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The Shawarma Stop, as Clint had drowsily referred to it as, had not been all that it was crack up to be. Not that the food was bad, it just wasn’t good either, especially when one had already had shawarma from a Lebanese street vendor in Lebanon. Compared to the food-chain version which restaurant tried to pawn off as authentic, there was no comparison. The food-chain knockoff of authentic foods could never get the same tastes as the real stuff, they could never get the same fresh ingredients which natives of the country could, and it left the food lacking. Moreover than the knockoff of authentic cuisine deterring from the Shawarma Stop, there was also the fact that all of supposed Avengers were dead on their feet.
For the life of her, Natasha could not figure out why any of them had even agreed to this escapade after the day (week really) they all had had. Okay, so that wasn’t entirely true, Natasha knew exactly why she had joined the battered ragtag group of heroes for a bite to eat, but she couldn’t fathom a reason for any of the others.
Captain America, Steve Rogers Natasha’s mind corrected her, was all but asleep with his chin being propped up by his hand. Occasionally, his body would relax as he would momentarily fall asleep, causing gravity to pull his head downwards and slide from his hand. Rogers’s body would list forward, almost collapsing on the hard table, yet he never hit the surface. The change in position was enough to temporarily jolt the captain awake and regain his posture before the whole process would repeat itself all over again in a never ending loop. After Rogers had nearly missed having his face being submerged into his half eaten basket of food for the fifth time, Natasha had been kind enough to pull the plate further in front of him just in case the man finally did fall asleep and wasn’t able to catch himself.
Her partner, Clint, who was seated on her other side, had pushed his chair back away from the table the moment he sat down, affectively separating himself from the rest of the group. At the moment, his head was bowed and he slumped over in his chair with his food secured safely in his lap. The archer had made no move to make eye contact with anyone and Natasha politely ignored the tremors coming from his direction every now and then, knowing he was trying to come to terms with the whole “mind raped” as he labeled Loki’s enchantment. Every once in a while, Clint would pick out a piece of meat or tear off some piece of the pita bread from out of the basket and eat it rather slowly before becoming a human statue once again.
Banner was pulled up at the other end of the table across from Rogers, munching on the last of his third serving of shawarma. His eyes were glazed over and his movements almost seemed systematic with no input from his conscious brain. Natasha would have likened the good doctor to one of Stark’s mechanical robots if he had seemed awake. Yet, Banner didn’t even seem like he was awake to her, it was the most relax the redhead had ever seen the man since she meet him in Calcutta. She wouldn’t be surprised at all if he was asleep and was sleep-eating. Clint had done it a few times after long missions and Banner looked exactly like her partner did all those the times she had caught him in the act.
Thor’s appearance at the shawarma restaurant was easy enough to decipher that it was just too obvious to the former Soviet Union spy. Sure he was eating enough food for three people and at one point she had subtly pushed the rest of Rogers’s food in the Asgardian’s general direction for it to be devoured, but Natasha didn’t think he was just here for nourishment. His eyes were half lidded and drained of the fire which she had become accustom to seeing in his eyes in the short time she had gotten to know him. Nevertheless, her training allowed her to apprehend that the loss of his spark wasn’t just from exhaustion, not when his mind seemed to be a million miles away. Probably on Asgard and the ramifications of Loki’s invasion on Earth or even on Loki himself, either way, his mind was not present.
So they had all gotten something to eat, big deal. They could have gotten the food from anywhere (the demolished buildings excluded) after saving the city; better yet, they could have had it delivered to one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s numerous safe-houses where they could immediately crash afterwards. But none of them had even voiced the idea. As a team they had trekked through blocks of destroyed city to eat the American equivalent of shawarma. It did not make sense to Natasha why the others would willingly make the journey being beaten, battered, and tired as they were, but then again, she had gone along too.
Only Natasha had a reason, unlike the others, and that reason was currently tucked protectively against Tony Stark’s side, stealing food out the billionaire’s basket. The remains of the tattered Spider-Man costume hidden by a rather out of the ordinary grey trench coat that would look more in place in one of John Huston’s detective flick. Not that anyone noticed, seeing how half the city was destroyed and the clothing choice of one teenager was hardly significant in comparison to the failed alien invasion. Natasha did not think anyone was really noticing anything save for herself.
