Hope you like it.
Who to be mad about?
It was funny how every day since Wanda and Pietro had moved in Tony would find notes and broken pieces of electronics on his desk when he would get to his lab. Well, maybe not every day, but it was the average amount of time. For two weeks now, they had managed to broke, their coffee maker, their phones, both of them, several times, even after he provided them with Super Soldier tested ones, the remote, even though he clearly heard both Clint and FRIDAY telling them they didn't need it, they were just clumsy, apparently.
He said apparently because he still had to see the two culprits, his guess was that Pietro was the one leaving him with their mess to clean up, meaning he wasn't following Helen's order to take it easy and not use his speed, but since he hadn't catch any of them, it seemed like the most relevant possibility. Wanda had made a valiant attempt at talking to him once at the beginning, over breakfast, after Clint had pushed her out of his chair, but she just used her powers to warm up his coffee and left.
He wasn't blaming them, it's not like he knew what to tell them either, as if he didn't feel guilty enough for all the weapons he had misguidedly created, he, now, had the living proof, of how much of an ass he had been all of his life, living under his roof. He tried pleading with Pepper so she would bribe the worker to double time on his Malibu house, but she refused to simply help him evade his personal problems again, the kids were here to stay and she wouldn't let him leave NY before he patched things up with them.
"Oh come on, how is this one even possible?" Tony asked out loud, thinking not for the first time that JARVIS would have found a witty thing to retort, as it was FRIDAY simply relied a request to 'please fix it fast'.
Tony contemplate not doing it at all, he had worked really hard on Clint's new bow and to have them break it after all the man had done for them, both because he was Clint and seemed to have an inkling for adopting stray Russian, and yes he knew Sokovia wasn't Russia but close enough apparently, but also because he still felt some sort of guilt after the all 'saved your ass by dying for you' Pietro had pulled off in Sokovia even though the prick was just fine now, hence the work he was belaying.
"I don't want him to get mad." Tony heard from behind him in a voice so small, he would have sworn it was a hallucination coming from another overdose of coffee.
"Like it would be possible to be mad at you." Tony told a guilty looking Pietro.
"You?" Pietro said and left promptly leaving Tony alone to figure out both the weird behavior and how to fix the bow.
He swore if Clint hadn't forbidden it he would make it a Vibranium bow or at least Adamantium but Barton swore the absorption of the vibration he created when the bow was at use would only mess his aim.
With that in mind he went back to work, already thinking of ten ways he could use this opportunity to improve the bow. He might have to thank the twins this time.
"Why is Pietro freaking out?" Tony heard coming from the opening door but he didn't even turn around, Darcy was a regular feature in his lab since Thor had convinced Jane Foster and Erik Selvig to come work with them, she was far more efficient than people gave her credit for but she seemed to not want to climb up the ladder at the moment and he would politely wait for her to be ready, after all he waited 10 years before he told Pepper she had been hired to take his place at some point, what would 10 more years be?
"He broke Birdie's bow and doesn't want Daddy to yell at him." Tony explained, shrugging at her eye roll.
"Like Clint would ever be mad at either of them. Last week Natasha stole his coffee mug from him before he even tasted it and he only glared at her until she gave it back with a little sugar and milk just like he loves it, he smiled all day because of that." Darcy said sitting next to him looking at the broken bow on the desk. "I swear they make him happier than me."
"Want me to make you Russian?" Tony asked her with a grin.
"No, but if you could stop harboring everyone you meet, it might make my girlfriend duties a little easier." Darcy told him shoving him gently out of the way. "It's not broken anyway." She said putting the pieces of the bow back together. Tony had been so distracted he had forgotten he made the last prototype collapsible.
"You know he loves you, right?" Tony asked, for some reason every other male in the tower seemed to have taken the role of big brother to the young woman the minute she stepped foot in to their lives to fall into the archer's arms.
So, what if they were soulmates, didn't mean they couldn't take care of her, and counter Natasha's shovel talk with a quadruple threat to Cupid's family jewels.
"It's written right there on his skin." She assured him with an easy smile and a shove on his ribs that hurt more than it should have considering for once he had come back from their last mission perfectly uninjured.
"Tony?" Darcy asked worried.
