Chapter Text
If Tony's being completely honest with himself (which he never is), this whole thing is a terrible idea.
He'd wanted to settle it calmly. Work out a deal for the Accords, keep all their work nice and legal, maybe discuss the details over a civilized lunch at that shitty diner Steve loved so much. They could all figure things out and go back to being the Avengers.
And then, you know, Steve's little super-soldier friend went off and bombed a UN conference, and things went to shit pretty quickly.
Did Tony want to be flying out to Germany to kick Rogers' ass? Of course not. He only wanted to do it a little bit. The rest of it was out of an obligation to do the right thing: Take Barnes into custody and convince the rogue Avengers to come back and sign the Accords.
The air at Leipzig-Halle Airport is, well, tense, to say the least. Though Tony can't see them, he knows that Steve and the others are inside the building, preparing to escape the country. They just have to draw them out. Tony and Rhodey are already suited up, waiting on a nearby rooftop. He can faintly hear the sound of the airports alarms, drawing the others outside to the airport runway. He can see Spider-Man ("Spider-man. Not Spiderman or Spider Man. The hyphen is very important") pacing behind a shipping container, and Tony can't quite tell if the kid is nervous or excited. Probably both.
Beside him, Rhodey shifts into a crouch, keeping his gaze locked on the glass doors of the airport, where there's still no sign of movement. Just when Tony's about to head down and just find Steve in the building, he sees the man emerge, dressed in his trademark (and quite frankly eyesore) red, white, and blue suit.
"Well," Tony says, rolling back his shoulders, "What do you say we get this show on the road?"
He moves without waiting for an answer— he knows the man will just give some sort of agreement, and, okay, sure, sue him, Tony was impatient. He lands cleanly on the ground in front of Steve, who tenses, shifting his grip on his shield.
"Wow," Tony flicks back his mask, turning to look over his shoulder, where Rhodey is landing down beside him, "It's so weird how you run into people at the airport. Don't you just feel weird?"
"Definitely feel weird," Rhodey confirms. Steve shakes his head, clearly not in the mood for any sort of banter.
"Hear me out, Tony," the man says cautiously, "That doctor? The psychiatrist? He's behind all of this."
Tony furrows his brow, opening his mouth to respond before he's interrupted by a quiet thud. The Black Panther lands on top of a nearby shipping container, a whole ten minutes ahead of cue. Whatever. Tony had bigger problems than that.
"Captain," Black Panther nods, his voice tense.
"Your highness."
Tony clears his throat, stepping forward. "Ross gave me 36 hours to bring you in. That was 24 hours ago. Can you help a brother out?"
Steve frowns harder— Tony didn't even know that was possible. But the 'Captain America is disappointed in you' look doesn't do much when you don't give two fucks what Captain America thinks about you. He flexes his hands, the metal of his suit suddenly feeling oddly warm.
"…here," Tony hears Rhodes say as he focuses back in, "Right, Tony?"
"Right," Tony echoes slowly. The words stick to his mouth uncomfortably, and there's a ringing in his ears that makes it hard to focus on much of anything right now. Tony can't see Rhodey's face behind his helmet, but he imagines his friend is giving him a very massive side-eye at this point.
Tony feels strange. That in itself isn't particularly noteworthy. Over the years, he's done plenty of different substances, some legal, most not. He's pretty familiar with the feeling of 'strange' even if those days are mostly somewhat kind of behind him.
But this…
It's fine. He'll manage. The sooner this fight is over, the better. Tony will call on the rest of his team and Steve will call on the rest of his, they'll exchange some harsh words and even harsher blows, and then they'll back up the rogues and get them to a place where their abilities can be monitored and they can't go gallivanting around with war criminals.
"As much as I'd like to sit and chat," Tony begins, the sarcastic words coming out uncharacteristically flat, "I've got dinner plans. So, uh, I hope you don't mind if I—"
He turns to call out for Spider-man, for the kid to come out and web up Cap's shield like they'd planned. But no words come out. Instead, he swallows, and suddenly his mouth tastes of blood and dirt and the smell is even stronger, sharp and metallic and burning in his lungs, pressing against his ribs, which ache, bruised and battered and he—
He stumbles to a stop, just barely reaching out in time to catch himself against the rail. The rail that… definitely wasn't there five seconds ago.
What the hell is going on? Was this Maximoff's doing? Tony hadn't seen her, but who knew how far her powers could reach? He looks down at his hands— except, they're not his hands. He's wearing gloves, red, with a spider-web design that crawls up his arms and covers the rest of his suit.
His suit. He's… wearing Spider-Man's suit.
Okay, deep breaths. This is weird, but Tony isn't a stranger to waking up in unfamiliar places. Granted, this is a bit different, but it's the same on principle, right? Right.
First things first: find out where the hell he is.
His head is still pounding, and it takes an effort to focus on much of anything at all. He's inside a building— some sort of docking bay, from the looks of it. Nowhere he recognizes. In the constant flood of noise— the honking of cars, the noise of wheels against asphalt, waves crashing against walls, buzzing electricity, there's the faint rustle of someone moving around close by. Tony has no clue how he can hear them from here, but he has more pressing issues right now.
He steps forward, using the rusted metal of the walls to keep him upright as he weaves his way through the building, towards the sound. Though this clearly used to be some sort of shipyard, someone's been living here.
Find out where you are, Tony repeats to himself like a mantra, and then find a way out.
He shakes his head, trying to escape the headache that's, quite frankly, making it real hard for him to think of any plan right now. As he makes his way down a thin corridor, he spots a wrench lying beside a pipe. He takes it, because a wrench may be a shitty weapon, but it's definitely better than nothing. There's a light at the end of the corridor, and Tony slowly approaches, adjusting his grip on the wrench.
He's not sure what he's expecting to find. But it's not… this.
A woman sits at the corner of a table. Notably: not Maximoff. She's young, with dark hair that covers her face as she stares down at her lap. She doesn't look particularly bloodthirsty, which is a great sign for Tony, but she doesn't look all too happy to see him either, which is less of a great sign.
She meets his gaze slowly, a paper clutched tightly in her hands. There's a recognition in her eyes, a recognition that Tony doesn't reciprocate at all.
"You left this," she says, quietly, sliding the paper towards him. It's a letter of some sort, in an unfamiliar handwriting. "Did you want me to find it?"