She noticed the way Stark would accept anything the teenager passed him without pause, when both Coulson and herself had made a note in Stark’s personal file that he was infamous for refusing to take anything handed to him directly. The only other person she had witness being able to hand him anything was Pepper Potts and, at the time, the Black Widow had thought the woman was the only person who could hand things to the eccentric billionaire directly.
Natasha also noticed how Stark put himself between the boy and the door, unconsciously protecting from any threats. She observed as Stark had made sure the boy had eaten a whole basket of shawarma and started on his second before the genius began to eat his own food. Natasha observed and detected all that a more, because that was who she was, the Black Widow. A master spy that was notorious for extracting information when countless others failed to do so. However, what stood out the most to the Black Widow was the fact that Stark looked more relaxed and at ease then she had ever seen the man previously. Including the video footage of his drunken escapades before she had ever had the notion she was going undercover as his PA.
Natasha had been assigned to Stark in order to investigate the man and evaluate him for a position in the Avenger Initiative. A position that she deemed he was not suited for after observing the man’s erratic behavior and digging into his equally erratic and splotchy past. At no point during her pre-mission assessment briefing had S.H.I.E.L.D. indicated Stark had a son, neither had any of her own background searches or informants had been able to obtain that particular juicy piece of information. What was worse was that during the two weeks as the man’s secretary she, the Black Widow, hadn’t been able to extract any hint that the self-proclaimed playboy was obviously a devoted parent. If she had missed such a vital piece of information about Tony Stark, it made her wonder: What else had she missed?
That she missed anything at all irked Natasha to no end. But this was big, this was bigger than big. She had missed that Tony Fucking Stark had a son. It didn’t matter to her that the rest of the world and even S.H.I.E.L.D. had missed the same detail about the man (and how had that happen?). Natasha was a Romanov and Romanovs did not fail. Stark had inadvertently beat her once, but she wasn’t about to let that stand. She would extract all the man’s secrets from him, until the true Tony Stark was laid bare before her, even if it killed him (which was more likely to happen than it killing her). To do that though, she first had to get to know Tony Stark’s son.
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“Don’t make me ground you, you little brat, you know I will,” Tony growled, swatting the red and black clad hand away from what little that remain of his food. The genius just wasn’t quick enough to keep the second fleshy hand from darting around and grabbing the last morsel of meat from his plate. Peter grinned in triumph, plopping the spoils of victory into his mouth and groaned in pure (exaggerated) bliss. Brown eyes sparked with mirth and Tony could tell his son was quite pleased with himself, which was contagious because he found the corner of his lips twitching upwards without his consent and had to force them down to maintain his scowl.
Swallowing the food, Peter gave a cheeky grin that Tony was very familiar with seeing how he was the one to perfect and patent it. “You would, but by tomorrow, you’d feel horrible and have been up all night building me a neat new toy. Be~cause you lo~ve m~e.”
“Brat,” which only caused the teen’s grin to widen, which was not the effect that was desired; although, it did earned Peter another growl accompanied by an even harsher glare. A glare which the young teen had long since grown immune to, which was kind of amusing to him since most people who had been faced with that particular glare tended to stutter out some sort of excuse and retreat as quickly as possible. It only had Peter grinning wider, like he had won something.
The worst part of it? Was that the brat was right. Last time Tony had grounded his son (which, Tony will admit to having been a façade. In his defense, it had been a necessity in order to distance himself from his son so Peter wouldn’t have to suffer through watching as he his father withered away and die from palladium poisoning. Tony preferred having the teen furious at him than to make the boy have to watch as another parent die while he was utterly helpless to stop it. Again.), he spent the better part of a month making Peter an armored Spider-Man suit while he was dying as an apology for leaving his son alone in the world. Which reminded him–.
“Why weren’t you wearing the Iron Spider Armor?”
