame of her king, the grief etched into his shoulders, the pain sculpted along his back.

The hologram flickered, “Teela. Hello, my absolutely favorite kitty cat, bar absolutely none! If T’Challa is in the room, please remind his Royal Fluffiness that it is against, I don’t know, good manners to dig up my corpse and kill me again. And, also, that is totally a dog thing, anyway. But, yeah. You were a breath of fresh air, when it came to Wakanda. There’s always a lot more to learn about the world, and I’m glad you were there to show me about it. And to teach me some killer moves. Even if I’m sure my kidneys were permanently bruised, after that one time. Take care of T’Challa for me, and everyone else, too. There’s no one I’d trust more with my family than you.”

Teela straightened, bowed her head, and muttered a prayer of her own. Her first priority would always be Wakanda and her King, but for Tony’s dying wish, she would happily give her life to protect those he had fought for. She could think of no higher honor than being accorded with such trust by a man who had trusted so few, and yet who had earned the trust and respect of not only her king, but her as well.

The hologram flickered, “Spider-Baby! I actually recorded two messages for you! This one is set to play in the event that, uh, people are around. So, no identity spoilers from me. Promise. FRIDAY’s going to make sure the spoilery one is loaded onto your wrist projector, so you can watch that one later, maybe with headphones so certain people do not overhear. Also, there will be no physical image of me, with the projector, so no lip reading by any unsavory types. But, anyway, yeah. You are one amazing person of indeterminate age. Spending time with you, and the rest of the Stark Scouts – yes, I know that’s what you call yourselves, I just chose to ignore it – has been some of the best times in my life, and I partied with Hugh Heffner, back in the day. You have a lot of power. But, instead of telling you to use it responsibly, I’m going to say this: you already know how. To prove it, I’m giving you unlimited access to my private servers. The only other people to get this are Pepper and Rhodey, for now. And, also, five percent voting shares for Stark Industries. This is me trusting you, kid, because you deserve it, and I know you’re going to do the right thing with it. I’m proud of you.”

Spider-Man shook, the black material of his mask and suit hiding the wet spots that were growing ever larger. Harley bumped his shoulder into Spider-Man, who leaned onto Harley in turn. Inside the mask, Peter vowed to stay true to his responsibilities, to do good with his powers, and to show that he was ready for the trust Tony had given him so freely.

The hologram flickered, “Donnie! Senior Stark Scout! Yes, I know about that, it is a name both hilarious and fear inducing for yours truly. I just want to start by saying I couldn’t be prouder of you. I’ve only known you a while, but the progress you’ve made, with everything, has been phenomenal. You have the will, you have the brains, and I believe in you, kid. And, stranger still, I trust you. So, I’m giving you unlimited access to my private servers. There are plenty of designs on there, both for the Avengers and for Stark Industries, where I hope you’ll be working soon. You’ll know what to do with them, and I’m sure Harley and Spider-Scout will be there to give you a hand. Speaking of Stark Industries, I’m also giving you five percent voting shares for the company. So, yeah, money’s not an issue. Go out into the world again, Donnie. It’s yours for the taking.”

Donnie felt something warm blossom in his heart. Donnie had only known Tony for less than a year. Yeah, he had worked with the guy all the time, and Tony had always been willing to be there for him, whether with BARF or with his own projects, but he hadn’t expected this. Donnie bowed his head and clenched his fists as he vowed that he would make Tony proud. Donnie wasn’t afraid any more. HYDRA was gone from his head, and he would go out, just like Tony wanted, and show the world what he was capable of.

