A/N: Hello readers. Long time no see. First Avengers fic because DAMN that movie was awesome, and being swept up in a new fandom plus lots of time equals time for research. Mostly from reading more fanfiction, but hey, data is data right? Anyway, written on a snow day, inspired by the snow day and And the Sky is Grey by Teyke over at archive of our own. Amazing-sauce fic. Go check it out. Now, ENJOY!
The first time Tony Stark saw snow, he was five. Maria had a charity ball for a children's welfare organization, and apparently Tony was good press.
("Your son is not some tool, Howard! If you would just stop looking for your precious Steve and pay attention to us, to the people whose lives you are destroying…"
Howard had slapped her then, and gone off on another expedition the next day.)
It was just after New Year's, and snow was everywhere. Growing up in Malibu, Tony had never seen this soft, white, powdery substance before. As they took the limo to the ball, he looked wondrously at the glistening white wonderland before him. Then the evening rushed by, smiling at adults, greeting them politely, smiling some more, acting adorable for the cameras et cetera. Even as Tony and Maria left the ball, Tony stumbling through the snow and Maria with a death grip on his hand, exhausted and pale after hours of dealing with the public, all Tony wanted to do was lie down and make snow angels.
(Many, many years later, staring out at the snow from the Avengers Tower, he remembers this, and thinks that there is some poetic irony shit there, then decides his glass of champagne won't be enough to sort through that emotional clusterfuck.)
The second time Tony saw snow (Or rather, noticed it, since it did snow while he was at MIT. He never did get to make a snow angel though. He wouldn't leave the lab except to go to clubs and fulfil "petty human needs".), it was at his parents' grave, after the funeral. They were buried in New York, in some "famous people graveyard". He stood there for an hour, just staring as the snow piled up on top of their gravestones.
"How is it that, even when you're dead, when you're both dead, you still manage to bring the good Captain into this, Dad?" Tony wondered out loud at the mound of frozen dirt.
Tony had spent his teenage years resenting Howard, resenting Captain America, and the snow and the cold just became one huge metaphor for the love-hate thing he has going on for both of them.
(Stop looking for him, Dad. He's gone. But I'm here. I'm right here, waving my projects and degrees in your face, hoping you would just notice me, be proud of me. He's frozen, gone, I'm warm and alive and right in your face, why won't you care, dammit!)
He smiled bitterly at the gravestone, grey, dull, uncaring, and left without another word.
The third time, there wasn't even snow. There was just Afghanistan, and the crippling cold that seeped into your bones in the dark, dank caves.
The forth time, Tony saw the snow in Natasha Romanoff, and is reminded that nothing is as good as it seems. At first she is like fire, burning hair and burning attitude, and Tony appreciates that. Pepper is like that too, and Rhodey. And then she is like snow, cold and beautiful, distant, intangible. Flashy, somehow, but discrete.
(Or maybe that had just been the palladium poisoning making him desperate for some lingering beauty in his life.)
Then, she becomes something bigger, he gets stabbed in the back, (almost literally) and she and SHIELD becomes the (his) cold again.
(Of course he knows they're just helping. But Tony still can't stop the tingle in the back of his neck whenever Natasha looks at him.)
The fifth time, Captain America himself made his appearance. When Fury told Tony that they had found him, he locked himself in the lab with two bottles of scotch.
"Here's to you, Dad," he raised his half full tumbler in a clumsy salute. "You actually did it. Captain America is back, and somehow, he's still alive." Tony snorted.
Well, fuck me.
He helps SHIELD defrost him (because, honestly, they would have just killed him with whatever "high-tech" equipment they're using) since his isn't cruel, just, well, resentful. After that, he had stayed well away from the whole situation, especially after Rogers is getting integrated with the world again. Tony's sure the Captain would have dug up all the shit he's done over the years (he is the great Howard Stark's son after all, and Rogers would find out something about his old friend) and he just can't deal with Captain fucking America being all disappointed in him.
Turns out that happened after all. He had known The Avengers Initiative would have immediately turned into a shit-storm with epic proportions before saving the world became a priority, but the Helicarrier incident was outside even his imagination. And he's not just talking about the physical damage. Loki's sceptre had all of them under some spell (I. Hate. Magic. He thinks.) and the stuff they said, all of them, was just ugly.
"Take off the suit, what are you?"
Really Cap? You went there. Of course you went there. Howard went there. The whole fucking WORLD went there. Who says my childhood idol should be any different?
"Billionaire playboy genius philanthropist."