The current spider stylized armor was only a prototype and for the last few months Tony and Peter had been working together in the evenings to make the Mark II of the Iron Spider Armor. The armor was still in development, being made from a new fabrication of advanced protein-scale nano-technology and combined with other exotic materials to sustain more damage without damaging the wearer. It was designed to be lighter, less bulky than the current gold-titanium alloy armor and more flexible to suit Spider-Man’s needs verses Tony’s own needs for the Iron Man armor which he had initially modeled the design for the Mark I after. However, the Mark I of the armor was a hell of a lot more durable than the flimsy self-made spandex suit that Peter currently had hidden beneath the trench coat.
A suit that Tony assumed his son had been wearing while swinging around in the middle of the invasion. Because if there was one thing he knew, the billionaire knew that his son would not sit by when someone else was in trouble, not after what had happened to the Parkers (and definitely, not after he had come back tortured from Afghanistan). No, Peter would be right in the middle of it. Even if he was in a thin, flimsy suit which would not hold up to the damage the Chitauri could do without their advance weaponry; with their weapons though, Tony refused to think about what could have happened.
Seeing his father’s glare turn from teasing to serious and the exhaust disappear to be replaced by alarm, Peter was quick to reassure him before the eventual eruption. “I was, I was! At least, I was during the whole Independence Day alien invasion reenactment. But then, while I was helping to secure a group of students, one of those turtle-whale-spaceship-things tried to eat me. I already had my old costume on underneath the armor, be prepared and all that, so I used the Delta protocol. The spider armor disassembling like it was supposed to and I dropped to the ground as the thing ate the remains of my armor. The self-destructed had just gone off when you called and you were– and I wasn’t going to make it in time and–.”
“It’s fine; it’s okay. Calm down, there is no need for the tears,” Tony shushed the boy, pulling him closer and running his hand through messy dark brown hair in a familiar, comforting manner.
Peter hadn’t even realized that his voice had started cracking or that there were tears streaming down his face as the desperation he had felt at witnessing the flash of gold and red flying a nuclear missile through the portal flooded his body once again. He remembered the way his heart had stop when the blast had obscure his view of Iron Man and for a moment it time, Peter thought his father had died for the second time after Afghanistan. Then he had caught sight of the scorched armor falling listlessly through the air and there was hope.
The feeling of a hand carding through his hair had Peter relaxing at the familiarity of the gesture. A gesture that had comfort him for years, after bad days, nightmares, and every night for six months after his mother’s and step-father’s murder. It was home and safety; it was his own proverbial safety-blanket. He would have stayed in that comforting embrace for all eternity if allowed.
A polite cough reminded the family of two that they were not the only people present. Peter hastily pulled away and composed himself, embarrassed at being caught in such a compromising situation (he still was a teenage boy after all). A flush of pink spread across his cheeks which he tried to hide, thankfully the others’ heads were turned politely away. All of them save for the redhead that pretended to be his father’s secretary (Peter didn’t even know her real name) who was watching them not so subtly, which earned her a glare from him. He really didn’t like her on principal (besides, he was the only spider in his father’s life and Black Widow or not, she wasn’t going to take his place).
Instead, Bruce let out a large overly exaggerated (or it could just have been from the exhaustion of the day catching up with him and the number of times he Hulked out during that day alone, it was a 50-50 chance of it being either or). One that seemed contagious as both Clint and Steve soon followed suit soon after. Thor was immune (did Asgardian even yawn?), yet he looked as tired as the rest of them. So did Natasha for that matter, although she hid it better than the rest of the newly formed team.
“I think it best we all get some sleep before our body rebel and shut down on us,” Bruce said, pushing himself and his chair away from the table; an action which was mimicked by the remaining people at the table.
“The Big Guy has spoken,” Tony joked as he stood up and stretched out his quickly cramping muscle with an audible pop. He was going to feel that in the morning and as much as he hated to admit it, he was getting old.
Peter was quick to follow with a pun of his own, calling after his father’s retreating back as the man disappeared into the kitchen to take care of their tab. “I shall obey The Mighty Green One, O’Father of Mine. For his words are sacred.” There was a slight pause as the boy yawned and his voice changed from joking to being lackluster. “Not to mention, I’m tired.”
Clint just groaned. “And where are we going to get this sleep? The Helicarrier had to make an emergency landing out at sea and we sure ain’t getting a ride out to the harbor in these streets.”