The hologram flickered, it’s expression somewhat reluctant, “Harley. Hey, kid. Uh, as of this recording, you’ve already applied to MIT. I’m sorry I won’t see that you got in, but I know you will. I’m so proud of you, Harley, so so proud. We met under strange circumstances, but we are connected, kid. I could never replace your dad, but I’ve wanted to. So many times I’ve wanted to. If I were going to have an heir, Harley, I wanted it to be you. So, I’m giving you and the rest of the Stark Scouts – that name, by the way, will haunt me in the afterlife – unlimited access to my personal servers. All of my armor designs. The arc reactor. All of my old weapons designs and hundreds of things besides. It also gets you access to my blueprint vault, back in Malibu, where I kept things that I didn’t want on any computer. FRIDAY, now that she’s gotten her upgrades, should be able to scan and defend them like no one else ever can. But I trust you with them. I trust your little elf troupe with them. I’m also giving you five percent controlling shares in Stark Industries, so paying for MIT, or for anything ever again, shouldn’t be much of an issue. Pepper’s going to get the company back up after my death, I’m sure.” The hologram paused for a moment, “I love you so much, Harley. Be happy.”

Harley couldn’t keep the tears from falling, shaking silently as Donnie and Spider-Man wrapped their arms around him. If he had had the choice, he would have wanted Tony to be his dad, too. But Harley could only carry on what Tony had started. Harley would go to MIT, excel in his classes, get his bachelors, get his PhD. But as Harley opened his eyes and saw the renegade Avengers, sitting across from him, not a care in the world, uncaring about international law or the millions of people who were afraid of them, Harley vowed that he would carry on the rest, too.

The hologram faded for a moment. “I have one general message for the renegade Avengers, and one for Steve Rogers, and one for Bucky Barnes. Would you like me to play all of them, or only a few?” FRIDAY asked. Her voice was utterly professional without being antagonistic, but something in it sent a shudder down the spine of Steve.

Steve looked to the renegade Avengers, seeing them nod, he took in a deep breath, “All of them, please.”

Tony’s hologram reappeared a moment later, “Alright. Hey, guys. Uh. So, I doubt any of you are ever going to see this, but I’ll make one, just in case. First off, about the whole Raft thing, that was not supposed to happen to you, and I’m sorry that it did. Clint, I know you miss your kids, and I tried to protect them best I could. Scott, which is apparently your name, same to you. I never wanted things to get this far, and neither you nor your families deserved what Ross was going to do to them, so I made sure he couldn’t touch them. Wanda, you probably don’t want to hear anything from me at all, after everything, but I’m going to say it anyway. I’m sorry for putting you in a cage. I was afraid, and I let that get the better of me. I hope you can believe me when I say that I was afraid for you, not of you, and that I wanted to protect you, though I can say I probably – okay, definitely – did it the wrong way. Sam, I know you don’t think I’m one for apologies, but I’m sorry that you were put in this position, too. You’re a good man. The popsicles get…their own message. I have something else to say to them. I’m not sure if anyone else should be in the room for it, but that’s up to all of you.”

The renegade Avengers paused for a moment, most of them taken off guard by the apology. Wanda, though, bowed her head. She had known, from the beginning, what Stark had meant and what he had wanted. It was good of him to apologize, but she owed him one, too. Not just for failing to trust him during the fight over the Accords, but also for all the worlds she had flung at him during the disaster with Ultron. No one got up to leave, though.

Steve swallowed. He knew what was coming, “Play the messages, please.”

The hologram flickered, and when it looked up, it’s eyes were sad, “James Barnes. Alright. You killed my mom.” There were gasps from the renegade Avengers, who turned to stare at Bucky and Steve, “I want to hate your guts for that. I’m not sure if I wanted to kill you or not, in that bunker in Siberia, after I found out. Part of me did, or I wouldn’t have snapped like that. I don’t want to kill you now, though. As for whether or not I still blame you,” the hologram of Tony sighed, “I can’t say I know. I know what it’s like to be driven by fear, or guilt. I know what it’s like to have your head twisted,” Wanda jolted in her seat at those words, “and I know that there are things that are done we’re responsible for that we don’t know about or remember. Believe me. You and the itsy bitsy spider have ledgers, but I have statistics. My weapons leveled cities, towns, villages,” the hologram’s fists were clenching, “and I didn’t know a thing about it, for almost two decades. It’s not an excuse, and it shouldn’t be one for you either. But I know your side of the argument, and, now that I’ve got some distance, maybe I can give you something. I developed the BARF technology to help with mental trauma, the death of my parents in particular. But I’ve recently worked it to also help with brainwashing and trigger implantation. I’m sure this is full of symbolism or something, but I don’t give a fuck. It’s yours. FRIDAY can give you the schematics so the Wakandans – yes, I know where you’ve been hiding. It wasn’t that hard to find out – can build you one. T’Challa’s got the resources.” The hologram’s face scrunched up, “I forgive you.”