"I must have injured myself without realizing it." Tony said tugging his shirt off so they could both look for bruises he wasn't aware he had.
"That's not a bruise." Darcy told him with a smirk before biting into her own fist to prevent herself from laughing at him.
"I forgot about it." Tony told her his eyes never leaving the mark.
To his credit Tony was almost 20 when his mark appeared and no one could tell him he hadn't try to find who ever his soulmate was, the press had called him not so pleasant names for going out with women half his age, so, after Afghanistan, and Stane, he stopped looking, thinking that whoever they were they didn't deserve to be robbed into dealing with his mess. Pepper was all too glad to play perfect girlfriend for the press so no one would bother him anymore so he focused on making his little made up family safe and happy, that was more than enough.
"You said Pietro was afraid Clint would get mad, right?" Darcy probed.
"Yeah. The kid was a nervous wreck, with the number of things they break on a daily basis, you'd think they were used to it by now." Tony explained controlling her work on the bow, more to keep his hand busy than to actually check her work, she would never let her reckless boyfriend go out with a malfunctioning bow.
"Tony!" She sighed exasperated. "Is that what he said?" She asked forcing his head down so he would look at his soulmark. "It's the first time he talks to you." She affirmed, knowing full well the number of time Tony had complained about the twins' silence.
"Doesn't matter anyway he run away, and I deserve that." Tony told her shaking his head at the thought that maybe the young speedster had just been scared to find out his long time enemy was his soulmate.
"No!" Darcy growled turning him toward her, "you don't get to do that. Not after you yelled at Natasha for thinking she wasn't good enough for Rhodey. This is fate, and fate decided that you had to figure your crap out. I can say I entirely agree with her." She told him kiss his cheek and promptly left the lab.
Tony didn't know how long he'd been looking at the bow in his hand but when he finally decided to man up and face the wrath of the twins for ruining their life once more Pietro was in his lab again. Apparently, it wasn't of his own volition though since both Darcy and Wanda were blocking the door keeping him from leaving with hurting them.
"You know out of all those times I complained about the two of you not speaking to me, I never realized I hadn't speak to you either." Tony finally sighed after what felt like an hour long staring contest between the two of them.
"Didn't know what to say." Pietro explained and Tony agreed wholeheartedly he didn't know how to say he was sorry either.
"I never realized what I was doing was wrong before it was used against me." Tony admitted for the first time since the cave.
"You were taught it was for the good of others. Steve told us." Pietro assured him but knowing the Captain was on his side, defending him, made him feel even worst somehow, showing that his dad had been right and he could never be as good as the frozen idol.
"I am a genius; I should have seen it earlier." Tony defended himself, or maybe dug a deeper hole onto the ground, it just always felt wrong to defend that he could have done better but he was always coming back to it.
"Might not have changed a thing, and it could have killed millions to not have Iron Man coming out of this." Pietro told him and made Tony looked up at him only to discover that the man was incredibly closer than he had thought, and that the evil sisters were gone giving Pietro the possibility to run if he wanted to.
"Pietro, I am older than you, and fucked up, and a million other thing that no one should have to bear just in the name of soulmate fate." Tony told him but Pietro didn't seem to care taking the last step to be able to cover the mark his words had left on Tony's skin with his hand.
"Seems like I am just were I am supposed the be." The young man said, because yes, it was hell time Tony stopped calling him kid.
Pietro's hand on his ribs felt like it burned through his skin, his bones, to be able to surround his heart, one wrong move and he would be crushed, but the right pressure the right amount of gentleness and he would feel more alive than ever.
"Where is mine?" He asked breathlessly to Pietro who nodded to the cutter on the workbench next to them.
"To take my shirt off I would have to take my hand away." He told Tony, making the mechanic realize he wasn't alone in his breathless haze.
"I'll buy you another one." He told him cutting right through the fabric of the shirt to find his mark in the exact same spot Pietro's hand was currently stroking with light fingers, movement that he started to mirror.
"Clint's going to kill me." Tony breathed out after a moment, making Pietro chuckle when he let his forehead fall on the younger's man shoulder with a deep sigh.
"Better you than me." Pietro whispered in his ear, laughing out loud, for the first time since he met the Avengers, maybe even since he met HYDRA, years prior, and Tony was proud that it had been his doing, even if it was at his expense.