The archer’s comment caused pause within the group since most of them had been staying on the Helicarrier during the whole fiasco. Exchanging glances, the team was at a loss, not knowing what to do.
“Doesn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. have any safe-houses close by that we could use?” Bruce asked a frown spreading across his weary face. He didn’t like the thought of having being out in the open, not with the possible threat of General Ross coming to New York as a part of relief efforts. He didn’t know for sure that the man was on his way, but it was a large possibility with the aide New York would need and the televised coverage of the battle. Bruce wouldn’t put it passed Ross to try and apprehend him now that the general knew where he was for the first time in over a year.
The archer shook her head negatively. “No, if they were empty, they would already be converted to an emergency field hospitals or temporary bases, what ones weren’t destroyed that is,” Clint explained, causing Natasha to look at her partner. She did not know that. “It’s the SOP.”
“There’s a standard operating procedure for an alien invasion?” Steve asked in surprise. Clearly, things had changed more from his day than he thought.
“Nah, it’s for any kind of invasion of this scale, not just alien invasions,” Clint answered.
“You could always stay at the Tower,” Peter offers before he could stop himself. “It’s only a couple blocks away and there is more than enough room. Dad wouldn’t mind.”
“Dad wouldn’t mind what?” Tony asked, coming back into the main area of the restaurant.
“Your noble young warrior has extended an offer of hospitality to host us for the eve,” Thor boomed, causing the rest of them to cringe at the sudden loud noise.
“Yeah, sure,” Tony said, trying to contain a yawn but failing. “Not a problem, it’s not like you’d be the only ones taking shelter at the tower. If you don’t mind sharing, the penthouse has five rooms available if they’re still intact that is.”
“Most gracious of you, Shieldbrother,” Thor approved, his voice thankfully lower in volume.
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The walk back to the slightly destroyed tower was pretty much made in silence between the new teammates, much to Steve’s appreciation. He didn’t think he had the mental ability to form a rational conversation with anyone at the moment; he was too exhausted to function properly. Thankfully, none of the civilians got near them either. Some of them, Steve noticed, gave his new team prolonged looks, like they wanted to approach them (a young waitress in particular), but they were able to hold themselves back. Still, there were a few who couldn’t keep their temptation at bay, yet the few who tried were quickly ushered away by nearby law enforcement agents and the occasional S.H.I.E.L.D. agent (a Miss Christine Everhart was one of those people who tried to approach him and got as far as introducing herself before a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent escorted her away), which Steve was grateful for as well.
Their walk back to the tower allowed him the time to unwind a little at the very least and let the tension drain away. The food had helped chase away the exhaustion momentarily, but in the middle of his seventh plate of the shawarma stuff, he had dozed off. It wasn’t long, but it was enough time for the Super Soldier Serum to heal some of his injuries. Although, Steve knew he still needed to have a doctor look over him, the pang in his ribs informing him of the possibility that they might have been fractured or broke during the fight. That could wait though; he wanted to sleep first more than to take a trip to hospital. Not to mention, the hospitals were more likely than not, overflowing as was and they didn’t need another patient when their time could be used more appropriately elsewhere.
Steve was jolted out of his thoughts as Stark Tower came into view. He and the rest of the Avengers froze at the sight before them. Stark’s nonchalant comment from earlier now made perfect since, not to mention it was a gross understatement if the large crowds of people gathered around the base of the tower were the other people taking shelter.
Hoards of people were everywhere, the noise was deafening as people scurried about, trying to be useful. Abled men were moving debris out of the way, making room for more of the tents that were already scattered across the area to be set up, while others were running to and from the already established tents. Some of the people were carrying large boxes from the tower while others were assisting the wounded towards the largest tent with a hastily painted red cross on the side pales.
Individuals wearing white coats would occasionally run out to aid the most critically injured into the tent or cry out for additional help. Everyone was yelling above each other adding to the disorganized chaos they were trying to establish some type of order to. But what sent a pang through his heart was the space where white sheets were lined up in rows off to the side, loved one crying over the covered corpse of the casualties to the invasion.
Steve remembered several of his stints in World War II when he helped liberated a few of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. The horrors he and the other Commandos saw scarred their very soul. Unlike some of the other members of his squad, he had never been able to harden his heart, to seal himself off from the deaths of those around him. Not like Bucky could.