Bucky felt something wet trail down his face, and reached up to feel the tears rolling down from his eyes. He had never thought that Tony would forgive him, let alone give him the technology to give him his mind back. Bucky didn’t know how he could repay that sort of kindness, or even if he was worth it. Steve clasped a hand on his shoulder, a smile teasing at Steve’s lips. Steve had always known that Tony was a hero, even if there were some things that they disagreed on.

Neither of them registered the gazes of the room. Lost in the possibility of Bucky’s freedom, they also did not notice the narrowing of Pepper Potts’s eyes.

The hologram flickered, “Steve. Captain America.” Steve’s head flew up to stare at the hologram. Its eyes were burning as it stared into the middle distance, “You, Steve Rogers, are an asshole. Your fucking letter was bullshit. Mr. Secrets are Bad actually didn’t tell me the truth about how my parents had died? I back tracked how you might have found out, combed through the reports you and Romanoff submitted and found out about Zola. You knew since you found him. You and Romanoff. You knew for years and you didn’t tell me!” The hologram was shouting now, face red and blotchy, “I trusted you, for fuck’s sake. You were my idol! I grew up with Aunt Peg and Dad shoving stories down my throat about how fucking heroic you were! I dressed up as you ever fucking Halloween! My room was covered in posters and figures and memorabilia!”

The hologram laughed, and the sound was wet and hoarse and sent Steve back to that horrible laugh over the phone right before Tony died, “Hell! I fucking jerked off to your posters! You were my first gay crush, did you know that? Rhodey can tell you, he caught me doing it. Let me tell you, the hellicarier blew that teenage crush out of the water real quick.

“God, Steve. You were everything I was taught to be growing up. The only time Dad would give me the time of day was to talk about you. Aunt Peggy’s favorite thing was to tell me stories about you to put me to bed. I just,” the hologram shook its head, “I don’t know, Steve. I mean, yeah, I get why you lied. Yeah, I get why you wanted to keep Bucky safe, and I even get why you thought the Accords were a bad idea. I get it. I do. I’m the man who told Congress to fuck itself when they wanted my armor.” The hologram shook its head and righted itself, “But this isn’t about that. I mean,” there was a bitter laugh, “if you’re watching this, then,” the hologram shook its head. “None of that matters. I’m giving you and Barnes what you need to get HYDRA out of his head for good. The BARF, if you haven’t watched Bucky’s video with him. FRIDAY will get you what you need. Just. Goodbye, Cap.” The hologram brought its hand up to cover its face as it faded out of view.

The room was silent. T’Challa and Teela were staring at Steve, as were Sam, Scott, Wanda, and Clint. Steve had buried his head in his hands. He hadn’t wanted to hear that, any of that. He had heard, from Peggy, that Howards hadn’t been the father he should have been, when he talked to her about Tony on her good days. Hell, there were even times when she talked about “her boy” visiting her. He envied that time he and Peggy had together, but it put into perspective just how much Steve had always been a part of Tony’s life even if Tony had only recently become a part of his. And an important part, too. Steve did care for Tony. Tony had always been willing to go the distance for him, for the team. Tony’s loyalty to them had never been a question. And now this was how things were ending.

“He’s telling the truth,” Wanda said, her voice shaky. “You knew. You knew the whole time, but never told him.”