All they said, every single disappointed glare the good Captain sent his way were burned into his mind. Every angry, devastating, cold word was seared into his memory.
I expected this. I deserve this. Howard said that I would never be as good as Captain America, and he's right. But he never said Captain America is just as cold as the ice he was frozen in.
(Rationally, he understands. PTSD, magic, man out of time, lost everything he know, fucking magic, but having Captain America, the man he grew up loving and hating, look at him with those ice-blue eyes was like Howard all over again.
I'm not him! You said it yourself I could never be him. Stop trying to make me fit into something I'm not!
The battle happens, Iron Man and Captain America work flawlessly together and then suddenly there is a nuclear missile (fucking Council) heading towards New York and Tony's the one taking it onto his shoulders. Literally.
"Stark, you know that's a one way trip."
Do you really care, Cap?
There's a burst of light as the nuke explodes, and the last thing he registers is the cold seeping in through the armour.
Somehow, he survives that. They end up in somewhat friendly terms, and Cap-, Steve, even apologises for the Helicarrier. (Of course he does.) After the getting-to-actually-know-you shawarma, they all part ways as sort-of-friends.
But the battle stays with him, and Tony wakes up panting at 3 am, with the image of bright, burning stars and the freezing, painful cold. He goes to Malibu for the winter. Tony's attention was also diverted between dealing with PR for both Iron Man and the Avengers, them needing a proper place to stay and gather, (SHIELD quarters were just pathetic. And the Stark (Avengers?) Tower has more floors than can be used. The offices are all in the bottom part of the tower and as big as Tony Stark's ego is, it won't fill half a tower.) as well as his completely fucked-up personal life.
The Extremis and the Mandarin appear, and a few months after the Chitauri, Pepper is kidnapped and he's trapped in some snow-barren land, tugging his suit across ice and frozen dirt.
Help. Pepper. No. Not her. Please.
Flashes of red and gold.
Stop. Cold. Freezing. Don't hurt her.
Someone shouting.
Collapsing.
Pepper. Help. Anyone. Please.
"Come on, Tony, don't do this to me just yet. We need you alive. Pepper needs you alive. Come on."
Steve?
"Thank God. There's a Quinjet half a mile out, think you can make it?"
"Pepper…"
"We'll find her. I promise. SHIELD's going to help. The team's going to help. She'll be fine."
"Thanks…"
Steve and Tony reach the Quinjet after a tiring 10 minutes, and Tony hears Clint whistle.
"Damn, Stark, what happened?"
"Pepper… Mandarin… Kidnap…" Tony answers, and promptly passes out.
He wakes up a few hours later, bolting upright and shivering.
"Hey."
Steve was sitting next to him, and the Quinjet was slowly approaching a SHIELD base. Tony remembers what happened back in the snow, and groans.
"I just got rescued by Captain freaking America and his bunch of lackeys. Brilliant."
Clint snorted and Tony saw Natasha raise one perfectly shaped eyebrow reflected in the window.
"Tony…"
There was the disapproving tone. Again.
"Yes dear Captain?" He asked, just to be difficult. Apparently, Rog-, STEVE, realized this, and just shook his head.
"We are going to help you okay? We're going to help Pepper. Together. Okay?"
Wait, what? Since when did you care?
Tony must have said that aloud, because Cap suddenly looked like a kicked puppy.
"Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but you are in trouble, and we are trying to help. Besides, after New York, we're sort of a team."
Natasha coughed, and grumbled, "I'm just here to get Pepper. She's strong. I like her."
"And I'm just taking orders," Barton added. "And Cap would look so devastated if we said no. So, yay team, I guess."
Right. The eyes. ("Yay team? Really Legolas? I expected better of you.")
Steve looked at Tony pleadingly. He knew SHIELD thought Iron Man was important, and was keeping tabs on him, but sending in the Avengers? Wasn't that a bit too much?
He's question must have shown on his expression because Steve said, "They, I, was hoping we could help. And if we are going to be team we will need to be able to trust each other. Even off the battlefield. Doctor Banner was already called in. He's quite eager about helping you and Pepper. Thor is still in Asgard though."
Team. Um, wow.
Tony voiced his thoughts, slightly hesitantly. Team. Huh.
"Yeah. Team. We are a team, right?" Steve asked hopefully.
"Right. Team."
There were really nowhere close to being a team yet, and shit is going to hit the fan before all of this is over, (Pepper, I'm coming. We're coming.) but hearing their mumbled agreements made him feel warm, even as the snow fell silently onto the slowly thawing ground.