“Come on,” Stark spoke up from behind Steve and the rest of the Avengers; he flipped close his cell phone and slid it back into his pocket. “Jarvis is going to open the back rear emergency exit, since we’re not going to be able to get through here. And I hope no one minds bunking, but it would seem that of the five rooms I’d promised only three are still sleep-able in.”
Glancing back one last time at the chaotic mass of people, Steve turned around and hurried to follow the group as Stark led them around to the back of the building. His mind whirling, trying to piece together his allusive thoughts which would scurry away from his sleep exhausted mind. Thankfully, Clint asked the question his brain was still trying to form.
“What was all that about?” the archer asked in between yawns.
“Hmm?” the tired genius grunted, turning slightly towards Clint as they approached the back of the tower.
“Back there, I could clearly see the Stark Industry’s logo stamped on the white lab coats as well as a number of the equipment,” the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent explained as they came to an emergency exit which swung open on its own accord. Steve wasn’t sure if he was more startled by the door opening on its own or if Clint was able to make out the tiny labeling on the lab coats and equipment.
“Oh, that,” Stark replied apathetically as he lead them up the tower’s emergency staircase, pass the lobby floor and to the second floor. Stark tried to brushoff the question with an unassuming explanation as the only working elevator opened with a ding before anyone could press the button. The group stumbled into the spacious elevator that began to ascend as soon as the doors were closed. “That? It’s just a small amount of help; the tower isn’t officially ready but some of the floors have been furnished with essentials. I had Jarvis convert the first few office floors into temporary shelters and I think a few of the guys who have been overseeing R&D’s completion have opened up med and biotech departments as a sort of ER. Nothing much.
“And here we are,” Stark said in time with a ding from the elevator before the doors opened to the destroyed penthouse apartment with the Loki shaped crater in the middle of the floor. However, Steve didn’t hear what the man had said, stunned by his behavior. He couldn’t understand how the genius could just brush off his large contributions to the relief efforts like they were nothing. He had badly misjudged Stark.
The man out of time realized that he had fallen behind when the rest of his new team when the elevator began to close with a ding. He quickly escaped the elevator, sliding through the closing the door, and looked around the open space. Most of the team was milling about the broken room, except for Stark, who was just walking back into the room through via a hallway.
“As I said, only three rooms, so sharing,” Stark said, waving his hand in a gesture Steve didn’t understand. “Usually not my thing, but not really an option at the moment, yeah, that’s that. So those with superhuman strength follow Peter and he’ll show you one of the rooms remaining in the east wing, scary assassins with me to the west wing.”
Bruce looked a little skeptical at first, not sure where he was supposed to go since he technically didn’t have superhuman strength and wasn’t a scary assassin as Stark had kindly put it. Steve was about to call the doctor over when the man was pulled towards the east, quite literally. Tony Stark’s son, Peter from what the genius had called him (they hadn’t been formally introduced after all), was dragging Bruce by his arm down one of the hallways, chatting away happily. The kid (how old was the boy exactly?) didn’t seem to be deterred at all by the fact that the person he was carting around could turn into a giant green raging monster at any moment.
Just like Stark.
Although, with Stark, Steve had thought he was antagonizing the doctor; poking fun, literally, at Bruce when they were back on the Helicarrier. The man, for all appearance, was a bully; he was arrogant, self-centered, and vain. Or at least that was what he thought, up until Iron Man flew the nuke into the portal. It was then, that Steve could admit to himself at the very least, he might have been wrong. However, the appearance of the man’s son was a shockwave that crumpled Steve’s already shaken foundation of who he believe Tony Stark was.
The man was unmistakably dedicated to Peter. He bantered and teased the boy during dinner, all the while reassuring Peter he was still alive. Yet, he also was very concerned with the kid’s own safety. To Steve it was very telling that the apprehensive father had even allowed his son near them when he was so concerned with the boy’s safety. It spoke volumes. This was the reason, that his sleep deprived mind, Steve concluded that he didn’t wanted to get to know more about the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, but he wanted to get to know who Tony really was. The Stark persona he could live without.