Steve looked up at her, and sighed, “I did.”

Sam was staring at Steve as if seeing him for the first time, “What the fuck, man?”

“I wanted to protect-” Steve shook his head, “It was selfish of me. I see that now.”

Scott shuddered and turned away.

Clint stood up, staring at Steve as if he had grown two heads, “You see that now? You fucking see it? What actually happened in Siberia, Steve? We know he went there to help you. What happened?”

Steve wrung his hands, but it was Harley who spoke, “Zemo showed him a video of Barnes killing his parents.” Everyone’s heads turned to Harley. “Yeah. I know about it. I saw it, when Tony put on his own BARF rig. So did Spider-Man and Donnie. We saw Bucky bash Howard Stark’s head against-”

“Enough!” Steve shouted, standing up. He was gasping for air in a way he hadn’t since he was a kid, “That,” Steve licked his lips, “that wasn’t Bucky.”

Harley looked unfazed by the image of Captain America staring him down, “Maybe not. But you’re the person who knew about it and lied.”

Steve stood straighter, “It was selfish of me, I already said that.”

Donnie snorted, “Do you even hear yourself? Did you even apologize about it?”

Steve turned his gaze to Donnie, “I wrote him a letter.”

“I have a scan of said letter in my database. The word ‘sorry’ appears exactly once, after you come to the realization that you spared yourself rather than Boss with regards to the secret of his parents’ deaths.” FRIDAY’s voice was clinical, but there was an undercurrent of something that reminded Steve of the way Ultron had spoken about Tony.

“That was private,” Steve said, glaring at the ceiling because that was the only location he could think to use to address FRIDAY.

“I believe enough is enough.” T’Challa said, rising, “I believe there are many here who would speak privately with one another. Perhaps it is time we let them do so?”

Maggie snorted, “I don’t need privacy,” she turned to Scott. “Don’t ever come near my daughter again, Scott.”

The blood drained from Scott’s face, “Maggie, please-”

Maggie held up her palm, “No, Scott. I told you to clean up your act if you wanted to be near Cassie. After the whole Ant-Man thing, I thought you might have a chance. And then, you go and do this,” Maggie waved to the assembled renegade Avengers. “Do you know Jim lost his job because of you? They didn’t want anyone in the force who was connected to an international criminal. Cassie got thrown out of school based on bullshit because her last name was Lang. The only reason we weren’t thrown out of our house and were able to keep going was because Tony cleaned up your mess.”

Scott got off the couch and onto his knees, “Maggie, I’m sorry. I’ll do better, I’ll sign, I’ll do whatever it takes. Please. Don’t take Cassie from me.”

Maggie’s face was carved from marble, “I didn’t do anything, Scott. You were the one who broke the law. Give me a good reason, Scott. Give me a good reason why becoming an international criminal was a good thing.”

Scott swallowed and looked at the ground, “The Accords were wrong, Maggie.”

Maggie stood up, “The Accords were an international document written over months, if not years, designed to hold people with power accountable, Scott. And then, if that wasn’t enough, Pepper and Tony and T’Challa have been working this entire time to make sure they’re worked so people can’t just make the Avengers their attack dogs. Tell me, Scott. Tell me what was wrong with them. Tell me what was wrong that couldn’t have been fixed if you had sat down at a table and talked!”

Scott looked up into Maggie’s eyes, “I can’t.”

Maggie was silent for a moment, “Then why should I let you near my daughter, Scott?”

Scott held her gaze, “Because I can change. I chose wrong, Maggie. Let me choose right.” Scott didn’t wait for his reply, but walked over to Rhodey, T’Challa, and Vision, “I want to turn myself in.”

Rhodey just stared for a moment, “You’ve got a lot of nerve. Doing this here. Now.”

Scott bent his head, “It’s all I can do.”

Rhodey wound up his arm to punch Scott in the mouth, but Vision held up a restraining hand on Rhodey’s arm, “Very well, Mr. Lang. There are specialized containment facilities here, in the Tower, and in Malibu. We will communicate to the UN that we have taken you into custody and are working towards your rehabilitation and reintegration into the Avengers. The Good Samaritan clause that Anthony worked towards before his death can be used to expunge your previous criminal record, as long as your past intentions are proven to be in the best interests of the people, or your future actions hold up to the same scrutiny.”

T’Challa quickly nodded, “As long as at least half of the Avengers agree, we can put you before the United Nations Council. While it is best we do not rush this, if given an opportunity, I believe we can clear your name.”

Scott let out a rattling breath that echoed in the silence, “Whatever it takes.”

Maggie turned away from Scott. If her ex-husband was willing to go the distance, she would try to meet him half way. Starting at a man’s funeral wasn’t in good taste, and certainly wasn’t a good sign, but Maggie had pushed him, and he had broken, so she wasn’t too surprised.

Laura, for her part, simply walked over to Clint, reaching into her purse to pull out a manila envelope and hand it to him. Clint was half tempted to just drop the envelope and hug his wife, but had a feeling that wouldn’t be welcome at the moment. So he opened the manila envelope and took out a stack of paperwork.

“What is this?” Clint whispered, the words torn from him as he leafed through the papers in his hands, crushing them with the strength of his grip.

“It is what it is, Clint.” Laura said, her voice dead.

Clint started shaking, and Sam, Wanda, Steve, Bucky, and Scott moved to see what was in his hands. It was a copy of Laura’s new identity, as well as those of the children. All of them had been given new identities. Nowhere did any of the papers mention a Clint Barton. He had been written out of their histories as surely as Laura had once been written out of existence, for her protection and the protection of their children.

“We’re married,” Clint whispered.

Laura remained impassive, “I never got married. My name is Laura Bowman, single mother of three. Their father hasn’t been in the picture for the last year.” Something flickered in the depths of Laura’s eyes before it was quickly smothered, “But even if I were married to you, Clint. Even if I were the woman who loved her husband enough to give up her identity and any proof she ever existed for her husband’s job. Even if I were the woman who loved her husband enough to give up her career so her husband could do his job. Even if I were the woman who loved her husband enough to wait at home and take care of the kids every day for her husband to come home. Even if I were that woman, and that woman’s husband promised her that he was done and then went and threw himself into a fight he had no business being in because he was supposed to be retired. Even if I were that woman, Clint, I would still want nothing to do with you.” Laura’s voice was all rage by the end, barely bottled up and bubbling underneath the surface.

Clint shook his head, “I never wanted to put you in danger, you know that. We were still married. We are still married. Please don’t do this.”

Laura shook for a moment, and her face turned a blotchy red, as if she were going to explode with words damned up over the past year. She deflated, suddenly, her voice going back to its lifeless monotone, “It’s already done, Clint. Don’t come near me or my children again.”

Clint crumpled to the floor, “Laura. Don’t do this. I love you.”

Laura’s face was ashen white, but her voice was firm as she spoke, “Then why did you go? You knew what was going to happen. Why did you leave?”

“Cap called and I just,” Clint shook his head, “Cap told me what Tony did to Wanda, what the Accords were about, and I panicked. I didn’t want them coming for me. For us.”

“You were retired, Clint. Try again.” Laura’s voice had taken on an ugly edge, “Or did you just go to rescue the damsel in distress that Tony was keeping in a tower?”

Clint stood up, reaching to hold Laura, only for her to step away, “No, Laura, honey, it was never anything like that. I swear.”

“You never called, Clint. You never sent a letter. No message through T’Challa. A whole year of nothing. What am I supposed to think?” Laura’s voice was soft, back to its usual cadence.

“I made a mistake,” Clint said, calmer now, “I’ll fix it. Just like Scott. Let me fix it. Let me see you and the kids again. Please, Laura. You’re still my wife and I love you.”