He wanted to know about the person who could brush off giving up his tower and a great deal of his resourced to complete strangers like it was no big deal. He didn’t even think about it, there hadn’t been time to plan anything before or during the invasion, and yet Tony had given assistance to the survivors. When, Steve didn’t know, but the crowd outside was slowly getting smaller as the people took residence on the first few floors of the tower showed that the genius had done that very thing.
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On the opposite side of the tower, the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were learning firsthand why Tony Stark was not someone people should mess with. The initial walk to the remaining bedroom on this level was uneventful and quiet. Stark had shown them to the room (a small luxurious suite was more accurate description in Clint’s opinion) and informed them that the couch would fold out if they didn’t want to share a bed. The man was very polite but sounded dull, unlike how he usually acted in front of the media. He was just about to leave the room, before he stopped in the doorway, catching both Clint and Natasha’s attention.
“I’m a selfish bastard,” Stark said in a bland monotone voice, never turning to face the two highly trained assassins, but just looking forward into the hallway. “Never denied it, really; it has made me plenty of enemies over the years on top of the one from being Howard Stark’s son and a weapons monger in my own right. Enemies who would love nothing more than to see me dead or tortured. Enemies who wouldn’t hesitate to use Peter against me.
“So I hid him, I made sure that no one could connect Peter to me in anyway, let alone as my son.” Clint could hear a slight inflection in Stark’ words and it took him a second to place it as bitterness. The emotion surprised him on some level, but he understood. Stark was bitter that he had to hide his son away when the billionaire was undoubtedly like any other parent who wanted to brag about all the trivial things that their child had done. Something he couldn’t have done without endangering his son’s life.
The genius must have realized his little slip up too, since paused to take a deep, steadying breath before continuing in the same hollow intonation. “I can count how many people know I have a son on both hands with fingers left over. All of whom are either part of Peter’s family in some form or are bound by so many legally binding contracts that if they so much as think about telling anyone about Tony Stark’s son they would be thrown in the most desolate and secluded prison that they wouldn’t see day light of day again for the rest of their miserable lives.”
There was another pause and Clint wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he was enthralled by the softly spoken words. He couldn’t help but feel for the other man as his own mind flashed to an image of his own brother. The archer feared the same thing would happen to Barney if it ever got out that Hawkeye had a brother. There were a lot of people who wanted the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent dead and would use any means necessary to get back at him; but Stark? Clint knew the man had more enemies than some small countries. The fact of the matter was, Clint understood what Stark was saying, they were more alike than either of them had realized and the archer was not about to go spilling Iron Man’s secrets about his son. Not if he expected the same respect when it came to his brother.
“You’d understand then,” and at this point, Stark’s voice lost the hollow intonation and took on a razor sharp edge, “if you so much as breathe a word to anybody, S.H.I.E.L.D., your neighbor, the goddamn Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., actually, especially Nicholas Fucking Fury. Say anything to anyone about Peter or Spider-Man and I will end you. I will fucking destroy you and you wouldn’t even see me coming. I would make Loki look like a saint after I got done with you and no one could pin any of it on me.
“You might think you know me, Natalie Rushman, but I promise you, you know nothing about me. Or you would have understood that the title of Merchant of Death was justly given.”
As threats went, Clint would rank that one up within the top five, right along with Fury’s recruiting speech-threat and his first encounter with Coulson, the agent having threatened with shooting him in the leg (which he had, but Clint would admit to deserving it). All in all, he was quite impressed with Stark.
“Night,” Tony Stark throughout as left, his tone once again changing back to his usual arrogant tone that Clint was starting to recognize was some type of mask. For what? He didn’t know, but with a life like his, the archer could only guess.
“Night!” Clint yelled down the hall jovially, even though he couldn’t see Stark anymore. Turning towards Natasha, who happened to have one eyebrow raised disapproving in his generally direction, the man shrugged and blurted out the first words that came to mind (his brain to mouth filter always seemed to kick out constantly). “I don’t think he likes you much. Or S.H.I.E.L.D. Or me for that matter,” a pause, “which isn’t fair. I haven’t even done anything to him yet; that’s a new record, even for me.
“Just so you know: I’m blaming this all on you.”