Laura sighed, “I’m heading back to the Tower, Pepper. I want to be with my children.”

And she walked away.

Clint choked back a sob as he watched her leave. Maggie shook her head, reaching over to Pepper to brush her hand along Pepper’s shoulder, “I’m going to go with her, Pepper. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”

Pepper nodded, “I don’t think she’s good to drive right now, either. Be safe. I’ll be home soon.”

Maggie nodded before heading out herself, not sparing a glance for Scott as she left.

“Let me turn myself in,” Clint begged, spinning to face Vision and T’Challa, fire in his eyes, “I’ll do time. I’ll rehabilitate. Whatever. I don’t care. If it’ll get Laura to trust me again, I’ll do it.”

Rhodey rubbed his hand against his face, “You must be fucking kidding me right now.” Pepper and Happy went over to him and leaned against him, sharing their grief. They were soon joined by Spider-Man, Harley, Donnie, and Teela, who shook her head at the sight of the men facing the consequences of their choices. The seven of them were content to remain apart, grappling with their grief, as the drama unfolded.

Vision and T’Challa traded a glance, “We will do all we can, Clint,” Vision said softly, “but you must repair your relationship with your wife on your own.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to do that when she won’t even talk to me?” Clint shouted. “God, she won’t let me see my kids, she barely looks at me, and she gave me this fucking pile of shit!” Clint threw the legal paperwork declaring him essentially a stranger in the lives of his own children. “How did this happen?”

The silence stretched, no one with an answer that would help assuage Clint’s grief. Eventually, though, T’Challa spoke, “I believe it is time for those of us who can to return to Wakanda. Captain Rogers, you and Barnes will still have sanctuary in my land.”

Steve let out a shuddering sigh of relief. He knew he would have to deal with the revelation of the death of Tony’s parents with his team. He probably should have told them what happened in Siberia earlier, but it had felt private, between him and Tony and Bucky. Perhaps that was simply his protective instincts flaring up again, though. They had cost Steve a lot. And, perhaps, it was time to see if that might be changed. Tony had obviously worked hard to make the Accords work in the aftermath. Maybe, if he had sat down from the beginning, none of this, with Scott, with Clint, with Tony, would have happened at all. “Thank you, Your Majesty. That means a lot.”

T’Challa met Steve’s gaze, “I am a man of my word, Captain.” Steve flinched back from the look. He could see that the revelation about Siberia had lowered the worth of his character, in the King’s eyes. But the King was a man of his word, and they had been promised asylum, and Steve was grateful for that. He still owed Wanda and Sam an explanation, however. They deserved that, after everything.

“FRIDAY, if you could load the schematics for Tony’s BARF technology, we will-” T’Challa said, only to be interrupted by Pepper.

“Belay that, FRIDAY.” Pepper’s voice was serene as she turned back to the Avengers, renegade and otherwise. Her focus, though, was all for Bucky.

“Miss Potts?” FRIDAY asked.

T’Challa was staring at her, and Steve felt something cold inch up his spine at the way Pepper eyed Bucky, “The BARF technology is not Tony’s to give away, I’m afraid. Some of his patents are considered proprietary Stark Industries technologies. The BARF is included in this.”

T’Challa’s eyes widened, “Pepper. You are not serving Tony by choosing this course of action.”

Pepper ignored T’Challa, Teela placing a restraining hand on her king’s shoulder when he began to move towards her. Pepper’s focus was still entirely on Bucky, who was beginning to feel trapped. If Tony’s last message had lifted a weight from his shoulders, Pepper Pott’s announcement had dropped a mountain on top of him, “Stark Industries does not make deals with terrorists, former Superheroes or veterans or not. The BARF technology is proprietary. End of discussion.”

Steve was shaking, “Pepper, please. I know Tony and I didn’t end on the best of terms-”

“Best of terms?” Pepper’s voice was flat. “You left him to die in Siberia after destroying his arc reactor. What would you have done, Steve, if he had still required the arc reactor to live? What would you have done if he had gotten frost bite? If he hadn’t had a back-up power source to call for help, he would have died there, alone, starving, and with his last memories being of his parents’ killer. Forgive me if I’m not feeling terribly charitable.”

Steve swallowed, “I made mistakes Pepper, I did. I’m sorry. I’ll say it a thousand times, but please don’t take this out on Bucky.”

Pepper’s smile was sharp, “Of course you apologize when your stubbornness threatens Bucky. I think it best you and the other renegade Avengers leave, for now. We’ll find you soon enough.”

Steve straightened, “Tony may have left you an armor, Pepper, but that doesn’t mean you know how to pilot it. You’re not an Avenger.”

Pepper tilted her head, “No, Captain, no I’m really not. I’m not your friend. I’m not your ally. I’m not your teammate. So, when I say I’m going to come for you, I mean it. I’m going to come for you, I’m going to come for Bucky, and I’m going to come for the rest of your team. And when I’m done, Captain, I promise you, you will wish you had gone with Tony the first time.” Pepper had never once looked away from Bucky, her eyes focused on him the entire time. Bucky felt a shiver go up and down his spine at the words. He had killed a lot of people. He was the Winter Soldier, and he was James Buchanan Barnes. He had lived through World War II. He knew what danger looked like, and right now, danger was a five foot something red haired dame in high heels.

Steve moved to stand in between Pepper and Bucky, forcing Pepper to meet his gaze instead, “This wasn’t what Tony wanted. I made mistakes, Pepper. I don’t know what more you want from me.”

Pepper’s eyes narrowed, “Tony can’t want anything. He’s dead. And the only thing I want for you, Captain, is to face the justice you ran away from. You’re an international terrorist, and you need to be stopped. If I have to be the one to put you down, then-” Pepper paused when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to find Teela meeting her gaze.

Teela sighed, “There is much yet to be done, Pepper. My King and I need to return home. We will return soon.”

Pepper closed her eyes and let a long breath out through her nose, “You’re right, of course,” she said at last. “I have a dozen things that need to be done. I’ll be seeing you again soon, Teela, T’Challa,” Pepper’s voice was soft and deadly as she looked at the renegade Avengers, “Ladies and Gentlemen. Using the terms loosely, of course.” And then she was striding towards the exit, Spider-Man and Donnie on her heels. Harley, however, stayed behind a moment. The look in his eyes gave Steve pause. Steve had seen that look more than once, and it had always meant trouble.

After a moment, Harley turned and left as well. Vision and Rhodey escorted Scott and Clint out another door, leaving Steve alone with what remained of his team and T’Challa and Teela. They left and boarded the quinjet in silence, only broken when they were in the air and back on their way to Wakanda.

“Do you think you’ll be able to get the BARF system from SI? You’re a shareholder now, aren’t you?” Steve asked. Tony had left him this, a gesture of forgiveness in his final hour. That, and Tony’s call, were all Steve had left now of the man.

T’Challa turned around, taking his helmet off, “We will see. I will do my best to ensure that Tony’s will is carried out, no matter Pepper’s interpretations. That being said, I believe you now have some idea of the lengths to which she will go.”

Steve paused, “You don’t think she can actually go through with it, do you?” T’Challa shook his head and turned back to the controls and Steve heard a soft snort from Teela.

“That broad was pissed, Stevie.” Bucky said, his voice soft, “And she’s dangerous. I think she’d be dangerous even without the armor.”

“What about everything else, Steve?” Sam asked, voice quiet as he looked up at Steve. “You knew the entire time about Tony’s parents, and you never told him? He said you probably knew since Zola. Was he wrong?”

Steve swallowed and sat down. He had known this day would come. He wondered why he hadn’t told his team earlier. Maybe he was still trying to protect himself, to preserve what he had left in this time after he had sacrificed so much for his past, “He was right. About this, at least, he was right.”

Sam’s laugh was dark as he leaned back in his seat, hands rubbing over his face, “And what else was he right about, Cap? What else was he right about that we didn’t look at?”

Steve shook his head, “I don’t know about that. I was wrong, I said that. I made my mistakes,” Steve bowed his head, “and I’m paying for them.”

Wanda shut her eyes, “We all are, Captain. Though it appears Stark paid most of all.” Wanda’s eyes opened and she looked at Steve, “Why didn’t you tell us? When we arrived at Wakanda, you had time. Why not tell us everything that had happened?”

Steve’s fists were clenched in his lap, “It was Tony’s to tell. I had,” Steve sighed, “I had already made so many mistakes. I didn’t know how to tell some of it without the rest, and I just didn’t know where to go from there.”

Bucky clapped Steve on the shoulder, “You made a mistake, Stevie. You owned up to it, now, but you need to stop making it.”

Sam sighed, “I’m still here for you, Cap. You’re a good man, and I trust you. You made a mistake, and,” Sam leaned forward, “and, let’s be real, there isn’t going to be any coming back from it. Tony’s dead. Nothing is going to change that.”

Steve felt a lane pierce his heart at the words. Steve wasn’t sure if it had fully set in yet, for him, that Tony was gone. He had heard Tony die, heard Tony’s last words. For all the people that he had loved, Tony had called him, rather than them. Tony had called him to give him closure at the last second. Steve wasn’t sure if he deserved that.

“Where do we go from here? If Pepper Potts is really coming for us, will we be safe in Wakanda?” Wanda asked.

T’Challa spoke up, finally, “She may try. I can promise I will do my best to keep her from you. I said you would have asylum and asylum you shall have. There may be ways to circumvent her attempts. We shall have to see.” T’Challa turned around, “In the meantime, however, there is something I would ask of you.”

Steve nodded, “You’ve done a lot for us, T’Challa. What can we help with?”

T’Challa frowned, “I do not wish to see Tony’s killers remain at large. Pepper Potts seems to be focused on the Avengers, rather than the killers. I would take a different approach. Can I count on your team to find the truth behind his death?”

Steve felt a jolt of electricity run through him. He could do that. For Tony, he could find out what had happened to bring down Iron Man. He could Avenge his friend. Maybe, then, he would be worthy of Tony’s forgiveness.

“You can count on us,” Bucky said, before Steve could speak.

Steve stared at Bucky, and Sam looked gob smacked. T’Challa merely arched an eyebrow, “Are you sure you are ready for that? We are likely to go up against the many headed beast that has been the source of so many of your ills.”

Bucky shook his head, “Stark died because he was alone. I’m not gonna be. And it’s the least I can do, for him, after everything.”

Sam sighed and shook his head, but said nothing. T’Challa merely inclined his head. “I will take you at your word, then, Mr. Barnes.”

Teela leaned towards T’Challa to speak softly in Wakandan, but Steve was focused on his new mission now. “Are the rest of you with me?” Steve asked what remained of his team.

Sam looked between Bucky and Steve, “This won’t make anything better, Cap. You know that right?”

Steve looked down, for a moment, and then met Sam’s eyes, “I have to try, Sam. I’ve made enough mistakes. I need to try and fix at least one of them.”

Sam shook his head, “I’m not sure about this, but I’m with you, Cap.”

Wanda nodded, “We’ve all made mistakes, Captain. I know more than a few of mine are related to Stark. I’m with you.”

For the first time since his fight with Tony had begun, Steve felt like things might turn out alright. He might be able to fix this. He could Avenge Tony, and show the world the Avengers didn’t need leashes. He could show them that they were stronger when they were left to do what they knew was right. He could make Tony’s sacrifice worth something, could earn the forgiveness that Tony had given him so freely, and maybe earn Pepper’s trust, to help with Bucky if nothing else.

It would be worth it.